Justme said:
To some people control is more important than life itself.
I've been watching this thread for a few days and this comment kept niggling at me.
I think it bothered me mostly because it sure seems to me that in some situations, control actually
is more important than life itself.
For instance, if there is no doubt at all that you are going to get killed in the end, would you rather
- die quickly and relatively painlessly? or
- die slowly, in agony, while being tortured and watching your entire family be killed just as slowly and just as painfully?
Given those two options,
and only those two, which one would you choose? (I'd take card #1 myself; in such a simple case, being able to control the manner of my death would be more important to me than living.)
Of course, life isn't so simple. The BTK killer, for instance, never
told people that the above was the choice they were making when they decided whether or not to cooperate with him. Instead, he
told them that if they cooperated, they wouldn't get killed. Or that, if they cooperated, he would let their loved ones go. His victims usually believed they had a choice between
- cooperating, staying alive, and saving their loved ones' lives too, or
- not cooperating, and getting killed, plus having their loved ones die.
Given a choice between
those two options, anyone in their right mind would cooperate.
But guess what? Psychopaths
lie. That's what they do. They are generally really good at lying. The actual choice the BTK killer was offering was a bit more bleak. His victims actually had a choice between
- fighting to escape, and maybe getting killed quickly, or
- not fighting to escape, and definitely getting killed slowly and painfully while watching everyone they loved get killed just as slowly and just as painfully.
Cooperating and surviving was not among the cards BTK put in play.
So the question becomes, how do you know whether you are making a deal with an ordinary, decent criminal or whether you are talking to a twisted, violent psychopath with a sadistic streak?
Answer: you don't. Psychopaths are
good at lying. Remember that. There are no guarantees.
If you know the odds, you have a slight advantage when you choose your course of action -- simply because you are more likely to know what realistic possibilities are
actually among the cards in play.
For example, if the assailant wants to shove you into his car and take you to the place experts call "Crime Scene #2", you can take it pretty well as a given that you are going to die anyway so you might as well fight back right here and now. No matter how bad your immediate odds appear to be, they aren't going to get any better once he gets you inside his vehicle and away from potential witnesses. Offered the choice between getting in the car or not getting in the car, your
actual choice is between getting shot right there with potential witnesses around, or dying a slow death by torture in the woods somewhere. Knowing the odds of survival if you cooperate also lets you know which cards are in play.
As Glenn pointed out, bank robberies traditionally create a fairly low risk of bystanders getting killed. Normally, bank robbers just want to grab and
go. So you can probably gamble on cooperation in such a circumstance ... unless the criminal(s) begin tying people up, or shepherding them one by one into a back room, or ratcheting up the violence in some other way. The odds change as soon as the criminals begin putting cards on the table.
However. Keep in mind that in cooperating, you are rarely facing the simple possibilities of
- cooperate and live or
- fight and die.
It isn't quite that simple. Instead, you are actually gambling between
- cooperate and live without injury
- cooperate and live with crippling injury
- cooperate and get killed quickly
- cooperate and get killed slowly, painfully, horribly
- fight and live without injury
- fight and live with crippling injury
- fight and die from a bullet (which is usually a relatively quick death).
Put each of those outcomes on a set of cards and shuffle the deck randomly. Pick a card ...
Which outcome happens once you cooperate is utterly outside of your control.
But if you decide to fight back, you can significantly improve your odds of a good outcome by getting training in both shooting skills and defensive tactics. If you absolutely must fight back, fighting back skillfully creates far better odds than fighting back clumsily.
Get training. Be realistic about your skill level. And be smart enough to know which cards are actually in play and which cards are simply not available.
pax