Say I'm trying to rob the bank but this time I offer not a gun but an unopened packet of peanuts.
I think I covered this when I said, "Where the threatened detriment is particularly minor, so is the coercion." Pretty much, anything you want to say about the quality of the threat you could say about the coercion. Peanuts are not a threat at all, hence threatening the bank teller with peanuts does not constitute coercion. Or you could say that peanuts are an unsuccessful threat, and an attempted robbery with them constitutes unsuccessful coercion.
The person being threatened is implicitly part of the equation, in that the threat has to be a threat to them. Most types of threats involved in coercion are threatening to everybody, hence this portion of the equation is usually irrelevant. However, a peanut allergy, or extreme emotional insecurity, for example, could make an ineffective threat into an effective one.
As for the sandwich thing, whether it is or is not a demand, it does not threaten significant detriment. (Hence, I didn't bother specifying whether there was a demand.) The threat involved in a hunger strike is not starvation - it is negative publicity.
no subject
I think I covered this when I said, "Where the threatened detriment is particularly minor, so is the coercion." Pretty much, anything you want to say about the quality of the threat you could say about the coercion. Peanuts are not a threat at all, hence threatening the bank teller with peanuts does not constitute coercion. Or you could say that peanuts are an unsuccessful threat, and an attempted robbery with them constitutes unsuccessful coercion.
The person being threatened is implicitly part of the equation, in that the threat has to be a threat to them. Most types of threats involved in coercion are threatening to everybody, hence this portion of the equation is usually irrelevant. However, a peanut allergy, or extreme emotional insecurity, for example, could make an ineffective threat into an effective one.
As for the sandwich thing, whether it is or is not a demand, it does not threaten significant detriment. (Hence, I didn't bother specifying whether there was a demand.) The threat involved in a hunger strike is not starvation - it is negative publicity.