4 ms·

If you get rid of the part where you have to repay your debts, it's just theft.

by _edo 7y ago

smhost 7y ago
you say that like it's a bad thing. if people are starving and some person has excess food that they can't even eat, it's good to steal that person's food.
- Jommi 7y ago
  Could you open up the logical process on how it's okay to steal someone's hard earned food?
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    That is actually well established by legal and moral doctrine with necessity as a defense and lesser harms. Just as nobody would be charged with vandalism if they cut open a drain cover to rescue a trapped child - someone dying of starvation is a far greater harm than petty theft. The reason why mugging can be responded to with lethal force but not shoplifting for instance is because the previous includes a threat to another's life and there is no hard guarantee that compliance will save the victim. There are plenty of aspects of nuance with it of course including 'stealing to save yourself from starvation and causing someone else to starve' isn't morally right along with 'stealing when there were other viable alternatives without harm' is wrong. And of course messy matters of scale when things get really messed up like the Great Depression where farmers may have had plenty of food but were fiscally precarious - and many of the hungry couldn't afford it - one person shoplifting bread may be a lesser harm but if farms were robbed enmasse could cause them to go under. TL;DR - It is complicated and circumstantial.
    - Jommi 7y ago
      Hey Nasrudith, I think you are on a interesting topic, but seems like you are comparing some quite different things. In your example cutting open a drain cover is not directly away from anyone, where as stealing food is. The thing you seem to be missing in your case, is that you are not taking into account the time factor and only looking at a single action. I agree that cutting open a drain cover (vandalism) is less bad when saving a trapped child. However, I do not agree that there should be nothing bad happening to the cutter. Imagine if instead of a drain cover it was someone's house. Would breaking a window and then being absolved of all responsibility be okay? Should there not be a middle ground where nobody is solely at a loss. Perhaps the breaker could pay for part of the new window? Perhaps the city could pay for the window as appreciation for the effort of saving one of their citizens? Perhaps here instead of stealing, the bread could be loaned, or sold at a cheaper price to those in need. Do you see what I am saying here?
- _edo 7y ago
  No, it's not. Because life isn't that simple. Investors and lenders play an important role in the economy. If theft makes what they do impossible it will cause a drop in the total productivity of the country as a whole. Which is to say stealing from them, especially at scale, is likely to cause far more starvation than it will solve. Your idea has been tried: the peasants were hungry, it was the Kulaks with the excess food and money and the process of taking it from them was called dekulakization. Between 500,000 and 5,000,000 people died. This also led to the Holodomor with its estimated 7.5 million dead. This all started with the observation that there were rich people and poor people right next to each other, and that taking from the rich to give to the poor must be a good thing. But it turned out to be one of the worst events in human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
  - smhost 7y ago
    that's pretty hilarious if it's actually the way you think. according to you, having progressive taxation is exactly the same thing as millions of people dying due to a natural disaster. how am i even supposed to have a conversation with such an irrational position.

If you get rid of the part where you have to repay your debts, it's just theft.

by _edo 7y ago

If you get rid of the part where you have to repay your debts, it's just theft.

you say that like it's a bad thing. if people are starving and some person has excess food that they can't even eat, it's good to steal that person's food.

Jommi 7y ago
Could you open up the logical process on how it's okay to steal someone's hard earned food?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  That is actually well established by legal and moral doctrine with necessity as a defense and lesser harms. Just as nobody would be charged with vandalism if they cut open a drain cover to rescue a trapped child - someone dying of starvation is a far greater harm than petty theft. The reason why mugging can be responded to with lethal force but not shoplifting for instance is because the previous includes a threat to another's life and there is no hard guarantee that compliance will save the victim. There are plenty of aspects of nuance with it of course including 'stealing to save yourself from starvation and causing someone else to starve' isn't morally right along with 'stealing when there were other viable alternatives without harm' is wrong. And of course messy matters of scale when things get really messed up like the Great Depression where farmers may have had plenty of food but were fiscally precarious - and many of the hungry couldn't afford it - one person shoplifting bread may be a lesser harm but if farms were robbed enmasse could cause them to go under. TL;DR - It is complicated and circumstantial.
  - Jommi 7y ago
    Hey Nasrudith, I think you are on a interesting topic, but seems like you are comparing some quite different things. In your example cutting open a drain cover is not directly away from anyone, where as stealing food is. The thing you seem to be missing in your case, is that you are not taking into account the time factor and only looking at a single action. I agree that cutting open a drain cover (vandalism) is less bad when saving a trapped child. However, I do not agree that there should be nothing bad happening to the cutter. Imagine if instead of a drain cover it was someone's house. Would breaking a window and then being absolved of all responsibility be okay? Should there not be a middle ground where nobody is solely at a loss. Perhaps the breaker could pay for part of the new window? Perhaps the city could pay for the window as appreciation for the effort of saving one of their citizens? Perhaps here instead of stealing, the bread could be loaned, or sold at a cheaper price to those in need. Do you see what I am saying here?
_edo 7y ago
No, it's not. Because life isn't that simple. Investors and lenders play an important role in the economy. If theft makes what they do impossible it will cause a drop in the total productivity of the country as a whole. Which is to say stealing from them, especially at scale, is likely to cause far more starvation than it will solve. Your idea has been tried: the peasants were hungry, it was the Kulaks with the excess food and money and the process of taking it from them was called dekulakization. Between 500,000 and 5,000,000 people died. This also led to the Holodomor with its estimated 7.5 million dead. This all started with the observation that there were rich people and poor people right next to each other, and that taking from the rich to give to the poor must be a good thing. But it turned out to be one of the worst events in human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
- smhost 7y ago
  that's pretty hilarious if it's actually the way you think. according to you, having progressive taxation is exactly the same thing as millions of people dying due to a natural disaster. how am i even supposed to have a conversation with such an irrational position.