Your high IQ will kill your startup
blog.cubeofm.com
blog.cubeofm.com
But, well, all you really need to kill a startup is (a), and we already knew that. The next possible conclusion is that maybe smart people underestimate the challenge of starting a startup, but I think everybody does. What's more critical is how people react when they realize they're in over their heads.
...parents that say to a successful child, "Wow, you're so smart" undermine that child's ability to muscle through tougher challenges later on in life. These kids believe they are intrinsically better than their peers, so they don't keep putting effort into themselves. Eventually they encounter a challenge that exceeds their initial abilities and they give up since they don't understand their performance is in their control, not baked into their God-given make-up.
It's not about "being lazy". I know people who come in by 7:30 and leave by 9pm. They are not lazy. They work really hard. But they will never be CEO of the company.
It's about challenging yourself. Becoming better. Training. When you can do stuff good, then you have to find stuff you can't do as well that is even harder.
If I am a Django programmer, after 6 months the challenge in Django is minimal. I can work 10 hours a day on Django and it's not really a challenge anymore.
So it's not about laziness really. It's about not being complacent in your current abilities.
I believe ambitious people find their way to things that challenge their abilities. I also don't believe that there's a strong correlation between intelligence and ambition.
It's that missing positive correlation that you seem to be getting at, and most people tend to assume exists, but by recasting it as a negative correlation it offends my sensibilities. ;-)
So basically, the effort put in over time will keep you ahead of any competition, unless a person of superior inherent ability also decides to put in effort in the same area you are in.
Will an ambitious person always find something to challenge their abilities? I know many people who are ambitious - they talk about money all the time. But if you observe their actions, they are basically doing nothing, or doing something unimportant and easy.
I'm not convinced there is a correlation between ambition and an active search for things that are difficult to do. I'm sure there is such a subset of people, but the proportion compared to those who are content with not challenging themselves, I believe, is low. But I don't really know, that's just a guess.
I'm just asking. I'm the opposite. Once I learn how to do something well, I'm bored, so just when I'm becoming productive, I'm off to the next challenge. However, I've really benefited from knowledge of a whide range of technology. Sometimes, while co-workers spend weeks doing something the only way they know, I use different technology to get the same thing done in a couple of days.
I had a great piano teacher who was genius with harmony. He approached jazz standards in this split way, simultaneously obsessive about grasping higher abstractions and about digging into the piano on a low level. (I guess grokking in retrospect.) One thing I left with was the idea that speed and excellence in something come from fluency with it, but getting fluent can take a long time, and you'll be slow and unfinished before you're close.
The understanding of the self however is a little more tricky. The more we understand what makes us happy on the inside, the more the value of the world on the outside decreases. You mentioned becoming a CEO; I think a person with a high IQ who has a good understanding of him/herself has a pretty good idea what he/her wants. And there is a very little chance that the "CEO" position can offer all or most of that. Jobs and positions in the real world rarely translate perfectly to what we want in our minds. Also, smarter people do a better job of synthesizing their future in their minds; they tend to look farther into the future. So essentially they are looking at the future wondering, why do I have to work harder to get to a position that offers very little of what I want.
You can argue that the CEO position is really quite valuable and that the smarter person should want it. But a side effect of their "easier" upbringing also means that they don't have the desire to work hard for things.
I think the biggest part of working hard is to trick your brain into thinking you want the outcome that the hard work is going to bring.
Good read and solid advice.
But the title raised the expectation that the article would delve into how the thought process (and potential lower social/emotional intelligence) of high IQ individuals can be a detriment to starting and developing a business.
But ultimately, you're right. It's about not being complacent.
And let's be clear. Not everyone wants to be the CEO of a company. Maybe you want to be the best researcher in field X. I've seen people who are great at X and belittle other work that could potentially teach them something. One can see this a lot in academia, for example. It's ridiculous.
You observe that most great scientists have tremendous
drive. I worked for ten years with John Tukey at Bell
Labs. He had tremendous drive. One day about three or
four years after I joined, I discovered that John Tukey
was slightly younger than I was. John was a genius and
I clearly was not. Well I went storming into Bode's
office and said, ``How can anybody my age know as much
as John Tukey does?'' He leaned back in his chair, put
his hands behind his head, grinned slightly, and said,
"You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know
if you worked as hard as he did that many years."
I simply slunk out of the office!
What Bode was saying was this: "Knowledge and productivity
are like compound interest." Given two people of approximately
the same ability and one person who works ten percent
more than the other, the latter will more than twice
outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you
learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more
you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much
like compound interest. I don't want to give you a rate,
but it is a very high rate. Given two people with exactly
the same ability, the one person who manages day in and
day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be
tremendously more productive over a lifetime. I took
Bode's remark to heart; I spent a good deal more of my
time for some years trying to work a bit harder and I
found, in fact, I could get more work done. I don't like
to say it in front of my wife, but I did sort of neglect
her sometimes; I needed to study. You have to neglect
things if you intend to get what you want done. There's
no question about this.
http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=229067
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=852405
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=915515
http://searchyc.com/you+and+your+research+hamming?sort=by_da...
Unsurprisingly, it's all over the 'net:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22You+and+your+research%22...
I knew there were a lot of other people as
intelligent as I was, and who had all [the
same] advantages [as me]. The only way to be
successful then would be to gain a slight
advantage over them - I had to work and
train harder than they did, I had to get to
know more people than they did, I had to
learn more about more things that they did.
We started off equals, but at some point all
the effort I put in started to pay off, and
where they stopped improving themselves, I
continued, and I got better and better.
Where they were afraid to try new things
because they would fail, I tried and I got
better and knew more, till I was good enough
for the job I hold now.
However, this is not an inherent problem of intelligence; this is an inherent problem with one-size-fits-all schooling.
They found things easy because the difficulty level of their challenges were well below them, but that's hypothetically easy to fix; you make their challenges a little above their current level. Practically, though, it's more of problem.
I remember daydreaming in class wishing I could just go through the book myself and be finished with a grade in a few weeks. I did get this experience in math for a while when I was living in Texas. You didn't have to take any topic upon which you could pass a pretest, and then you got to take a test on a topic as soon as you were ready for it. I was able to zip through multiple grades until I reached some material where I needed instruction. Of course, once I moved up to the next school, I was back in the standard classes, daydreaming.
this is one of the big benefits of going to a "good" school. not that you're receiving a qualitatively better education, but because you're thrown together with some of the best and brightest. this resets your scale at a much higher level.
of course the most successful people tend to put in a supreme effort constantly without reference to any artificial scales.
The intelligent thing to do would have been to hand over the money and NOT risk being sliced open lol.
He could've taken those odds and handed over the money. And then, if the assailant attacked, he could've sparred with him as he did.
This is a silly point to argue, though, because i'd be surprised if the story wasn't tweaked--even just a little--to the authors purposes.
P( no injury | fight ) = 95%.
P( injury | hand over wallet ) = P(injury | fight) P(fight | hand over wallet) = 0.05 x 0.5 = 0.025
So P(no injury | hand over wallet) = 97.5%.
This is probably not the case as the attacker gains a reasonable advantage by being first (maybe only 2 or 3% in this case)
I also assumed the 50% was referring to the percentage chance of being actually harmed rather than having to fight. In which case your stats do break down.
Living life as something other than a coward.
Bravo.
I did so because I cared far more about being present for my wife and children than I cared about the fact that some assholes would enjoy the contents of my wallet.
At the time I was practicing both boxing and karate on a daily basis, so I probably had decent odds in a fight... but why bother? I can get another wallet and some more cash. I can't get my daughter a new dad.
If this makes you think I have no backbone... well I suppose we simply have different principles.
Responding to being robbed isn't an exercise in patriotism.
If you have anything substantial to lose, carry two wallets, one in an unconventional place. Put about $100 (with a few ones, so it seems like a real wallet) and some expired or fake credit cards in one as a dummy wallet.
Most robbers just want to get some quick cash, usually for drugs. So they get what they want and slink away, and you only lose $100. If you're traveling in dangerous parts of the world, the police are usually corrupt and you expect such random losses in the form of shakedowns/bribes.
So even if you're robbed, you have something left (not as good as your advice, but it sounds like it works).
edit: Zimring and Zuehl's study shows that robberies with "active noncooperation" (refusal to hand over money, attempt to flee, resistence with force) had a death rate fourteen higher than those where the victims cooperated, and that victims who simply denied having money (but did not otherwise resist) had a death rate twice as high as those who cooperate.
http://books.google.com.uy/books?id=9nH0kSUMwGIC&lpg=PA3...
However, in the same paragraph it cites Gary Kleck on the use of guns, and it says that potential victims should be encouraged to fight back, and that resistance with a gun is significantly better than the other forms of resistance (and a conclusion that it is better to fight than to flee).
It's a surprising conclusion for me (I'm mostly anti-guns, though I'd prefer some other option like, say, tasers, to be available for self-defense)
The first citations I can find in google scholar indicate that the odds of being killed during/after rape is roughly two orders of magnitude higher than the odds of being killed during/after a "cooperative" robbery, thus the differing calculus.
"This study assessed the impact of sixteen types of victim self protection (SP) actions on three types of outcomes of criminal incidents: first, whether the incident resulted in property loss, second, whether it resulted in injury to the victim, and, third, whether it resulted in serious injury. Data on 27,595 personal contact crime incidents recorded in the National Crime Victimization Survey for the 1992 to 2001 decade were used to estimate multivariate models of crime outcomes with logistic regression. Results indicated that self-protection in general, both forceful and non forceful, reduced the likelihood of property loss and injury, compared to nonresistance. A variety of mostly forceful tactics, including resistance with a gun, appeared to have the strongest effects in reducing the risk of injury, though some of the findings were unstable due to the small numbers of sample cases. The appearance, in past research, of resistance contributing to injury was found to be largely attributable to confusion concerning the sequence of SP actions and injury. In crimes where both occurred, injury followed SP in only 10 percent of the incidents. Combined with the fact that injuries following resistance are almost always relatively minor, victim resistance appears to be generally a wise course of action."
Common sense dictates otherwise.
Not for the Israeli soldier. Consider: he must have been confident in his ability to disarm the guy (based on his assessment that he did not know how to handle the knife). The other option of co-operation gives control to the thief, that's not a good thing if you can avoid it.
Consider the thief's motivator is obviously money. Once he has it, anything else is just extra work for him (assuming mental stability). In that case, then the Israeli soldier has no choice but to engage.
The difference in skill is so important though. My best mate is into Aikido - some of the masters he's trained with wouldn't flinch if threatened with a gun. It's no threat to them.
There is the famous story of the Aikido founder who claimed to be able to dodge bullets - and did so, once dodging an entire firing squad. One of his students invited a game hunter to come and try hit him: the master accepted the challenge and stood opposite the hunter. Hunter stands there holding rifle, swings it up to shoot and the Master dives to the ground shouting "stop stop".
When they asked him why he'd given up he said:
"that man does not aim"
He'd met his match and bowed out.
The same lesson applies. The smart move may be to hand over the money - but if you assess the smarter move is to disarm him then you should do so.
Also; waiting for an attack or more stress is the worst thing to do. If you have the element of surprise it is a big advantage.
> Consider the thief's motivator is obviously money.
Often this is not the case - especially in South America. If your mugger has a gun your probably dead. A knife? Depends where you are.
> You only have to make a mistake once, or be a split second slow, to pay the ultimate price.
Again: if your confident and the odds stack up just go for it.
Disarming a knife holder is pretty easy and unless they are really good with it then your unlikely to get badly hurt if your on the offensive.
There is a lot of bullshit in martial arts claims. Being able to dodge bullets, is obviously one of them. Its not impossible to disarm a guy with a gun or knife, people spend their lives practicing it. But execution is a whole different ball game. You either succeed, or you die.
If it matters, I train in brazilian jiu jitsu and boxing 4-5 days a week. In boxing, you can be highly skilled and duck, slip, and bob and weave punches. But if you become so cocky you decide to drop your hands and rely on your reflexes, you will be caught by even the worst fighters.
Disarming a knife holder is NOT easy. Get a rubber knife, give it to your friend, and tell him to play robber. You'll get stabbed.
It is. I have been trained in unarmed combat and it is relatively easy with a little training. I personally would be confident of disarming, with minimal or no injury, someone unfamiliar in handling a knife.
The first thing to remember is that if you take and maintain control of their wrist it is very hard for them to attack you - and harder to actually do serious damage. Usually they then focus on trying to regain control of the knife - at which point you either reach over with a spare hand and pressure point them into releasing the knife or you hit the solar plexus or whatever is within easy reach - really hard. EDIT: personally I would drive the heel of your hand into their jaw. It's an easy hit, hard to dodge (as you have their wrist) and big impact.
> There is a lot of bullshit in martial arts claims. Being able to dodge bullets, is obviously one of them.
Agreed. I think the Hunter story is probably a parable - but Morehei Ueshiba did dodge bullets according to historical accounts [1]. Note that dodging bullets here means he read their body signals and moved out of the path he knew the bullets were going to travel. Still good timing though. Body signal reading is one of the basics of Aikido.
> But if you become so cocky you decide to drop your hands and rely on your reflexes, you will be caught by even the worst fighters.
Ah... boxing. No disrespect intended here but boxers do get so cocky :D And your right that's where it fails.
Martial arts is about discipline. It also trains you not to use reflexes. ever That will get you killed.
This comes back to where I mentioned above that waiting to be attacked is the worst move: because you do then have to rely on reflexes to respond. If your attacking your always ahead of your opponent (unless they are also skilled)
My personal survival training highlighted one thing: the mantra in a situation where your going to have to fight is - Be first, Be sudden, Be brutal.
1.http://martialarts.jameshom.com/library/weekly/aa043000.htm
My boxing point was: you pay for your mistakes. The penalty for your mistakes in boxing is a punch. In a knife fight, the penalty is severely amplified. And thats a risk you could totally avoid by NOT pushing the confrontation.
So full circle: just because you're trained and think you can take on a knife wielding robber, doesn't mean you should.
Unlilkely. This is another point: doing serious damage with a knife is tough (and by serious I mean life threatening). Even if you screw up and take a hit it is unlikely to be serious (or lose you the fight).
And if your going to take a more serious hit you shouldn't be trying it :)
> just because you're trained and think you can take on a knife wielding robber, doesn't mean you should.
It means you should judge the situation and you have the serious option.
So my bias disagree's here :)
I suspect we are both right.
I refresh every couple of months.
I find it somewhat hilarious that you had a clear demonstration that accidents can happen in fights, yet you still advocate escalating to violence before verifying if the violence can be avoided altogether.
Dont forget this original conversation was about a trained military guy and whether he should have fought or not.
Im just trying to communicate something interesting.
Dan Inosanto used to run (and maybe still does) knife defense courses for, among others, police officers.
The rule of thumb is that in knife-vs-gun situations, if your gun is holstered, the magic number to not die is 15 FEET. If a knife-wielding attacker is within 15 feet of you, trying to race him by drawing your gun to shoot him is more likely to end with you getting stabbed.
> A knife would certainly hurt more but adrenaline can keep you moving.
...And then you bleed to death.
> I guess my training revolved around the idea that the you should never surrender an advantage if you have it.
Being ALIVE is the real advantage. "Winning" a fight doesn't mean anything when you're going into shock on the way to the hospital.
Even if you beat someone up and escape without a scratch, the guy's buddies might kill you in your hotel room two years later.
However, the kinds of techniques described here can keep you alive in tough countries. Everyone seemed to be expressing the opinion that the guy described in the OP was idiotic or dangerous - Im trying to simply put across information I know that counterpoints that view.
Final point: There may be a time in my life where I get robbed with a knife wielder. I'll assess the situation, and I might even take action. But it'll still be the stupidest decision of my life, and I might have to pay for it.
ErrantX, you must be some sort of superman. I hope to God, for your sake, that no one armed maniac ever tries to rob you. Goooood night, take care.
It would hurt quite a bit yea.
Any knife fighter will also tell you that hitting a skilled opponent there is bloody hard :)
Bearing in mind how an unskilled person will almost certainly hold the knife (pointed straight at you) them hitting you in the chest requires a serious fuck up on your part :) There are 2 defence options (lets assume a right handed attacker):
1. Side step the knife on their off-body side (so they have no way to swing their arm at you without reversing grip - which will take too long). Take their hand in a standard grip (I'll dig out some pictures later) with your right hand and pull the knife/arm "forward" (i.e. into the place you were just standing). Reverse left elbow into their face to stun them, pull left hand forward to pressure point a knife released. This should take 2 or 3 seconds at most. They will either be on their knees behind you (kick the knife away btw) in which case you can push them sideways (not forward - that will put them potentially near the knife) and put them into a lock. If they are still stood you could do all manner of things.
2. If your better and prefer a more violent approach you can step onto their on-side inside their arm. Take the wrist in a lock with your left hand and push outwards (let them bend the arm up if they try too, it gives little extra leverage). Hit them really hard in one of the open spots on their body with your right. Preffered hit is the heel of the hand into the kneck just under the jaw. Disadvantage is a) it might break their neck and b) often they will put their head down. Side of the neck is probably your next best target. Again this should take seconds.
> There may be a time in my life where I get robbed with a knife wielder. I'll assess the situation, and I might even take action. But it'll still be the stupidest decision of my life, and I might have to pay for it.
Are you trained in unarmed defence? Have you practiced disarming knife holders? Are you able to react instantly and violently?
If the answer to any that is less than a Yes then you, clearly, shouldn't be doing this. And I've never said otherwise.
The Israeli in the OP clearly was a Yes for all of those. I am confident I am enough of a yes to take on unskilled combatants like the one sketched out in the OP.
And I have been held at knife point. At that time someone else took action but I was prepared too if needed.
Sounds like you've been through some training, you can probably take a glancing punch without having it stun you too bad, but you think getting nicked by a knife in the process is gonna leave you good odds of recovering and winning the fight? In real world fights, the first serious hit usually wins, you don't have training at fighting while stabbed, your body will react on it's own and the guy will probably stab you again.
As some people said upthread, even if you think you have 90% odds, it's stupid to fight someone with a knife.
I've done a small amount of training against low power tazers (the kins that numb you a bit but don't take you down). A knife would certainly hurt more but adrenaline can keep you moving.
> 2 or 3 seconds at most? You're describing a kung-fu movie series
Afraid not. Go on a couple of serious self defence training classes (the ones for, say, security guards working in war zones). They will teach you pretty much the same things; the manouvere's are designed to give you maximum dominance in the fight.
It's not really a fight; your moving so fast it's over in seconds (hopefully).
A very quic search throws up this page: http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/archive/knives/msg0...
with this quote:
"Gun and knife robberies are equally like to result in serious injury. The fatality rate in gun robberies is three times that of knife robberies. (Cook, J of Criminal Law and Criminology 78:357-76)"
Personally, I am not willing to risk even serious damage from a knife for the sake of whatever valuables I am carrying in a situation where I may be robbed. I cannot imagine being in possesion of more than about $500 worth of stealable, uninsured equipment in any situation where someone with a knife can take me by surprise.
Yes, I've done various martial arts - I've even practiced with sharps - but it really does not make sense to tkae the extra risk. If you know that you will be attacked anyway, this is different.
It's.... complex.
Part of my point is that if your trained and attacking it's hard for them to do serious injury without being skilled themselves.
small knives will do damage to your abdomen (it's hard to hit there anyway) but aren't likely to be fatal (unless of course you dont get help). A knife wound to the lower back doesn't have to be deep to kill you fast.
Slashes can be worse in some areas than others (e.g. belly slashes are worse than stabs if deep enough).
If your opponent has a carving knife you need to consider options. On on hand it is less wieldy and they are unlikely to be able to stab you. But it's also longer and the chances of getting knicked or catching a slash are higher.
With a short knife your reasonably ok if you can get their wrist.
If they have a machete or anything really long like that your made. :)
Unfortunately AFAIK everything I have posted is accurate (well, so far as I have been trained)
Were you trained to believe that people who rob others at knifepoint are generally inexperienced with knife-handling and self-defense?
Because your entire post is predicated on that seemingly baseless and extremely risky assumption.
I've never indicated making that assumption though. Ive discussed your response to a robber who you judge to be unskilled.
As I mentioned in the first post I indicated this is usually obvious (if they are skilled/unskilled) and if you are trained you will recognize this.
The easiest pointer is how they hold the knife - if they havge it out in front of them (pointed at you) they are probably unskilled. Skilled handlers will hold the knife at their side a few inches from their body pointed away from you at a 30 degree angle.
Unskilled handlers will also glance at the knife a lot (you can use this - time your attack to their glancing).
If the robber is skilled then, clearly, you need to make a different assessment
(and I guess then it comes down to "is he planning to attack me")
That strikes me as bad math.
(and I guess then it comes down to "is he planning to attack me")
On this we agree. If there is clearly going to be an attack, then figuring out an optimal fight strategy is wise. But if there is an option not to have an attack, that seems even better.... even if you're confident that you have a 100.00% accurate ability to differentiate between superior/lucky and inferior/unlucky opponents.
Im not sure how I give that impression.. I've deliberately tried not too.
The point I am making is.
If your well trained and you are happy that your assailant is unskilled then it makes sense to take action :)
(well that was the original point anyway r.e. the Israeli we were originally discussing)
You gave it by saying things like:
If your well trained and you are happy that your assailant is unskilled then it makes sense to take action :)
Anyway, I think the biggest difference in our standpoints is that I've been robbed at knifepoint.
In the moment, all I could really think was that I wanted to be around for my wife and kids far more than I gave a shit about anything else, so I decided, in the moment, that I'd engage only if it seemed like a physical attack was inevitable. I tossed the wallet, and avoided the attack.
I was, and still am, happy with the result. And I will continue to disagree with those (such as yourself) who advocate fighting simply when you think you'll win, drawing the line instead at fighting when there are no other viable options.
I specifically say things like:
you are happy
Which isn't trying to imply 100% accuracy of prediction. It's saying if your happy that your assessment is that he's unskilled is accurate then do it. If your not, then I guess it depends on the person what you want to do.
I see you mentioned elsewhere you were learning boxing and karate when you were mugged. Im not aware that any of those disciplines give you suitable training in disarming a knife wielder. So you made the right choice IMO.
Waiting till your forced to fight is, IMO, the worst move. If your able to disarm the guy all your doing is sacrificing a part of your advantage. (if your not able to disarm him then, yeh, clearly co-operation then trying your best if attacked is the best policy).
The main trick is accepting the fact that you are going to get hurt. Get past that then you can focus on minimizing that hurt by taking the other guy out as fast as possible.
[aside] It can be a lot of fun to play with this with a buddy. Go to staples and get a 12-pack of coloured sharpies. Your buddy gets a sharpie and you get nothing. Spar with your buddy with him/her seriously trying to mark you (none of that "telegraphed motion" crap most people use in regular practice). You win the round if you make your buddy drop the "knife" or he ends up on the ground with you still standing. Your buddy wins if she marks you in any one of [your core, neck, back of your knee, hamstring, inside of arm] or marks you more than twice anyplace else. Use a different colour each round so it's easier to keep track.
After you use all the colours, switch roles. [/aside]
Note that the OP had a highly trained unarmed vs an incompetent knife. That's way easier.
In practice, I can actually do fairly well against unskilled people. I can disarm/stab them maybe 50-60% of the time, unarmed vs knife. The highly skilled people can win 90-95% of the time against newbies, 80% of the time against me.
A 95% chance of not getting stabbed still sucks.
No, it isn't easy. I'm no expert, but I have been taught by a couple of experts. A 95% success rate is good. It's also really crappy odds when the other guy is trying to stab you.
Plus, you don't really know if the other guy is unfamiliar or not.
Someone I know who actually is very good with a knife had the following experience: someone broke into his home and attacked him with a knife. After getting stabbed once, he did successfully disarm his attacker and stabbed him. The attacker pulled out another knife and stabbed him again!
(Eventually the attacker fled after being stabbed a few times as well.)
Key point: he was under attack. This lowers your odds quite a bit.
Once your friend was wounded (I hope he was ok!) things go massively against him.
The aim is to suddenly and brutally disarm your opponent and then disengage. Leaving him either senseless or unsure what happened (and you out of range of a new attack).
> Plus, you don't really know if the other guy is unfamiliar or not.
I've dealt with this elsewhere - it's mostly about body language and if your trained you can note the signals.
That made me think of this.
I'm afraid you don't understand the difference between a partner in training who is offering resistance, and a person who is actually trying to hurt you.
I was quite heavily injured actually during unarmed training - but by a baseball bat not a knife :)
When you're done, count up the marks and see how many times you'd have been cut and where. Even without taking into account the edge of the fictional knife, it's a pretty damning visual.
(Also: with a standard rubber knife, too many of the hits during the exercise won't be noticed or remembered by either party.)
The 'minimal' is where your analysis goes completely out of the window. Wounds hurt; being hurt throws you off. Even a relatively undeep scratch with a knife can disable your hand. You can be trained all you want: you are not trained in fighting with a knife wound: when hurting and bleeding. This is why martial arts teachers all over the world tell their students: the best defense from a weapon is to run. If the change of getting hurt is 1%, it is too large. Hand over the money and run.
In my other posts I talk about an important mantra: Be first, Be sudden, Be brutal. You should be able to take down the assailant before any wound would take affect.
If you cant do that then your not properly trained and you shouldn't be trying it :)
I cant speak for martial arts directly because my training is military/civilian response based.
Actually, I've always held that the best defense against anything is to get your own weapon and attack like crazy. There's always one around: coffee mug, large rock, laptop, broom.
Muggers, etc. rely on people doing what they're told. The "victim" immediately going on the offensive is the last thing they want. Sure, attacking your attacker has to be a calculated move, but if you think you're going to be killed or injured anyway, you have nothing to lose, so go for it and don't stop until he's a bleeding pulp on the ground.
That's a ridiculous statement. If someone has a gun pointed at you and is outside of kicking, punching or grabbing range, you are always a split second away from death. All gun disarms have one thing in common: you have to be close enough to touch the man with the gun. In the moment it takes to move into a range, they can pull the trigger.
Depends on the gun and the range and what cover is available. Certainly they are unlikely to be hit with the first shot unless the shooter is skilled (this is always the key bit).
If you can close fast enough after their first shot the only real risk is the closest few yards.
Aikido masters sometimes demonstrate this with paint guns - I've seen people make maybe 20 feet (sometimes they are hit, usually nowhere fatal) and take down their opponent.
Have you ever tried to hit an Aikido master? It's an amazing experience because it is pretty much impossible for anyone below their skill levels. They train to watch body signals and are already avoiding your punch before you actually move.
Same applies to the gun (within reasonable limits). They can see where you are pointing it, where you intend to fire and have easily 1-2 seconds (if not more) on you when you start to pull the trigger. 1-2 seconds sounds like nothing but couple it with the time to pull the trigger and for the weapon to fire you easily have time to move out of the path.
Of course when your teacher tells you that it can even help you doge bullets they are hounded to prove it... :)
A student held up the knife and demanded his wallet. Guro took his wallet out slowly, and tossed it behind the student at an angle (i.e., didn't scare him by throwing it directly). The student bent to retrieve the wallet; when he looked away, Guro turned and ran out the door screaming "help, police, he's got a knife!"
EDIT: but a good anecdote :) he sounds like a fun person to know.
The same Israeli soldier was killed in a robbery two years later... which is a huge asterix on the post.
We don't know the story behind that robbery, so its probably best not to jump to conclusions. But it wouldn't be a wild guess to think he fought back and didn't make it this time.
Based on that, if people were waiting in his hotel room to rob him, it sounds like he didn't have a choice but to fight back.
Hum... "Oh no, you killed my friend! Now I'm all upset!! So very upset INDEED!!!"
If people with weapons assault you in Somalia, give them millions of dollars and make it stronger, so they can kill more and assault more people.
If someone kidnaps someone of your family, give all the money you earned all your life to them, so they can buy more weapons, and kidnap more people, and make society better.
Your ego will boost as you acknowledge that you are not able to fight against other men under any circumstances, that you could always surrender and let them sodomize you if necessary.
How are you giving power to a robber?
If people with weapons assault you in Somalia, give them millions of dollars and make it stronger, so they can kill more and assault more people.
If people with weapons assault you, your dead. I'm not sure why you're trying to link this situation to the political one in Somalia, they're quite different.
If someone kidnaps someone of your family, give all the money you earned all your life to them, so they can buy more weapons, and kidnap more people, and make society better.
Tough talk, lets see what you'd do if your family got kidnapped for ransom.
By rewarding them with confidence and money, two of the most powerful factors in behavioral conditioning.
"I'm not sure why you're trying to link this situation to the political one in Somalia, they're quite different."
They are the same. Coastal Somalia's de facto government is barbarian raiders, funded entirely by people who choose to pay millions for appeasement but not one penny for defense. Hopefully the problem can be solved by arming the merchant fleets with modern weapons (now being tried), otherwise the standard solution will be needed: plow the coastal towns under as fertilizer.
Did you know the pirates actually have a code of ethics (ironic as that may sound)? Why have they never raped or killed any of their hostages? Because all they want is money. Pay up, and the hostages get let go. Thats how their operation works.
Don't even try to compare that to a back alley robbery.
It's easy to stand on your soapbox in an online forum. Let's see how you fare in the moment of truth. I hope for your sake you act smart and live to see another day.
It's a heavy book, both in weight (1800 pages) and ideas, but everyone should read it.
Statistics say if you cooperate, you're less likely to be harmed. If you decide to push a physical confrontation, then you're more likely to be harmed. If you measure the cost/benefit ratio to each action, its a no brainer.
To some it is, to some it is not. I personally have been in a similar situation (assailant had a gun). As well, I have trained since a young age in defensive combat. I can honestly say that when that moment was upon me, the rage that ran through my mind was not for saving myself but the idea that a little old lady had most likely stood in my same position and that the people around me are being victimized. I think most that do decide to stand, stand for a sense of honor that is beyond them or their personal well being, because even to them, logically the money is not worth it, it is the principal of the matter. Given the original post's description of the gentleman as an individual who dislikes violence he sounds to me like he is a man that does not compromise his principles even if it costs him his life, which it looks like it eventually did. Being a man of principals in not unintelligent and that was the summation of my previous post.
Unfortunately the best (read safest) method for dealing with a knife telegraphs your intention and throws explosive violence out the window because the most assured way is to either pick up a longer instrument (bat, tire iron) or to take off an item of clothing to act as the item to trap the arm either of which let the assailant know what the score is.
Knowing this and reading that the gentleman still opted to use the element of surprise, gives some insight as to how confident this individual was with his abilities. The fact that he first used his feet to disarm the knife says that he analyzed the situation and decided that the element of surprise was more valuable than opting for a telegraphed safer method.
Ah yes, "might as well lie back and enjoy it".
Actually, the statistics, at least in the US, don't show that cooperation leads to less harm. US statistics show the resistance is associated with somewhat less harm. And, those statistics ignore the "want to take you somewhere else" situation. Cooperating in that circumstance is pretty much a death sentence because those attackers are trying to take you somewhere else to kill you. (No - that's not a common scenario, but it's an especially deadly one.)
There's also a "recovery" benefit to resistance - the victim feels better afterwards.
I'm not saying that resistance is always the best option. I'm saying that it can be a better option than compliance. Circumstances matter.
Remember, a robber is telling you that the unknown contents of your wallet are worth more to him than your life. That tells you how little he values your life.
Wrong - that's why I got interested, and training.
How about you - did your attitude come from experience or ....
> If anything, if the guy only has a knife, you might have good odds running for it.
And you might not. (For example - Eric Raymond can't run worth a damn and there's no place to run in a subway car.) There's no blanket rule. Note that attackers plan too. They pick victims and circumstances with their goals in mind.
Not that someone stumbling drunk is necessarily going to run through that calculation.
I think this is why Steve Blank talk so much about founders 'getting out of the building'. The first instinct of a highly intelligent tech nerd when faced with the challenges of a startup is to bury their head in code and not engage directly with the customer at all, i.e. focus solely on improving the product and not testing if there is a market for the product in the first place:
http://startup-marketing.com/the-startup-pyramid/
Fortunately, Steve Blank has designed his 'Customer Development' roadmap to mitigate against this. For a brief, free synopsis, see:
http://www.socrated.com/courses/4?home=1
This was posted on HN recently enough, and it's brilliant. It sums up the entire Customer Devlopment roadmap quite nicely. I'd still recommend buying the book too though, also excellent.
Lots of mathematicians, scientists and academics are hard-working, 'intelligent' people who are completely underdeveloped otherwise - there's an argument for saying that I am one... - so I think that this analogy holds better than you give it credit.
I can't help but think that you are using the word 'intelligence' in a different manner to that intended by the post. The trait that you are talking about, applying your intelligence to as many situations as you can, is closer to wisdom, I feel.
This is one of those statements that really bother me, almost as much as someone telling me I need to prove the non-existence of God if I want to be an atheist. Yes, intelligent people should have a good understanding of how big and complex the universe is and how little they know compared to the total amount of knowledge available. And given that they are aware of such, it wouldn't make sense for them to walk around claiming they are a big deal. However, people do not always act rationally, even geniuses. There is no negative-correlation between claiming to be smart and being smart, in spite of the obvious contradiction. Claiming to be smart and being cocky about it, it's just a personality trait. Think about this: you IQ is defined and practically unchangeable by the time you are a young teenager, but your personality continues to develop for many more years after that. So there is no way your personality can affect whether you are smart or not.
Just a thought though.
I don't know whether the two claims you made are true (the one about IQ may be, the personality one probably is) but "there is no way your personality can affect whether you are smart or not" doesn't follow. It's possible that your personality may often continue to develop after your IQ is mostly set, but only in a highly restricted way dictated by what your personality was before. In fact this seems to me likely to be a common outcome.
This all changed when I started doing start-ups. I learned to fail many, many times, but instead of quitting, I just kept trying again and again. I actually kicked my 20-something year old habit of being lazy, because the reward that comes with doing all the hard work is much greater than the fear of failure.
But all anyone seems to want to talk about is the damn knife fight story. Sigh.....
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Kids who were told "you must be smart" when they succeeded were less likely to take on harder tasks later because they might fail, and seem stupid.
Kids who were told "you must have worked hard" when they succeeded tackled harder problems later and ended up learning better, because they perceived greater reward for doing better, not looking better.
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If you're smart, but you don't do anything you can fail at, you won't learn. Try. Fail. Try again.
Seriously though, while I think the metaphor is a little weak, the article makes some good points.
the only thing I remember from that course:
"Respect the knife"
it seemed hilarious at the time, yet at the same time very apt.
"I have a high IQ" click
A friend of mine shared a bit of wisdom with me:
"In a knife fight, everyone bleeds."
I wonder how that could be applied to this metaphor.
It exists because the first person to score a touch gets the point. If right-of-way didn't exist then the right thing to do when your opponent goes for your head would be to poke him very quickly on the arm or torso and just take the blow to the head. If you hit him first, it would be your point. This is pretty silly though and would be an artifact of the stylization of fencing. No rational person would opt to get a small cut on the opponents arm or chest in exchange for a large gash on their head.
In a bloody duel, 90% of your energy needs to be focused on not getting hit. It would be a hollow victory if you got yourself just as cut up as your opponent.
This was always a problem when fencing with new fencers. They didn't understand the right of way and didn't know how to read your actions, so it was very easy to go for a blow and get slapped on the side for it. I'd get the point for having right of way, and I'd have to explain what a silly move it was. Yes, they hit me first, but they still got hit.
It's even harder to parry a knife than a sword. Be ready to bleed.
Untrained fighters are, in my experience, usually pretty easy to either disarm or to block their knife hand/arm with my non-knife hand. If they are VERY quick, I might take a minor slice on my hand or forearm, but I've never sparred against a non-specially trained opponent who's been able to either "kill" me, or prolong the fight more than a few seconds.
Thankfully I have never been in a real knife to knife fight, so YMMV.
Although in a real situation you might not want to test anything from this thread, because you could be very unlucky.
I've used this technique sans the $40 dollars. One thing to keep in the back of your mind, "do they have a mobile phone?". If they do, a football field might not be enough. You have to move out of sight, then change directions ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/3497187984/