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Alright, lets talk about the LEGOs.
In case you have been living under a rock, here's the story so far:
Elderly man has $200,000 LEGO Star Wars collection.
Elderly man enters into a consignment agreement with the local Bricks and Minifigs franchise.
Said franchise undergoes a messy ownership change mediated by Bricks and Minifigs corporate. The new owners stop honoring the previous consignment agreement and refuse to give the LEGOs back.
Elderly man's son gets the runaround trying to get his father's LEGOs back. Corporate tells him to deal with the franchise owner. The franchise tells him to deal with corporate.
Frustrated, the elderly man's son turns to YouTuber Reckless Ben. The resulting video goes viral.
The situation escalates into a wild goose chase as Reckless Ben attempts to serve legal process onto the store owners, aggravated by encounters with the suspiciously hostile American Fork, Utah police department (oh yeah, both the new franchise owners and the Bricks and Minifigs CEO are Mormon)
All of this is complicated by the fact that Reckless Ben is, well, reckless. He wears hidden spy cameras. He uses false pretenses to get into situations and locations. At one point he gets arrested for stalking. Despite this, it's hard not to root for him. He seems to have the franchise owners dead to rights for conversion (aka stealing), and Bricks and Minifigs corporate seems at best lackadasical that one of their franchises is defrauding counterparties, and at worst complicit.
I don't see how Bricks and Minifigs survives this as a company. This story is everywhere and nobody is on their side. This is not a particularly lucrative buisiness to begin with, and right now their name is mud. They did, finally, two weeks later, sort of admit that they were wrong and that Brian will get his LEGOs back. It's been radio silence from the principles since that last message went out. I would be surprised if we've heard the end of this saga.
I feel in two ways about this story.
On one hand, having annoying YouTubers run around doing generally obnoxious picketing, harassment and even actual federal crimes is not something society should tolerate.
On the other hand, the victim has been clearly stolen from, and because he didn't file a form nobody knows about he's out of legal recourses and his only option is essentially to make such a stir that his story becomes a public relations disaster and the thieves have to pay him his money back even as they made themselves immune to lawsuits. And that can only be achieved through annoying YouTuber stunt shenanigans.
Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things.
Yes.
Which is why I don't cry too much when the occasional streamer gets shot or run over. If the law doesn't provide sufficient deterrence, some level of vigilantism becomes useful.
Unironically, we need to apply the same standards as South Korea.
Also yes.
Because again, the legal system isn't adequate to the task of bringing certain parties' behavior to heel given how slow and 'intentionially' it works... and often favors the better-resourced party.
Its not the core case for it, but fundamentally that's why I keep bemoaning lack of skin in the game. 'Asymetric' behaviors allow miscreants to get away with antisocial activities that impose a significant cost on others because any response is usually too expensive or maybe even criminal.
Streamers going around committing low level civil infractions b/c they know they can pay any fines with the payouts their audience gives them, and if any annoyed party tries to physically accost them then the law will punish that party. There is no coordinated way for bystanders to express displeasure with or punish streamer behavior directly, whilst the streamer's audience is coordinated around egging the streamer on. The rewards almost inevitably flow to the streamer, even as they are sucking utility out of everyone in their environment.
The reason we end up tolerating the youtuber's behavior in the Lego situation, is he TARGETED IT towards an arguably deserving party. Rather than create a generalized nuisance, he became a nuisance to someone who was already inflicting pain on others. Rewarding THAT behavior is generally, on net, pro-social.
Anyhow, BRING BACK DUELING..
I think it should be legal to punch someone who is filming you without your consent. It's a similar violation of bodily integrity.
Go punch all software/firmware devs who spy on your phone.
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Bodily integrity? Maybe if you think that photographs steal your soul.
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I can't go with a flat ban on filming people in public, nor punching people who are just recording generally.
However, if they are actually obstructing your attempts to just do your activities, or they are doing that silly "I'm not touching you!" game, then yeah, a physical response seems eminently 'reasonable.'
For places where this is a regular issue, I'd say Allow police officers to inflict corporal punishment as a summary procedure.
I'm watching a lot of youtubes of (US) police bodycams and man it's hard to argue otherwise. Of course, it's a biaised sample, but man does it seem unreasonably annoying to have to deal with someone who believes they are going to argue, refuse to comply their way out of a ticket and then physically resist and yell and twist their way out of an arrest. I think there might be some people who'd become more reasonable if they were clearly told by the police "if you do not shut up and comply, I am empowered to beat your ass".
There are also of course, police officers who seem to jump to every opportunity to claim battery on a law enforcement officer. I get that anything that can discourage resisting is probably good in the end, but resisting is already its own charge, it makes me lose some respect for the officers if they feel like a suspect lightly pushing back on them while resisting is them being "battered".
I'm also confused by how many people in the US seem to be driving without their license on them; what the fuck?
Yep.
A) Cops are apparently a lot more restrained than you might think given the stressors they often face. The exceptions are out there, of course.
B) We already trust cops with proper escalation of force, and they do an okay job at it. I don't see much reason to let them use their discretion to tase people vs. letting them just inflict a few strikes with the cane, following a modicum of process.
C) I think a lot of suspects might actually agree to take a beating on the spot vs. going through the full system's process where jail time would be on the table.
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Eh... I'm in favor of corporal punishment, but I think it needs to be adjudged, like all other forms of punishment. If you give that power to cops directly, you can be almost certain they'll get drunk on it.
It's not a big deal in Europe. You get fined, and you're adding an extra half hour to your detainment as they verify that you do, in fact, have a license, but otherwise it's not a problem.
In New Jersey if you don't have your paperwork (especially insurance), the cops tow your car and leave you by the side of the road, any time, day or night. They did this even before cell phones were common.
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In most parts of the US, not driving is simply not an option. If you can’t get a license, then you just have to deal with your entire life being a continuous string of misdemeanor offenses.
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Certainly not, and it's ridiculous to say so. Capturing a few of the photons bouncing off your body and clothes does not affect your bodily integrity in the slightest; if you have a reasonable objection to being filmed (in public), it must be something else.
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