5 ms·

I think it's fine to have a black and white line about stealing (and other moral dilemmas), as you clearly do. It makes life easy to navigate. It's hard to see

by qup 3y ago

I think it's fine to have a black and white line about stealing (and other moral dilemmas), as you clearly do. It makes life easy to navigate. It's hard to see a victim here. The kid stole for the early access, he would have gladly paid for the game. So really the rule he's intending to break is you know, "you're not allowed to look at this until X date" The shoplifting is a byproduct. I can see a gray area. There's a lot of stupid laws painted in black and white.

jacquesm 3y ago
> I think it's fine to have a black and white line about stealing (and other motel dilemmas), as you clearly do. It makes life easy to navigate. Motel dilemma's, they're the worst. Econo Lodge, Super 8 I never know what to do...
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - jaredhallen 3y ago
    I got a little chuckle out of it.
    - ineedasername 3y ago
      It actually (somewhat) fits the theme too, if you look at it sideways and squint your eyes. You could make something up, say for an ethics class, titled... The Motel Dilemma: You arrive at a motel that provides various toiletries and other sundry items in quantities sufficient for most people each night. Each room sleeps up to 4 people, but the motel knows that many times there will be only one or two guests in the room and want to keep costs down and so they place a limited amount in each room but make more available to guests, nominally, for free. As it happens, you're the only one in the room and do not need more. But this motel has very high quality items, you like them a lot. Is it okay to take extra to use beyond your stay at the motel?
      - floxy 3y ago
        But what about taking extra shampoo at Hilbert's motel? If they are making you switch rooms when new guests arrive, that might just be part of the compensation for the inconvenience? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Gra...
        ineedasername 3y ago
        I don't think Hilbert's could give any compensation, that amount of shampoo would drive them into bankruptcy. I think. Trying to envision it makes my head hurt.
        floxy 3y ago
        Presumably the bottles of shampoo get smaller as the room numbers get higher. Plus the cash-flow opportunities seem tremendous even if the motel is 99.99999% vacant.
        jaredhallen 3y ago
        Don't they have infinite income? Seems like they could spare a towel or infinity.
        qup 3y ago
        What have I done?
mywittyname 3y ago
How would you feel if a maid or technician you hired stole a game from you house? Would it be better if the thief would have gladly paid for the game they stole, but couldn't because was difficult/impossible to buy?
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  If my house had 1.5 million employees it's hard to imagine how I would notice.
  - pb7 3y ago
    Your name probably doesn't even start with "A" so how could you possibly even relate to this circumstance?
- bobbean 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure the person you're responding to doesn't have billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of the same copy of a game. Because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't care. Oh wait, that's exactly what happened.
  - mywittyname 3y ago
    So it's okay if the perpetrator thinks the target is rich enough? Stealing is wrong people. Retail theft is a huge problem right now, and now I understand why: I'm apparently in the minority for thinking this way.
    - qup 3y ago
      The wealth of the victim is a great thing to weigh in if you want to steal. Surely you can see this. If I steal a bums sandwich, I hurt him. If I steal Jeff Bezos' sandwich, literally nothing happens. There is no result. He never knew the sandwich existed. Maybe you'll never have to steal a sandwich, but I hope if you do, you make the right choice.
gretch 3y ago
One thought experiment I use for morality is "What if everyone did what this person did?" And in that thought experiment, I think things turn out really badly. Not only is it materially bad, a lot of society's trust is burned. I think the only reason this person's actions are "okay" is because they are washed away by the sea of good people doing good things.
- namdnay 3y ago
  Sure, but that doesn’t help determine the punishment. If everyone in Manhattan were to shit on the sidewalk life would be horrible, but that doesn’t mean we should put someone who does it in prison
  - gretch 3y ago
    Sure I agree. The thought experiment cannot give insight on the severity of the punishment. That wasn't the scope though. GP comment said "There's a lot of stupid laws painted in black and white.". I don't think Theft is one of those stupid laws. I think it's a good law.
- coding123 3y ago
  So is it immoral for a farmer to farm? If EVERYONE farmed, there would be waaaay to much food and no water left on the planet.
  - qup 3y ago
    It would be catastrophic. All the music, not just country, would start having lyrics about tractors. The GMO debate would have Facebook mom experts in every phpbb corner of the net. Farmers Only would be the number one company on the planet.
  - gretch 3y ago
    No it is not immoral for everyone to farm. In fact I would actually recommend, if feasible, to start a garden in their yard for staple veggies. Just think how much energy we would save instead of shipping potatoes from Idaho or soybeans from China. And everyone would be getting way better nutrition. If everyone farmed a little bit, that would be amazing for our society and our planet.
Solvency 3y ago
This reminds me of the story from Darknet Diaries about Xbox underground, and that one guy who, despite investing a ton of time hacking and infiltrating Microsoft and various other companies....still purchased retail copies of his favorite games and deluxe editions of the Xbox systems because he wanted to support the companies.
sd9 3y ago
This video offers an alternative to a black and white perspective on shoplifting: https://youtu.be/6U6xH1gKwjI https://youtu.be/6U6xH1gKwjI
- samcheng 3y ago
  This video argues "shoplifting from large corporations might be OK because who cares about their bottom line. Nobody I know is getting hurt." How misguided! Not only does this perspective indicate a lack of core values, it results in retail deserts as said corporations retreat from lawlessness. You'll be directly impacted when your neighborhood Walgreens closes. Watch this video from yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/13x3d7s/retail_exodus_in_san_francisco/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/13x3d7s/retai...
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    But if every target or walgreens closed it would open the market for others. I'm okay with less walgreens/walmarts.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Who wants to enter the market of providing retail in places with rampant shoplifting?
    - pb7 3y ago
      No it wouldn't. No one is going to open a store just to be stolen from.
    - samcheng 3y ago
      I strongly support small business as well, but unfortunately the reality right now (in San Francisco, at least) is empty storefronts. Lots of them.
  - coding123 3y ago
    Another tidbit from the video "If I instead had 10000 Nintendos sitting in a warehouse somewhere and someone stole 1 of them, wouldn't really cause me a lot of distress or pain" The main problem with this line of reasoning, and heck, the entire act of trying to weaken "stealing" in general, is that the overall result is that you now have more than 1 person stealing a nintendo. In fact because of the internet, things going viral, you might even have a double digit percentage of those nintendos, being stolen. We build up and break down societies rules by things we do every single day. The more we break them down, the more we see crap happening. If everyone stole every nintendo, well, Good bye to Zelda in general. That company won't want to even make that game. I totally agree with the part of the video that argued people so poor that they can't eat that it would be basically justified for them to steal bread at a large business. I think however it would be even better if that person tried to find as many legal options to do that instead. And in general, tried to get a job. If they're still capable of stealing, they can probably do a job somewhere. But yes, at the bottom, steal the loaf of bread, but don't stay there forever.

by qup 3y ago

jacquesm 3y ago

> I think it's fine to have a black and white line about stealing (and other motel dilemmas), as you clearly do. It makes life easy to navigate. Motel dilemma's, they're the worst. Econo Lodge, Super 8 I never know what to do...

giraffe_lady 3y ago
[flagged]
- jaredhallen 3y ago
  I got a little chuckle out of it.
  - ineedasername 3y ago
    It actually (somewhat) fits the theme too, if you look at it sideways and squint your eyes. You could make something up, say for an ethics class, titled... The Motel Dilemma: You arrive at a motel that provides various toiletries and other sundry items in quantities sufficient for most people each night. Each room sleeps up to 4 people, but the motel knows that many times there will be only one or two guests in the room and want to keep costs down and so they place a limited amount in each room but make more available to guests, nominally, for free. As it happens, you're the only one in the room and do not need more. But this motel has very high quality items, you like them a lot. Is it okay to take extra to use beyond your stay at the motel?
    - floxy 3y ago
      But what about taking extra shampoo at Hilbert's motel? If they are making you switch rooms when new guests arrive, that might just be part of the compensation for the inconvenience? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Gra...
      - ineedasername 3y ago
        I don't think Hilbert's could give any compensation, that amount of shampoo would drive them into bankruptcy. I think. Trying to envision it makes my head hurt.
        floxy 3y ago
        Presumably the bottles of shampoo get smaller as the room numbers get higher. Plus the cash-flow opportunities seem tremendous even if the motel is 99.99999% vacant.
        jaredhallen 3y ago
        Don't they have infinite income? Seems like they could spare a towel or infinity.
        qup 3y ago
        What have I done?

mywittyname 3y ago

How would you feel if a maid or technician you hired stole a game from you house? Would it be better if the thief would have gladly paid for the game they stole, but couldn't because was difficult/impossible to buy?

giraffe_lady 3y ago
If my house had 1.5 million employees it's hard to imagine how I would notice.
- pb7 3y ago
  Your name probably doesn't even start with "A" so how could you possibly even relate to this circumstance?
bobbean 3y ago
I'm pretty sure the person you're responding to doesn't have billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of the same copy of a game. Because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't care. Oh wait, that's exactly what happened.
- mywittyname 3y ago
  So it's okay if the perpetrator thinks the target is rich enough? Stealing is wrong people. Retail theft is a huge problem right now, and now I understand why: I'm apparently in the minority for thinking this way.
  - qup 3y ago
    The wealth of the victim is a great thing to weigh in if you want to steal. Surely you can see this. If I steal a bums sandwich, I hurt him. If I steal Jeff Bezos' sandwich, literally nothing happens. There is no result. He never knew the sandwich existed. Maybe you'll never have to steal a sandwich, but I hope if you do, you make the right choice.

gretch 3y ago

One thought experiment I use for morality is "What if everyone did what this person did?" And in that thought experiment, I think things turn out really badly. Not only is it materially bad, a lot of society's trust is burned. I think the only reason this person's actions are "okay" is because they are washed away by the sea of good people doing good things.

namdnay 3y ago
Sure, but that doesn’t help determine the punishment. If everyone in Manhattan were to shit on the sidewalk life would be horrible, but that doesn’t mean we should put someone who does it in prison
- gretch 3y ago
  Sure I agree. The thought experiment cannot give insight on the severity of the punishment. That wasn't the scope though. GP comment said "There's a lot of stupid laws painted in black and white.". I don't think Theft is one of those stupid laws. I think it's a good law.
coding123 3y ago
So is it immoral for a farmer to farm? If EVERYONE farmed, there would be waaaay to much food and no water left on the planet.
- qup 3y ago
  It would be catastrophic. All the music, not just country, would start having lyrics about tractors. The GMO debate would have Facebook mom experts in every phpbb corner of the net. Farmers Only would be the number one company on the planet.
- gretch 3y ago
  No it is not immoral for everyone to farm. In fact I would actually recommend, if feasible, to start a garden in their yard for staple veggies. Just think how much energy we would save instead of shipping potatoes from Idaho or soybeans from China. And everyone would be getting way better nutrition. If everyone farmed a little bit, that would be amazing for our society and our planet.

Solvency 3y ago

This reminds me of the story from Darknet Diaries about Xbox underground, and that one guy who, despite investing a ton of time hacking and infiltrating Microsoft and various other companies....still purchased retail copies of his favorite games and deluxe editions of the Xbox systems because he wanted to support the companies.

sd9 3y ago

This video offers an alternative to a black and white perspective on shoplifting: https://youtu.be/6U6xH1gKwjI https://youtu.be/6U6xH1gKwjI

samcheng 3y ago
This video argues "shoplifting from large corporations might be OK because who cares about their bottom line. Nobody I know is getting hurt." How misguided! Not only does this perspective indicate a lack of core values, it results in retail deserts as said corporations retreat from lawlessness. You'll be directly impacted when your neighborhood Walgreens closes. Watch this video from yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/13x3d7s/retail_exodus_in_san_francisco/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/13x3d7s/retai...
- ipaddr 3y ago
  But if every target or walgreens closed it would open the market for others. I'm okay with less walgreens/walmarts.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Who wants to enter the market of providing retail in places with rampant shoplifting?
  - pb7 3y ago
    No it wouldn't. No one is going to open a store just to be stolen from.
  - samcheng 3y ago
    I strongly support small business as well, but unfortunately the reality right now (in San Francisco, at least) is empty storefronts. Lots of them.
- coding123 3y ago
  Another tidbit from the video "If I instead had 10000 Nintendos sitting in a warehouse somewhere and someone stole 1 of them, wouldn't really cause me a lot of distress or pain" The main problem with this line of reasoning, and heck, the entire act of trying to weaken "stealing" in general, is that the overall result is that you now have more than 1 person stealing a nintendo. In fact because of the internet, things going viral, you might even have a double digit percentage of those nintendos, being stolen. We build up and break down societies rules by things we do every single day. The more we break them down, the more we see crap happening. If everyone stole every nintendo, well, Good bye to Zelda in general. That company won't want to even make that game. I totally agree with the part of the video that argued people so poor that they can't eat that it would be basically justified for them to steal bread at a large business. I think however it would be even better if that person tried to find as many legal options to do that instead. And in general, tried to get a job. If they're still capable of stealing, they can probably do a job somewhere. But yes, at the bottom, steal the loaf of bread, but don't stay there forever.