Wednesday 24 March 2010

Vigilante logic


Sitting on the train this morning en-route to a meeting, I overheard the following snippet of conversation from a couple of lads in the seat opposite:
"It says 'ere that they're spending a million quid protecting some paedo!"
"Dunno why they're bothering with that. I'd slit his throat for nothing."
Now what I wanted to say was "Surely, the reason why we're having to spend this much money is because people like you want to murder him", but somehow I don't think they were in the mood for fine debate.

We see similar things in WOW quite frequently. Someone decides that something is immoral (whether that be ganking, high prices on the AH or mucky talk in Goldshire) and decides that they are the man  to deal with it, as the lilly-livered Blizzard admins aren't up to the task. So they embark on their campaign of vengeance, seemingly unaware that they are more Paedogeddon than Dirty Harry.


Sadly, real-life vigilantes aren't always too choosy about their targets, which means that many innocent people get caught in the crossfire, by footing the bill for the consequences of their righteous indignation, being harassed for being vaguely connected to the "evil ones" or having the temerity to suggest that the crusader may be over-reacting.

So if any of you happen to be reading. Stop it! You are not the hero, you're just a PITA for the rest of us.  If you see something that breaks the rules, report it. Your mission ends there.


1 comment:

  1. Yes, yes and more yes. I love the arguments about 'protecting' people's identity, especially with some of the current(ish) issues making the news headlines and yeah, this nicely ties in with the recent 'headlines' in the blogosphere.

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