people get to decide their own comfort level ofc, and telling people stuff is safe when it isn't is not great, but i think "you need to be an anarcho prepper or just stay quiet, keep your head down" sucks as a strategy imo

i definitely think "you need this gear otherwise you will get hurt" made me stay away from some protests in the past, and now it's like, ok maybe that's true still, but id rather risk getting hurt than just staying home and i don't want to have to "gear up for war" when saying "this shit sucks"

people think "you have to be prepared for war" is a good thing to say to people to get them to protest, but it just means people don't show up at all. which kind of accomplishes the goals of the government anyway right?