PoPoP

Are they? I was under the impression that violence has been trending downward for some time.

Forget the context for a second... Would that be the craziest accusation?

Well the founding fathers and the powers at be are directly opposed. If I ran a tyranny, the first thing I would do is push propaganda to heavily stigmatize anything that could jeopardize it. The result I'd be aiming for would be a dynamic where firearms are only in the hands of people who support the tyranny, while making sure anyone who would oppose it is piss scared to even be in the same room as a gun. I'd make sure to instill a complex stigma, such that the opposition not only feels a primal fear of guns, but also a fear of social consequences, since there are plenty of people for whom social outcast is worse than death.

Every rifle used by law enforcement ought to have a silencer. If they're gonna murder someone the absolute rock bottom very least they can do is not cause severe permanent hearing damage to a hundred other people in the vicinity.

It's not like it's a stealth thing. It's not going to do anything to prevent detection and they don't give a shit about that anyway. This isn't a James Bond or John Wick movie so let's not pretend silenced gunshots aren't still unbelievably loud.

A better question is how can other cops bring a rifle into a densely populated area WITHOUT a silencer?

Doing nothing wrong is doing nothing, period.

Implying there will still be schools here in 20 years

Make the computer play 100,000,000 games against itself. Human games are useless as training data because humans are useless at chess compared to computers.

It's funny that you confidently thought this was about AI the way I confidently thought this was about social media

This service is made obsolete by a pill cutter and access to Google.

I should add... I also take self defense very seriously, I lived in a town with active neonazis for a good portion of my adult life (outside of my control)

My willingness to engage with strangers is backed up by street smarts, heavy emphasis on situational awareness, and a disarming personality. I also keep pepper spray in my hand in my coat pocket at all times and I carry a handgun.

IMO nobody should let low scam resistance and physical vulnerability stop them from engaging with strangers if they have the ability to properly mitigate these risks. Wise up, get training, become exceptionally dangerous so you have the choice to be exceptionally kind.

If weapons are offputting to you due to cultural or political reasons, get fit and allow yourself to sprint the other direction if you feel threatened. This is the best way to win 90% of self defense encounters anyways.

When I was growing up, attending Jewish day school, my Rabbi taught me that an opportunity to help a stranger is a gift. I would entertain the question and I recommend that you do too in the future. Obviously you don't need to comply with any unreasonable requests but typically a stranger is only going to ask you for something that takes like 2 minutes of your time and no real loss.

Helping people is enriching and will give you a sense of well-being in this fucked up grim world. You come out ahead in these situations. On the flip side, it's clear that refusing this stranger is eating at you at least a little and has done some tiny damage to your soul, strictly figuratively speaking.