# Hospitality or Death? Guys asks for shelter from snowstorm? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 17, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731 "2012-08-17T00:50:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/21 "2012-08-17T10:52:29Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > Except, after you have kicked Freezing Dude to the kerb, isn’t he just going to break into your house anyway? If it’s that or death? I’m not seeing how shutting the door in his face actually helps you there. He might or he might not. But that’s beside the point on all counts. First off the law (what this thread is supposed to be about) doesn’t say that you can refuse because of threat… but not if the victim will threaten you in some other way if you do. It doesn’t even make any. By this standard someone who can’t swim is \*legally \*obliged to dive into a lake to try to save a drowning man, because if they don’t the drowner’s friends will push him into the lake anyway. And it is far from physically certain. My house isn’t a fortress in any sense, but an average person without any tolls isn’t going to break in unless he literally spends half an hour kicking the bricks out of the walls. Solid brick wall. All accessible windows with riveted security screens. Nobody is “just breaking in” here. Even i they did try to break in, I now have reasonable evidence of ill intent and can prepare. That’s a hugely different scenario to having my kids sleeping in the next room from this guy. And finally, it isn’t even likely. A law abiding person will often freeze to death before they will attempt a home invasion. Hell, there are many, many accounts of people freezing to death because they wouldn’t even break into a shop after hours. It takes a hell of a lot for most people to attempt a home invasion in the face of an unwelcome owner. I am surprised that you would apparently smash your way into my home after I told you to leave. But rest assured you would be in for an unpleasant welcome if you tried. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/22 "2012-08-17T11:08:53Z")
I wouldn’t. But then, I wouldn’t be a threat if you let me in, either. The sort of person who’d mug you and steal your stuff if you let them in, probably wouldn’t just consent to die quietly on your doorstep. I’m surprised at the level of security on your house - is that common where you live? Most remote area houses I have visited just have ordinary windows, and would be incredibly easy to break in to any time you liked. Probably why nobody ever bothers to lock their doors. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/23 "2012-08-17T11:55:02Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > If this is not the case then you are saying that any robber, rapist or murderer in Norway simply has to knock on the door on a stormy night and the people inside have to let him in. No. I’m saying if a robber, rapist or murderer in Norway knocks on the door on a night with a storm sufficiently severe to involve a risk of severe injury or death without shelter, no reasonable optional shelter in the vicinity, such as an open petrol station, and sufficiently severe to prevent police, ambulance or rescue workers reaching the area before severe injury or death occurs if the occupant of the house calls them immediately, then the occupant has to let the person in, despite them fearing the person at risk might be a robber, rapist or murderer, or risk up to six months in prison for letting someone die when they could have prevented it. For some reason robbers, rapists and murderers have failed to take advantage of this. How large portion of the population where you live, Blake, are so doggedly intent on robbery, rape and/or murder that they’d take advantage of such circumstances to a degree sufficient to make letting any stranger in under such circumstances a grave risk? In Norway they ratio of extremely devious and determined murderers to regular citizens in distress appears sufficiently small that this is a non issue. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/24 "2012-08-17T12:05:43Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > I wouldn’t. But then, I wouldn’t be a threat if you let me in, either. The sort of person who’d mug you and steal your stuff if you let them in, probably wouldn’t just consent to die quietly on your doorstep. By this logic you let in anyone who wants to sleep in your house and you never bother to lock your house at night. After all, they type of person who’d mug you and steal your stuff if you let them in would probably just smash their way in anyhow. So there is no point denying them access with locks. Right? But of course you don’t do that. And that is because you know that while [criminals often pretend to need help in order to gain entry to a house](http://www.snopes.com/crime/prevent/doorpound.asp), they are much less likely to spend 20 minutes making a ruckus smashing their way in with the owner standing watching. Or maybe you really do let in any person who knocks on your door asking for help, on the basis that if they are criminals they would just smash their way in anyway. In which case it is just a matter of time before something unpleasant happens. > [@](#): > > I’m surprised at the level of security on your house - is that common where you live? Level of security? It’s a few hundred bucks worth of screens, which knocks about $100 a year off my insurance. It’s a no brainer. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/25 "2012-08-17T12:07:38Z")
> [@naita](#): > > No. I’m saying if a robber, rapist or murderer in Norway knocks on the door on a night with a storm sufficiently severe to involve a risk of severe injury or death without shelter, no reasonable optional shelter in the vicinity, such as an open petrol station, and sufficiently severe to prevent police, ambulance or rescue workers reaching the area before severe injury or death occurs if the occupant of the house calls them immediately, then the occupant has to let the person in, despite them fearing the person at risk might be a robber, rapist or murderer, or risk up to six months in prison for letting someone die when they could have prevented it. Can you cite some evidence for this interpretation of the law? A case where someone has been charged perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/26 "2012-08-17T12:29:55Z")
Kind of surprised that this thread is so long, as I thought it was pretty well known it was legal to tresspass in emergency situations. See [here](http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/defenses-to-trespass.html), for example: > [@](#): > > Private necessity can also create a privileged invasion of another’s land or chattel. This privilege supersedes the owner’s privilege to exclude trespassers. Any force used by the landowner to exclude the defendant is wrongful and can subject the landowner to liability for harm caused by denying entry. The rationale is that the preservation of life is more important than property rights. Exercise of private necessity is only allowed when necessary to protect Google “tresspass, necessity” for plenty more cites. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/27 "2012-08-17T12:50:37Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > By this logic you let in anyone who wants to sleep in your house and you never bother to lock your house at night. After all, they type of person who’d mug you and steal your stuff if you let them in would probably just smash their way in anyhow. So there is no point denying them access with locks. > > Right? > > But of course you don’t do that. And that is because you know that while [criminals often pretend to need help in order to gain entry to a house](http://www.snopes.com/crime/prevent/doorpound.asp), they are much less likely to spend 20 minutes making a ruckus smashing their way in with the owner standing watching. There’s still utility in a lock even if your house is not “break-in proof”, because the act of breaking in makes noise, which will alert you to the fact that somebody is breaking in. But as a matter of fact, the logic you are parodying there is pretty much exactly the way my inlaws, for instance, approach the matter. I’ve never known them to lock a door. I’m not sure they even know where their front door keys are. And that’s an extremely logical approach to the issue, because if anyone wanted to hurt them, all they’d have to do is drive up in the middle of the day while they’re out digging the garden or pottering round generally. > [@](#): > > Or maybe you really do let in any person who knocks on your door asking for help, on the basis that if they are criminals they would just smash their way in anyway. In which case it is just a matter of time before something unpleasant happens. If somebody knocked on the door asking for help, and it was blindingly obvious that they did in fact need help, then yes, I would almost certainly help them. That doesn’t mean I’m going to check my brain at the door. Six dudes in balaclavas on a mild evening are likely to trigger a different response than a broken-down old derelict out in a blizzard. But on average, I’d need a particular reason for assuming that a given person was dangerous - it’s not a default. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/28 "2012-08-17T13:14:21Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I had a discussion almost identical to the OP with several co-workers. If you saw someone broken down or stuck in the ditch at 40 below would you stop and give them a lift? As a healthy, hefty 30yo travelling alone, I said I had no problem with that. The others said no damn way - you have no idea who they were until you stop, they could be drunk, they could pull a knife and rob you, and most importantly, are you going to make some stranger or two squeeze into the back seat right next to your children? Right, because every junkie and petty thief knows that an easy way to get money is to get a knife then hang out in a roadside ditch on a deserted road when it’s -40 out… As a bonus, you get to give the victim’s children cooties by sitting next to them! Which is I’m sure profitable somehow. > [@Blake](#): > > Kinda hard to see how it could \*not \*be a grave risk. Letting a complete stranger into your house with your family while you are all asleep is about as grave a risk as it’s possible to imagine. Really? You really can’t imagine worse risks than saving the life of someone you don’t know? I don’t know, either you have some kind of real issue with strangers, or I guess I feel sorry for your stunted imagination. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/29 "2012-08-17T13:15:57Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Kind of surprised that this thread is so long, as I thought it was pretty well known it was legal to tresspass in emergency situations. See [here](http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/defenses-to-trespass.html), for example: > . I’m not sure I would necessarily believe an attorney’s website as a reliable outline of any law. An ambulance-chasing lawyer can say anything he wants in his website if it helps him get responses from prospective clients. Some years ago, it was widely reported that an Alaska law requires that a stranded motorist or pedestrian must be picked up. This is apparently untrue: [http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/i-heard-from-someone-that--in-alaska--if-you-see-a-170504.html](http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/i-heard-from-someone-that--in-alaska--if-you-see-a-170504.html) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/30 "2012-08-17T13:30:48Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I’m not sure I would necessarily believe an attorney’s website as a reliable outline of any law. Which was the reason I put the last sentence in my post. Googling, there are tens of cites. Another example [chosen randomly](http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/private_necessity) > [@](#): > > An ambulance-chasing lawyer can say anything he wants in his website if it helps him get responses from prospective clients. Well, I’m sure theres some inaccurate information on lawyers websites, but its not true they can “say anything”, the bar association doesn’t allow lawyers to give false legal advice on their websites. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/31 "2012-08-18T13:18:10Z")
I’m semi-amused by all of the little-old-lady-big-biker scenarios used as a defense for not letting one into the house. In my observations in my life, of all of the random senseless murderers I’ve seen on the news, youtube, etc…, most of the murderers haven’t looked like bikers, and few of them have been big. The most obvious examples for the non-threatening types, of course, is Ted Bundy. It’s usually the ratty, innocuous-to-attractive little ponces that do the murder, with a story of sorrow, danger, down on their luck kind of thing. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/32 "2012-08-18T16:51:36Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Right, because every junkie and petty thief knows that an easy way to get money is to get a knife then hang out in a roadside ditch on a deserted road when it’s -40 out… > As a bonus, you get to give the victim’s children cooties by sitting next to them! Which is I’m sure profitable somehow. Of course, low lifes and thieves travel too; and likely not in the best-condition cars, unless they recently acquired them from good samaritans. My perspective was that the risk was pretty much zero, you were just as likely to meet the same sort of problem person in town. However, people with small children have a different perspective on risk vs. reward when interacting with strangers, when they have to watch their children too. I don’t think it was cooties they were worried about. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/33 "2012-08-18T17:51:07Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Kinda hard to see how it could \*not \*be a grave risk. Letting a complete stranger into your house with your family while you are all asleep is about as grave a risk as it’s possible to imagine. > > If this is not the case then you are saying that any robber, rapist or murderer in Norway simply has to knock on the door on a stormy night and the people inside have to let him in. If Norwegian jurisprudence is similar to French one (France has much harsher sentences, by the way : 5-7 years), calling the police/firemen to tell them someone is in danger would be sufficient to get the person off the hook. It’s not 100% certain it’s the case because I understand that Scandinavian countries have some unusual laws (and traditions) regarding the rights and needs of perfect strangers (say, found walking on the road, or crossing your property). ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/34 "2012-08-22T00:45:47Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Kinda hard to see how it could \*not \*be a grave risk. Letting a complete stranger into your house with your family while you are all asleep is about as grave a risk as it’s possible to imagine. I must disagree quite severely with this. Despite all the newspapers being full of crime stories, most people are in fact fairly decent human beings. The odds of a random person you meet being a murderer or rapist are rather minute. In fact, I’d harzard a guess that for someone very elderly, the odds of suffering a medical episode that would be fatal without someone around to help is far greater. (The probablility of that, sadly, approaches 1 over a lifetime) Additionally, even murderers do not spend their entire time murdering people. I suspect most murderers life total is rather low. The described situation does not sound like it would be likly to induce a murderous rage in anyone. If you think you are likly to condemn a total stranger to near-certain death of the infitesimal chance of risk, I think you should examine what fear is doing to your life. It is interesting to see how infinitly much greater the fear of crime is in the US though. > [@Blake](#): > > Can you cite some evidence for this interpretation of the law? A case where someone has been charged perhaps? Being Norwegian, I would think such a law would fall in under what is colloquially thought of as the “no duh” umbrella. As in “Of course such a law exists!” There are places in Norway where locking your door is illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/35 "2012-08-22T01:28:58Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Kind of surprised that this thread is so long, as I thought it was pretty well known it was legal to tresspass in emergency situations. See [here](http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/defenses-to-trespass.html), for example: > > Google “tresspass, necessity” for plenty more cites. I’d be interested in reading an argument that the necessity exception to trespass qualifies as a law described in the OP. Seems to me they are two separate things. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/36 "2012-08-22T01:55:01Z")
'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood… ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/37 "2012-11-02T11:46:28Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > I must disagree quite severely with this. > > Despite all the newspapers being full of crime stories, most people are in fact fairly decent human beings. The odds of a random person you meet being a murderer or rapist are rather minute. > > In fact, I’d harzard a guess that for someone very elderly, the odds of suffering a medical episode that would be fatal without someone around to help is far greater. (The probablility of that, sadly, approaches 1 over a lifetime) > > Additionally, even murderers do not spend their entire time murdering people. I suspect most murderers life total is rather low. The described situation does not sound like it would be likly to induce a murderous rage in anyone. > > If you think you are likly to condemn a total stranger to near-certain death of the infitesimal chance of risk, I think you should examine what fear is doing to your life. It is interesting to see how infinitly much greater the fear of crime is in the US though. > > Being Norwegian, I would think such a law would fall in under what is colloquially thought of as the “no duh” umbrella. As in “Of course such a law exists!” There are places in Norway where locking your door is illegal. I think your post was wrong from the get-go. You started by implying that the assumption was that ‘everyone you meet’ is a murderer. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/38 "2012-11-02T15:00:13Z")
In the Arabian desert, hospitality is enforced by the traditional moral code. No doubt because survival in the desert is difficult. If your worst mortal enemy shows up at the doorway to your tent, you have to let them in and give them food and drink and shelter for a defined period (is it three days?) and on your honor you can’t do them any harm. The next time you meet outside, you can feel free to kill them, though. But the guest in your home is sacrosanct. You even have to fight to defend them from attack when they’re in your home (well, you’d fight to defend your home anyhow). In _The Trees_ by Conrad Richter, about this white pioneer family living isolated deep in the wilderness of Ohio in the late 18th century, one night while the dad is away an Indian guy shows up at the door on a cold wet evening. This is in the context of a time and place with many hostilities between Indian and white people. Nevertheless, the mom invites him to spend the night in their one-room log cabin. In the morning when it’s time to chop firewood, the daughter pulls the ax out from her bed where she’d slept with it for defense, and the Indian guy is impressed by her bravery and they part on good terms. Well, that’s the great thing about fiction. You can make it say what you want it to. But in the real world of the here and now, having read _The Gift of Fear_, I just can’t see myself ever being that trusting. One time, though, a strange woman knocked on our door late one night. She was distraught, running away from a fight with her boyfriend, and chose our door to knock on at random. I invited her in and we sat and talked with her until she was calm, then she asked for a ride to a nearby bar, so we piled into the car and took her there. That night I just sensed that she was safe, or, to use Occam’s Razor, I was a lucky idiot, I don’t know which. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/39 "2012-11-02T15:18:39Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > By this logic you let in anyone who wants to sleep in your house and you never bother to lock your house at night. After all, they type of person who’d mug you and steal your stuff if you let them in would probably just smash their way in anyhow. So there is no point denying them access with locks. > > Right? We do. Our house is passive solar with LOTS of windows. And we live very remotely in the Rocky Mountains, so there is no lack of rocks to help gain access. :shrug: We will lock up when we go to bed about half the time. Can’t remember when we locked up last time we where away. I’ve thought about it. If for no other reason to make it a tensy bit harder for someone. Or to keep kids out that might want to snoop around. But I’m pretty sure our dogs will do that. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731/40 "2012-11-02T16:06:31Z")
Simple ethical logic turns on the values of doing as you would have done to you. Anyone who would deny a person in clear danger for their life shelter, should be comfortable with the fact they should thus never expect anyone else to extend the same to them. If you are prepared to die on someone’s doorstep when your car dies one night, so be it. Or perhaps you will be happy to explain to your children that the corpse on the doorstep the next morning was there because you considered the tiny risk to them as outweighing the life of that person. OTOH, imaging someone else explaining to your wife and children that the reason you froze on their doorstep was that they didn’t know who you were, and were not prepared to offer shelter and survival. There does seem to be some element of national character here. In Australia it would unthinkable not to help. Many many years ago I ran off the road in the country late one night. Car totally stuck. The first passing car, stopped, the couple in the car pulled me back onto the road, and took me home for a late night coffee. I had never seen them before, nor since. I wasn’t in danger, but I was going to have a long cold night ahead of me, and since this was well before the days of mobile phones, I probably had a long walk come daybreak. In Australia we don’t have many places that get really cold, but we have lots of places you will die quickly in the heat. Again, the idea you would deny someone help in the heat is anathema. Maybe it is because people that travel in the harsh areas know the risks, and like the Arabian example above, understand the importance of helping one another. Perhaps the problem is that modern society is so comfortable that people forget how they still rely upon one another in times of need and turn inward. That makes for a very brittle society. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hospitality-or-death-guys-asks-for-shelter-from-snowstorm/631731.md?page=3)