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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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He would have to know the strength of the woman, the weight of the pot, how much water was in the pot, and when the woman was planned on releasing it in the throw. I imagine once he realized the woman was reaching for the boiling water and in the process of throwing it, he was intent on shooting her.

IMO this is all a game of “which world would you rather live in” —

  • Possibly schizophrenic woman throwing boiling water at “guy doing his job” is extolled as an innocent victim by the president and president elect, with “guy doing his job” being painted as a demon and going through a lengthy criminal trial

  • “Guy doing his job” is fired from his job because he is bad at it, but we don’t destroy his life, and we don’t valorize a crazy violent woman, we must move on and possibly implement nation-wide training for what to do in such an encounter

He would have to know the strength of the woman, the weight of the pot, how much water was in the pot, and when the woman was planned on releasing it in the throw.

And he knew the first three things to reasonable certainty, especially number 2 and number 3, because he was an adult human presumably with some experience around a kitchen. And what those should have added up to is there's no way she could have thrown enough water across the room to do him serious harm.

I'm an adult human with tons of experience around a kitchen. I have no bloody clue how far anyone can throw various quantities of water out of variously-designed pots. To use the ML lingo, it's not a thing in my training set.

Good point. I worry that this incident is going to end up like the Harambee incident, where everyone and their mother suddenly claimed to be experts on gorilla behavior and have very clear understanding of the precise limits of a gorilla's strength within a day of the event happening.

You don't have experience with pots of water? Gorillas are a bit more out of the average person's experience.

You have a point. But there are many variables. Like @ControlsFreak says, I've never even considered pots of water as a weapon, or even throwing them. I have no clue what this particular woman could or could not do. And water can have a weird sloshing effect which fights you when you try to move it quickly.