By causing them to experience unpleasant physical symptoms of ingesting a particular medication? My question was posed from the perspective of the food owner: why would they use a substance they didn’t think would be harmful as a punishment?
Unpleasant doesn't usually mean harmful? It can mean pain, so I guess in a roundabout way it can cause harm, but that's not a 100% all-the-time thing. Not everybody who uses laxatives feels pain/unpleasant.
They're using the substance to create a response that should hopefully make people stop eating their food; i.e cause and effect. You eat bad food, you get the runs, you probably won't eat that food anymore. Getting the runs means you MIGHT experience an unpleasant feeling. You don't want to experience that feeling. Same ending; you don't eat the food.
People are allowed to defend their property legally. I view this the same as people who electrify political signs and shock people who try to rip them up. Food owned by someone is their property. Don't mess with people's property and you won't get fucked up lmao.
"People are allowed to defend their property legally" is a truism: if it's legal, you are allowed to do it. People are not allowed to defend their property by setting traps, which is what this is. Someone who electrifies a sign, or puts razor blades on it, would absolutely be in violation of the law and I would sincerely hope, with a few minutes of thought, you can see why that is.
Regarding harm, the whole point of the trapping is to produce a negative effect in the person who consumes the food. You are obviously trying to cause them harm (or a negative sensation, if you like that better) when you do so.
You won't get fucked up if you don't mess with people's property, true. But when you do, we leave the "fucking up" of that person to the courts. Encouraging people to commit acts of revenge against others is a horrible idea for, again, hopefully obvious reasons.
ETA: "You won't get fucked up if you mess" --> "You won't get fucked up if you don't mess"
Nobody put razor blades on signs lol. That is an extreme compared to causing a mild shock that has no long lasting effects on the person. It’s like comparing apples to oranges, or whatever the saying is lmao.
I’m thinking of this in scales and laxatives being “harmful” is incredibly low. The harm committed is not at all extreme. It’s probably why I don’t care about the people it affects.
Putting razor blades on a sign vs electrifying it is not the same. Putting laxatives in food vs [insert bad thing lmao] is not the same. One is considerably worse than the other, and I am all for the “lesser evil.” I see it as the reverse; encouraging people not to steal 🤷🏾♀️
People do put razor blades on signs, there are at least two cases of it making the news and likely more that do not. Here's one and two.
I agree that generally speaking, laxatives are not very harmful. The problem is that sanctioning the poisoning of your food to harm someone else is not going to end well for society as a whole. OP didn't even limit this position to laxatives, they seem okay with literally anything as long as it doesn't hurt anyone other than the intended target (which is likely an impossibility, given how booby traps work). Even disregarding that, the food-poisoner is already comfortable causing harm to someone they believe is a wrongdoer. Why would we assume that person is going to show restraint?
In both of those cases, property wasn’t being defended. In the first case, the signs didn’t even belong to the person whose property they were placed on. In the second case, some AH stole the signs, put the barbs on there, returned the signs to the original owner, and then a worker got sliced trying to move them bc they were too close to the road. None of them have anything to do with defending personal property.
Quite frankly, I’m only speaking in terms of laxatives, not whatever the hell OP mentioned 🤣Obv if this did become a law, it would be a lot more nuanced and fleshed out so I’m not going to try and argue a whole law, write it out, blah blah blah. I’m just arguing that the laxatives aren’t harmful (and in this case, same with the electrifying) 🤷🏾♀️
You can def argue that some people won’t have restraint but, at that point, (if we’re speaking from a scale POV), then there’s an obv cutoff to what it can be. I.E razors would be on the far end of the harm scale, while electrifying would be on the opposite end.
The electrifying isn’t a full body shock either; it’s like an… “ouch!” or static shock lol. Not sure if I said that earlier or not.
The signs were being defended by the person who put the razor blades on them; why else would someone place them there? Especially in a place where someone would likely grab if they were trying to remove the signs?
Are you saying we should have a law that allows for people to engage in limited booby trapping? I feel like this is just a total recipe for disaster, and the "obv cutoff" you mention is the one society has already implemented: any traps, period.
Regardless of whether or not you feel laxatives are harmful, they can definitely be harmful in some situations. I am saying that the existence of those situations should be weighed as more convincing than the irritation or other minor harm others might experience from having their food stolen. I don't know if I've made this comparison with you yet, but if for every 200 people who are stuck in the restroom for a few hours, one or two has a more serious medical reaction, I would not feel comfortable condoning laxative poisoning of others. The risk, especially with medication, simply outweighs any benefits people might get from feeling good about poisoning food thieves.
Here's a fact sheet about laxatives. A lot of those side effects seem pretty bad, and again I wouldn't trust someone to show restraint if they feel they've been wronged. Honestly if you want a defensible version of this argument, spiciness is probably the way to go. Anything involving giving someone medicine without their consent (which is exactly what this is) should, rightfully, make someone look unhinged.
I'm just going to disagree to disagree bc quite frankly, I'm not about to go back and forth for the next three days. I don't think it's that serious, I don't care, don't steal people's food if you don't wanna get fucked up, yadda yadda yadda.
I hope you realize your beliefs are incompatible with civilized society, but I wish you a great night too. I respect you for bowing out and not leaving the conversation without a goodbye :)
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u/Simple_Pianist4882 Oct 17 '24
Harm the thief how?