When the hypothetical is "will I be killed" then it makes sense to try and work it out in hypothetical rather than ignore it until it becomes, one way or the other, reality.

As someone else already replied to this. When it comes to strategic decision (I call them decision that you can't reverse, say being killed, or imprisoned for life) hypotheticals and gut instincts are pretty good.

You can't conduct an experiment to figure things out, if you can't then come back and conduct more experiment because the first one killed you.