How viral videos shape our understanding of what "really works" in self-defense

"The plural of anecdote is not data"—a phrase that should be tattooed on every keyboard warrior's typing fingers. Yet in our hyperconnected age of instant video and viral clips, we've somehow convinced ourselves that a compilation of dramatic encounters equals scientific understanding. Every week brings fresh "evidence" of what works and what doesn't in self-defense, delivered in easily digestible video form and shared with the certainty of mathematical proof.

Why perfect training can create imperfect responses

We've all seen the footage: a police officer meticulously picking up his spent brass during a gunfight, or a martial artist bowing to their attacker mid-confrontation. These aren't failures of courage or competence—they're the inevitable result of how our brains form habits under training conditions that can never fully replicate reality.

The uncomfortable truth is that every training exercise, no matter how realistic, contains built-in limitations that can program suboptimal responses into our muscle memory. Even if we had access to Star Trek's holodeck technology, we'd still face the fundamental problem that our brain knows it's not real.