31–40 of 144 posts
Is this title taking a shot at Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In? If so, I'm not sure what the connection between the two is. Anyone care to explain/correct me?
Bystander effect aside, this is really shocking if it's true. I once got robbed in broad daylight at a bus station in La Paz (Bolivia), with dozens of people standing nearby and watching everything happen, but then again this was in a developing country. I think part of the explanation is that such situations occur pretty rarely in the developed world, so people do not know what's the appropriate reaction: Fight back…
USian here. Where do you live that you're required to take a first-aid class before you get your driver's license? That sounds like a freaking fantastic idea!
One is diffusion of responsibility or bystander effects, which I think she's hinting at. In a crowd an individual is less likely to take action. I think this has a lot to do with our social instincts. Being in a crowd of strangers is a new thing. We aren't built for it.
On our own, we make decisions for ourselves. That's easy. A group is supposed to be a family or troop or somesuch. These will usually have a leader. Someone responsible for deciding that this is a mugging, that we're on the victim's side and that we are going to join the fight. I'm not sure it has to be a literal leader, but there needs to be a pre-established decision making process and the individual needs to know where they stand in it.
A second issue is that this is not really a question of "willingness to help" in the intellectual sense. It's a question of instinct.
A third is that in a city (or in modern life in general) we are surrounded by other people's problems. The homeless person we step over, the domestic violence sounds we don't call the cops on, the volunteer help line where we don't volunteer at and the charity we don't contribute to.
This is complicated. I think it's more about living in cities, nations and the global village than it is about iphones.
Wow, this piece cuts close to home. I currently live in Taiwan and just yesterday there was a subway stabbing - a 20s male started stabbing people on the subway. Naturally, reactions was slow as most people was playing their phones or getting some shut eye. He managed to kill 4 people, get off the subway and intimidate more people, before finally brought down by a 62 elder man. Everyone can be armchair quarterbacks,…
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…
You're pretty much on your own in a large city never expect anybody to help you. The only people that will help you is family and friends. Risking your life, safety or just wasting time for the sake of helping a stranger happens as often as people donating large amounts to charity. So if you want to fight your robber you better have a large knife or gun on your person because people won't help you.
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…
>> "As I remounted my bike and rode away, it occurred to me that she didn't at any point thank me..." >> "There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers..." Good on you for stopping to help but why do you feel like you should have to gain something by helping someone else? The woman you helped was still probably quite shocked and dealing with police to thank you and it's highly likely that in such a si…
People always expected something in return, the thing that changes is that you no longer get it. In a small community, you're likely to meet the person you helped again, and thus leaving them stranded will definitely bite you. Not so in the current huge cities.
You say 'if I helped someone the only thing I'd expect in return would be that if the person I helped is ever in a situation where they can provide help to someone else, they'll remember the time they were helped by a stranger and take action', but is this sufficient motivation for you to actually go out and help people?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very sad you are being downvoted. Someone should have helped her, but with hindsight she didn't want to give up her own electronics and wanted someone else to risk their life for her things. But this situation is also very traumatic for her so there could be any number of reasons why she chose not to just hand her phone over. I definitely can understand her being angry, but this isn't really an issue about people not…
It was a poor decision made in a moment of panic, not a rational, well pondered choice. Is it really that hard to empathize?
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…
Is this hypothesis testable?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, if the crackhead had a gun, there wouldn't be a blog post, just another murder.
If somebody shot the crackhead instead of just staring there wouldn't even be a blog post. Problem solved. These kind of people are going to carry weapons no matter what, and I for one don't want to be again in a situation where I'm unable to defend myself or somebody else. I really understand the arguments behind prohibition and could agree with them, but the integrity of my loved ones comes first.