[UA] OT: I don't want to know what is going to happen (long)

[Timothy Ferguson]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu [mailto:ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu]On
> Behalf Of rogerfcw at cyberway.com.sg

I am so hoping this is a boneheaded hoax - if, I real life, you have so
little empathy for this woman, whoever she is, then you are pathetic.

> I don't know what to do. My games have never been great, but they
> had atmosphere. Now my office's air-conditioner seems
> exceptionally strong. The storm that is brewing outside is very
> unseasonal for the equator.

Well, let me make the decision for you.  If a buddy calls you and says he is
going to hurt someone, and you then tell a mailing list full of people, and
then he does and you've taken no action to alert the police, you are an
accessory before the fact with a couple of dozen witnesses to a signed
confession of your culpability.  If he hurts her, for example, you get to go
to jail with him, where your chances of being ass-raped are about 30% a
year...Australian figures.

> Logic and emotion. I've always been more in favour of the former.
> Science and superstition. Is the news tonight going to change my
> views? Will I stop role playing because my imagination doesn't
> seem to match up to reality's twists?

Is your lack of roleplaying really your biggest problem at this point?  You
seem to be the sort of person who, rather than doing anything useful in a
crisis, disappears into his own navel.  Don't sit here waxing poetic.

> I haven't got time to spell check or proof read this.

Yet you wasted time typing it in the first place.

> I'm going
> to call my friend again. Maybe we can meet up before he does
> something stupid. Maybe not.

As I once said to someone who though he was my friend: "The thing about
having friends who'd help your bury a body is, you should never ask them to
do trivial crimes for you.  It's the body in the bush, or its nothing at
all."  If a friend has called you to tell you he's about to do something
this dumb, it's a cry for help, he wants to be stopped.

Personally, I'd give his name, address, description and cell phone number to
the police - and since I'm a JP I'd then give them a warrant to seize him by
force for psychiatric assessment.  He's landed you in the crap with him, as
an accessory.  Friends don't make friends accessories.

Now, if this is an IC post, fine, you win, I responded to it as if it were
real.  Well done.  I'd far prefer to look like an easily-misled idiot that
to believe that there really is a member of the list here who received a
phone call from a friend who is ex-drug dependant threatening to harm
someone, and who has decided that rather than do anything useful, they'll
instead come here for some sort of absolution.  Great, you trolled me, I'm
an idiot, you win.


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