It is better to be paranoid than ignorant

"Take a real life case. In the mountains in Idaho in 1992 there lived a family who was paranoid and thought the government was after them. It turns out they were right." First, let us return to the definition of paranoia in the above, which is very specific to "It is a break from reality where one perceives dangers which are not actually present and shelters themselves from the world in expectation from these imagined consequences." Note clearly "not actually present". It is not paranoia to prepare for actual dangers or threats, it is only paranoia if such threats do not exist. As Pro has claimed "It turns out they were right." then in his own words, this is not an example of paranoia and it could be ignored - however does not reflect reality. 1) Weaver was charged with selling illegal weapons (two sawed off shot guns). He would not show up for court because due to his paranoia of the government and courts he imagined far more worse consequences and so instead of going to court and defending himself on any number of merits (entrapment for example) - he decided to ignore the law and barricade himself in his cabin, knowingly putting himself and his family in a situation where they now would face forced capture. 2) When he does not go to court the US Marshals go to apprehend him, they tried to negotiate for him to come out peacefully. He refuses again because of his paranoia, and he makes it clear that he will respond to any attempt to take him in with force. Again, his paranoia escalates the situation. 3) The US Marshals rather than have a forced entry at the cabin attempted to take Weaver outside in an ambush. This lead to a gun fight with both Marshals and members of the Weaver family killed. 4) There was a 12 day stand off at the cabin when the FBI were called in after the shooting of the Marshall. If Weaver was not paranoid and simply co-operated with the law at any stage then he would have had to deal with the consequences of a charge of selling two sawed off shot guns (and then later refusing court orders, etc.) . It was because of his complete inability to see the reality of the situation and instead live in a deluded fantasy that he would not consent to the law until he had no choice and his cabin was surrounded by FBI and it finally became obvious to him that he had no choice but to surrender. Now when he did surrender what happened, were any of his insane views justified, no, of course they were not - and if the man was actually sane then he would have reflected on all the death and conflict and realized this it was his paranoid delusions which caused the incident and had he just went to court for the charge of selling the two sawed off shotguns (which he never denied doing) none of what followed would have happened. Simply consider the following, would society actually be a better place to live if people reacted to charges such as Weaver faced with the manner in which he did - of course it would not. "The paranoid man will be more prepared for any possible outcome while the ignorant man will be happy for the time being but be unprepared for disaster." Pro has offered no evidence for such aside from one case where a paranoid man and his delusions caused the death of member of his family and US Marshall's. A normal man, ignorant of any of the delusions would have simply faced the charges in a court of law. How did being paranoid help Weaver - he wasted his time, effort and life being prepared for something which did not exist and it caused him to react to perceived threats, see dangers which do not exist and react in extreme ways escalating conflicts. Again, paranoia is not something funny or amusing, nor does it help people be prepared, it is a medical condition whereby one has a break from reality and imagines non-existent threats are present and thus reacts to even minor situations in extreme ways due to false perceptions of threats.