Could Staying After the Police Arrive Lead to Conviction?

[rootX]

That was great.

He probably could have been arrested, but that's because people are dumb and people make the laws.

I don't know what kind of world you want to be in.

 

[AUMathTutor]

It's actually a blessing and a curse to be surrounded by people who are, for the most part, dumb, dumb, dumb.

 

[mXSCNT]

The people in the shops made an incorrect snap judgment about the comedian with the stocking on his head. They assumed he was a robber, but he was actually just making a TV show. That is exactly the problem with profiling--false positives, when no crime has been committed.

Now, it might not have been that wise to do what he did, because somebody could have overreacted and hit him over the head or shot him thinking they were preventing a robbery. He was endangering himself, but luckily there were no mishaps and the result is very funny.

 

[AUMathTutor]

Personally, I thought it was funny too.

In Australia, do they train store owners to run away from robbers? I thought it was common here in America, anyway, to just comply with robbers. Surely you're safer that way.

 

[russ_watters]

The people in the shops made an incorrect snap judgment about the comedian with the stocking on his head. They assumed he was a robber, but he was actually just making a TV show. That is exactly the problem with profiling--false positives, when no crime has been committed.

Ok, could we please try to use some logic on this? Racial profiling is said to be wrong because it unfairly discriminates on a group of people based on their skin color. What group of people does judging based on a stocking over a person's face discriminate against? Comedians?

 

[NeoDevin]

They were running away from the TV camera, not the guy with the stocking on his head. Duh!

 

[Huckleberry]

Yeah, he really is. Wearing a stocking over one's head is only done by criminals. He might be telling people in the video he does it because its cold and he likes the look, but that doesn't make it true.

It would be a better experiment* if he wore a ski mask, but if it really were cold outside, he might not get the same reaction. And that just wouldn't make for good TV.


*It's not an experiment, it's just a TV stunt.

A stocking cap isn't only worn by criminals. Actors wear them when they are roleplaying criminals. I have no idea how common it is for criminals to wear stockings, but I can't remember ever having seen or heard of a particular case of it. My only experience with that fashion is from movie and television actors from numerous films. It seems much more reasonable to me to assume that the comedic actor in the video was pretending to be an actor that looked like a criminal, especially given that there was a guy following him around with a camera, the man was not intimidating or making demands and he never presented a weapon.

One of the store employees in the video came to the same conclusion. He told the guy to take his stocking off. He tried to remove it from him. Then he pushed him out the door. It was mostly an angry response to a bad joke. It wasn't entirely a fear response to being robbed.

The fear response is mostly irrational here. The initial thought is stocking cap = robber. If people questioned that belief and allowed rational thought they would easily realize that it is not enough information or irrelevant information. There must be assumptions made, but they can't choose wisely if they default to a mind-numbing fear response at any provocation. I mean, even without the introduction to the skit would anyone really believe that this guy was looking to rob anyone? That seems unlikely to me given the circumstances. He looks like a duck, but clucks like a chicken, walks like a chicken and pecks like a chicken. Pavlov says it is a duck. On closer examination it is easy to see he is a chicken disguised as a duck.

This is no experiment. I'm uncertain if it has any relevance to discrimination at all. This is just a bad TV stunt, and the comedian knew it before he began. He upset people for kicks.

 

[seerongo]

There are no statutes against being an idiot, unless there are some particularly enlightened jurisdictions out there. However the theory of evolution will take over eventually, since if this idiot continues, he will be rendered a moot (and mute) point.

 

[Danger]

Yeah, he really is. Wearing a stocking over one's head is only done by criminals.

Untrue. I don't know about in the US, or Australia, or anywhere else, but up here victims of severe facial burns wear an elastic mask that looks almost identical to the stocking things (but a bit more opaque).
We do also have a law, though, that makes it a crime to wear a disguise. That's never enforced, though, since it would screw up Hallowe'en and make transvestites' lives a living hell. Wearing a disguise while committing a crime, however, seriously adds to the severity of the charge.
In this case, the guy went out of his way to assure everyone that he meant no criminal intent. They just didn't believe him.

 

[lisab]

In this case, the guy went out of his way to assure everyone that he meant no criminal intent. They just didn't believe him.

Some people are bad liars; this guy is a bad truth-teller .

 

[Danger]

Too right!