[appreciatorBus]

Conversely, what if we lower the generally acceptable threshold of light intensity from neighbours to zero?

At some level, we all have to get along, and we all have to accept that our neighbours actions are going to affect us in myriad small ways.

I’m all for critical examination and regulation of externalities inflicted on third parties as a result of private activity, but if we start counting photons, I worry that we’ve lost the plot and are simply caving to people who don’t actually want to live in society with others.

I have no idea what the truth of the matter in this case is, but reading the appeal, the guy just sounds like a crank who got a new neighbours who live differently than he does, and he doesn’t like it.

[pcaharrier]

"a crank who got a new neighbours who live differently than he does, and he doesn’t like it."

Many such cases, if my previous work experience in the criminal justice system is any indication.

[boxed]

A neighbor that points a flood light into your bedroom and leaves it on the entire night seems like normal behavior to you?

[appreciatorBus]

Of course, pointing a 10,000 lumen light source at your neighbor's bedroom 24x7 would be objectively anti-social behaviour.

But all we have as evidence is the complainant's word.

Were there lights at all? Were they 10 lumen or 100,000 lumen? Were they really "aimed at his bedroom" all night?

Neither you nor I have any idea if he is telling the truth.

My own judgement, solely from the snippets of the complainant words in the judgement, is that he sounds like a crank, so I'd guess he is exaggerating and just doesn't like his neighbours. At one point he refers to them as spot lights, at another point the same lights are described as flood lights. That alone hints (to me) that he's either not all there or is just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Regardless, nothing in my comment implied that that I thought this was normal. I was solely responding to the idea that the analysis was weak. I think you were trying to argue that since at extreme's light could resemble crimes like assault, that ignoring light's impact was shortsighted. I agree, however I am also aware that at the other extreme, people differ vastly in what they see as excessive light. Because of this variance, I suspect that a legal regime which interpreted photons as objects hitting another's property would lead to similarly absurd places.