[amarte]

Gibbons' actions are extremely selfish in my opinion. I know someone who used to work behind the cash registers of gas stations in North Houston. He has been robbed and held at gun point multiple times. According to him, the experience is traumatic and made him fearful and stressed out at work. To put someone through that for no reason other than your own curiosity is intolerably inconsiderate.

Instead, Gibbons could have picked up a copy of Crime and Punishment or some other work of art if he wanted to acquire a sense of the desperation felt by "the disenfranchised of society." It is not a stretch to imagine that it probably sucks.

Great art can teach us about life without the burden of living through the worst it has to offer. Trying to force traumatic experiences on yourself at the expense of others is not art but stupidity.

[Retra]

It feels like the classic "but, officer: it was only a joke!"