Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
That seems...very prone to hindsight bias. Obviously after a terrible thing happens, you're going to sort through events and find a bunch of things that seem like potential red flags in full context. But that's very different from saying that every time you have a negative feeling about someone or something, you should believe it. It may well be true, at least for well-calibrated people. But I think you would need more complex experimental techniques to be sure: perhaps you could mix in fictional testimonies with the real ones and see whether third parties can pick out the real from the fake, or something.
Mostly, if I don't like someone fairly quickly I'll stay not liking them. But there are definitely people I've disliked and then got closer to as I got to know them better, or people who improved over time.
I would guess that some people have very different baseline tendencies to be generous to strangers; some people are far too prone to ignoring danger signals and need to be more careful and listen to their gut. But 'when you're nervous about somebody, probably there's something wrong with them' sounds very close to other causes of misery in the past like 'if you have a bad relationship with your father, probably he raped you and you suppressed the memory' or 'any young man who expresses interest in you and doesn't pick up the subtle signs that you're not interested is a potential stalker or rapist'.
Obviously I have a dog in this fight: as a young and well-mannered but unfortunately incel-ish man, female paranoia (I can't think of a less charged term, sorry) is something I'm nervous about encouraging.
I'm probably misrepresenting him somewhat, since I had read less than a quarter of the book at that point (and still less than half). Not dealing with fake "repressed" memories does seem like a weakness -- what if they just made some of the details up subconsciously? I haven't read far enough to know if he deals with this.
He says things like: if you are a woman putting groceries in your car or something, and a man comes up to help you, and you feel even a little bit uncomfortable about it, stand up, face him, and say "no" definitively and forcefully. If he's a decent guy, his feelings will be a bit hurt, and you will get no help. If he isn't, he'll keep testing your boundaries, be very firm about them, insisting and not just going away is a sign that he's up to no good. There's probably someone who needs to hear that? I don't really have opinions about it, but am a bit curious to see where he's going.
I think all this is fair. Scott’s essay on how some people need to hear diametrically opposite advice always struck me as one of his more insightful essays.
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