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That’s one perspective. Another is that the truly greedy thing is to construct a society such that some people can’t afford basic necessities, and that inflicts

That’s one perspective. Another is that the truly greedy thing is to construct a society such that some people can’t afford basic necessities, and that inflicts far more suffering than people stealing what they need to live.

hellfish 4y ago
> to construct a society Did anyone in particular construct this society, or was it just given? You can't judge society at large by the same ethical standard that you judge an individual
Aerroon 4y ago
What are these "basic necessities"? To me it seems like it's an ever-increasing list of things that were largely created in the modern era. A person from a few hundred years would hardly consider deodorant a basic necessity. We consider them basic necessities, because we're used to them, but all these new inventions had to be made by somebody. The profit motive seems to be quite good at incentivizing people to do just that. If we discourage that then the basic necessities of tomorrow might not get invented. Society doesn't conspire to cause poverty, nature already inflicted that upon us.
SnowHill9902 4y ago
Jeez
sokoloff 4y ago
The struggle to survive is the starting condition in nature. That society doesn’t completely eradicate it (but only makes great strides in that direction) is not an indictment of society.
- mongol 4y ago
  I did not consider it like this before but it is so true. Society is not a given, and it is not a perfect fabric in which evil people tore holes. Instead it is woven by everyone that acts in it.
- gopher_space 4y ago
  Society has the choice of eradicating it and simply chooses not to do so.
  - partiallypro 4y ago
    This is simply not true. Solving hunger and poverty is EXTREMELY difficult. The US could use more social programs to help resolve it, but solving it outright is basically impossible.
- DenisM 4y ago
  Some societies do better than others though. It’s perfectly reasonable to set the bar at least that high.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Some societies do better than others at stopping crime too. Can we set our bar to match Singapore in that respect?
    - DenisM 4y ago
      yes
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      I actually wrote another comment in this thread about Singapore [1]. The subway there was particularly interesting to me. While the New York media has used subway deaths to drum up support for police, Singapore has entirely solved the root problem in a non-carceral way by investing in infrastructure. Plenty of other countries have done the same, actually. The knee-jerk response of adding more cops actually makes society worse for all of us. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737563
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        You know Singapore unabashedly beats the shit out of thieves, right?
        Ekaros 4y ago
        I have started to think that corporal punishment might not be actually worst option.
        DenisM 4y ago
        I recall seeing research that immediacy and inevitability of punishment have way more effect on re-offense rates than harshness of the punishment. That said, incarcerating people is liable to immerse them into the hardened criminal culture, which is not productive and calls for some alternatives.
mozman 4y ago
It’s simple. Get a job and stop blaming the system and asking for handouts. Petty shoplifters should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  Shoplifting is actually one of the least harmful forms of theft, in terms of dollars stolen. Wage theft costs orders of magnitude more. A few years ago, money stolen by police via civil forfeiture surpassed the amount stolen by burglars. Yet the form of theft I hear the most about, by far, is shoplifting. Why do you think that is?
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Why don't we use the terms "rent theft" or "loan theft" when people don't pay their rent or loan payments, since we use the term "wage theft" when companies don't pay their wages? In all of those cases, isn't it just not giving someone what you owe, rather than taking something away from someone?
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      Shoplifting is also simply refusing to pay what you owe (the price of the merchandise).
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        No, that would be like if you bought something with "net 30" terms and then didn't pay. With shoplifting, you're just taking someone else's stuff.
LAC-Tech 4y ago
You're constructing a strawman fantasy word where by people only do anti-social things because they need to live, thereby painting them as heoric, Robin Hood type figures. Here on planet earth however, some people are just anti-social and understand nothing except force. No amount of education or counselling or whatever else will change that.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I actually believe they choose the easiest path. Stealing is sometimes that. Now if they could get reasonably paid work or other sources of income they probably would not do that much of it.
- rtpg 4y ago
  Yes, people steal shit from stores and do a bunch of work shipping stuff through FBA because they are anti-social \s You think fencing happens because of anti-social behavior? Fencing _is_ work! The simplest explanation for why people steal and resell stuff is money. You do a thing, and at the end you have money in your pocket that you didn't do before. Not complicated!
  - LAC-Tech 4y ago
    A lot of things can require a lot of work and still be anti-social. I'm sure serial murderers work very hard.
    - rtpg 4y ago
      There's a reason there aren't that many serial murderers, and why we don't orient society around catching those at the expense of everything.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Take the act of stealing and project it onto the {anti, neutral, pro}-social dimension. It’s clearly not pro-social; I think it’s easy to argue that it’s not neutral either.
bigDinosaur 4y ago
What makes you think people are stealing what they need to live? That can sometimes be true, but is often not true at all. Either way there's no way in which theft, often from people or companies that have no hand in inequality, does not make things worse for everyone else. It screws over other poor people who don't steal because everyone else will be paying for the insurance and restocking of stolen property...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tdehnel 4y ago
Oh knock it off with this crap. The article is about organized retail theft. If you work for a criminal enterprise you should work a legal job and pay for things like everyone else.
- syliconadder 4y ago
  "like everyone else". This would be a small fraction of people though. The whole of human enterprise is built on stolen loot: the forests razed without permissions and the lands dus and animals chased without anyone's consent. We are conditioned to behave as we own this planet, why is it unfair to consider that between people too this behavior wouldn't show?
bityard 4y ago
Ah, the old "two wrongs make a right" defense
- thewebcount 4y ago
  Isn’t there a difference between “I think your conclusion is wrong, here’s another possible scenario where this could happen,” and “I think your conclusion is wrong, and here’s a legitimate scenario that I totally agree with that could explain why this happens”? They didn’t say it was right, just that there are other motivations for why people do these things.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  I’m not saying that two wrongs make a right. I’m saying that you can easily view the situation such that the “other side” is actually in the wrong.
refurb 4y ago
This ignores reality. At least in SF most of the auto break ins and shoplifting is organized crime. These people could get a job, they just don’t want to be a “sucker” and work 9 to 5 like some chump.
ReptileMan 4y ago
Do you have any sources that determine what part of the organized shoplifters are Jean Valjeans ?
partiallypro 4y ago
> Another is that the truly greedy thing is to construct a society such that some people can’t afford basic necessities, and that inflicts far more suffering than people stealing what they need to live. Your argument would be more sound if the people stealing were stealing for themselves instead of selling them on a marketplace at slightly below retail with a 100% margin. Their theft hurts the jobs and customers (some shops have outright closed) and it also still has the end customer paying basically the same amount.
ars 4y ago
If that were actually true someone could hold up a sign in front of CVS or whatever saying "please buy me a stick of deodorant", and I can guarantee you someone will. They can go to a soup kitchen, or a church, or a food panty and ask for basic necessities. Americans are very generous, especially conservative ones, who lead the world in charity and generosity. There is no excuse to steal when you can just ask.
- lupire 4y ago
  Paying the subscription fee for Sunday social club is not charity nor generosity. Opposing social welfare is along standing political plank for conservative voters, because they don't want welfare for people not in their club.
  - ars 4y ago
    > Paying the subscription fee for Sunday social club is not charity nor generosity. Did you reply to the wrong person? > because they don't want welfare for people not in their club. Hu? If you meant to reply to me, I have no idea what you are talking about. Churches (I assume that what you mean - what is a "Sunday social club"?) don't require a subscription fee to be given charity. Are you just trying to be annoying or something?

hellfish 4y ago

> to construct a society Did anyone in particular construct this society, or was it just given? You can't judge society at large by the same ethical standard that you judge an individual

Aerroon 4y ago

What are these "basic necessities"? To me it seems like it's an ever-increasing list of things that were largely created in the modern era. A person from a few hundred years would hardly consider deodorant a basic necessity. We consider them basic necessities, because we're used to them, but all these new inventions had to be made by somebody. The profit motive seems to be quite good at incentivizing people to do just that. If we discourage that then the basic necessities of tomorrow might not get invented. Society doesn't conspire to cause poverty, nature already inflicted that upon us.

SnowHill9902 4y ago

Jeez

sokoloff 4y ago

The struggle to survive is the starting condition in nature. That society doesn’t completely eradicate it (but only makes great strides in that direction) is not an indictment of society.

mongol 4y ago
I did not consider it like this before but it is so true. Society is not a given, and it is not a perfect fabric in which evil people tore holes. Instead it is woven by everyone that acts in it.
gopher_space 4y ago
Society has the choice of eradicating it and simply chooses not to do so.
- partiallypro 4y ago
  This is simply not true. Solving hunger and poverty is EXTREMELY difficult. The US could use more social programs to help resolve it, but solving it outright is basically impossible.
DenisM 4y ago
Some societies do better than others though. It’s perfectly reasonable to set the bar at least that high.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Some societies do better than others at stopping crime too. Can we set our bar to match Singapore in that respect?
  - DenisM 4y ago
    yes
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    I actually wrote another comment in this thread about Singapore [1]. The subway there was particularly interesting to me. While the New York media has used subway deaths to drum up support for police, Singapore has entirely solved the root problem in a non-carceral way by investing in infrastructure. Plenty of other countries have done the same, actually. The knee-jerk response of adding more cops actually makes society worse for all of us. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737563
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      You know Singapore unabashedly beats the shit out of thieves, right?
      - Ekaros 4y ago
        I have started to think that corporal punishment might not be actually worst option.
        DenisM 4y ago
        I recall seeing research that immediacy and inevitability of punishment have way more effect on re-offense rates than harshness of the punishment. That said, incarcerating people is liable to immerse them into the hardened criminal culture, which is not productive and calls for some alternatives.

mozman 4y ago

It’s simple. Get a job and stop blaming the system and asking for handouts. Petty shoplifters should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

jakelazaroff 4y ago
Shoplifting is actually one of the least harmful forms of theft, in terms of dollars stolen. Wage theft costs orders of magnitude more. A few years ago, money stolen by police via civil forfeiture surpassed the amount stolen by burglars. Yet the form of theft I hear the most about, by far, is shoplifting. Why do you think that is?
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Why don't we use the terms "rent theft" or "loan theft" when people don't pay their rent or loan payments, since we use the term "wage theft" when companies don't pay their wages? In all of those cases, isn't it just not giving someone what you owe, rather than taking something away from someone?
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    Shoplifting is also simply refusing to pay what you owe (the price of the merchandise).
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      No, that would be like if you bought something with "net 30" terms and then didn't pay. With shoplifting, you're just taking someone else's stuff.

LAC-Tech 4y ago

You're constructing a strawman fantasy word where by people only do anti-social things because they need to live, thereby painting them as heoric, Robin Hood type figures. Here on planet earth however, some people are just anti-social and understand nothing except force. No amount of education or counselling or whatever else will change that.

Ekaros 4y ago
I actually believe they choose the easiest path. Stealing is sometimes that. Now if they could get reasonably paid work or other sources of income they probably would not do that much of it.
rtpg 4y ago
Yes, people steal shit from stores and do a bunch of work shipping stuff through FBA because they are anti-social \s You think fencing happens because of anti-social behavior? Fencing _is_ work! The simplest explanation for why people steal and resell stuff is money. You do a thing, and at the end you have money in your pocket that you didn't do before. Not complicated!
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  A lot of things can require a lot of work and still be anti-social. I'm sure serial murderers work very hard.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    There's a reason there aren't that many serial murderers, and why we don't orient society around catching those at the expense of everything.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Take the act of stealing and project it onto the {anti, neutral, pro}-social dimension. It’s clearly not pro-social; I think it’s easy to argue that it’s not neutral either.

bigDinosaur 4y ago

What makes you think people are stealing what they need to live? That can sometimes be true, but is often not true at all. Either way there's no way in which theft, often from people or companies that have no hand in inequality, does not make things worse for everyone else. It screws over other poor people who don't steal because everyone else will be paying for the insurance and restocking of stolen property...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tdehnel 4y ago

Oh knock it off with this crap. The article is about organized retail theft. If you work for a criminal enterprise you should work a legal job and pay for things like everyone else.

syliconadder 4y ago
"like everyone else". This would be a small fraction of people though. The whole of human enterprise is built on stolen loot: the forests razed without permissions and the lands dus and animals chased without anyone's consent. We are conditioned to behave as we own this planet, why is it unfair to consider that between people too this behavior wouldn't show?

bityard 4y ago

Ah, the old "two wrongs make a right" defense

thewebcount 4y ago
Isn’t there a difference between “I think your conclusion is wrong, here’s another possible scenario where this could happen,” and “I think your conclusion is wrong, and here’s a legitimate scenario that I totally agree with that could explain why this happens”? They didn’t say it was right, just that there are other motivations for why people do these things.
jakelazaroff 4y ago
I’m not saying that two wrongs make a right. I’m saying that you can easily view the situation such that the “other side” is actually in the wrong.

refurb 4y ago

This ignores reality. At least in SF most of the auto break ins and shoplifting is organized crime. These people could get a job, they just don’t want to be a “sucker” and work 9 to 5 like some chump.

ReptileMan 4y ago

Do you have any sources that determine what part of the organized shoplifters are Jean Valjeans ?

partiallypro 4y ago

> Another is that the truly greedy thing is to construct a society such that some people can’t afford basic necessities, and that inflicts far more suffering than people stealing what they need to live. Your argument would be more sound if the people stealing were stealing for themselves instead of selling them on a marketplace at slightly below retail with a 100% margin. Their theft hurts the jobs and customers (some shops have outright closed) and it also still has the end customer paying basically the same amount.

ars 4y ago

If that were actually true someone could hold up a sign in front of CVS or whatever saying "please buy me a stick of deodorant", and I can guarantee you someone will. They can go to a soup kitchen, or a church, or a food panty and ask for basic necessities. Americans are very generous, especially conservative ones, who lead the world in charity and generosity. There is no excuse to steal when you can just ask.

lupire 4y ago
Paying the subscription fee for Sunday social club is not charity nor generosity. Opposing social welfare is along standing political plank for conservative voters, because they don't want welfare for people not in their club.
- ars 4y ago
  > Paying the subscription fee for Sunday social club is not charity nor generosity. Did you reply to the wrong person? > because they don't want welfare for people not in their club. Hu? If you meant to reply to me, I have no idea what you are talking about. Churches (I assume that what you mean - what is a "Sunday social club"?) don't require a subscription fee to be given charity. Are you just trying to be annoying or something?