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Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 1:29 pm
by pinback
You're an idiot.

Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 3:42 pm
by RetroRomper
I take it no one in this thread has ever used Uber, Lyft, whatever? Literally a stranger will usually give you candy when jumping into their car...

Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 5:08 pm
by pinback
Everyone has except Billy, because STRANGER DANGER!!

Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 6:40 pm
by AArdvark
REEP REEP REEP!

Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:50 pm
by Bob Ross' Joy of Painting
Ok, now I'm convinced you guys are just trolling me.

Anybody who is convinced that having anything to do with hitching is a good idea is just a sheep living among wolves, have fun with that.

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:51 pm
by Tdarcos
Bob Ross' Joy of Painting wrote:Ok, now I'm convinced you guys are just trolling me.

Anybody who is convinced that having anything to do with hitching is a good idea is just a sheep living among wolves, have fun with that.
The average person in civilized society is not a sociopathic killer or someone interested in committing brutal violence. While the mass media doesn't report it because only bad news drives ratings ("if it bleeds, it leads,") the vast majority of people in Western Civilization are usually decent, law abiding people. Crime in general has been going down over the last few years. The fact that the slug lines in Northern Virginia have been operating as a de facto organized hitchhiking system for over 25 years with zero incidents seems to prove the point.

Is it necessarily a good idea to do this sort of thing? Under ordinary circumstances of someone you do not know it probably isn't, but for men the odds of an attack are less than they are for a woman.

Consider that if you meet someone on-line - and I am one who has done so, multiple times - sooner or later you're going to have to go out and meet a stranger in person. Now, fact remains, in most cases I'd been talking to someone - on line and/or on the telephone - for anywhere from several days to a month, at some point you have to pull the trigger[1] and take a chance. For a lot of us, we don't have a lot of time to go places to socialize and we may not necessarily find someone either interesting or interested in going out with you at work.

It used to be said, "a stranger is someone we haven't met," or sometimes more liberally as, "a stranger is a friend we haven't met."

As a notary public I see strangers on a regular basis; back when I could walk I went to people's houses either to watch them sign their refinance papers for their mortgage, or people would call me to have me come out to their house because something they needed notarized had to be done right away. Now, because I advertise, people call me or walk up to my house to have something notarized. I've never had a problem over the fourteen years I've been licensed either in Virginia, Maryland or both. Well, one time a woman's dog tried to bite me but that's not a threat from a person.

I think the biggest thing in discouraging hitchhiking was, more than anything else, to make women careful so they wouldn't be overpowered, or attacked, or sexually assaulted.

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[1] "To pull the trigger" is an expression meaning to act on a particular choice. When I go to Amazon.com because I'm considering buying something but I'm not sure I should, at some point I either need to abandon the item and forget it, or select a payment option and "pull the trigger" and order. The phrase has no violent connotations.

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 9:24 pm
by Ice Cream Jonsey
Tdarcos wrote:The average person in civilized society is not a sociopathic killer or someone interested in committing brutal violence.
Wait. What? This isn't true. I know you're going to make me find the studies, but this was debunked a few years back.