81–90 of 225 posts
> He has just driven through the red light to escape us! And if in the process he happens to crash his car into a family or pedestrian and kill everybody he hits, the defense will be "we were just trying to make a citizen's arrest?"
Truly, what compels a person to do such a thing? I too have struggled heavily with depression in the past, but I've never once felt the urge to repeatedly vandalize anyone's property. Like, I just don't understand what's to gain.
I think it's important to remember what mental illness is, at it's core- an important organ that isn't working correctly. The brain is the thing that tells you what is and isn't right. It provides motivation, impulses, everything. And it can break in any number of ways- depression is merely one of them. This person is ill. That doesn't excuse them, but it does help explain them.
However, I do not think the vast majority of stalkers are impaired in that way. If you're so impaired that you're stalking others, the rest of your life will also be a shitshow because of your impairment. Holding down a job, maintaining friendly and familial relationships, securing housing, staying out of prison, etc are going to be out of reach for people who are genuinely that impaired.
The vast majority of people who abuse and stalk their love interests are not that impaired. They're able to have real careers and relationships that would otherwise be prevented from real impairment. These people don't stalk or abuse other people in their lives, just the people they believe they're entitled to stalk and abuse. They are not impaired, they are selective about their actions and successfully compartmentalize those behaviors in ways that prevent them from negatively affecting the rest of their lives. That shows planning, intent and control, not impairment from illness.
Truly, what compels a person to do such a thing? I too have struggled heavily with depression in the past, but I've never once felt the urge to repeatedly vandalize anyone's property. Like, I just don't understand what's to gain.
I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that the normal levels of inhibitions and reading social cues aren't present in many stalking cases. There is a belief that if they are just persistent enough, their target will see their attempts as affection and fall head over heals for them. Fundamentally, I believe we need to do more for people like this. Safety nets and mental health and, if needed, in patient care. Wou…
I feel like a lot of these situations can be avoided with some simple, hard rules: primarily a) no means no when it comes to anything flirting, and b) don’t become obsessed with any one person at least until you’re dating*.
There’s a lot of nuance in social communication, but I really don’t see a case when you should break any of these hard rules. So many instances of serious harassment come down to breaking one or all of them. Idk how but the world would be much better if we could somehow just convince people to never, ever break them, and even if they are already broken, to just stop.
* There’s also c) stop doing something “romantic” or “social” if you notice it makes others uncomfortable. But I suspect some people just can’t notice discomfort. The key words are “romantic” or “social” (and for a it is “flirting”) because sometimes you have to boss people around and say things which make them uncomfortable, like that they need to get out of the way or their job performance needs to improve, but you should never be making people awkward or uncomfortable if you are “just chatting”; and you will never get a girlfriend or boyfriend by scaring or pressuring them. Well, maybe you will if they’re not very smart, but that’s morally wrong, or if you’re high-profile or in Iraq, but you’re not and that’s also morally wrong. Like I said, nuance
> Side note for Bumble — this is what we would call an “entity resolution” problem, leading to safety problems for your platform. When someone installs your app, you need to detect whether they have already installed it previously. If they have, then their activity (including blocks and people who have already declined them) should be linked to this new account. What is Bumble supposed to do if the user asks them to…
See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25276393/how-to-ban-an-i... for more details.
> If you are a guy, ask your sister or mother how they would feel if this was happening to them. I would change this to asking if it has happened, I'd bet it has happened to far more females in one's life than people realize. But since it hasn't (or maybe it has) escalated to violence people don't think much of it. I unsuccessfully told a couple people before about a guy that was harassing me in a similar fashion, wh…
Maybe obvious, but uh: don’t fucking do this! I get it, I'm an older brother, I would wanna go ballistic too. But the fact that these guys skipped over "notify the police" and went straight to "seek out in-person confrontation" is insane! Stalkers are not people in their right mind. Staking out and planning to “citizen’s arrest”(???) someone who has repeatedly visited late at night to threaten and harass is NOT SAFE…
By the way, remember when less than a year ago 376 police officers stood around while a deranged gunman murdered 19 highschool students, serving no other purpose than to prevent anyone from entering the school and saving the students?
Nobody cares about your safety as much as you and your family do.
Would have been better if we didn't have to hear about how great it was that she had three brothers. If she had three sisters into security I guess she would have been screwed?
I also found the formulations off-putting, e.g. repeating how lucky it is for a girl to have brothers (emphasis on their gender). Or how they felt the need to explain specifically to the male readers why the sister was concerned by what's going on. I am a man and I would be scared shitless if some weirdo was breaking eggs on my car. The author probably just didn't realize this angle, I doubt he meant it in a bad way.
The takeaway should have been 'she was luck to have people close to her that knew how to dox people online' and not 'she had three brothers who recklessly camp out at night in order to get into high speed pursuits.'
These kinds of loons are far too common. I've wiped out most of my online presence that links to my real identity because of this. I'm not worried about big tech and advertisers getting my data, they just want to make money. I'm worried about insane individuals like this. You have to be proactive and avoid posting this stuff in public to begin with as it's much harder or impossible to retract what you have already po…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, but like... they didn't even "let the police handle it." They just went straight to "late-night stakeout." > Cops can’t do much if you’re worried someone will harm you or a loved one. You're right, and that would be a scary situation... if they didn't have more than enough evidence for the police to get involved. Repeated, late-night visits to leave threatening messages would be plenty for a restraining order i…
As per the article, they definitely did call the police beforehand. Clearly the police had taken little, if any, action. It's hidden, but it's there: "my sister had already had a couple of police visits about the previous incidents".