A hero fantasy

In an SF startup office, casual env w/whiteboards, a 34 year old rationalist EA supporting techbro, puritan and scotch-irish, who uses spreadsheets, risk profiles, even dating docs, or would, if necessary --- we now see that he arrives 45 minutes late to a meeting; he explains "I was following a pitbull whose owner was risking the lives of everyone at the park by having him there; I recently started carrying an anti-pitbull weapon in addition to always being vigilant against them. After all there were kids there and the pit wasn't muzzled and the leash was only weakly held by someone clearly not able to control the dog, let alone aware of the risk. Nothing happened in the end but I was there alongside ready to fend the dog off while others reach safety. obviously as all know, despite leaving room in my bayesian calculations for the certainty that yes, in all worlds there still must be some dog at the top of the rankings for danger to humans, highest for lethality rate, and also, in spite of independently estimating what I imagine what a fair value for such a one would be such that I would find the null hypothesis true, that nevertheless the actual harm rate pit bulls inflict is way way above that, I by prior commitment was bound to follow through on this, and it's not just a matter of that old yudkowsky-must-have-known-this-bias-by-age-10 thoughtstop phrase 'it all depends on the training' to escape a physical reality!, nor to the even lower-level and even more deserving of scorn phrase: "he's never done this before" which literally maps 1:1 with that old "post the image of the plane with red spots showing how one can be tricked by survivor bias when doing stats of surviving plans in a dangerous environment". Even if others never get attacked because of me, even as they correctly reevaluate my trustworthiness, perhaps lowering it since I'm removing the very adversarial events they're conditioning on, even were I to be hated, ignored by women, viewed as a scaredy cat, I know. (And also I know that there is a stasis; there will be latent attacks, on youtube for example, which I can point to; so I can save those around me, and still be represented correctly in the value market)

The other 3 at the meeting, just like him but perhaps older or younger, from different NE states, all nod; all momentarily close their eyes and see a vision of themselves, heroic, having read and evaluated the evidence and articles, each in their own way, they all concluded his actions were right, just as each of them had done in turn, starting to consider how best to fight off pitbulls from ones wife, cousin, nephew; how to maximally alert others via shouts; what words to choose; how to even perhaps convince or engage with pit owners and improve the level of knowledge of society? and each was prepared, by climbing to increase upper body strength, and by long distance biking, so that in event of running across a real-life situation or risk he'd be able to play his part; each envisions his simple natural spreadsheeting and caring behavior as totally normal and valid and necessary, obligatory even, yet knows that were this to happen he would still feel pride at having been useful, and would enjoy helping them, even while being cursed, yet also nurtures an imagined hope that perhaps just perhaps the world will not look down on techbros, rationalism, or EA quite so much, and might even consider going against their default hatred of them, and disdain, and instead open-mindedly ask themselves "wait, but what if EA is right... even in other cases?" And not with any bias do they patrol and watch out, keeping an eye always alert to pits or even mixed breed pits; they would save any child, any elder, any man or victim; they hold no bias except against the pit bulls; even those who disagree with don't deserve to be attacked; let alone their children who never even would have known what hit them! Those they protect are of all races, ages, men and women; they avoid bias using systematic methods, and treat all as individuals. Even the pitbulls themselves - I'm not motivated by hate, rather I'm mourning for their wasted lives and suffering as fighting dogs; I don't want to torture or punish the dogs, even the ones who attacked; but neither may I allow them to roam and harm others. So each of them feels he will take the risk, the hatred; even as they despise him, he will continue being suspicious of pit bulls, ready to defend them and their, using adhoc weaponry to construct defensive shields." The fantasy dissipates as each returns to continue his work responsibly, all silently re-swearing and re-promising to never rest in the war against pitbulls. Each swears: "I will kill the pitbull to protect those more deserving of life, even overcoming my own unwillingness to harm or kill. I will suffer the hatred of the world, to protect those who don't deserve harm, risking the wrath of Moloch."

Watch 30 minutes of these reports of Pit Bull attacks - interviews with survivors and regretful owners, mauled victims

Do you have the guts to really see reality? Is it possible that the other side is right?

Count how many times they say

• Something must have set him off
• I would never have thought this would happen
• He was not a vicious dog
• I don't understand how he snapped

Only perhaps 1/3 of the people interviewed ever seems to acknowledge that they shouldn't have trusted a pit bull.

This is not actually a laughing matter. These people are grieving.