Jinn

Willravel, the point is that the odds only matter when it hasn't happened.

Let's randomly assume the odds of a woman being sexually assaulted by a stranger are 1 in 1,500,000. By your logic, a woman shouldn't be concerned about it, because it's not a "reasonable response to probability of danger."

If that same woman, who thought the odds were so low that she needn't prepare for it, is kidnapped and sexually assaulted by three men, do you think that her perception of the "likelihood" would change? It's still 1 in 1,500,000, but I doubt you could convince her that it was 'unlikely'. Do you think she might prepare herself differently in the future, despite the "unlikely" chance that it will happen again?

If her perception changes from before the attack and after the attack, then this your equation of "what're the odds? should I prepare for something so unlikely to happen" isn't the only thing that we should consider. Not only should we consider the likelihood, but we should consider the consequences, in the event that that probability is realized. What are the CONSEQUENCES to my physical and mental being if I'm that "1" in the probability? People prepare for unlikely things just because they recognize that in the unlikely chance it does happen, the time spend preparing would be pay dividends compared to the consequence.

While I recognize that the odds of me (a upper middle class white male) being involved in a physical confrontation with deadly force is quite unlikely, the potential consequences of being unprepared (death or sexual assault) far outweigh the relatively minuscule amount of time I can spend now to "prepare" for my defense. In things where the odds are 1 in a million and the only consequence would be minor pain, I'm OK not preparing for it. But when I think about something that's 1 in less than a million with potential consequences including permanent death, I prepare differently.

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel