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passive_fist comments on London LW CoZE exercise report - Less Wrong
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I've noticed that in my own behavior I'm somewhat reluctant to go into bars because the atmosphere in bars is all about being macho and dominant, and it's hard to be that way in unfamiliar surroundings. A way to adapt to such a situation fast would be to simply get drunk and start a bar fight for no reason, but I'm pretty sure I'd get pummelled. The closest I ever got to a bar fight was staring a guy down and him pushing me (I stood my ground but didn't push back; I later left). Can anyone think of any sane alternatives that could toughen me up but wouldn't risk major injury or time at the police station?
Full contact martial arts could be a good way to expose you to risk/injury without it being too great. Training for Strongman competitions is a great way to develop strength, endurance, and mental toughness, which can be useful assets to have for confidence. I'm less afraid of confrontation now that I'm much stronger than most people.
So? That's normal.
-- Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
-- Don't do it, then.
Any particular reason why you need to go into bars?
A really bad idea, this will train you to associate bars with lots of pain and hospital stays.
You want to toughen up to do what? The goal of gaining actual fighting ability is different from the goal of raising self-esteem, for example.
The usual way is to take martial arts classes, preferably serious ones (ask the sensei/sifu whether his students fought in tournaments, ideally full-contact ones, and how well did they do).
Isn't that a perfectly good argument against CoZE in general?
My experience is that pain is a lot less bad than you think it will be. Much like "if you're scared of losing your money, try living on a small income for a while, it turns out not to be so bad", I think if you're scared of getting hurt, actually getting hurt and finding out it's not so bad is a reasonable strategy.
No, because in CoZE psychological discomfort is the price you pay for advancing towards a deliberate goal.
I don't know why OP goes to bars -- maybe he does have a goal, or maybe he just does it because that's what guys are supposed to do. In the latter case "don't do it, then" is good advice.
Could be, but only if you control the outcome (the amount of pain and long-term damage to your body). If you can't control it, as in e.g. a bar fight, it looks like a really unreasonable idea to me. You get a broken bottle shoved into your face and you lose an eye, or you wake up in a couple of day with brain trauma and find yourself to be considerably stupider...
I think it's reasonable to assume that he does have some goal, such as "hanging out with my friends who enjoy spending time in bars". Or even just "it's what guys are supposed to do and I don't want to take the status hit".
It's possible that he's asking for advice on doing something that he doesn't really want to do, but your post came across like you were just assuming that was the case.
Are you really assessing the dangers rationally here? Every possible activity involves some risk of long-term harm.
Yes, but that "some" risk can be very different.
Consider white-water kayaking. In case #1 you drive with friends to some rapids near a city, with good cell reception in the area, and proceed to run the rapids. Is there risk? Sure. How much? Not that much. If necessary friends will pull you out of the water and drive you to the hospital or will be able to call an ambulance, etc.
Now, in case #2 you take your kayak and go solo on a multi-day trip down a white-water river that runs through a wild roadless area. Is there risk? Sure. How much? A LOT.
Which of those examples do you think the risk level of starting a bar fight is more similar to?
Neither, really. My point is that your estimate of the damage you will suffer in a bar fight is highly uncertain. Maybe you'll just get shoved out of the door with zero damage. Or maybe you'll get a cracked skull and go into coma.
Basically you can't manage your risk.
Sorry, how is this different from going kayaking, even in the safest way available? In either case you can calculate statistically what the risks are, and you can take some actions to make some of the risks smaller, but there's a pretty clear lower bound, a minimum risk to doing the activity at all.
The difference is not in the lower bound, the difference is in the plausible upper bound.
The theoretical upper bound is the same everywhere -- a comet lands on your head, done. But the plausible upper bound for a bar fight is pretty high. Not that I have much personal experience, but it's probably possible to dig out police/hospital statistics on the outcomes of bar brawls.
Keep in mind, it's not the risk of you going into a bar and, by chance, becoming entangled in a scuffle. It is the risk of damage conditional on you starting a fight.
I believe it depends on the bar.
It depends on who you are with and what bar it is (as well as your physical fitness, and other things) -- much like in the kayak case.
I disagree that starting a fight is a good way to do that. It may be true that signaling masculinity is one way to gain status in a bar. But there are other ways to signal, like talking confidently.
You can also go for intelligent, cute, funny, or wealthy.
Who are you going to bars with?