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, nearly hysterical. It was a single-vehicle accident caused by sliding out of control on the very water-logged roundabout. The thing she kept saying over and over was "nobody stopped to help! They all just keep on driving past!"<p>So I phoned the police and stayed with her for the next 20 minutes, until the police showed up. I was getting soaked in the rain and making myself late, but felt I owed it to her to stay put and make sure she came through it all OK. As I remounted my bike and rode away, it occurred to me that she didn't at any point thank me, and since then has made no attempt to contact me even though we discussed where I work (just across the road from her) as part of the small-talk. So in her own way, she was doing the same thing as the other drivers who had so upset her, albeit inadvertently. I probably wouldn't have stopped either, except she was literally blocking my path.<p>So it's easy to marvel at how disassociated we all are. A different thing entirely to do anything meaningful about it, even on a purely personal level. There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers, even less when there's a risk of being dragged into someone else's potentially violent confrontation. This is not a problem with phones, it's a problem with excessively large communities where we will probably never run into each other again. So why take the risk?
Wow, this piece cuts close to home.<p>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.<p>Everyone can be armchair quarterbacks, shake their heads in disappointment, raise their fits in anger, but when you are in a situation such as the above, or witness a knife attack - you are stunned. Taipei is one of the safest city in Asia. Most of us don't see scenes such as this except on TV, and most of us don't know how to react. It's fight/intervene or flight/stay out of it.<p>I've taken defence classes, including Krav Maga and they all emphasize that knives are the most deadly weapon in the world due to its ease of access and the damage it can do.<p>Sorry it happened to the OP but I don't think society has 'become' anything. There's no proof that people are more willing to jump between a knife wielding maniac and a victim before the iPhone age.
Give her the phone! GIVE HER THE PHONE!!<p>edit: OK, I'm being downvoted. That's fine. But, why put your irreplaceable life in mortal danger for the sake of keeping hold of replaceable consumer electronics? That's the disconnect I'm finding hard to process.
Let's evaluate for real, the cost-benefit of intervening physically against a knife-wielding crazy person:<p>-- Minimum: you'll miss the day of work, have an arrest on your record which you'll have to disclose forever and which may cost you your career, may make it impossible to enter foreign countries, and so on.<p>-- Probable: you'll miss many days of work due to police/legal complications. Significant chance of losing your job. Significant chance of grievous personal injury. Significant chance of assault charges which will cost you (minimum) tens of thousands of dollars to defend against (more likely >$100,000).<p>-- Possible: Killed by knife. Killed by cop. Jailed for assault. Jailed for murder (if attacker ends up dead, you're going to be charged for sure). Newspaper columnist heaps scorn on your actions.<p>-- Benefits, maximum: a newspaper mentions your name in a good way. Victim says "thank you".<p>Yes, everyone is wondering if someone else will intervene. But also, individually, the calculus for intervening is just terrible. Highly likely consequences include months in the hospital, months in jail, cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The joke about a knife fight is that the winner is in the hospital, the loser in the morgue. Which one of those two will you be?
I hope I would have kicked the woman in the head or wrestled her to the ground.
As a male, I suspect I wouldn't have.<p>I could have just called the police, but that doesn't really help in an immediate situation of one person trying to stab someone. So this situation calls for either:
1) Subduing the attacker by pinning them.
2) Doing enough damage to the attacker that they can't move.
If they are on top of the victim, they <i>maybe</i> are in a good position for me to run up and corner-kick their head and end things with a quick concussion. I can't tell from the prose. Otherwise, it would be better to just restrain her and pin her to the ground.<p>So I'm either a man pinning screaming woman to the ground in a public place or a man who is viscously beating a woman in public.<p>No thanks, "Real Men" don't hit girls.
<a href="http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/brand-what-do-you-do-when-a-girl-hits-you/" rel="nofollow">http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/brand-what-do-you...</a><p>Especially not in public where "defend the woman being attacked" is a fantasy for a whole bunch of people.
As someone who has been attacked and/or robbed several times in cities like Brussels, two things I'm sad to have learned:<p>1) Your reality changes. At any point, in every street, someone/some gang can step up and change your situation to something vastly different than the reality the other people around you are in at that moment.<p>2) Nobody cares. People don't want to get involved. They are not aware of the situation, or even when they are, they are not in it themselves. As a woman you might have the luck of a knight in shiny armour nearby who feels obliged to step up and help, but as a fit male, all bets are off. Few want to get between "men fighting" – to them you are a perpetrator, not a victim.<p>The loneliness and absurdity of such situations are hard to get over. Years later I'm still more aware of my environment whenever I'm out, and I always check for exits and whom not to turn my back to. It has also made me more likely to reach out and help others in such situations, partly because I can relate, and partly because I'm more aware that something doesn't feel quite right.<p>You must learn to accept that if you have belongings, you might lose them. Or alternatively, be willing to pointlessly fight like hell with a random stranger for little or no benefit. The second option might cost a hell of a lot more overall, even when you "win".
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.<p>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 <i>you</i> end up with an assault conviction and consequent expulsion from the middle class. Maybe the scene isn't all it seems (setup for robbery, or domestic where both parties turn on the intervenor).<p>Commuting and the mass-population city kind of relies on us forming the habit of studiously ignoring one another, and it's a hard habit to shake in an emergency.
Why people might not want to get involved? Every situation is unique but 1. How do they know these two women don't know each other? 2. How many people actually saw the knife? Not everyone has 20/20 vision either. 3. Sounds like both of these women were arrested. Hypothetical hero could have been arrested too. 4. If you're going to intervene in a dangerous situation, you could be sued. 5. There could be a more dangerous accomplice nearby to make sure she gets the job done. 6. What if the woman with the knife is in a gang? Will the gang retaliate tomorrow? 7. Maybe she has a gun in another pocket? 8. How many people in the crowd know how to defend against a knife attack? 9. Maybe I watched too many Zatoichi episodes but "no good deed goes unpunished." ;-)<p>I was in a similar situation once and just gave up my phone and mug money. I was somewhat prepared because I was warned it would happen. Maybe this book saved my life <a href="http://www.roughguides.com/shop/rough-guide-new-york-city/" rel="nofollow">http://www.roughguides.com/shop/rough-guide-new-york-city/</a> As I was pulled into a dark alley, a young woman walked by like it was completely normal to see someone mugged. Then I packed my things and left NY and never looked back.
this is a well known phenomenon called the "bystander effect"<p>wikipedia entry here:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect</a><p>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.<p>which, isn't that helpful if 100% of the bystanders are thinking that. It's somebody else's problem.<p>there's a simple remedy- Don't scream "help! anyone! help!"
scream "Hey you, burly looking dude. Help! yes you!"
'
This is what psychologists say.
until the evidence comes in, I'm skeptical that it would work. but it's better than repeating these stories again and again.
I wish this wasn't the case, but as a man, <i>there is no way I am getting involved in a fight between two strange women</i>. No way. There is no upside for me and unlimited downside, in fact that downside is virtually guaranteed.<p>This is the way things are in 2014.
I don't really intend to risk my life going up against a knife-wielding crazy person, just so you'd be able to keep your phone.
I would probably call the police though, which was also my reaction last a bigger fight happened near me.<p>For me to risk my life for you, I would have to know you somewhat well, and then I would <i>very</i> likely intervene.<p>It's not only the bystander effect, but also the quite rational question "do I want to risk my own life for the sake of this woman I don't know, in this situation I know very little about?"<p>Once, my friend intervened in two drunk girls fighting each other. He was calm, but instead they just turned against him.<p>It's simply a game of pros and cons, and I can very much follow the community thing that Anderkent mentions in another thread.
I think there's several things going on here.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>This is complicated. I think it's more about living in cities, nations and the global village than it is about iphones.
You can make it less likely that you'll fall victim to the bystander effect by precaching better responses - the heroic imagination. I first read about it here: <a href="http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/03/14/developing-the-heroic-imagination-the-5-traits-of-heroes/" rel="nofollow">http://www.artofmanliness.com/2010/03/14/developing-the-hero...</a> which links to <a href="http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_banality_of_heroism" rel="nofollow">http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_banality_of...</a>
Hacker News already took down Kirsten's site. Wordpress really doesn't handle load very well.<p>Luckily, Google's cache has a copy already:<p><a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:m0OtEZT3zDYJ:kirstensamazing.com/stop-leaning-in-put-down-your-iphones-and-help-me/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nz" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:m0OtEZT...</a>
Wow, scary stuff. I've been there with crazy people, alone, at night, at a T-stop in Boston. One thing you can do, is put your keys in your hand, and make a fist with the keys pointed outward from your knuckles. That will make punches way more effective and one good punch could blind your assailant, which is exactly what you want to do.<p>Another thing to consider is getting a gun or at least supporting gun rights. Not a lot of unarmed people are going to help you against a crazy person with a knife. If someone was caring a gun, they could have helped. If she were caring, then she could have put an end to this nightmare herself.<p>There's a saying in the gun rights community, "The second you need a cop, they're always minutes away." All the cops I know agree with that statement. It's not a reflection on them, just that they can't be everywhere all the time.<p>I hope her injuries (both physical and mental) heal quickly.
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.<p>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 and risk getting attacked as well, scream for help, just call the police? It probably can be compared to first-aid situations, where most people seem to get completely paralyzed and are unable to help the injured person. Maybe governments should offer seminars where people learn to react properly in such situations, just like in the first-aid seminars that you're required to attend when you get your driving license.
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.
I'm curious - does anyone else have a mental habit of trying to notice bystander effect situations and taking it as your job to handle them if you're able?<p>I've had this habit for about a year. So far, called the police too late to do anything about it twice (once because my phone was dead, once from a combination of negligence and not knowing the right number to call), and once called the emergency number for a guy who fainted in public (but ran off before help could arrive). In the last case, a handful of other bystanders also stopped to help the guy, so bystander effect mysteriously didn't work that day. So I haven't been terribly helpful to anyone, but I was surprised how often I saw problems once I was looking for it.<p>(I don't think I would have been terribly helpful in this situation, though - I don't know how to break up a fight without being hurt, and probably wouldn't have thought of some of the better ideas like trying to single out a strong-looking person in the crowd and get them to help.)
I attribute this to living under an authoritarian government that supposedly takes care of dangers to society. We're just bystanders and taught not to meddle because the police will take care of it.<p>I've lived in different countries and have seen different reactions where people are used to feeling responsible for their peers because they know the government doesn't care, is not efficient, or otherwise limited.<p>Of course, some people will also be reluctant to get stabbed for a complete stranger.
It's the bystander effect - this is why you always ask specific people to help. Myself, I like to think I'd have helped if I was there, but I know how easy that is to say, even if I am certainly someone who <i>should</i>. Many people who were there probably feel terrible that they didn't, but sometimes in an emergency, people who haven't thought about what they'd do will freeze up.
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."
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?
> Is this how disconnected from the real world we’ve become?<p>This <i>is</i> an example of the real world. Its nothing new, nor likely to change. History is full of "bad things" happening to people, on a large and small scale, that happened because others did nothing to stop it.<p>My comment does not mean that people should not help others who are in need, but suggesting this is something new - possibly due to changes in technology - reinforces the (wrong) idea that people think the world is a safe place.
Normal human reactions.<p>OP also didn't react as hindsight tells us the answer. Hand it over. Why did they value something crappy like money over their life, are they so superficial? (Probably not)<p>We've been told a million times just to hand it over, but OP still didn't.<p>Concentrate on the long term issues, there are more and they are solvable through logic, like solving homelessness.<p>Don't worry so much about how people react in unexpected situations. Worry more about peoples long term decision making, that scares me.
I wonder how much of this is that people don't know what to do. If we were listing the qualities that would encourage someone to help what would they be?<p>1) Believe that your intervention will do good/be effective.<p>2) Have a personal relationship with the victim.<p>3) Be thinking of the victim as a person rather than a piece of the scenery.<p>4) Perceive the risk to self (legal/physical) to be low.<p>5) Don't believe someone else will do it.<p>6) Don't believe that it's a setup where the 'victim' will turn on you.<p>I'm not saying those are the things that matter, they're just the things that came to mind.<p>And how many of them typically apply?<p>This was a knife attack, and that probably takes care of 1 and 4. I've seen untrained people fighting in the street, and it's the equivalent of a monkey slinging shit. Add to that that a knife is less to do with careful application of skill - it's more constant. It's entirely possible, if people had intervened, we'd be talking about multiple people seriously injured, perhaps scarred for life, or killed.<p>2 doesn't apply, 3 could go either way, 5 might be the case - there were a lot of people there. 6, happens, but again might go either way.<p>...<p>And there's a thought - <i>did they see the knife?</i> or did they just see two people having a domestic and screaming at each other? I imagine that might decrease the chances of anything happening.
I was in a <i>slightly</i> similar situation the other day. I'm a male (white), walking to boxing class when about 0.75 blocks away, I see some kid getting attacked by... wait for it... 4 other kids. All women. All African-American.<p>There was a group of about 12-15 high school age girls and 10 of them were just watching 3 or 4 of them gang up on 1 of them.<p>WTF do I do here? I had the same thought process as many people in this thread. I could get involved, but realistically, there's absolutely no way I'm going to go try to break up a fight with that many people in it, let alone teenage girls.<p>I watched for about 5 seconds before I started to get my phone out to call the cops (which I also felt bad about b/c... wtf are they going to do... something needs to happen now).<p>Luckily for the kid, she managed to get away and they stopped pursuing her. But man, the feeling of helplessness sucked pretty hard.
> I know San Francisco is a tight-knit community, and we like to think that we’d jump to help one another.<p>Really? Have you SEEN the homeless population there? Who the fuck is helping <i>them</i>?<p>> But what the hell was that? I’ve read all the psychology books. I know the typical explanations.<p>....then why are you asking? It's bystander effect, plain and simple. If you're expecting San Franciscans to go against human nature just because they write code, sorry, ain't gonna happen.<p>Get some pepper spray and some self defense classes and learn to fight dirty. Don't blame other people for not saving you; they have no obligation to.<p>> Is this how disconnected from the real world we’ve become?<p>It's how disconnected <i>the author</i> has become. I'm glad she's now got perspective on how the real world works. (I'm also glad she came out of that safe and sound; sounds like a really scary fucked up situation)
I was so certain this was absolutely impossible in the US. This is quite common in France, where a girl was raped in the train wagon and nobody did a ything. We have a law that makes it illegal NOT to help the other person if there's a danger. Yet noone moves.<p>I tried an experiment once quite recently on a train trip, to try and ask some young hysterical girl to calm herself down ( she was basically insulting everybody). What happend was this : seing that someone did something made the other passengers decided to act and speak their mind as well. The problem is that some guy decided to go physical on her and hit her on the face. I had to ask for help stopping him this time.<p>My conclusion was that :<p>1/ it only takes one person to make all the other personn move as well.<p>2/ you have to be really carefull because depending on the level of anger of the crowd, things can get extremely violent.
I expect to gather quite a few downvotes for this viewpoint but here it goes.<p>There is no way I would have intervened. I am a male and I can't see my involvement in the situation working out for me at all. Now you might say I'm wrong for putting my self-preservation above that on Kristen's but this isn't just about preventing physical harm to myself. In fact if I knew that I would only be cut (non-fatal) then I wouldn't have this stance. Instead I am worried about the ramifications of "attacking" a women in public like this.<p>We have seen countless times in the media where someone coming to the aid of someone in danger (not in an attack situation) has been sued for helping (just google "rescuer sued"). So if trying to help someone alone can get you screwed just think about what can happen when there are two people involved. What assurances do I have that I won't inadvertently hurt Kristen in the process and that she won't decide to sue me? Or that the attacker in this situation won't sue me for "attacking her" while trying to prevent her from stabbing Kristen (google "attacker sues victim")? I'll tell you: NONE. For all we know the attacker will sue Kristen for throwing hot coffee on her, this story isn't over yet.<p>Let's examine an example:<p>I intervene, I kick the attacker in the head to get her off Kristen. Let's ignore for now the chance that a bystander only see's me kick this women in the head and assumes it was unprovoked and then attacks me. Then Kristen gets up, shakily thanks me and the disappears into the crowd. I am left standing over the body of a women that I just physically assaulted. A bystander had pulled out their phone to film what was happening but only caught me kicking the women. If I leave the scene then there is a chance I will be hunted down and if I stay at the very least I am going to spend the rest of the day at the police station. The attacker stuffers brain damage from the kick and the family sues me for all I'm worth and I spend the rest of my life paying off the debt while waking up daily to the thought of "No good deed...".<p>I understand this is a worst case outcome but there is no way in hell I am going to risk my life AND if I survive the remainder of my life over a $600 phone and the contents of her bag, it simply is not worth it. I'd cover those costs with my first meeting with an attorney. If the attacker was actually stabbing Kristen then it would be a different story but that's not what happened. I've talked to people trained in various martial arts and the vast majority of them say that if they were mugged they would hand over their belongings. Mind you these are people trained to fight (whereas I can assure you I have no such training) but they know their lives are not worth their possessions.<p>TL;DR: A phone and purse are not worth the victims or a potential rescuers life (both immediate and long term)
<a href="https://twitter.com/ericallie/status/466682232166293504" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ericallie/status/466682232166293504</a><p>Posted this in her reply...
'Nuff said...
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.<p>Plus people are sheep, if not a single person is crazy enough to start and help someone else, then most of the time nobody will.
"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."<p>Just in case some of you here were losing faith in bystanders worldwide. ;-]
Not only a SF problem...
<a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/21/world/asia/taiwan-train-stabbing" rel="nofollow">http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/21/world/asia/taiwan-train-st...</a>
well, it the same when you pick the goat from the herd for slaughter. It screams a lot, but the herd does not care. Well behaved, docile, bred to be ignorant of each over.. Just like typical civilized man.
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.
hard to believe this is true, I'm in Toronto and some of the dark corners of US society are alien....but it's just sad. And I shouldn't have spent too much time reading the comments on here about hypothetical not-helping scenarios etc. sigh. Tough situation/sad.
Get a government that cares about their people (mental health care for everybody who needs it & a solid social security net) and these kind of stories should become very rare.