Monthly Article Index

Youtube Video of the Week – Jordan Peterson on Nazism and Communism

After a week of more conflict it is interesting to reflect on what Nazism and Communism actually did, the millions killed, the misery and pain inflicted on billions.

Jordan Peterson describes his motivation to fight back against all forms of totalitarianism, this is for my friends in America in particular, if you want the whole book ‘Maps of Meaning’ is available from the link below.

Stay safe people, lose your strings, don’t lie to yourself and think freely.

Regards, Garry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXXG_sOjPDk

https://joeclark.org/peterson/peterson_mapsofmeaning-en.pdf

Facebook Post of the Week – Liam Jackson

As expected, the defense team for James Fields is already at work painting Fields as a “victim” who was merely fleeing from the scene rather than targeting anti-protesters. Allegedly, people associated with Antifa had assaulted his car with baseball bats just prior Fields driving his car into the crowd. Supporters of Fields claim he wasn’t attacking anyone. He was “just afraid for his life.” Those same supporters claim Antifa and BLM supporters came to the rally armed with bats and other weapons.

Meanwhile, the white supremacist site, The Dailey Stormer, promises “bigger and better” neo-nazi rallies in the very near future. (The Virginia rally begs the question, “How does the DS define “bigger and better? By body count?”

The point of all this? Several, in fact. First, as Fields traverses the legal system, it’s reasonable to expect both extremist sides to become rather animated. (re: violent as hell) If by some twisted act of fate Fields is exonerated or receive a reduced sentence based on mitigating circumstances, the alt-Left will make all previous protests and rallies look like a slow day at Sunday school. And the Neo-Nazi movement will be screaming “blood and soil” from the top of the proverbial mountain.

If Fields receives the maximum penalty, he’s an instant Neo-Nazi martyr.

Now, an excerpt from the Idiot’s Guide to Civil Warfare- Chapter 1: “Escalation”

“Boys and girls, “escalation” works like this: First, you have “differences.” Differences in appearances, social mores, ideals, motivations, and in some instances behaviours. Thus, the Us and Them mindset begins to establish itself. Next, someone from Side A articulates those differences, pointing out the perceived , or perhaps in some cases legitimate inadequacies of “Side B’s” position(s). Side B responds in kind, yet in a higher volume. This, of course, really infuriates Side A. So Side A responds in kind, yet louder still by an order of magnitude. And all the while, both A and B are screaming at any remaining sides “Those rat bastids are out to get ya’! Your only hope is to join us!”

At this point, rational thought has surrendered with a whimper to Emotion. Armed with the ever dangerous Emotion, the arch enemy of Logic, someone resorts to physical violence. He punches someone from the other side. This where the real fun (not!) begins.

A punches B. B retaliates by buying mace. A retaliates by hitting B in the head with a stick. B retaliates by hitting A with a thrown brick. A says “Screw this hand-to-hand stuff, I’ll just run over B with my trusty Prius.”

B is madder than hell, now, and says “you can’t run me down if I shoot you!” A responds with, “You can’t shoot me if I blow your home up while you’re sleeping!”

Meanwhile, Sides C and D. neither of whom have any other direct involvement with either group (other than a love for drama, or are easily moved by fear-mongering) are slowly but surely drawn in, eventually drinking the Kool Aid from A or B.

And Side E, safely insulated from the chaos, sits back, prodding all the aforementioned sides with a very long stick, waiting patiently to devour the “winner.” (re: the last standing Loser)”

End of excerpt.

Stalking: Getting the Conversation Started – Tammy Yard McCracken

This is going to be a series. Digging into stalking is paradoxical. It is both straightforward hunting, and complexly twisted socially driven asocial behavior. It’s going to take more than one article.

Starting with the straightforward. Stalking is a robust behavioral expression of humans as apex level predators. A four-legged predator stalks the herd while determining where and when it will act on the targeted prey. If you watch a domesticated house cat stalking a bird, mouse, or bug; the body posture, pattern of movement, eye gaze are all billboard level telegraphs that scream I Am Hunting.

A stalking cat’s behavior is subtle to its prey, that’s why it works and has evolved as an innate skill set. Observing from outside of the species, the behaviors are obvious and leave no doubt about the feline’s intentions. Just as cats can stalk subtlety enough to go largely undetected by their Target, so can humans.

Humans in stalking mode don’t generally panther-crawl their way down the street behind the Target. Like cats, humans develop stalking skills adapted to their specific prey. Panther crawling through the grass would be comically obvious….the subject was apprehended while belly crawling up the walk behind the intended target, no one was more surprised than Mr. Jones in discovering he was being hunted. Onlookers were equally stunned. “We just didn’t see him coming…” Not how it would go down.

People hunt like people, not like cats. Wait. That’s not entirely true. Like cats, people stalking other people will invest significant energy to ensure they don’t get caught in the hunt. They don’t want to scare the prey before it’s time to pounce. Once pouncing commences, hunting in stealth mode no longer matters.

In human terms, this means people who stalk will blend into the environment. They will work through the social patterns and to a degree, the mores of the group. And like the mouse or bird who skitters in surprise when the cat materializes out of nowhere, so too do humans startle when they realize they have been in the cross hairs. By the time an Intended discovers s/he has been the focus of stalking, the game is deep in play. More on that in the next article.

In my experience, it isn’t just the Intended who gets startlingly disconcerted when the stalking comes to light. People listening to details of stalking situations tend to have a significant reaction as well[1]. Perhaps there is something uniquely creepy about discovering we stalk one another with the same proficiency as our four-legged friends. Maybe because stalking is such an invisible threat, the nature of it is disconcerting. Maybe, stalking is a little too theoretical because we only hear about it happening with the famous and noteworthy figures of our culture.

It’s not as uncommon as this assumption indicates if we look at statistics from the Bureau of Justice.  The BoJ stats show across any given 12-month span, 14 in every 1000 people 18 and older are the intended targets of stalking. The numbers are based on reported stalking, which means there’s a good chance the numbers are higher. Add to this, the first stalking laws didn’t go live until 1990.

The numbers aren’t accurate but they provide a soft baseline. Emphasis on soft. Part of the problem in working with Stalking from a prevention/defense perspective is how deftly stalking grows out of standard socially scripted (i.e. accepted) behaviors. This is evidenced in the substantial variation state to state regarding what is prosecutable behavior under stalking codes.

The Bureau of Justice Summary as an example:

  • State laws vary regarding the element of victim fear and emotional distress, as well as the requisite intent of the stalker.
  • Some state laws specify that the victim must have been frightened by the stalking, while others require only that the stalking behavior would have caused a reasonable person to experience fear.
  • States vary regarding what level of fear is required.
  • Some state laws require prosecutors to establish fear of death or serious bodily harm, while others require only that prosecutors establish that the victim suffered emotional distress.

You can fact check the stats here: https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=973

This is a damned wide variable. How do you determine the difference between a hard crush, a determined suitor, and criminal stalking?  How scared are you? And what if you are terrified but the fear is based on paranoid projections and delusions? How will we know? Not everyone with clinically paranoid ideations wears a tinfoil hat.

What is the plumb line for answering the question is this stalking? Am I an Intended Target?

 In here somewhere we stumble into the conversation about boundary setting and how that interplays with the advanced stage of the behavior because remember, most Intendeds (intended targets) do not know they are being stalked until the Threat has been manipulating the hunt for quite some time. Weeks, months, years.

Research into the accepted practice on advise-giving for people who believe they are being stalked follows a fairly standard set of behavioral directives when compared across a broad span of resources. What is also standard or common to these suggestions is they are advising the Intended Target once there are open indicators of the stalking dynamic. Useful information applied to a point in the timeline well past the early stages where prevention is an option.

Once you have the obvious evidence, prevention is moot. You can work to prevent deeper escalation but the time for authentic prevention and early de-escalation with effective boundary setting is past. Add into this, regardless of the point of awareness and intervention, boundaries are established in network of accepted social patterns. This raises the question: how can boundary setting be effective when the Threat’s perception of boundaries is toxically skewed, or nonexistent?

No solid answers, a few thoughts and ideas though. That’s what this, and the next two articles in this series are digging around in.

[1] These startled reactions include people experienced with violent encounters. This seems noteworthy.

 

The ‘Real’ Gladiator Diet – Mark Hatmaker

Imagination Time-Call forth images of the lean and mean, jacked and ripped cast of the television show Spartacus. You know the body-type I’m talking about, the taut, toned, chiseled body-fat of 5% physiques that reek of 2-3 HIT workouts per day and scrupulously avoiding all sugars and carbs, while piling on all the paleo-approved goodies that you can choke down.

Got those enviable images in mind?

Terrific!

Before we get to The Gladiator Diet, allow me to ask another question of our Spartacus cast-members.

No matter how jacked and ripped these performers are, no matter how much undoubted discipline and hard work goes into attaining these forms, do we think this translates to true gladiatorial skill? Actual combat prowess?

Of course, not.

Don’t get me wrong, hard-work is hard-work and we are able to do more with a fit athlete than an unfit athlete but these performers would be the first to tell you they eat and train to look like warriors not to be warriors.

With this said, what did the actual gladiators consume to fuel for actual gladiator combat? Might there be a difference between training to be a gladiator and training to be a pretend gladiator?

You betcha.

Paleo-pathologists Karl Grossschmidt and Fabian Kanz, both of the Medical University at Vienna, have been doing analyses of more than 60 gladiator skeletons found buried in a mass grave in western Turkey [formerly Ephesus.] They subjected the remains to isotopic analysis which allowed them to assay for trace elements and determine the composition of the diet that went into making these warriors of the Colosseum.

So what did they find? Were they Paleo? Were they on the Zone? Were the gladiators on the South Beach Diet? Surely, to God, they were at least on the Mediterranean Diet considering where they were. What exactly fueled these real gladiators?

Turns out, they were primarily on a vegetarian diet. Not just that, a vegetarian diet heavy on the carbs.

Keep in mind the diet was not based in poverty or a dearth of protein sources as other non-gladiator skeletons from the same region do not show this same dietary make-up. Also keep in mind gladiators, whether slaves or voluntary were a valuable commodity and it seems they weren’t being deprived of meat, but rather being fed as well as the gladiator Ianista [trainer] could afford to keep his athletes in peak condition for the performances.

The results of the isotopic analyses should be of little surprise to the deep digging historian who is aware that contemporaneous accounts of gladiators often referred to them as hordearii [that is, “barely men.”] Many extant purchasing bills for the gladiatorial schools reflect a diet heavy on barley, heavy on legumes, that is lots and lots and lots of beans. Lots and lots of carbs.

It seems, despite our images of Spartacus or 300 cast-members, that gladiators were groomed to be a bit, well, fat, and what is more, purposefully so.

One To increase mass as we are dealing with a no-weight class competition [the opposite of what we have in today’s tamer combat sports] and…

Two To allow the subcutaneous fat to act as a sort of dermal armor. Grossschmidt states, “Gladiators needed subcutaneous fat. A fat cushion protects you from cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight.”

Three This layer of fat provides a better show. Grossschmidt again, [Surface wounds] “look more spectacular. If I get wounded but just in the fatty layer, I can fight on. It doesn’t hurt much, and it looks great for the spectators.”

Think of this as being akin to blading, juicing, gigging, or getting color in professional wrestling in which the athletes intentionally cut themselves on the sly to add to the drama of the spectacle.

An intriguing addition to their isotope analyses reveals a high calcium content, meaning that the gladiator athletes were supplementing their carb heavy diet with calcium supplements. The historical record shows that gladiators often garnered this calcium not with a trip to the nutrition store, but by chugging concoctions that included calcium rich substances such as charred wood or bone ash.

Then, as now, anything to pursue an advantage.

So, with the science and history in mind, real gladiators looked less like Gerard Butler in 300 [Spartans and not gladiators I know, but you get my drift] or anyone in the cast of Spartacus and perhaps a bit more like UFC fighter Roy “Big Country” Nelson.

Whether or not this actual gladiator diet would work for us or not is not the point of today’s fun. But rather to point out what is often the wide gulf between reality and the comic book images that we often allow to intrude on fact.

The proof, more often than not, is in the hard work and the diligent drilling than it is in what you digest and/or look like on the beach.

At least that’s what the gladiators and scientists would tell us.

http://www.extremeselfprotection.com

 

 

 

Gaining Experience by Proxy Part III – Marc Macyoung

Cont’d.

Another place where experience does tend to matter is when it comes to ‘off the curriculum’ questions. These are the kinds of questions that every teacher is going to run into. I’m not talking about ‘what if monkeys’ (the guys who ask what do you do when you’re walking through a dark alley and you’re attacked by 27 ninja with uzis), I’m talking about legitimate questions about stuff that is not on the syllabus, but is related to the topic. The reason this gets a .75 as well is this. On one hand a person with experience can reach back into their own history and answer the question with what he or she did, experienced and felt. (Often these questions have to do with overcoming internal issues.) Furthermore, an experienced person can often take in the information in the question, assess it and come up with a functioning answer. So for on the spot responses, experience can be a powerful tool.

On the other hand, one person’s experience does not the whole subject make. What’s more, just because the instructor could do it, doesn’t mean the student can. There are a lot of variables that went into the experienced person’s success in those particular circumstances — and this includes mental and physical capabilities. So just because it worked for him, doesn’t mean it’s going to work for everyone. More over, different people who have been there came up with different answers. Answers that also worked. Keep this last in mind because it’s important.

It’s important because there can also be a downside to experience. That is, when you’ve had someone try and kill you, you can get extremely conservative about ‘what works.’ Some people take it past that and get into ‘MY WAY IS THE ONLY WAY!” This is especially true if they develop the curriculum and didn’t have it vetted by others who have also been there. So yes, the instructor can fall back on his experience, but his experience isn’t the only way to handle the problem.

The reason ‘off the syllabus’ questions and experience is a .75 issue is both someone who has been there and someone who hasn’t need to use the same strategy for dealing with them. That is referencing the views of other people who have been there.

The thing to consider is that often these kinds of questions are generally predictable. As an instructor you will be asked these kinds of questions. That means you can prepare for them.  For example, someone who hasn’t been there can still answer these kinds of questions with “About that, Marc MacYoung says (this). Rory Miller says (this). Peyton Quinn says (this).” A person who has been there can also use the same tactic. “I say (this). Marc MacYoung says (this). Rory Miller says (this).” In both cases, this allows the student to consider different points of view and assessment of what he/she is asking about.

Why is this important?

Let me put it to you in these terms: I’ve spent nearly five decades fighting, engaging in violence, dealing with its repercussions, training, preparing, studying, researching, writing, teaching and lecturing about violence. I am a court-recognized expert witness. I have taught police and military in nine different countries and have over 22 titles published about violence, crime avoidance, personal safety and professional use of force.

I tell you this to put something into perspective. Every morning I get up and am nearly overwhelmed by what I don’t know about the subject of violence.

So you ask can someone who has ‘not been there teach?’ Well, the bottom line is nobody has been everywhere. Everyone has holes in his or her experience and can only rely on both getting and providing quality information regarding the subject.

I recently had a discussion about what to do with an ambush attack from point blank range; an attack meant to kill you. That’s a situation I have been in multiple times. The guy I was talking to, however, had a specific circumstance I’d never dealt with before. That was what to do when the guy grabs your carbine with one hand, jerks the barrel off line and swings a machete at you with the other hand.

Now this is the kind of problem a civilian isn’t likely to have. It is a problem likely to pop up with SWAT officers and people in his line of work. The point is, the response we were discussing had been vetted in actual situations where one of the participants was going to die. The response works to keep the person with the carbine alive. How do we know this? Because the guy with the carbine wasn’t decapitated, and the other guy was dead.

In contrast, I see a lot of people who charge a lot of money for these super cool techniques they come up with. They claim these moves will work, and people get all giggly and excited by practicing them in high-priced seminars. When I look at them, I see techniques that at the very best will result in double kills. At worst, they’ll fail miserably because of the actual physics of such circumstances. Not imagined, but actual physics. The person who came up with these groovy, cool, studly responses had never been in those circumstances or checked the feasibility of those moves with someone who had.

I consider this critical because as a ‘teacher,’ you are putting your students’ lives on the line with the quality of the information you provide. Not just their lives, but large chunks of it if they go to prison for what you didn’t teach them about violence and self-defense.

Like the IED/Humvee training, it doesn’t matter that much if you’ve been there or not. What matters is the quality of the information you provide (and whether it’s been checked and vetted by people who know that topic). As an instructor, whether you’re experienced or not, don’t ever give into the temptation to think you know it all. Keep on researching and trying to learn. As a student, don’t believe anyone who gives critical topics about violence a ‘hand wave.’ (“Oh we teach that, too” before they drop the subject and then get on with the cool macho shit and ass kicking.) Be an informed consumer because you’re staking your life on the quality of the information you’re paying for.

 

The Four W’s – Darren Friesen

I want to say this with a ton of sobriety, clarity and seriousness and zero machismo and testosterone. I’ve always been known as a high-skill/explosive-speed guy. However, as I get older, I question the validity of these alone in any kind of serious violent struggle for my life. They are traits and fallible traits at that.

I am a 45-year old foreigner in Central America, 5’10”, 170 pounds that stands out so take this into consideration (objectivity) as you read this as you’ll have your own personal caveats that affect your evolving life scenarios. As I get older, the need to stay safe and protect my family stays the same. There’s another gap that inevitably widens for everybody. I have visualized and analyzed deeply when I would be able to use lethal force, when I wouldn’t, when it’s inappropriate, when I would have inner resistance over doing so and what the consequences would be of doing so. I have not taken this lightly and, as you all know, I don’t talk tough nor see this industry as a forum to act like a killer. That all being said, speed, skill, strength, stamina…all these things fade as we age, to one degree or another. As I’ve grown older and wiser, I believe that there are 4 elements that will/can keep me upright if shtf and have tried to cater my training and those of my students around:

1. WILL. The intent, drive, intensity and full commitment to go home at the end of the day. Whether peacefully or not so. One of many intangibles that simply cannot be read from a video, a post, a commentary but an internal fire.

2. WILE. Cutting corners, dirty tactics, misdirection, subterfuge. Being creative, inventive and diverse. Gaining the edge psychologically, physically, emotionally, mentally. “The one with the most flexibility on the system, most often controls the system.”

3. WITS. A cerebral approach to self-defense. One that doesn’t dive head-first into the storm without thinking but finding a varied method approach with the holistic view of “being safe” that circumvents style, system or art. Taking into account legal, social, ethical, financial, emotional, mental factors that dictate outcome pre-, mid- and post-conflict. Smart overrules cocky/tough the vast majority of times.

4. WEAPONS. Yes, there is a huge stigma that is omni-present in this area. Online, the ego of will-to-use, aggressive commentary, zero forethought as to consequence, the psychological state that goes into using one on another human being. I have not thought lightly on this. They are, however, a force equalizer and to not acknowledge this would be as naive as the other end of the spectrum just mentioned. As I get older, having to defend my life against someone bigger, faster, stronger or with their own weapons or friends is a monumental task and will increasingly become so as the years pass.

Just some thoughts, think heavily and profoundly on this, base your personal training accordingly and do research on how difficult real violence can be if you haven’t lived it yourself. It’s not as organized and cookie-cutter as many will have you believe.

 

Problems with the Training Establishment – Raymond Dettinger

The same old problems exist in both the martial arts and firearms training. I always called it the “Training Establishment” setting up the rules and training lesson plans. These rules and lesson plan writers have their own methods of creating experts being certified with paper certificates.  The qualified experts teach others the same ole stuff passed down for a hundred years. Or, somebody just sets themselves up as an expert just for fun or whatever.

Let us take a look at how most firearms training is done. You shoot behind a barricade at 25, 15 and then 7 yards from your motionless paper target. If you get half your shots on paper, you are now “qualified” to protect yourself from a person behind you and going to hit you over the head with a brick.

Now, let’s talk about how real gunfights go down. Low light conditions, so there goes sight alignment. Firing distance is about a couple of 7 feet. One hand is usually used to fire with. An average of 3 shots are fired. Missing the target is common because of the adrenal stress problem. So, what does barricade training do for us when it does not match with street reality?

This is why modern pistol craft has to be multidisciplinary like the martial arts. No one shoe size fits all. Also, all of the upfront awareness and risk assessment skills should be taught before anybody picks up a gun. Also, legal, adrenal, aftermath should be taught before touching a gun. Guys, shooting is easy. People can accurately shoot targets blindfolded from 7 yards out if properly trained. Just think what they can do with their eyes open. We all know that we must understand how violence gets started in order to avoid it or prepare to shoot it out. The biggest point to firearms training is learning EMPTY HAND skills to avoid the first blow so you don’t get knocked out, disabled or killed right off. So a gun without empty hand skills is can be hazardous to your health.

When I started out learning all this in law enforcement, I wanted to learn only effective stuff. I could not find it. I went to local Karate Schools and the instructors all bragged about making their students to 50 knuckle pushups. I needed to know immediately how to handle people trying to kill me with a knife. I had to go the the old WWII manuals to learn. I am sorry that the martial arts could not have helped me at all during that time.  Reality is the best filter for BS methods.

There are the other problems of just what type of training do you need in self-defense with a gun? There are many styles of sport combat shooting like IPSC, PPC, Cowboy Action Shooting and a hundred more. These are sport combat competitions. The participants in them are good. However, they have $5,000 specially built handguns with special ammo usually given to them for free by gun companies. The problem is that these sport combat people sometimes think that their skill sets are also self-defense based on their firearms marksmanship skill which based on the process of shooting: Sight Alignment, Sight Picture, Trigger Squeeze, Breath Control and follow through.

These things may be hard to do in a dark alley when suddenly attacked by a gang out to hurt you. Believe me, you will not have the time or the rational to do them. Some schools sell the sexy military house clearing methods. These are ex-military guys trying to make some money by selling the sexy stuff in the name of self-defense. Clueless people flock to the previously mentioned instructors because they are “experts”. Indeed, they are experts in what they do, and they are darn good at it. Good for them.  But when they claim their methods are transferrable to street and home defense, things can get screwed up. Buyer beware as they say.

People must do their research to find good instruction but, like many things nowadays, it is hard to find professionals in any endeavor. Bullshit Artistry seems to be the thing now days.

 

Cyber Safety Part II – Ashtad Rustomji

Safety on Facebook

There are many things you can do to keep yourself safe from potential threats and cyber criminals on Facebook.

1- The most important thing to do is to never make any personal photos public, especially of your kids wearing any swimming clothes. Your photos be used by predators to sell them to certain kinds of websites and are also sold to highest bidders. They can also use these photos to estimate and track your location, if you don‘t already have it mentioned on the profile.

2- Don’t make your day-to-day activities public and avoid posting updates about when and where you are traveling. If you do want to post them, make it private or for friends only, but that may not work, as if you add someone, they can now view your activities and jobs, etc. getting all they wanted from your profile.

3- Which brings me to my third point, never accept friend requests from individuals who you don’t know or haven’t spoken to. Especially avoid individuals with no profile pics or only a handful of friends when they’ve been members for years. Some of the fake profiles usually just spam search. It’s done by typing in the most common names, when the results show up, they send friend requests to all. Then when their request gets accepted by target, they get to their friends list as well and most accept requests due to them being mutual friends with someone they know and trust. Plus, there’s also a possibility of a sex offender or a PI creating a fake profile to see your ‘friends only’ posts.

4- Never post personal likes and dislikes as this can be used against you. Once an individual knows what you like and don’t like, whether it’s food or a movie or anything, they can use that data to either direct you to a phishing website if they’re a cyber predator or if they’re a predator who searches their victims online, they can strike up a conversation with you basing it on common grounds.

5- Don’t use the same password you did for you email and other accounts, for your face book account. In fact, never have the same password for all accounts as a general rule.

6- If you access Facebook on your phone, log out of the Facebook app you use, after each visit.

7- Post nothing on Facebook that you wouldn’t want anyone to know about. Nothing, once it gets on the internet, is safe or private, especially on a social networking site like Facebook.

8- Be sure to have a good anti-virus installed. There is a possibility of a virus infecting your email list, the virus then sends friend requests to everyone in your email contacts, infecting them with the same virus as well. IIRC, this is done to gain access to not only your personal email, but other email addresses as well, it also leads you to a fake site to get your personal information that you may enter in the form.

9- Report suspicious profiles.

10- Be careful of external and third-party applications and websites asking permission to access your Facebook account information. Once you have given the permission to access your Facebook account, the website or application now has access to all of your personal information, including email, number, posts, address, job and location. Never accept it, unless you are absolutely 100% sure that you trust the application and it is reputed as safe to use.

11- Visit the help center for more information on Facebook safety.

12-  Some good tips are mentioned here in this info graphic; http://www.bedfordshire.police.uk/pdf/facebook_safety_tips.pdf

Safety on Twitter

The following are some simple tips to stay safe on twitter.

1- Whenever you tweet, never add your location to it. Turn off the ‘add location to tweet’ option from the settings. You can also remove all location information by clicking ‘delete all location information’.

2- Strip geo-tag information from your photos before tweeting them. When a photo is tweeted, the location information that many camera phones add to the metadata of the photo file would be provided to anyone viewing the photo, any EXIF viewer software/application that can read the location information embedded in the photo would be able to determine the location of the picture. There are apps available that strip the geo-tag from the pictures; deGeo, metapho and pixelgarde are some of them.

3- Enable security and privacy options. The ‘HTTPS Only’ option ‘Settings’ menu will allow you to use Twitter over an encrypted connection which will help protect your login information from being hijacked by hackers using packet sniffers and hacking tools.

4- Twitter is actually more public than facebook, which means that you have to keep your personal information very minimal to virtually none. I.e. No phone numbers, no emails and no address in the location section.

5- Avoid using any third party apps on twitter. If you have any unrecognized app or an app you don’t remember installing, remove it by revoking its access to your account information from the app tab in your ‘settings’ menu.

6- Turn on the ‘protect my tweets’ option. This is a helpful tool when it comes to preventing unwanted individuals from following you on twitter. Once turned on, it will only show the tweets to people that are approved by you. This will not stop the current followers, it’s only for the future ones.

7- Remove unwanted or unknown followers. Delete the follower from your Followers list by blocking their account. The user is not notified when you block them, but your tweets no longer show up in their searches or timeline.

Here are some good sites with much more information about safety on twitter.

  • http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-twitter-safety-tips-to-protect-your-account-identity/
  • https://support.twitter.com/articles/76036#
  • https://support.twitter.com/articles/18368#

 

 

Gaining Experience by Proxy Part II – Marc MacYoung

Unfortunately, all too many people who ‘haven’t been there’ are guessing what it’s like — based on their training. (How do I apply what I know to what I don’t know about violence?) As such, they often come up with fantasy solutions to fantasy problems. (Or as Peyton Quinn sums it up: “They come up with ingenious solutions to non-existent problems.”) This technique works reliably in the street … right? Well no, but by gawd, the next time you get attacked by a midget riding a Shetland pony, you’ll be ready with that flying side kick.

But that’s not going to stop a lot of folks from teaching that tournament-winning-move and claiming it is not only self-defense, but a battlefield tested technique from their traditional martial art.

Or they take limited personal experience and extrapolate it to cover every kind of violence. I’ve seen entirely too much training by ‘studs,’ who are teaching you to win your next high school fight. Incidentally, this stuff *will* work to win a fight. Unfortunately, it will get your ass killed in other kinds of violence where the goals and rules are different than that of a ‘fight.’

I say ‘unfortunately’ because not using the definition of self-defense found in the dojo/gym but using instead a more legal one, actual self-defense is more likely to involve you facing those other kinds of violence. Self-defense is not about fighting, so training someone to ‘fight’ and calling it self-defense is going the wrong way. Training to fight doesn’t prepare you to handle the kind of stuff you’ll be facing in the other kinds of violence.

Oh yeah, it’ll also get your ass arrested, prosecuted and convicted because ‘fighting’ is illegal. And — if you’re being taught a weapons system —  you might as well buy a dildo and practice sucking it and sitting on it because you’re going to end up in the prison showers. That’s both with what they’re teaching you and what they’re not (like Use of Lethal Force laws and consequences).

This is why I say there are only two problems with most training. One is when it doesn’t work. The other is when it does.

It helps to think of the subject of ‘self-defense’ as a multi-circle Venn diagram. (Those diagrams with overlapping circles. Each circle is a different issue, topic or factor by itself — but where they overlap something else, they mutate into something that is neither one nor the other.) Self-defense is in the middle of all those circles. There are lots of overlapping factors. Things that can spell the difference between you being safe, alive and free or, going to the hospital or prison.

When you ask can someone who hasn’t been there, be good at teaching ‘self-defense,’ the real answer is a question. Is the person teaching these multiple factors?

If yes, then yes. If no, then no.

Oh and BTW, it doesn’t matter if the person *has* been there. If he or she is not teaching these factors, then she or he sucks at teaching you ‘self-defense.’ He may be doing a smash-up job teaching you how to fight or get convicted for murder, but that ain’t self-defense.  (I’ll add a caveat to this in a bit — where it really does matter having been there — but for the moment let’s just stick with the quality of the information being provided.)

One of the *best* introductory books about ‘what is missing’ from most training is “Facing Violence” by Rory Miller.

Having said that, I will also tell you: It is *not* the final word on the subject. I tell you that so you don’t read it and think, “Okay I know that, so now I can teach it.” It’s an important introduction to what you don’t know you don’t know. You’ll have multiple boatloads of subject matter you need to research after reading it. But now you have seven specific topics you know you need to research in order to provide quality training.

For example, do you teach your students how to make a statement to the police after an incident? Do you teach your students how to articulate their use of force decisions? Do you teach them how to recognize and assess developing danger? Do you teach them conflict de-escalation and how to assess options? Do you teach them how their own behaviour is going to either add to their claim of self-defense or convict them when they admit to a crime by claiming ‘self-defense?’

Oh while we’re at it, you should know that threat assessment and articulation aren’t just legal issues. It’s critical personal safety strategy that can safely extract you from a potentially dangerous situation or — if things get ugly — it is a critical component of overcoming the freeze response.  Again, this information isn’t just ‘legal,’ it’s a critical step in being able to act.