I saw a guy get beaten to death and didn't do anything about it

[KidCanuck]

So what I really wanted to ask you all is that were my actions reasonable? Was I a bad person for walking away like that?

You were in shock. Perfectly natural reaction to seeing something like that.

From Wikipedia:

The symptoms show great variation but typically include an initial state of "daze", with some constriction of the field of consciousness and narrowing of attention, inability to comprehend stimuli, and disorientation.

This state may be quickly followed by either further withdrawal from the surrounding situation (to the extent of a dissociative stupor), or by agitation and overactivity, anxiety, impaired judgement, confusion, detachment, and depression. Autonomic signs of panic anxiety (tachycardia, sweating, flushing) are also commonly present.

[Deleted]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusi...responsibility

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Also look up Piliavin's Bystander-Calculus Model and Latane and Darley's Cognitive Model.

How you acted is the same as pretty much everyone else. You are not a bad person, you simply found yourself in a high risk situation that could have put yourself at risk. Evolution wouldn't work so well if every creature threw itself at possible danger to save another.

[apepi]

This reminds me of in Seinfeld the final episode they get in trouble because of Good Samaritan laws.

[Choptimus]

Build yourself an Iron Man suit.

[Monoxyde]

i find this thread really funny after the responses to the one about the elderly former SS guard. why should that man have killed himself to fail at saving some of the jewish prisoners while this guy did the right thing by saving himself?

[yetgdhfgh]

Life is very cheap in places like pakistan sadly

You did the right thing not getting involved and i think the police prolly wouldnt have been much help had you called them

[Shoekron]

Yep, Pakistan is sure an awful place. Good thing we're busily whacking the worst of these fiends with impunity from the air.

[Garehn Vi-Brittania]

Being killed in a gun fight with the purpose of having a small yet realistic chance of saving an innocent? I call that a worthy death.

A Worthy death? no offense man but you've been watching too many movies and playing too many games.

[Deleted]

Don't feel bad. I don't think anybody on these forums would have played the hero, even if they'd like us to believe they would. There's a great deal of difference between how you would like to think you would act, and how you really do act in those situations, you can prepare yourself mentally for these situations and even truly believe yourself that you could handle it, but when push comes to shove, its a whole different ballgame and nobody can predict how it will affect them.

I don't know if it's a fair comparison, but my friend's cousin talked about how he thought he would act fine in combat during his time in the military, he thought he was prepared and that he would perform just fine, but when it all went off around him for the first time, he didn't handle it anything like he had thought. You are not a bad person, and frankly, if you had played the hero, we'd just have yet another dead person on the side of the street.

[StayTuned]

The moment I've read Pakistan I knew that what you did wasn't bad, but rather self defense. I do not want to bash your nation, but some parts of this world are simply more brutal than others.

Those people are not your average drunken Joe. They will kill you, too. Don't get yourself killed, it's a shitty thing to do.

Also, DEATHETERNAL, just stop it please. I think you've got no idea what you're talking about. One does not mess with (drug) gangs, especially not in Pakistan.....

I would even believe you that you'd try and stop a fight (even a knife fight or HELL even a GUN fight) in America, or just about any other place on this planet, but Pakistan? Comon'

[xChurch]

No one wants to die, you did the right thing. Anyone who wants us to believe they'd throw their life away for silly notion of protecting innocent people or heroism is either just trying to seem tough, or really hasn't thought much about what death truely means. Life is precious, and it is a terrible, terrible thing to have witnessed that man lose his, but it would have helped no one if you had lost yours as well. Anyone who has been in those kinds of situations will tell you it's not cowardice to run when the odds are stacked heavily against you, in fact its plain stupid to pointlessly throw away your life.

[Silhouette of Seraphim]

Congratulations, you're not stupid.

Kudos.

Now go live life like a boss.

[Giants41]

Thats really traumatizing. I think no matter what most people say, the toughest of the tough would have done the same. I'd like to think i wouldn't but i probably would. Just be thankful you have a civilized country to go back to.

[someotherguy]

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. " - Edmund Burke

Realistically though in a country like Pakistan you did what you could to survive, and the quote doesn't say you must confront every fight head on.

Posting here raises awareness of the area, even that is a small battle in itself.

[Adam Jensen]

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. " - Edmund Burke

Realistically though in a country like Pakistan you did what you could to survive, and the quote doesn't say you must confront every fight head on.

Posting here raises awareness of the area, even that is a small battle in itself.

Well, Burke is still correct. Evil did triumph that day and good men stood by and did nothing. But it is not the fault of those good men that evil triumphed, but the fault of there being such corruption in that region that men had no hope to be effective in the face of evil. Had the OP intervened, there'd be two victims instead of one and evil would still have triumphed.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

I was sort of believing it up until the point you claimed to know the taxi driver and knew his name and stuff.



UM I DON'T LIKE THE IDEA OF SACRIFICING MYSELF TO SAVE SOMEONE ELSE AND I BELIEVE THAT ANYONE WHO FEELS THE INNER DUTY TO PROTECT ANOTHER PERSON'S LIFE IS INSANE BECAUSE IT GOES AGAINST BASIC NATURAL INSTINCT.

Mmochampion Forums at work, people.

Throwing away your life for no good reason is insanity. You might like to think you're being noble, but it's just stupidity.

I'm not exactly defending the guy who made the original "worthy death" post, but being an assumptuious prick who just thinks that anyone who says they'd go out of their own safety to protect an innocent is just some skinny/fat nerd who watches kung-fu movies is, well, no better than being a fat/skinny nerd who watches kung-fu movies.

Granted, of course, it's likely that 90% of the time the person talking about how they'd jump in and try to save someone's life IS in fact just talking out of their ass to try and look cool, it doesn't mean everyone is some big teddy bear who wouldn't do anything to help someone else if it meant putting their own life in danger, and it sure as HELL doesn't mean that that person is "insane" for going against some incredibly primal instinct as if humans are just animals that have no real control over how they behave in situations of danger.

But, again, Mmochampion forums.

So you're calling me an assumptuious prick when you took a post about throwing your life away in a futile attempt to save somebody else being insane to be an assumption that everybody is some nerd who watches kung fu movies.

[TheGravemind]

I have a friend who lost his uncle in Pakistan to something kind of similar to this. Over there (and indeed much of the third world), you're just another number.

It's sickening, and yea yea yea, I'm just an internet tough guy (as many of you like to say), but I would've gone into a righteous fury and died fighting those goons who beat some poor kid's father to death. (Expletive) them. I don't think I'd think life is worth living if it was purchased at the price of watching an innocent man die to (expletive) punks. Nah.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 06:23 AM ----------

Self preservation is man's foremost thought. Blame nature for you wanting to save your own life, not yourself

Rofl, I love pretentious people such as yourself who walk into threads like this and assume blatantly idiotic things regarding the human condition. Speak for yourself; my first and foremost thought would NEVER be self-preservation in this scenario. Of course, not everyone shares the same mentality, which is why an asinine blanket statement is not warranted from your part.

Be a paragon of virtue or die trying. That's my motto, yo.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 06:27 AM ----------

I call that insanity. Like, have you ever been evaluated? Because if you want to save innocent lives, you don't throw your own life away in a vain attempt to save one person. Throwing your life away in such a manner is counter to survival instincts, which is where the insanity comes in. It isn't strength that allows you to do something foolish.

You call that insanity? What grants you the position to judge whether or not an impressively altruistic position is insanity or not? That seems awfully self-absorbed of you considering that you seem to think that your shallow world view of self-preservation should reign supreme. Not all of us think like that, certainly not DEATHETERNAL and myself thus far.

It's not about cold calculations regarding how to save the most number of innocents either; you may never get a second chance. Leave no one behind or die trying to.

Counter to survival instincts, you say? Did you think Master-at-Arms Second Class Michael A. Mansoor was running contrary to his survival instincts when he jumped on a grenade that he obviously thought would surely kill him (and it did) to save his comrades?

There are some in humanity who ascend above the petty masses, and they are the great among us. It's best not to chide them for being so altruistic as it ultimately makes you seem like the fool ignorant of what sanity means, not you.

Good God, the world is extremely selfish now.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 06:32 AM ----------

Your goal and my goal in such a situation are different then. Yours is to stay safe. Mine is to help the innocent. Death or imprisonment for the sake of having a realistic chance of potentially saving an innocent is well worth it. If you have to go to an evil place like where this man was, be ready to defend the innocent or don't go there. To go there and then stand by while the innocent are harmed and killed before your face is to give passive approval or at least no contest to such actions.

It's a sanity-inducing experience to see someone who thinks for the other rather for himself for once posting on MMO-C. Although posters on here seem to foolishly believe that simply because someone boasts of doing noble deeds on the internet renders them incapable of doing so in real life, it is respectable to see someone share altruistic sentiments regarding the atrocity described within the OP.

Just because you don't have the (possibly reckless) gallantry to rise up and intervene does not mean that someone posting here who claims to does not. Not everyone is like your cowardly self. Believe it.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 06:33 AM ----------

I'm not exactly defending the guy who made the original "worthy death" post, but being an assumptuious prick who just thinks that anyone who says they'd go out of their own safety to protect an innocent is just some skinny/fat nerd who watches kung-fu movies is, well, no better than being a fat/skinny nerd who watches kung-fu movies.

Granted, of course, it's likely that 90% of the time the person talking about how they'd jump in and try to save someone's life IS in fact just talking out of their ass to try and look cool, it doesn't mean everyone is some big teddy bear who wouldn't do anything to help someone else if it meant putting their own life in danger, and it sure as HELL doesn't mean that that person is "insane" for going against some incredibly primal instinct as if humans are just animals that have no real control over how they behave in situations of danger.

But, again, Mmochampion forums.

+1 a very sensible post.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 06:35 AM ----------

i find this thread really funny after the responses to the one about the elderly former SS guard. why should that man have killed himself to fail at saving some of the jewish prisoners while this guy did the right thing by saving himself?

I think everyone in that crowd was obligated to help save the man (and they would be in places with a Good Samaritan law), but they didn't. In this case, since the OP did not participate in the actual murder or promote it as the Nazi SS guard did, the OP is not an utterly terrible person for standing by.

---------- Post added 2012-12-11 at 06:38 AM ----------

The moment I've read Pakistan I knew that what you did wasn't bad, but rather self defense. I do not want to bash your nation, but some parts of this world are simply more brutal than others.

Those people are not your average drunken Joe. They will kill you, too. Don't get yourself killed, it's a shitty thing to do.

Also, DEATHETERNAL, just stop it please. I think you've got no idea what you're talking about. One does not mess with (drug) gangs, especially not in Pakistan.....

I would even believe you that you'd try and stop a fight (even a knife fight or HELL even a GUN fight) in America, or just about any other place on this planet, but Pakistan? Comon'

Don't get yourself killed in a heroic act to save another while epitomizing the precepts of altruism? I suppose you should tell Master-at-Arms Michael A. Mansoor, recipient of the Medal of Honor, that he did a shitty thing by getting himself killed to save his squad mates. Perhaps even Roy P. Benavidez is stupid to you as well? He would have jumped in and died saving that man if it came down to it. I laugh at how self-absorbed you are in your judgments against the courageous in a pathetic and laughable attempt to justify your own cowardice.

[UnionPrime]

Well, Burke is still correct. Evil did triumph that day and good men stood by and did nothing. But it is not the fault of those good men that evil triumphed, but the fault of there being such corruption in that region that men had no hope to be effective in the face of evil. Had the OP intervened, there'd be two victims instead of one and evil would still have triumphed.

If everyone in that crowd possessed the courage of a hero to rise up and defend the man, then perhaps everyone in the neighborhood could rise up against the crime gangs, and the government could rise up against corruption, and society could rise up against organized evil, and good would triumph over evil.

It's funny how these things work. If everyone was as heroic was they should be, the world would be a great place. Alas, they are not, so the world sucks, and sentiments shared by you contribute to it directly.

Stand up.

[TheGravemind]

Throwing away your life for no good reason is insanity. You might like to think you're being noble, but it's just stupidity.



So you're calling me an assumptuious prick when you took a post about throwing your life away in a futile attempt to save somebody else being insane to be an assumption that everybody is some nerd who watches kung fu movies.

Your thinking and extrapolations of events are fundamentally flawed. Say that the OP had intervened, perhaps gotten shot, but incited the crowd into a rebellious rage so that the man would've been able to escape, the following would have resulted:

1. A family (and presumably a little boy) would still have a father.
2. An innocent man would have been saved.
3. Justice would have occurred.
4. Good would have triumphed over the depraved forces of evil.
5. A hero who sacrificed himself for the greater good would have died, but in the spirit of humanity and in the spirit of the highest echelons of heroism.

Now let's go with your "sane" order of action:

1. A family (and a little boy/girl presumably) is without a father. In Pakistan, this means that they are destined for a life of poverty, misery, despair, sadness that their father is gone, and an exile to the slums.
2. An innocent man is dead at the hands of evil thugs.
3. Justice has not occured, nay, but the opposite has. The exact opposite. Sickening.
4. Good did not triumph over evil.
5. A normal, mediocre human is alive. Sure, no one can expect him to lay his life down for another, but not doing so makes him just another drone who refuses to shatter the pattern of exclusive self-concern.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

You call that insanity? What grants you the position to judge whether or not an impressively altruistic position is insanity or not? That seems awfully self-absorbed of you considering that you seem to think that your shallow world view of self-preservation should reign supreme. Not all of us think like that, certainly not DEATHETERNAL and myself thus far.

It's not simply self-preservation but accomplishing anything. I call it insanity when you make gigantic sacrifices for no reason other than some sense that you're doing the right thing even though nothing good will come of it. If you look at the results, you have Result A: one innocent dies and Result B: two innocents die, you would prefer Result A to Result B, would you not? But, when you are presented with that situation, you pick Result B because it also comes with the immature feeling that you 'did the right thing' even though you're getting the inferior result.

Also, if you're going to question my ability to judge, why are you yourself also judging?

Your thinking and extrapolations of events are fundamentally flawed. Say that the OP had intervened, perhaps gotten shot, but incited the crowd into a rebellious rage so that the man would've been able to escape, the following would have resulted:

1. A family (and presumably a little boy) would still have a father.
2. An innocent man would have been saved.
3. Justice would have occurred.
4. Good would have triumphed over the depraved forces of evil.
5. A hero who sacrificed himself for the greater good would have died, but in the spirit of humanity and in the spirit of the highest echelons of heroism.

Now let's go with your "sane" order of action:

1. A family (and a little boy/girl presumably) is without a father. In Pakistan, this means that they are destined for a life of poverty, misery, despair, sadness that their father is gone, and an exile to the slums.
2. An innocent man is dead at the hands of evil thugs.
3. Justice has not occured, nay, but the opposite has. The exact opposite. Sickening.
4. Good did not triumph over evil.
5. A normal, mediocre human is alive. Sure, no one can expect him to lay his life down for another, but not doing so makes him just another drone who refuses to shatter the pattern of exclusive self-concern.

You're ignoring the context of the situation. You think that some miracle event would happen when the reality of that situation is that he would have gotten himself killed, one way or another. Read the OP's post beyond the basic description of a guy being beaten up by other people.