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Co-Op alone is seeing a 1,000 incidents of shoplifting a day at the minute[1]. I'm wary of governments overstepping the mark and using this stuff for ill, but I

• OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Meanwhile, on Mastodon’s feed of its most liked recent posts, I have repeatedly seen posts of the slogan “If you see someone shoplifting food, no you didn’t”. There definitely seem to be a lot of people in the tech world who believe that supermarket shoplifting should not be prosecuted or even reported.
  • PebblesHD 3y ago
    I usually see this remark associated with the idea of a struggling person stealing essentials, which I would probably not report either. At least in Australia, supermarkets are making record profits and increasing prices in the middle of a housing crisis so the general feeling is they can afford the loss, rightly or wrongly. As far as the article goes, I’m opposed to using these data sources for anything other than their original purpose, as it’s the same logic that would be used to test for example medically collected DNA against crime databases just in case.
  • Seanambers 3y ago
    Just as Rob Henderson said at the All in summit. It's basically a luxury belief. Rich tech folks isolated from the effects of stealing encourages poor people to steal and at some point face the consequences.
    • pasabagi 3y ago
      I see it as simple moral calculus. The right to eat is prior to the right to property. I don't see how any other position is morally defensible.
      • OfSanguineFire 3y ago
        Have you ever spent time with antifa and anarchists, of the sort who would post on Mastodon the slogan I mentioned above? Their approval of shoplifting is not merely about the hungry having a basic human right to eat; they commonly approve of non-starving people stealing from chain supermarkets – even if it’s an unessential item like a chocolate bar – as the working class’s act of resistance to corporations or whatever.
        • pasabagi 3y ago
          I don't care what other people think about it. The moral argument is unambiguous, and that doesn't change because assholes take one side or the other.
      • justsomehnguy 3y ago
        > The right to eat is prior to the right to property It's so easy to deal in absolutes. There are enough of people who are shoplifting not because they need to eat. As someone who was on the government support, you really should do nothing to be in need to shoplift to sustain yourself.
        • pasabagi 3y ago
          Easy for whom? If you were a politician and said what I said, you would be called a communist. You'd be demonized in the media. You'd never get a ministerial position for the rest of your life. Yet, it's still obviously true. What is easy is to pretend that a simple issue is a complex and ambiguous one, and so, we don't need to ruffle feathers.
      • Seanambers 3y ago
        Moral Calculus? What you are describing is anarchy and lawlessness - it is not moral to steal no matter the reason.