• Hellfire103@lemmy.ca
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    3 hours ago

    The chances are low, yes, but the potential consequences could make life not worth living.

    The classic analogy is the jar of 100 sweets. If I offered you a sweet from a jar of 100, and warned you that one of the sweets in the jar was laced with strychnine, would you take one?

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      The classic analogy is the jar of 100 sweets.

      Classic, but deeply flawed.

      This is literally the same way white supremacists ‘justify’ being distrustful/suspicious of black people in general.

      The mental stress that this level of paranoia inflicts on you is likely going to be more harmful on average.

      You’re best off overall if you take reasonable precautions (having a small weapon/pepper spray), and just go about your day without stressing about it all the time.

    • NKBTN@feddit.uk
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      7 hours ago

      One in a hundred? No, of course not. One in five million? Actually, still no, because I don’t like sweets very much. But lets replace the sweets with 20oz wagyu steaks… and yes, I think I would!

    • Manticore@lemmy.nz
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      8 hours ago

      Lol, well I probably would because I don’t know what that is. And it sounds like an artificial sweetener.

      But I get your point. Humans aren’t good at feeling out chronic ‘mundane risk’ and significantly deemphasise it in favour if acute, ‘dramatic risk’.

      Much as how 9/11s death toll permanently transformed America politically and culturally on multiple levels, whereas the severity of far greater numbers of vehicular (or firearm) deaths are accepted as unavoidable facts of life.