The general impression you get from reading media articles about the National Enquirer is that they quite frequently blackmail people and that blackmailing Bezos wasn’t an exception. Yet, at the same time there doesn’t seem much enforcement.
Correct. I suspect it’s too broad a category, and imprecisely defined (or at least different from things commonly measured) to have much basis OTHER than analogies and anecdotes. Fortunately, it’s also irrelevant to most of us—no action is proposed or expected as part of this discussion/debate.
[ edit: I’m embarassed to say that until now I hadn’t even looked up the legality of it. In the US, blackmail is specifically about demanding payment for not informing of a violation of US law, not for any other topics of gossip. It’s also a relatively minor offence. Many jurisdictions just treat it as a special case of extortion, which is severe, but unclear whether that’s because it’s often violent or because it’s bad on it’s own.]
It’s very unlikely that if someone would contemplate an action, that the action would be within the Overton window of the public debate and be expressed here.
Fair enough. I think my “no action proposed/expected” was mostly an expression of frustration that we don’t seem to have found any crux for the “debate”, and I don’t think anyone has changed their opinion based on it.
In retrospect for the debate, this makes it seem like a useless topic. In prospect, it was interesting and potentially useful (in that it could illuminate some aspect of morality of behavior). I’m trying to explore how I might know the difference next time such a topic becomes popular in these circles. Action probably isn’t it, but I’m not sure what is.
Well, there wouldn’t be, would there? When the victim accedes and the blackmailer keeps their end of the bargain, it will never come to the attention of law enforcement.
There are going to be cases where another person reveals the information or the blackmailer asks for more money then the victim is open to pay and the deal doesn’t go over effectively.
Of course there will be such cases, but they aren’t the rule, or blackmail would hardly exist.
In most other crimes, the victim has an incentive to take action against the perpetrator. The entire point of blackmail is to put the victim in a position where he cannot do that.
I think there’s a crossed wire here. I read Dagon as claiming that hypocrisy is prohibited but rarely enforced, rather than blackmail is prohibited but rarely enforced. I take it from “crime” that you understand the latter.
In my interpretation the statement would be that hypocrisy is frowned upon by society but the norm of non-hypocrisy is not enforced via blackmail.
Clarified—the hypocrisy is that blackmail is prohibited but not enforced against. We claim that it’s bad, but allow it most of the time. I could argue that hypocrisy itself falls into this category (we complain about it, but don’t actually punish it) as well, but I didn’t intend to.
I have not really followed the debates. So: How do you know it is “rarely enforced”, in particular compared to other crimes?
The general impression you get from reading media articles about the National Enquirer is that they quite frequently blackmail people and that blackmailing Bezos wasn’t an exception. Yet, at the same time there doesn’t seem much enforcement.
So now it seems that there is a debate about the pros and cons of blackmail, and it is based on anecdotal evidence and vague impressions.
Correct. I suspect it’s too broad a category, and imprecisely defined (or at least different from things commonly measured) to have much basis OTHER than analogies and anecdotes. Fortunately, it’s also irrelevant to most of us—no action is proposed or expected as part of this discussion/debate.
[ edit: I’m embarassed to say that until now I hadn’t even looked up the legality of it. In the US, blackmail is specifically about demanding payment for not informing of a violation of US law, not for any other topics of gossip. It’s also a relatively minor offence. Many jurisdictions just treat it as a special case of extortion, which is severe, but unclear whether that’s because it’s often violent or because it’s bad on it’s own.]
It’s very unlikely that if someone would contemplate an action, that the action would be within the Overton window of the public debate and be expressed here.
Fair enough. I think my “no action proposed/expected” was mostly an expression of frustration that we don’t seem to have found any crux for the “debate”, and I don’t think anyone has changed their opinion based on it.
In retrospect for the debate, this makes it seem like a useless topic. In prospect, it was interesting and potentially useful (in that it could illuminate some aspect of morality of behavior). I’m trying to explore how I might know the difference next time such a topic becomes popular in these circles. Action probably isn’t it, but I’m not sure what is.
Well, there wouldn’t be, would there? When the victim accedes and the blackmailer keeps their end of the bargain, it will never come to the attention of law enforcement.
There are going to be cases where another person reveals the information or the blackmailer asks for more money then the victim is open to pay and the deal doesn’t go over effectively.
Of course there will be such cases, but they aren’t the rule, or blackmail would hardly exist.
In most other crimes, the victim has an incentive to take action against the perpetrator. The entire point of blackmail is to put the victim in a position where he cannot do that.
I think there’s a crossed wire here. I read Dagon as claiming that hypocrisy is prohibited but rarely enforced, rather than blackmail is prohibited but rarely enforced. I take it from “crime” that you understand the latter.
In my interpretation the statement would be that hypocrisy is frowned upon by society but the norm of non-hypocrisy is not enforced via blackmail.
Clarified—the hypocrisy is that blackmail is prohibited but not enforced against. We claim that it’s bad, but allow it most of the time. I could argue that hypocrisy itself falls into this category (we complain about it, but don’t actually punish it) as well, but I didn’t intend to.
Because there’s so much of it?
So much of what?
How do you know that?