Nisan comments on Avoiding Factual Muggings - Less Wrong

4 Post author: KenChen 27 April 2011 04:41PM

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Comment author: Nisan 27 April 2011 09:18:17PM 11 points [-]

My Taekwondo teacher would ask the class:

Suppose I try to punch you. What do you do? ... Run away!

He would also say:

Suppose I break your nose. What do you do? ... Call your lawyer!

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 April 2011 09:13:38PM 16 points [-]

Long, long ago, I think at around age nine or something, I was taking a Tae Kwon Do class.

At one point the master said to me, "Attack me."

I gave him a skeptical look.

He said, "Attack me the way you would attack me in real life."

I raised my finger and thumb, pointed it at him, and said "Bang."

He laughed and called up the next student.

Comment author: XiXiDu 01 May 2011 10:07:51AM *  2 points [-]

I raised my finger and thumb, pointed it at him, and said "Bang."

I think that might be a bad choice for close combat. I heard knifes are superior for short ranges...

ETA

(I guess that explains why he laughed at you...a lot to learn about close combat.)

Comment author: bogdanb 13 May 2011 02:56:08PM 3 points [-]

I’m by no means an expert, but I’d expect the situation be quite lower from the attacking perspective. A gun might not be a very useful defense against a surprise knife attack, but for a surprise attack I think a gun would do quite well, even against someone holding a knife.

Note that in Eliezer’s story the question was how a 9 year old might attack a martial arts instructor, not how he would defend from him.