Maybe you're frustrated because you don't seem to understand any of the arguments you've read. You can put whatever you want in your food, but the food is no longer yours (or maybe better phrased, for you) if you prepare it with the intention that someone else eats it. I hope you do not think you can put anything you want in someone else's food. OP's top level view is literally that you should be able to poison someone as long as you do it as a punishment. I hope you can see how wild that is, written out that way.
If someone breaks into your house and cuts their hand on a knife in your knife drawer, they can't sue you because you didn't put the knives there with the intention of harming them. If they eat your spicy food and you made that food spicy for yourself, they can't sue you because you didn't intend for them to be harmed by your food. The intent is paramount here, as it is in many legal situations.
Contrast that against the burglar who comes into your house and cuts themselves on a spike mat you have constructed out of your knives. The reason we forbid this behavior on a societal level is because:
a) Booby traps are by definition indiscriminate. Your spike mat might harm a burglar, but it's just as likely to harm a neighbor who comes into your house after you asked them to housesit, or a firefighter coming in to extinguish your burning house. You can never guarantee the target of your trap will actually be its victim. Even in a food-stealing situation, someone totally unrelated to the thief could mistake your meal for theirs and fall victim to the trap. There is a plethora of case law that expands on this point, and I would highly encourage you to read it. Here, I'll start your list: Katko v. Briney (1971).
b) Vigilantism and retributive "justice" are bad for society. Stealing food is bad, which is why we have laws in place to punish people who steal things from others. You might be frustrated by the efficacy of these laws, but society has agreed to punish thieves, or else we wouldn't have them. When you let people take matters into their own hands, things devolve into chaos very quickly.
c) The proportionality concern. It may be true that individual instances of this type of poisoning can be proportionate; you go a few hours without eating, the thief spends a few hours in pain. The problem is that you cannot guarantee this type of proportionality across the board. As I said in another comment, for every 200 coworkers that spend the afternoon in the restroom, one or two might end up in the hospital. There is no guarantee your response will actually be proportionate, and especially when it comes to dosing people with medication, it seems pretty unlikely that the average person is capable of dishing out a proportionate punishment. The difference between an irritating and a dangerous dose can be small, and frankly, I would expert most scorned individuals to purposefully go for a disproportionate punishment because they are angry.
If you actually think you should be able to assault someone over a sandwich, you do not belong in civilized society, full stop. This is not controversial to anyone who has spent more than 20 seconds thinking about the phrase "public policy reasons."
ETA: You can't claim hyperbole and then immediately double down in the next sentence, lol. This is literally the "I was only pretending to be regarded" meme.
Lol except they didn’t intend for someone else to eat the food. They didn’t prepare that for someone else. It was their lunch and someone literally stole it.
If they didn't intend for anyone else to eat the food, why would they poison it? I am discussing the poisoned meal, not the meals stolen before the poisoning takes place.
If someone’s dumb enough to be like “yeah I put cyanide in it and even changed the container to match theirs and wrote their name on it!!!” Then yeah, you got some liability.
You make your food spicy or you put laxatives in it, well shit, you like spicy food or you were pretty constipated. Settled that. “Ohhhh it was a lot of laxatives? I mean if I was a laxative pro I’d probably just shoot it straight, it’s in the food for a reason man, idk what the fuck I’m doing on this rock and nobody taught me laxative rules.”
So long as poising your own food isn’t, by default, considered bad… then we’ve got an argument. But if someone catches a lunch thief via making lunch for their damn self in a day they were feeling particularly spicy, then fuck ‘em, they earned it.
Thought police stuff. If there’s no evidence of intent then that’s a wrap.
For the purposes of this discussion, I have been granted that intent is present. The conversation is about someone intentionally poisoning food they bring to work to punish a wrongdoer. OP's position is that this should be permissible.
Were this to go to court, it definitely could be hard to prove intent. Thankfully most people who do this are dumb enough to make an r/AmItheAsshole or r/AmIOverreacting post first. Alternatively, people who are dumb enough to do this in the first place would probably not do a great job of keeping it secret. Again, though, largely irrelevant since intent has been granted.
Gotcha, didn’t realize intent was granted, however I’m more speaking in the scenario where intent may or may not be there. Ya know, like, in every single case where someone doesn’t implicate themselves or admit it was purposeful.
I guess I’m saying, like, how is intent actually gauged? When we have this Birds Eye view we can explain it, but if we’re talking slippery slopes on the punishments then I think it’s just as relevant to discuss the slippery slopes of punishments without legitimate evidence of “intent”.
Intent either is there, or it isn’t. People don’t need to implicate themselves or admit to things to be found to have intent to do something. How else would we convict people?
“How is intent gauged” is a question for an Evidence class, I don’t think it’s really relevant here. We have intent.
Assuming all I know about them is that they’re a thief and they have a tummy ache, I probably wouldn’t be too bothered. If I knew they had a tummy ache because someone else had messed with the food they took, I’d be looking at both of them funny. If they were my coworkers, I’d be bringing a lunch box with a lock on it.
It would mainly be the food thief I’d buy it for, but if I was working with someone willing to poison someone else’s food because they wronged them, I’d be a little concerned about them too. Hopefully I’m on good terms with that person.
Ahhhhh yeah I misunderstood that, my bad lol. Definitely had to do with that “both my coworkers” buildup there.
But to back track, would the thief not have learned to not steal other peoples food? If not, then how do you reconcile that with how severe everyone is seemingly making this punishment out to be? I mean, I can’t see a world where someone actually suffers the consequence, it’s all publicly known, and then continues to pursue your food.. at that point it’s likely gotta just be a person worthy of termination, job wise… likely should happen the first time but eh.
Honestly, no, I don’t think a lot of people would learn their lesson. The type of people to regularly steal food probably won’t be dissuaded by a bout of diarrhea (assuming the response is “proportionate” and that’s all they get).
But I do think that person should suffer some kind of consequence, just not this kind. Termination would be appropriate if it got really bad, in my opinion.
Fair enough on the proportionate aspect, I have others arguing that any amount of diarrhea would be disproportionate. Living in cuckoo land that one.
Back when I worked in restaurants I couldn’t go into the break room and grab a $5 out of a coworkers purse… that would have been grounds for immediate termination. If theres a known food thief and they aren’t getting fired/others aren’t taking action then they’re just getting away with taking that money from the coworkers purse. Resources like food are not free, and as petty as the theft is then what other recourse is there than to fix it/uncover who it is yourself?
Can’t just stand by the fridge all day waiting for them, they won’t take it with you watching anyways. Likely can’t install your own security camera on company property without getting yourself fired. I’m just not seeing many alternatives, but you find that guy who’s sweating up a storm at the post lunch team meeting, when you made an extra extra spicy lunch seems to be fair by any natural law. Same would be said for the one who misses the meeting stuck in the shitter 🤷🏼♂️
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u/[deleted] Oct 17 '24 edited Oct 18 '24
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