Dude did a solid for his fellow man. The note didn't make any claims, just relayed what he saw. If I don't have the right to look at porn in public, then what's on my phone screen isn't private. Period. ***** ought to hide her cheating better.
Short, sweet, and to the point. This guy didn't take her phone while she was in the bathroom and go rooting through it for dirt. He saw her acting shifty and texting another guy suspiciously in a public place in plain sight. This guy did the right thing hands down. If I were being cheated on I'd want to know. If I thought someone was being cheated on I'd do something similar to this guy. Not make any outright claims or accusations, but relay what I saw and let them work it out. If it really was something innocuous like a friends or family member then she should have no problem explaining it. If on the other hand she was cheating on this guy, then she got what she deserved.
Short, sweet, and to the point. This guy didn't take her phone while she was in the bathroom and go rooting through it for dirt. He saw her acting shifty and texting another guy suspiciously in a public place in plain sight.
So, to summarize, if you or your loved ones are texting and I'm in a position to read everything you're writing, I am not only free to do so but I'm "doing the right thing hands down". And I'm free to act on any suspicions I might have, and divulge the content of your conversation to anyone I please, on the change that you might be up to no good?
You guys are very flexible with your privacy, I'm impressed!
Well I'm interested. Hopefully the man in question finds this thread and provides us with some answers.
Maybe he has an irrational fear of smartphones, and believes that if a phone isn't being kept watch by at least two people at all times, it may start to eat people, or maybe sign you up to Spotify Premium without your permission you just can't know.
On topic, serious face- It's easy to look at this as an end justifying the means. It's also therefore tempting to retrospectively excuse the means because we like the end. I think it's difficult to paint the guy as an asshole, although maybe I'm too forgiving. But he isn't some sort of hero either; you can't start playing pro bono private investigator because you see someone acting a bit suspicious with their phone. Especially when you have no idea of the consequences. Among other things, you don't know why the person is acting suspicious when you start snooping, and you don't know how the person receiving the information may react after you hand it over. Guppy himself pointed out that it could have been an abusive relationship.
But nobody likes being cheated on. Especially in a forum of young people, you're going to see a lot of strong emotional reactions, especially if they or someone they know has been on the sad end of that sort of stuff.
All I'm saying is that if the woman was cheating, then this was a 100% right thing to do. I hate cheaters more than I hate any other people. They're scum.
More than murderers? More than child abusers? More than animal abusers? more than torturers? more than people that sell the future of other for profit? more than negligent corrupt individuals that may cuase hundreds of deaths? More than people selling post-axpiration date medicine, profiting from poor and helpless individuals? More than people who traffic and abuse other human beings? More than fundamentalist that cut women? More than all the felons and criminals who actually hurt innocent people? Cheaters are really worse? Might be bit judgementa, but there are thousands of things worse than cheating and the poeple that do them deserve more hate than a behaviour that is both common and not always damaging or baseless.
This guy didn't had any business peeking on a phone. Breaking someones right is not okay, not for a mere supsission with nobase and not knowing context or possible reactions nor any implications of the action.
T0ad 0f Truth said:
No, not full stop. All that tells me is you don't like what he did. It tells me nothing about why what he did was wrong, how what he did was wrong, or how him looking at someone's phone and you reading about it makes the judgement "oh he's an asshole" accurate.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Delcaration of Human Rights. If he was doing it to peek, that is totally wrong. Even if he suspected wrong doing, he has no right to violate anotehr human's right.
am i the only one who suspects he only started looking at her phone after noticing she had been strategically hiding it from her husband? if i saw someone acting that suspicious, i would take a peek, too.
I applaud your honesty. There's a lot of LOLOLOL TEXTING AIN'T PRIVATE talking heads on this forum. I suspect they'd be equally pissed if it was their own texts being read. Alas, self-awareness is in short supply on these forums at times.
T0ad 0f Truth said:
If you have a morality that takes intent and circumstances into account the way it does actual actions, then if he was stalking my girlfriend because he thought she was intending to hurt someone (in the loose sense following the story above), then his intent might well be good but his execution is wrong and paranoid.
What if he just started stalking her for shits and giggles, and after a little bit of stalking decided she might hurt someone? How would you view him then? If I broke into your house intending to rob you and then prevented an electrical fire, would you pin a medal on me? Or was I "wrong" for breaking into your house to begin with?
I think the conversation is far enough along, that I see mostly the differences and can kind of try to explain.
It'd be easier to explain what I think about morality very quickly to get to the disagreement. *sigh* I talk about philosophy way too much here xD
I mentioned Sentimentalism and Stoicism because I think both ethical systems have pieces that are right on the money, and they're quite different from Utilitarianism (greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people) and Deontology (Right and Wrong).
Sentimentalism was originally a response to Hobbes. Hobbes said we all act self interestedly and only self interestedly. If we do something good for someone else then we do it because we're getting something out of it, whether we realise we're doing it for that reason or not. He said that there was no objective criteria to say something was good or bad or right or wrong. Morality was subjective and just an odd extension of our own individual psychology.
Sentimentalism started by Hutcheson said yes morality is subjective and not universal, yes people act self interestedly, but not only self interestedly. We have a trait of benevolence that compared to a sense faculty.
In short empathy. We desire the good for another and we develop this sentiment and just have it along with all our other self interested desires and emotions.
For the sentimentalists, this moral sense is developed through experiences of things and putting ourselves in others shoes. Some can do this better than others and some can't do it at all. So when we empathise with some one which we do automatically and put ourselves in their shoes, we experience as we'd imagine we'd experience it.
A sentimentalist would say some people get MORE morally outraged by certain "wrongs" if they themselves are pissed when it happens to them.
Stoicism is an Ancient greek philosophy that simply says the only things we truly have in our power to control are our reactions, emotions, thoughts, and actions. We can change how we percieve things and if happiness is our goal, inch our emotions, desires, and lives towards tranquility through rational introspection by changing what we can and changing how we feel about things we can't control (i.e. Let them go or accept it and focus on what you can do).
*deep breath*
Sooooo, if you put them together you have your appetites and emotions and psychology working the way it does for you on an individual level and you have stoicism which helps you to think and act using those emotions in a way that makes you personally happy. And since benevolence/empathy exists the desire for the good of another person also exists to be taken into account. That idea of happiness is where you get your "should act" in a subjective moral system.
If none of that made sense, that's fine, it's complicted, and it might be complete bunk, but it's probably going to be a thesis of mine at some point.
TL;DR Anyway, the disagreement is that I don't think he did wrong becuase I don't think wrong exists in that way. I FEEL that it does because empathy, but am not convinced of the objectivity of that statement. What it behooves us to do is not to judge the man or woman for doing something out of our control if it involves an impotent (as opposed to potent anger). It's not in our interest, or theirs, or anyone's interest.
The man's actions are not in his interest assuming a certain level of empathy, because he's failing to live up to what I argue was good intention. He wanted to help becuase empathy and benevolence and didn't.
I don't know, it's too hard to say what a person did or didn't do wrong in this system if you understood the above, so don't waste time doing it, just do "right" in the above stoic sense if it can be done. That's my complete take. I don't see the point in saying this man did or didn't do wrong detached from what could be done if you were able to intervene.
For the other questions. As I said above I'd probably view the stalker in a very negative or angry light and the robber in a mixed grateful angry view. What I'd say would be ideal to do is do what can be done and don't let yourself be irrationally upset by what can't be changed.
If god forbid, the stalker killed my girlfriend the ideal reaction would be to accept it. Not callously I mean, but you know how when a loved one dies and there's a hellish mourning period until they accept it? When they do accept it, there's not "no more sadness," but there is a tranquilty. To be able to do that automatically is essentially the stoic version of a buddha. You feel feelings, you aren't controlled by them.
Postscript - Your name is TOAD of Truth. It is a fucking OUTRAGE that your avatar is a *Raccoon*. =P
I tried finding a good toad picture for awhile and then gave up and just went for clowns, then a Majora's Mask avatar, and now this Adorable Washbear. So I did try. You find me a toad as cool as Majora or cute as this thing and I'll use it xD
All I'm saying is that if the woman was cheating, then this was a 100% right thing to do. I hate cheaters more than I hate any other people. They're scum.
More than murderers? More than child abusers? More than animal abusers? more than torturers? more than people that sell the future of other for profit? more than negligent corrupt individuals that may cuase hundreds of deaths? More than people selling post-axpiration date medicine, profiting from poor and helpless individuals? More than people who traffic and abuse other human beings? More than fundamentalist that cut women? More than all the felons and criminals who actually hurt innocent people? Cheaters are really worse? Might be bit judgementa, but there are thousands of things worse than cheating and the poeple that do them deserve more hate than a behaviour that is both common and not always damaging or baseless.
This guy didn't had any business peeking on a phone. Breaking someones right is not okay, not for a mere supsission with nobase and not knowing context or possible reactions nor any implications of the action.
T0ad 0f Truth said:
No, not full stop. All that tells me is you don't like what he did. It tells me nothing about why what he did was wrong, how what he did was wrong, or how him looking at someone's phone and you reading about it makes the judgement "oh he's an asshole" accurate.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Delcaration of Human Rights. If he was doing it to peek, that is totally wrong. Even if he suspected wrong doing, he has no right to violate anotehr human's right.
I'm very familiar with the philosophies behind the ideas of human rights, and no that only tells me the International legality of it, not the ethicality of it. The question was rhetorical anyway.
I'm with you on this one, and as for the whole "privacy" thing, she was texting in a very public place so to me the whole "he was violating personal space" thing is safely debunked
"Hey man I've been looking at her texts during the game and this is what I saw, maybe their is other context to this but it looks suspicious" or something to that effect, he didn't outright accuse her he's simply mentioning what he saw
Scenario. Youre texting for a while. And all of a sudden you get a tap on the shoulder. Its me. I've been behind you the whole time.
"Hey dude I've been reading your texts, dont ask out Britanny, it wont work out for you, she sounds like a douche".
Would you be annoyed or affronted at me, a complete stranger, reading your phone? Its a public place, so by your logic you wouldnt be even mildly annoyed or concerned because theres been zero violation. You probably wouldnt even tell me to stop, after all you were in public so theres no issue.
Tis I, NSA man, reading other peoples texts for their own good but on a micro scale! If you dont want my advice on your personal life dont have conversations in public with or without a phone. I am not an asshole!
How did he know she was "texting another guy suspiciously" without reading her texts for some time without having any idea who she was talking to?
Acting shifty? We know she was "trying to hide her phone". Possibly because of shitheads reading it over her shoulder.
So, to summarize, if you or your loved ones are texting and I'm in a position to read everything you're writing, I am not only free to do so but I'm "doing the right thing hands down". And I'm free to act on any suspicions I might have, and divulge the content of your conversation to anyone I please, on the change that you might be up to no good?
You guys are very flexible with your privacy, I'm impressed!
It's not that hard to see the name listed on the top of screen designating the recipient.
I can see you're really big on protecting your privacy, which is fine. But It's naive to think that just because it's your phone or your email or your notepad that everyone else is going to politely look away. If I'm having a conversation on one of my personal devices and I don't want the people around me to see then I take steps to keep it out of their sight. Most of the time, I couldn't give two shits about what some random person is reading on my phone or saying about it to their friends becasue that doesn't affect my life at all. What a stranger reads on my phone is much less important to me than whether or not my girlfriend/wife/significant other is cheating on me behind my back. If I was being cheated on I'd want to know, my SO's privacy be damned. If I'm a lying cheater and someone outs me, then I got what I deserved for being a deceitful liar. The legitimacy of a relationship and the emotional weight that's tied up in it means more to me than the "invasion" of someone looking at another's text message.
I don't know about you, but I've never had my "eye wander" and accidentally devour long swaths of conversation through which I was able to divine the many details this guy would've needed to acquire in order to substantiate his suspicion.
And given it's The Chive, I agree fake is the most likely scenario, but we're discussing it as a hypothetical.
Johnisback said:
There's also a big difference between broadcasting this information you've stumbled across to anyone that will listen and informing the party that is directly involved and potentially being deceived.
Sure. So if, say, I had reason to believe your excuse for being late was faked, or that you weren't actually sick on a day off, and got you fired because I was snooping your phone, you'd have a chuckle and say "well played friend". And my actions would be entirely defensible?
Let's remember what's being discussed here. It's whether or not what the guy did was A) Admirable or B) Kind of shitty. I'm arguing that regardless of the eventual outcome, the answer is B.
JUMBO PALACE said:
I can see you're really big on protecting your privacy, which is fine. But It's naive to think that just because it's your phone or your email or your notepad that everyone else is going to politely look away.
It's a good thing I'm not arguing about the naivety of expecting privacy when texting in a public venue. I'm arguing that reading someone's phone over their shoulder is a shit-bird thing to do. The common defense offered is "He was doing it to protect his Bro!!!!!!", but in order to even know WTF was going on in that conversation he had to have been reading for quite some time without any noble motivations whatsoever.
I'm going to condense, Toad. I appreciate the effort you're putting into this discussion, but I'm out of time for lengthy replies. Good discussion. I maintain my position that an individual reading someone's phone over their shoulder for that length of time was engaging in voyeuristic thrill seeking, which he then compounded by leaping to moralistic assumptions.
T0ad 0f Truth said:
I tried finding a good toad picture for awhile and then gave up and just went for clowns, then a Majora's Mask avatar, and now this Adorable Washbear. So I did try. You find me a toad as cool as Majora or cute as this thing and I'll use it xD
I'm very familiar with the philosophies behind the ideas of human rights, and no that only tells me the International legality of it, not the ethicality of it. The question was rhetorical anyway.
I usually take them as a very good starting point for ethics. They are a elgal document, but the rights in that document for me are a good way to start an ethic. In that everyone has their right and under very special conditions (usually that they are going to violate anothers rights and even those should be done in a very special fashion, seeing the case and wighting the options) are the only times your rights should be overriden (and by a state and in very limited capacity and only some rights with due process). A particular has no right, under a simple suspission of a slight misdeed (without going into cheating is even a misdeed, it is a slight, not illegal, and only in some instances morally reprehensible) to go over anothers right. I find the prhase of a Mexican polititian, Benito Juarez (even with all his problems) very true: "The respecto of the other's rights, is what peace is" (loose trnaslation). You, by your perceptions of not lifethreatening wrongdoing, is not a valid excuse for overriding anothers right. Even if the question was rethorical. I strongly disagree with what this man did.
Boy, Donald Sterling is probably wondering where all of these pro-privacy people were when he got in trouble. That was an even larger breach of privacy.
All I'm saying is that if the woman was cheating, then this was a 100% right thing to do. I hate cheaters more than I hate any other people. They're scum.
More than murderers? More than child abusers? More than animal abusers? more than torturers? more than people that sell the future of other for profit? more than negligent corrupt individuals that may cuase hundreds of deaths? More than people selling post-axpiration date medicine, profiting from poor and helpless individuals? More than people who traffic and abuse other human beings? More than fundamentalist that cut women? More than all the felons and criminals who actually hurt innocent people? Cheaters are really worse? Might be bit judgementa, but there are thousands of things worse than cheating and the poeple that do them deserve more hate than a behaviour that is both common and not always damaging or baseless.
Morally, this is a very grey area. On one hand, if cheating is going on the husband has the right to know. On the other hand, a stranger looking at someone's phone without consent is a pretty creepy violation of privacy.
It's like breaking into someone's house and finding that it is a crack den. Sure, you found a crack den but you also broke into someone's home and couldn't have known what was going on inside until after you broke in. An extreme comparison but hopefully it illustrates what's wrong with the guy's behaviour.
Though technically, no laws were broken in this case? I think? Looking at a phone isn't a punishable offence, though it is seen as a violation of personal space.
eh I wouldn't use that example, this involves 3 parties, not two like your example, and he didn't "break in", he was simply sitting behind her at the game, and she more than likely was more worried about whoever she was with seeing the phone than the other people around her, I've been in public MANY times at high volume events where people *clearly* didn't give a fuck or didn't realize how easy it was for everyone to see what was on their phone and what they were saying. maybe I have eagle eyes, but text isn't that hard to see on smart phones now a days from over 7 feet away. I wasn't intentionally being nosey, and I didn't even process what I saw, that's just the line of vision I had at the moment as my eyes glossed over it.
no one here can tell me they've never seen something they didn't want to or try to, or had simply caught a glimpse of something that looked like an odd scenario.
if you (generalized you, as in whoever) read the message, it states that they don't know each other, and that he had seen her texting jason wishing she was with him all day, short and to the point.
BloatedGuppy said:
So if your girlfriend or wife was out somewhere, and some random guy just decided to spend a couple of hours creeping her phone over her shoulder, you'd be perfectly okay with that? It's not really BAD. What if she's misbehaving? He could totally crack the case wide open!
If my gf/wife was at a football game, and the random person behind her happened to see what she was texting because she was obviously in a high volume area and his line of sight happened to pass in that general direction anyways, then no, I wouldn't have a problem with it, just like if she was having a voice conversation, do you just expect people around you to mute what you are saying?
Let me say this before this gets any further. You could switch the gender of any of the three parties involved, and my opinion would not change regardless, any person can be creepy and any person can be a dirtbag scumdick cheating fuckface. (not that she is one, just that it is possibly implied based on the context from the note)
if the guy was a woman beating douchebag, you'd be hard pressed to tell me she would be texting jason in the first place with the guy around, let alone for that long amount of time at the football game. you're assuming just as much if not more based on any evidence shown. If the woman and the man are not a couple, then obviously it wouldn't have worked out anyways and the guy isn't being led on anymore. If the man and woman are siblings/family/etc... then they would just laugh it off and probably share it as a family joke at the next family event. if they are in an open relationship, then once again, they'll laugh it off and leave it be.
this isn't someone going and grabbing her phone and combing through the messages, this isn't someone purposefully camping in a spot to get an eagle eye on what she is typing in a non heavy volume place.
if so, and you go through something like this on a normal basis, then I pity you for thinking you had real "privacy" in that situation.
All I'm saying is that if the woman was cheating, then this was a 100% right thing to do. I hate cheaters more than I hate any other people. They're scum.
More than murderers? More than child abusers? More than animal abusers? more than torturers? more than people that sell the future of other for profit? more than negligent corrupt individuals that may cuase hundreds of deaths? More than people selling post-axpiration date medicine, profiting from poor and helpless individuals? More than people who traffic and abuse other human beings? More than fundamentalist that cut women? More than all the felons and criminals who actually hurt innocent people? Cheaters are really worse? Might be bit judgementa, but there are thousands of things worse than cheating and the poeple that do them deserve more hate than a behaviour that is both common and not always damaging or baseless.
Your own personal experience, as awful as it is, (And it does suck. I'm sorry that it happened to you.) does not warrant such irrational hate as to strip the rights of that person on a mere suspicion.
I've had a bad experience with my neighbors. This does not give me the right to kick down their door and evict them.
I've had a bad experience with a girl. It does not give me the right to kick her door down and remand my belongings back.
I've had a bad experience with an employer. I'm not going to firebomb the place.
Edit: More, relatable... I've been wronged by two people here. I'm not going to hack their accounts, or worm my way into their Steam acct's.
Grow the fuck up. Sorry for being blunt, but privacy is a right that I value very, very much. Not only did that man have no idea of any context at all, but he also had no right. What happened if the woman wasn't cheating. Her and Jason are merely friends? Now there's a divide between those two people. And a divide like that takes a long time to repair.
I don't know about you, but I've never had my "eye wander" and accidentally devour long swaths of conversation through which I was able to divine the many details this guy would've needed to acquire in order to substantiate his suspicion.
And given it's The Chive, I agree fake is the most likely scenario, but we're discussing it as a hypothetical.
then your eyes are very slothish at picking up key words and contextual hints.
Man sits down at game, notices what appears to be a couple in front of him. (man sitting next to pregnant woman. man attempts to put arm around woman multiple times.) man notices woman being particularly sly/recluse to the man, happens to notice a text to a typical male name, which mentioned she wished she could be with him instead. Man then curiously thinks "huh, a bit odd...whatever." watches game for a while, realizes same situation in front of him washes and repeats multiple times, seeing same reclusiveness and sneakiness towards the man while hiding texts to another man in her phone for a little over 3 hours *average time of a football game if you attend one*. I would think him seeing the same thing happen over and over over 3 hours would cause him to think she isn't being honest with the other man.
I agree though, likely fake, however I feel this situation could very easily happen and has probably happened before, some changes provided.
Sure. So if, say, I had reason to believe your excuse for being late was faked, or that you weren't actually sick on a day off, and got you fired because I was snooping your phone, you'd have a chuckle and say "well played friend". And my actions would be entirely defensible?
Let's remember what's being discussed here. It's whether or not what the guy did was A) Admirable or B) Kind of shitty. I'm arguing that regardless of the eventual outcome, the answer is B.
If you saw me or heard me the day before saying I was going to fake being sick, then yes, call me out on my bullshit. Hilariously enough, I can use my sick days whenever I want to for my job, so in this scenario, you'd be laughed out of the room. not the point though, I get it.
however, using a sick day =/= cheating on someone, not by a long shot.
It's a good thing I'm not arguing about the naivety of expecting privacy when texting in a public venue. I'm arguing that reading someone's phone over their shoulder is a shit-bird thing to do. The common defense offered is "He was doing it to protect his Bro!!!!!!", but in order to even know WTF was going on in that conversation he had to have been reading for quite some time without any noble motivations whatsoever.
if the guy was specifically posting himself with a bird's eye view of the persons phone after the person had sat down, then yeah, he'd obviously only have the motivation of peeping at what he/she was saying.
if someone in front of you happened to be texting, and you glanced and saw "I'm going to fucking kill you." or "Why hasn't my bomb gone off?" would you not do a double take or possibly do something about it?
I realize those aren't the same comparisons as cheating, but you are trying to blissfully ignore context here. and yes it probably seems like I'm picking on you, but you seem to be my devils advocate in this regard, as I fucking hate cheating, it drives me up the fucking wall how selfish and arrogant some people can be by doing it.
This article here has a comment from the guy who warned the other guy (it's the 5th comment down, by "Lye Beastin")
http://madworldnews.com/man-pregnant-wife-texting/
Here are some exerpts from his comment (it's pretty long), which give a bit more context as to his mindset and why he did what he did.
Just to clear up a few things since people seem to want to know.The main reason I even decided to pay attention to this "lady" was because she had said something that irritated me and everyone else around us. The guy behind her said "wow for the price they charge for fries here that's pretty small, they barely give you anything" and she replied out loud "it's okay, I'm use to small things " right in front of her man and the rest of us. Every one was shocked and embarrassed for her man including the guy who made the comment about her fries. That's what really ticked me off, also that's how she brought the attention to herself. That is the main reason I believe I went out of my way to do what i did, it just irritated me and I felt bad for this guy (mind you I was a little tipsy, I had been tailgating since 9am .
Main thing for me was, I felt like a coward knowing I could possibly save this guy from so much stress, pain and bullshit and NOT giving him the heads up. Plus, it was thanksgiving lol All I know is if I was in his situation I would of appreciated someone giving me the heads up if they could, so I did....case closed. I usually do mind my own business but everything about that scenario made me want to do it and what she said to degrade her own man like that in public disgusted me...I had to do it. Had she not said that, idk if I would of done the same thing to be honest. I would of thought about it but I don't know if I would of actually went through with it.
The way her man kept trying to look at her phone from the corner of his eyes, you could tell he was suspicious but didnt want to get caught trying to get a glimpse and the way she would tilt her phone completely away from him when he turned to talk to her, then turn it off and put it in her purse you could tell exactly what the situation was.
Bunch of cowards in this day and age. Yes - it could have been this or that, but may as well let the guy know. If it really was nothing sinister, then she could easily prove so.
Too many people are scared to get involved and are obsessed with political correctness.
Man did the right thing. Can't really argue otherwise.
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