This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Epistemic Status: I have zero experience with knife fighting and plentiful experience playfighting with children.
This is a thing where my brain just declines to recognize the danger. Even aside from the strength issue, most 12 year old girls are just not terribly coordinated. An athletic girl from say, the top 10%? Yeah, ok, she has solid odds of making it hurt. Less likely to be somewhere vital, because I'll have about a foot of reach, even discounting the length of the blade. But my mental model of a median 12 year old says I'd be more likely to accidentally hurt her trying to disarm her than to be seriously injured in the process.
But I fully admit that this might be a "I can totally wrestle a black bear" situation. I'd try to do the marker test with my own kid, but I'm honestly worried about going too hard and accidentally hurting her.
Maybe that's the issue. A 12 year old girl can feign vulnerability and get in close for knifework. IIRC, that was what the Japanese were telling their schoolgirls to do if the Americans invaded back in the day. Under real world conditions, I would probably try to be gentle, and maybe suffer sorely for the sake of chivalry. Because if bloodlusted, I feel confident that I would wreck any 12 year old girl in a fight, knife or no.
You see, she doesn't even have to feign vulnerability, the biggest danger to you is your own desire to minimize the amount of violence. It's the American cop problem in reverse.
If you memorize the rule that you don't go for the weapon even if your opponent is a child, then defeating a knife-wielding 12-year-old girl in a fight is easy. Trip her or knock her down.
More options
Context Copy link
My thinking is less from playfighting girls, and more from a childhood spent playing with knives and cutting myself a fair bit in the process. Sharp knives require very little force to cut or to pierce, and the motions needed are natural and instinctive. Fuck up the disarm and you can do all the cutting yourself, just bumping into the edge whilst trying to get to the limb behind it. And sure, a tweener girl is likely to have the aggressive mindset to go on the offense, and may be uncoordinated enough that you can just grab her wrist before she can flinch, and probably that knife is even pretty dull because she probably doesn't know how to sharpen it. Probably.
My claim is not that a girl so armed is certain or even likely to win a fight with an adult man. She is not. My argument is that a tweener girl brandishing a ~7-inch chef's knife is making a very serious threat, because a knife can hurt you very badly with very little force.
The marker test is going to tell you mostly about the point. Get a cardboard box and a hot-glue gun, glue together two layers of cardboard and then cut out the knife shape with a boxcutter. paint the edge with food coloring or acrylic paint or whatever. tell her she gets ice cream if she gets a line on you. there's a big difference between trying to get past a quarter-inch of marker tip, and trying to get past six or seven inches of blade.
I was a den leader through cub scouts. The day we did Totin' Chip, the first boy showed up and I set him at the dining room table with my own boy, and then walked into the kitchen to finish gathering supplies. When I came back, not even 20 seconds later, the both of them were bleeding. It was one of those "I'm not even mad, that's almost impressive" moments.
But yeah, I get that this is likely a situation where my gut confidence is ignorance and arrogance. And yet...
More options
Context Copy link
If the girl is not actively on the attack, just brandishing the knife (as in the video), you have first-mover advantage. So long as she's within reach and you act first, you can get ahold of her wrist 100 times out of 100. It's the same concept as quickdraw guys who can draw and fire a holstered double-action revolver before an alert adult can react, so long as they choose when to draw:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ELaiJZ8tjSk&t=249
This doesn't win a knife fight against somebody strong enough to fight back once you've got a grip on them, but in the case in question it's pretty hard for me to see much (physical) risk.
Do we know how much of that is from practice though? And genetically faster reflexes/selection bias if you're interested in being a "quickdraw guy"? Can the average man really reach to disarm a knife faster than the knife holder can cut the disarming arm? I'm asking because I'm not sure, I don't know the answer here?
Drawing a gun and firing a (roughly) aimed shot inside human reaction (+movement) time does take a lot of practice -- reaching out and grabbing somebody's wrist, I'd think not so much. Faster reflexes don't really come into it -- the first mover is deciding when to act; his 'reaction' time is zero.
Yes, if he's within reach -- this is why police etc are taught to create and maintain distance from people that they're interacting with when they draw their handgun.
It's important to note (as I mentioned) that this doesn't necessarily get you much against a physically comparable opponent -- if you have a hold of his knife arm, his other arm is still free to pummel you with -- and if he overpowers your grip on his knife hand, you are in a very convenient spot to be stabbed. But a 12 yo girl is a whole different story.
If the "Ultimate Self Defence Championship" is anything to go by, then defending yourself, unarmed, against a fit and aggressive adult man is just about impossible.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Surely this isn't in question. The question is whether, after you've wrecked her, you're going to find you've got an artery gushing out.
The old saw about how "the loser of a knife fight dies in the street, the winner dies in the hospital" probably wasn't taking scared little girls into account, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was still enough of a risk to worry about. IIRC one comment here talked about taking away her hatchet and ignored the knife; slip up like that in reality and you're likely to end up with one hand holding a hatchet and the other hand holding the first hand's sliced up wrist.
The kid's probably too young to have heard the phrase down the road, not across the street, right? You'd probably be fine.
Whoever said that had it exactly ass-backwards, unless she's a surprisingly talented sharpener in her spare time -- that kind of ax isn't even supposed to be very sharp, they work better for splitting wood if they have a somewhat obtuse edge (compared to a knife or something). I doubt she could break the skin with that one even, and a skinny 12 y.o. can't generate enough blunt force to do much damage unless you offered her your noggin or something.
Grab her knife arm and twist it behind her back, end of story.
More options
Context Copy link
And his answer is "no". Guys... I used to be a shoved-in-the-locker nerd, and the stuff people are saying here makes me want to start shoving people in lockers. We're talking about early-teenage girl here. Sure, if she goes into berserker mode, loses all social inhibitions and fear of pain, taps into some forgotten animal instinct that tells here which vulnerable spots to go for, she just might get lucky and do actual damage. Now look at the actual video, none of these things are likely to happen by my estimation, but even if they did, I'm putting my money on the adult man kicking her teeth in, and walking away without a scratch.
The most likely way for the guy to get hurt would be the "feigning vulnerability" route that Iconochasm mentioned.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link