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What do you do when someone pranks you?

arthwollipot said:
Does it? What kind of prank do you think justifies getting shot?
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Any kind that genuinely looks like a good case for self defense, really. As in, anything that actually looks like an assault or kidnapping attempt, to a reasonable person of average intellect. (You know, the yardstick in most jurisdictions; "ha ha, he wasn't genius or informed enough to know it was a prank" is NOT the legal standard.) Obviously, not all do, but if the clown with the machete charges and gets shot, I'll file that under reasonable self defense.

Otherwise... Well, none in the way that I'd personally shoot them. But if someone has spent years harrassing strangers in threatening, scary and/or disturbing ways, I'd probably also vote "innocent" if I were in a jury deliberating over their getting shot :p

Mind you, it's a bit of a "lesser evil" kinda mental balancing act. I have no love of guns, but I have even less love for <bleep> wits who make their whole living and goal in life to mentally abuse hundreds of other people. Plus, I'm a utilitarian. You know, the good of the many vs the good of the few, and all that... :p
 
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dudalb said:
You prank them back.
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Pranking is antisocial behavior. The solution to antisocial behavior is not more antisocial behavior.

The solution is to be prosocial: Explain to the prankster that your society does not tolerate antisocial behavior, and that if they persist they will be removed from society. If necessary, explain this to them in terms even a prankster can understand.
 
arthwollipot said:
...by shooting them.
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Two irresponsible, anti-social objects collide and remove each other from society, one to the morgue and one to prison. Assuming there's no collateral damage, sounds like a happy ending to me.

Had this prankster died it seems far more likely the jury wouldn't have been willing to overlook the shooting the way they did and the above scenario would have been true.
 
Prank me?

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Perhaps suing them and getting an injunction that either they can never post videos to the internet again, or garnishing 105% of money made from their videos. That would help remove the antisocial menace from bothering people in person and by cluttering up the internet with crap.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Perhaps suing them and getting an injunction that either they can never post videos to the internet again, or garnishing 105% of money made from their videos. That would help remove the antisocial menace from bothering people in person and by cluttering up the internet with crap.
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Who is going to sue them? These prank channels are doing "man in the street" type content, with different targets each time. They aren't engaging in a pattern of harassment against any one individual for anything longer than a single encounter.

ETA: Social pressure against video streaming and social media services that allow this content seems a more fruitful approach, but there's always going to be some scummy hosting service of last resort for these kinds of people in the nastier corners of the internet. A lot could be done to marginalize this and make it less attractive, but totally eliminating it may not be possible.
 
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TurkeysGhost said:
Who is going to sue them? These prank channels are doing "man in the street" type content, with different targets each time. They aren't engaging in a pattern of harassment against any one individual for anything longer than a single encounter.
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I'm not aware that harrassment has to be repeated against the same individual in order to allow a lawsuit. Each individual harrassed can sue. Also the city could probably sue, and any businesses along that street. Perhaps just being a resident of that municipality is sufficient grounds for a suit, as this individual is disrupting the peace of the place. I think a few dozen lawsuits in concert would do much to correct antisocial behavior, particularly if each one of them won court costs.
 
a huge chunk of the content of prank channels are all staged. it's the teenager copycats that don't realize it.

i don't like every prank ever pulled, but pranks can be pretty fun. some of it is really good, like jackass or eric andre, genuinely funny to me. i definitely don't want a world where there's no pranks
 
TragicMonkey said:
I'm not aware that harrassment has to be repeated against the same individual in order to allow a lawsuit. Each individual harrassed can sue. Also the city could probably sue, and any businesses along that street. Perhaps just being a resident of that municipality is sufficient grounds for a suit, as this individual is disrupting the peace of the place. I think a few dozen lawsuits in concert would do much to correct antisocial behavior, particularly if each one of them won court costs.
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At least one entitled eejit over here has found himself involved in legal bother: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/tiktok-mizzy-prankster-bailed-court-b2398791.html

And the twunt is so dim and full of himself that he seems to think he is the wronged person in all this.
 
theprestige said:
Pranking is antisocial behavior.
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Have you seen those videos of people dressed up as statues, pose completely still, and then move when people get really near them? There is often an initial fear reaction where the person thinks it was a statue but when it starts to move they don't immediately recognize it as a person instead of a statue. I think that qualifies as a prank. Would you qualify it as antisocial? Do you think we shouldn't tolerate it?

I think the distinction Hans made back on page 1 is useful here between trickery and malice. The fear from the moving statue comes not because there's something intrinsically scary happening. The person has been fooled, and acts the fool, because there's nothing actually dangerous about a person being dressed as a statue, and there are no real moving statues. The fear only comes from our human shortcomings in processing information, but the information is all there if we just process it. Statues don't move, statues don't harm people, people dressed as statues are not any more dangerous than anyone else.

I'm ok with the statue pranks.
 
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