Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME. • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#131

Post by crashoverdrive » Thu, May 22, 2014, 6:08 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #128

m0nty wrote: post #12

A few weeks ago, I was pedalling to work in the rain when I saw something which briefly made me well up with rage: a car parked diagonally across the cycle lane, driver clearly on the phone - a new level of "f*ck you" from a motorist to cyclists. But then I saw the skid-marks leading across the verge from the road, and I realised this was a bit more serious. I stopped and tapped on the window. She was very distraught…

When I was 12 years old, a larger, older boy was drowning in the Chesapeake Bay. It was the kind of beach where the water is knee deep for 100 years out from shore, but then suddenly drops off to 11 feet or so of water. He was bouncing off the bottom to get air (he couldn't swim) but his face was turning blue, and he was making choking noises and frantically splashing. I tried to grab him, and pull him to the sandbar…

Thank you, this helps.

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#132

Post by lectrick » Thu, May 22, 2014, 6:25 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #128

m0nty wrote: post #12

A few weeks ago, I was pedalling to work in the rain when I saw something which briefly made me well up with rage: a car parked diagonally across the cycle lane, driver clearly on the phone - a new level of "f*ck you" from a motorist to cyclists. But then I saw the skid-marks leading across the verge from the road, and I realised this was a bit more serious. I stopped and tapped on the window. She was very distraught…

When I was 12 years old, a larger, older boy was drowning in the Chesapeake Bay. It was the kind of beach where the water is knee deep for 100 years out from shore, but then suddenly drops off to 11 feet or so of water. He was bouncing off the bottom to get air (he couldn't swim) but his face was turning blue, and he was making choking noises and frantically splashing. I tried to grab him, and pull him to the sandbar…

> I started fighting him, and his GF (who he had just been beating) smashed a bottle on my head.

I'd say "what in the actual fuck," but I know that those sorts of patterns are self-perpetuating and that since the woman was already in a place where she was allowing him to beat her, she'd fight to preserve status quo, as fucked up as that is. Did you first at least attempt to verbally stop him before you took it to the physical? Anyway, wow.

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#133

Post by lectrick » Thu, May 22, 2014, 6:31 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #39

TheZenPsycho wrote: post #9

this is a well known phenomenon called the "bystander effect" wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect long story short, what's going on in people's minds when they don't help is that, probably someone else will step in, and playing hero will probably just get in the way. which, isn't that helpful if 100% of the bystanders are thinking that. It's somebody else's problem. there's a simple re…

Any psychology grad students here? Is this hypothesis testable?

Former Psych major here (not grad student).

Pretty easy to test yourself: Walk into a random aisle in a grocery store and say "Can anyone help me?" Elsewhere, point to an employee and say "can YOU help me?" Observe difference in results.

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#134

Post by lectrick » Thu, May 22, 2014, 6:34 PM UTC

davb wrote: post #43

jaksmit wrote: post #8

one other challenge may be that in San Francisco there's so many crazy homeless people, you never know what could happen. I saw a homeless guy fall over in front of a bus last week and waited a few seconds, no body did something; I was just about to go other to help pick the guy up, but good job I didn't - as he was just crazy - got up and started trashing all the trashcans around him etc.

This really shocked me when I visited SF last year. We have issues with homelessness, drug abuse and lack of support in some of Scotland's bigger cities, but SF was on a whole other level. We seen people throw themselves in front of cars then demand cash from the driver, destroy restrooms in fast food joints, and just sit the street talking incoherently to themselves. We were there for less than a week. I wondered if…

Agreed 100%. Love SF but the crazy homeless person situation there is off the charts relative to everywhere else I've been.

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#135

Post by ccvannorman » Thu, May 22, 2014, 7:05 PM UTC

"Actually, this happens all time here in Brazil. But our problem right now is exactly because people are beating thieves near to death. A good solution is one that would fix both cases."

Just in case some of you here were losing faith in bystanders worldwide. ;-]

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#136

Post by lectrick » Thu, May 22, 2014, 7:17 PM UTC

treyfitty wrote: post #97

Is it just me or does she seem to have a sense of entitlement? All throughout the article, she seems to tell herself, one way or another, "clearly this can't happen to me. I'm important. Too important."

Do people with a normal amount of self-esteem look "entitled" to those who don't possess that?

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#137

Post by lectrick » Thu, May 22, 2014, 7:18 PM UTC

_cipher_ wrote: post #110

Welcome to 'murica. Where no-one gives trully a shit about anyone. ;)

This is NOT a 'murica story. If you look elsewhere in the thread, there are links to this sort of thing happening around the world.

It is a "bystander intervention" and "diffusion of responsibility" human-psychology problem. Both of those are Googleable terms and both have practical solutions in how to bypass them; unfortunately, typically only people who've taken some Psych coursework are aware of them.

Compounding this is the fact that there are MANY crazy homeless people in San Francisco, so you tend to automatically filter unusual behavior out.

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#138

Post by fallinghawks » Thu, May 22, 2014, 8:56 PM UTC

ArjenM wrote: post #93

I never witnessed a robbery or violence where innocent people where getting hurt (likely due to my someone scary look?), but it's not because of phones. It's because people are in their routines, if you would walk the same road for 10 years and suddenly someone put a hole in the middle, you'd fall in. Plus people are sheep, if not a single person is crazy enough to start and help someone else, then most of the time n…

And after one person steps in, others will follow. One can see it (sometimes to comedic effect) in videos of robbers having the tables turned on them.

It's just getting that first person.

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#139

Post by fallinghawks » Thu, May 22, 2014, 8:58 PM UTC

What's bugging me are the trolling comments about how she doesn't deserve help because she's a feminist. I suppose this is to be expected these days, though.

Re: Stop Leaning In. Put Down Your IPhone. And HELP ME.

#140

Post by FireBeyond » Thu, May 22, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #28

pjc50 wrote: post #6

It's not a mobile phone thing; I got punched in the face on a commuter train 20 years ago and none of the crowd got involved then either. It's partly bystander effect ("I'll leave it to someone else to intervene") and partly a very real fear of the intervention going wrong. Maybe you get stabbed. Maybe the police get involved and you end up with an assault conviction and consequent expulsion from the middle class. Ma…

There have been quite a few stories where people that intervened were themselves charged with assaults. There's been burglars breaking into houses whose owners were charged with invasion of privacy for having security cameras in their own house. Taking justice in your own hand - helping people out in a violent situation - is frowned upon and discouraged. Perhaps even moreso in the US, where it's much more likely that…

I've never heard of an invasion of privacy suit against a homeowner, and I couldn't imagine it succeeding. What reasonable expectation of privacy do you have when being in someone else's home without consent?

And when you read more on many of those assault charges, you realize there's more to the story. Some I've seen:

Man's alarm and CCTV system alerts him to intruder. He doesn't call 911, but plans ambush, injures burglar, and only then summons help.

Man alerted to burglar as burglar is leaving premises, shoots burglar in back as burglar has left home but not property, attempts to claim he felt his life in danger, even though the burglar had not discovered him, and was in fact leaving the premises.