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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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I've spent a lot of time in my life doing BJJ and it's very hard to strangle somebody to death without realizing something has gone wrong long before that. It's not even a George Floyd situation where the restraint wasn't a conventional choke and/or it was very potentially a stress heart attack. The Marine was capable of restraining the homeless guy in far less risky positions.

  1. He is a marine, but he didn't spend his life "doing BJJ".

  2. This wasn't a controlled situation like a martial arts match.

The only way you're going to realize "something has gone wrong long before" the guy dies is if he stops struggling first.

You don’t have to spend a lifetime doing bjj, the rear naked choke is a move taught to beginners. The way it’s taught involves practicing it on other people, you see an instantaneous reaction from the other person the moment you apply pressure. It’s essentially impossible to learn the move without understanding what it does.

This is not to say I feel no sympathy for people defending themselves against a crazy person on the train, being a commuter myself, but the idea that someone could rear naked choke another person for two minutes and be surprised it was lethal is not realistic. The question is whether lethal force was warranted in the situation.

Did we watch the same video? I don't see a man being held still and unconscious for two minutes, I see a man struggling against restraint for two minutes that is eventually choked out. Here's the full video to the best of my knowledge. Until approximately the last 15-20 seconds of the video, he's still visibly struggling, which is presumably why the guy who applied the choke did not release it.

At this stage, I don't think we have sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion regarding whether reasonable people would have believed that the threat had ended.

It doesn't look like has the choke on perfectly in the first part, though we can't really see it the second minute.

At this stage, I don't think we have sufficient evidence to reach a conclusion regarding whether reasonable people would have believed that the threat had ended.

I agree, and as per my earlier comment I don't even have an opinion on whether he was unwarranted in using lethal force in the situation. My objection is to the idea that any trained person wouldn't understand that the rear naked choke isn't meant to restrain someone, it has deadly potential if held continuously. From his use of the move and his leg wrap around the guy's legs he clearly has training.

Honestly, I think that's reading too much into it. I think it's perfectly possible to have a long and successful martial arts career without ever needing to internalize the potential lethality of any hold if it were used beyond the point of tapping out, because it never comes to that in organized settings.

I honestly really don't think that's true, when you practice this live it's totally normal to see people pass out if they're stubborn or don't tap out quickly enough. Even if you just watch the sport you'll see this happen regularly.

I disagree. I did various martial arts for over a decade and only ever choked a person out once. People all tap out before that or tug their chin in and you just let go after a while.

From your above comment you did judo? How often are rear naked chokes used? I thought pushing down on the back head as part of a choke was fully banned in judo tbh. I've seen people go out more times than I can count in bjj and have come close to passing out myself.

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