[aaron695]

You have to be carefully with stories like this, often the reason they go viral is not for nice reasons.

To me it seems the enjoyment is someone gets hurt and we get to be guilt free in doing it because the hurt person is 'clear cut' bad.

Sure that's why we enjoy most movies and computer games, but I think taking it to real life is a step again.

There's a nasty undercurrent in these sort of things on the internet like nigeria scammers scammers.

Always remember more often than not the people participating in these crimes do it due to mental illness or desperation.

I'm not saying let them get away with it, I'm not saying don't blog about it. I'm just saying in my opinion perhaps try not to celebrate it to much.

[DanBC]

> Always remember more often than not the people participating in these crimes do it due to mental illness

what?

[jdaley]

Everyone should keep this in mind. I find the Nigerian scammer-scammer stories entertaining because of the vigilantism, but it's perverse entertainment knowing that many of the scammers are driven to it by desperation. Likewise, I got a kick out of this article, but we don't know the thief's personal situation. The author handled the situation fairly and doesn't revel in the revenge, but vigilantism and revenge is the reason the article goes viral.

[icebraining]

How was this vigilantism? The only people who applied a sanction to the thief were cops; he never used force or meted out any kind of extralegal punishment.

[OGinparadise]

Always remember more often than not the people participating in these crimes do it due to mental illness or desperation.

Uh OK, we should accept the loss of our hard earned cash /stuff because some thief is depressed and needs the money.

Confronting them can lead to bigger issues, jail for example and it's harder to argue self-defense when you went there, but they surely do need a thorough beating. Stay the hell away from my stuff and that's it.

[aaron695]

To quote myself above 'I'm not saying let them get away with it'

I didn't even say not to beat them. If beating them is what you have to do, so be it. All I said was the greater community shouldn't celebrate it.

My point is I think these style of stories are glurge and I think people need to try and be aware of that.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Glurge

[crusso]

All I said was the greater community shouldn't celebrate it.

Yes, the community should celebrate it - passing along the story that should yield some empathy in others regarding the feeling of being violated when your property is stolen; propagating the meme that thievery is wrong and that thieves often get caught.

Making excuses for thieves or decreasing the perceived impact of their behavior or the consequences to them only enables them.

Being the victim of theft is extraordinarily violating, and making it any easier for perpetrators of that violation is deplorable.

[icebraining]

Well, the thief was arrested; in a decent system, that would mean that possible mental illnesses would be identified and (s)he would be offered help.

Of course, I realize this is mostly wishful thinking.