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This matches my observation, which is one reason that I question just how crazy the bums are. I mean, sure, they obviously have self-destructive personalities, are frequently addicted to narcotics, and have extremely poor impulse control, but I think people are entirely too willing to accept the idea that this is about schizophrenia or that the gentleman in the subway was "having a mental health crisis". Maybe he's just, in the colloquial sense, a complete asshole. If a given belligerent vagrant is suffering more from just being a complete asshole than being mentally ill, I would expect them to exercise some degree of discretion when picking targets to harass for fun and profit, which seems more consistent with what I actually see. There's a continuum here as well as significant group overlap between those groups.
I agree that a lot of the cases of random attacks are just stupidity (sometimes drug-induced, sometimes not) interacting with being an asshole / wanting to fight, but I don't think the 'avoiding big people' is good evidence against it. "Don't directly challenge large enemies" is a fairly old instinct that almost every living thing that moves has, if despite meth mania you have enough instincts left to perceive where other people are and fight them, you probably have enough left to avoid 6'4 270lb powerlifter bubba
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Even animals recognize big and imposing as something to steer clear of, so I'm not sure it's evidence against being mentally unwell that they prefer to pick on women, old people, and small people.
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