living in fear

She was trying to tell me a story about bad customer service at Amazon. The whole thing started with a mistaken delivery--the package should have gone to some house down the street, but UPS left it on her porch by mistake. There was great confusion and delay as she tried to convince Amazon to come get it, and she was appalled that they would need to take it all the way back to the shipping center before delivering properly to the house only a few hundred yards away.

me: Why didn't you take it to the neighbor's house yourself? Wasn't the right address on the box?

her: I couldn't do that! What if he thought it was a bomb or something?

me: He's probably expecting a package from Amazon.

her: Maybe something from Amazon...but not a stranger coming up his walk! Don't you realize how dangerous it is? People can die!

I'm very glad she doesn't want to own a gun, herself, though she was just telling me she believes her community would be safer if more people were allowed to carry them.

I saw a tweet go by* a couple of weeks ago, to the effect that if you want to live through the collapse of civilization, it works better to make your neighbors prosperous than to stockpile the customary survivalist gear. This can work beautifully, if your neighbors like you. (Not LIKE you, like you. Just like you enough to help you in a crisis.) If you live near people who hate you or fear you, their prosperity doesn't help much.


*I have no idea who wrote it. I think I saw it via Abi Sutherland or Terry Karney.