Immanuel Kant believed that rational human beings should be treated as ends in themselves, and not as a means to something else. This idea is expressed in his Formula of Humanity, which is one formulation of his categorical imperative, which he considered to be the supreme principle of morality. The formula states, "So act that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means". - Taken from an AI summary from Google

Pranks: The lowest form of comedy.

Recently, my mom was excited to recommend the 2023 show “Jury Duty” which is a show where one guy on a jury thinks that the trial and the other circumstances of the trial are real but it is a Truman Show-style hoax where weird things happen and the audience gets to see the juror react. I have not seen this show and I don’t want to watch it but when I was explaining to my mom why I didn’t want to watch the show, which she thought was very fun, I realized that I have strong feelings about prank shows and pranks in general.

Terrorizing unsuspecting people for the sake of your enjoyment is borderline sociopathic. It ignores the feelings of others for personal gain. It uses people as a means to an end regardless of what the person being affected would prefer. Some people may not mind certain minor pranks but almost no one is seeking to be pranked.

The instinct to prank comes from the instinct to enact power over others and comes from the violence inherent in our genes. The ability to sneak up on something and surprise it with some kind of unwanted action is completely embedded in our nature. I have seen this in myself and try hard to recognize the impulse so that I might prevent engaging in an action that I will regret.

Pranking someone requires the repression of empathy or is an indicator that the prankster has a lack of empathy to begin with. It is a remnant of a childish and antisocial instinct that usually dissipates in adulthood. For some, this childish instinct remains and because it is considered “silly” in many cases it is not met with the punishment it might be if it were done by a child. It is a kind of mundane evil. Society is meant to be a civilizing force and for the most part, it has succeeded but antisocial behavior persists where it is accepted.

Pranks do exist on a spectrum and some are much worse than others. There is a mild prank where people pretend to fart near someone to see their reaction and most of the time they all just laugh and because no real fart exists and there are no actual poo particles the prank has almost no negative outcome. On the other side, there are pranks where people stop people from going about their day, where people use loud noises to startle them, or where they have a chance to physically hurt them. These are pranks that should not be tolerated and should be shunned.

Some help perpetuate pranking culture by encouraging it. They pay to watch it, provide emotional incentives to those who perpetrate it, and some even pay to have it done. Some dislike it or are victims of it but do nothing. Few speak out against it or enact punishment for those who perpetrate it.

Pranks are a clear example of how people are less concerned about consent and more interested in exploitation and entertainment. The ends justify the means for those that approve of pranks and yet those same people are likely to be unhappy if someone was to take away their ability to consent to actions that may affect them negatively. Pranks destroy trust and trust is the cornerstone of society. Pranks are not only the lowest form of comedy, they are a blight on the civil world and should be booed in almost every case.

The outcomes are unknown and potentially traumatic or destructive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYQ1Uf5oAU

Child Exploitation in Media, and Advertising to Children:

It is concerning that people speak out against the abuse of children and yet we have an entire industry that exploits children openly and unabashedly.

Children are not allowed to make contracts because they are unable to understand the consequences of such agreements and they are easily manipulated into making agreements that are not in their best interest. Children are vulnerable to economic, sexual, emotional, physical, and other manner of exploitation and there are strict laws regarding how children are to be treated in society. They can not hold jobs until a certain age. They can not enter into binding legal agreements until a certain age. They are not held legally responsible until a certain age. They are not allowed to be married or engage in sexual acts in circumstances where exploitation and abuse might take place.

Parents are expected to protect their children and steward them into adulthood. Parents do not own their children and children are not slaves. And yet, children are allowed to be used by the media, entertainment, and advertisers before their first birthday. Adults are allowed to use them to make money for themselves and others. Adults are allowed to put them into situations that they are unable to consent to or fully understand.

Somehow the entertainment industry has skirted labor laws to use children in movies, music, television, and other forms of public-facing media. It is well known that children brought up in these environments face all manner of potential abuse and exposure to potentially negative elements that they would not have encountered otherwise. These elements include drugs, sexual predators, stress, and money.

As far as advertising goes, I am referring mostly to social media and the use of manipulative systems for getting children to watch, buy, and interact with companies that gain financially from these activities. Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are examples of companies that children have access to with no regard for the well-being of children but instead use them to increase their value. They advertise products and take advantage of reward systems in the brain to keep kids engaging to trap them in behavior that creates addiction and stunts the development of skills that will benefit them in the future. It also gives them access to media that may be damaging to their social lives including access to sexually abusive people and imagery.

I do not think that children should be completely taken away from the world of responsibility but I do think that as people turn into adults they may look back at what they were expected to do as being exploitive and harmful. The way that parents expose their children to the public seems wantonly irresponsible and self-serving and somehow society justifies this in the name of entertainment and economic benefit. Again, it is using others as a means to an end and children are extremely vulnerable to this type of moral vice. They are easily manipulated and their entire survival relies on trusting others to navigate the world.

Why is this kind of exploitation acceptable?

Authoritarianism:

Socialism and Communism are not about compassion, they are a means to power. They are about forcing others to do things that a small amount of people, as small as one person sometimes in some cases, think are good. Those who want to use the government to enact their form of morality on others while disregarding the rights and freedoms of others are not seeking justice for all but simply seeking prosperity for themselves. The more the government controls the less people are free because there is less consent. When power is consolidated into the hands of a few the many are at the whim of those in power. Violence begets violence and a balance of power is constantly in flux but those who seek forms of government where democratic processes are not in place are seeking a world where consent is less available.

Riots that result in the destruction of property owned by those who have caused no harm are another example of how people disregard the rights of others and reveal themselves as unconcerned with consent. Rightful protest and justice are not a problem here but when people take to the streets to destroy their neighbor's property they are revealing themselves as irrational violence-seeking maniacs.
Ethics can only be considered fair when the rules are applied universally and yet so many justify harming others in the name of their benefit but when the same destruction is visited upon them they cry out in protest. If consent and freedom from the force of others is a value then people should promote systems of power that hold individual rights as paramount. Sacrificing one group for another group is a recipe for totalitarianism. If we think ourselves to be equals then we should treat others in a manner that would hold if we were treated in that same way. People should be skeptical of the use of power to get what they want.

Conclusion:

Maybe consent is a virtue that people only find palatable when it is theirs to control. Maybe consent is just something people espouse to manipulate others.

There are two types of freedom:

Freedom to do things.
Freedom to not do things.

Consent concerns this second type of freedom where we are free from the power that others can hold over us. Being free to make decisions for ourselves is the kind of freedom I wish to promote in this article. Cooperation and negotiation engender peace and when consent is not present peace is sacrificed.

If consent is something people think is valuable then they should look at the way they act and the way they treat others skeptically. They should evaluate their actions as well as the actions of others to determine where consent was disregarded. In this way, people might live up to the standard of ethics that holds consent as a virtue.

Addendum: 10.17.24

Stolen Conten Online

People steal content and post it in an effort to increase their following and fame online. They do not ask for permission in most cases and are happy to get recognition and potentially financial gain from other people’s art and effort. This is difficult to curtail and difficult to recognize so it propagates quickly. It should be discouraged by both the platforms that facilitate it and their audiences.