"Rationally"? You mentioned you had all sorts of nice experiences with homeless people and then one bad actor caused you to choose out of all of the attributes of this person, their lack of a home, to be the one for you to blanket-label all people like this as dangerous enough to place them outside of your treat-like-a-human-being sphere.
Nah, there is not a rational way to blanket label groups like this from a sample size of 1. That's your trauma talking.
Yeah, it's the trauma. That's the point. The potential cost of a single violent interaction is extremely high. There is relatively no reward for being pleasant to the 99% who just happen to look an awful lot like the one who tried to stab you.
It is the same rationale behind profiling. Which is to say, it is rational, just ineffective and with a number of bad side effects.
All it takes is one to seriously physically hurt you. You wouldn’t leave your doors unlocked while away just because 99% of passerbys won’t check whether it is.
You can't deny that in terms of Bayesian probability, the odds are higher for a homeless person to be mentally unhinged than for the average person. Simply because mental illness is often the cause for homelessness.
Nah, there is not a rational way to blanket label groups like this from a sample size of 1. That's your trauma talking.