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Combined with the increasing acceptance of shoplifting [1] and unprecedented corruption and criminality among our national leaders, it's hard not to read this a

Combined with the increasing acceptance of shoplifting [1] and unprecedented corruption and criminality among our national leaders, it's hard not to read this as a moral page turning on American culture. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/hasan-piker-jia-tolentino-microlooting/686919/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/hasan-piker-jia-to...

kibwen 6mo ago
The fish rots from the head. It's a sucker's game to aspire to selflessly serve the greater good when the most powerful people in the land are brazenly corrupt pedophiles. In other words: monkey see, monkey do.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > fish rots from the head Does it? Did it? We elected the "brazenly corrupt pedophiles." This question seems complex and important enough to not be resolved with a truism.
  - afavour 6mo ago
    The brazenly corrupt also own the vast media ecosystem that can help swing elections. Should we all know better? Probably. But they control the education system too, so…
  - kibwen 6mo ago
    Trump was not the beginning of the decline, only the terminal symptom.
    - kfse 6mo ago
      Terminal? We don't know if worse is yet to come.
    - marginalia_nu 6mo ago
      Yeah I think Reagan's reforms of the antitrust laws, and the subsequent fall of the Soviet union are probably some of the first dominoes toward the new gilded age. The lack of competition from the Soviets is probably one of the bigger systemic causes. The cold war in no small part a war for hearts and minds in the democratic world. It was existentially important that the west believed in America, both the US itself and its allies. As long as the Soviets were around as existence proof for an alternate world order, the US needed at least visibly have its shit in order. If today's clown fiesta had unfolded 50 years ago, well comrade, сегодня мы все говорили бы по-русски.
  - htx80nerd 6mo ago
    [flagged]
  - paulryanrogers 6mo ago
    Hard to say for certain. Though I do think it goes both ways. People at the bottom influence culture from bottom up, folks at the top from the top down.
    - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
      > I do think it goes both ways If we flip the snake so it goes along the political spectrum, with the biting ends being extremists, I suppose the fish does rot from the heads. Top-down versus bottom-up is a more-complicated situation, and I suspect it's closer to turbulence than anything monotonic.
  - Waterluvian 6mo ago
    It really doesn’t. Trump wouldn’t survive election if the electorate didn’t seek, or at least tolerate whatever the hell you can call that. Americans will conveniently point fingers at him (as is their political tradition) but he’s a consequence of a much deeper disease.
- WillPostForFood 6mo ago
  Or it is a dilution of the culture through mass media, social media, and immigration from countries with different values.
  - watwut 6mo ago
    None of those corrupt leaders is from elsewhere. And native born americans have higher criminality then immigrants. All of that corrupt leadership is celebrated by american americans who see themselves as true americans.
  - 9x39 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - nkrisc 6mo ago
      Not if your criticism is meant to scapegoat immigrants for homegrown American-made problems.
  - pwndByDeath 6mo ago
    Everyone has an anecdote of the immigrant they know who's a much better "American" in their values. The same for anecdotes of the people with the least American values being home grown and inbred
- elmomle 6mo ago
  Yes, and: the rot started long ago, this is just what it looks like when it goes unchecked. To quote Mencius: Mencius went to see King Hui of Liang. The king said, “Venerable sir, since you have not counted it far to come here, may I presume that you are provided with counsels to profit my kingdom?” Mencius replied, “Why must Your Majesty use that word ‘profit’? What I am provided with are counsels to benevolence and righteousness, and these are my only topics. If Your Majesty say, ‘What is to be done to profit my kingdom?’ the great officers will say, ‘What is to be done to profit our families?’ and the inferior officers and common people will say, ‘What is to be done to profit our persons?’ Superiors and inferiors will try to snatch this profit one from another, and the kingdom will be endangered.”
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- lll-o-lll 6mo ago
  > The fish rots from the head. The old adage that the people elect the governance they deserve; comes to mind. The concepts of Virtue, Honour, Duty, and Justice have been declining in the West over a very long period (this is not a US specific thing). The rotting head reflects the rotting society. > It's a sucker's game to aspire to selflessly serve the greater good when the most powerful people in the land are brazenly corrupt You don’t act honourably because that will “get you ahead”. You act honourably because it is right.
  - afavour 6mo ago
    > You don’t act honourably because that will “get you ahead”. You act honourably because it is right. As much as I would like to believe that’s true I don’t think it is. You act honourably because society incentivises you to. To act dishonourably is to be disadvantaged, to be shamed, to be cast out. That is the part that’s missing today.
    - jdlshore 6mo ago
      I see where you’re coming from, but something about this framing bothers me. I think acting honorably has to come from within. It’s something that people need to do regardless of rewards or incentives. Now, how we create a culture that actually does so… that has to come from society. But, imo, if people only act honorably because they’re rewarded for it, and they don’t when no one is looking… that’s not acting honorably at all.
      - lovemenot 6mo ago
        You can both be right. I live in a high trust society (Japan), but was raised elsewhere. When I first came here, there were times I had to suppress my instinct to take opportunistic advantage. That was intrinsic motivation. Later, I had adapted to the culture around me. Such instincts rarely arise as it had become extrinsic.
      - afavour 6mo ago
        My pessimistic take is that the majority of the population will simply never do that. Look at organized religion. One of its key promises is “behave in life and you’ll get everything you could ever dream of in the afterlife”. I don’t think it’s coincidental.
- whyenot 6mo ago
  It's a nice saying, but the "head" changes every 4-8 years and this is a problem that has gotten worse over decades. Sometimes the rot doesn't start from the head.
echelon 6mo ago
> Combined with the increasing acceptance of shoplifting It's the K-shaped economy. Those not participating in the upsides are electing to either not participate in the system at all or to destroy it. Most people think Luigi Mangione is a hero. We had a good post-WWII run. We had factories, then globalization. Massive growth for all economic backgrounds for several generations. But the world caught up. Now the average worker has to compete against their increasingly competent and economically enabled peers around the globe. Costs for everything are rising. We used to have a super sized Big Mac economy propped up by the fact that America was (relatively) peerless. The worker saw so much upside. Now they don't even get free refills, so to speak. I'm hoping the AI boom helps bring down the cost of goods without putting people out of work. If it goes the other way, I think we might be heading for 1790's France.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > It's the K-shaped economy Which side of the K-shaped economy do you think Princeton alumni are predominantly on?
- traderj0e 6mo ago
  ??? This entire thread is unrelated. Princeton realized AI makes cheating too easy, that's it. Not every topic needs to be about Donald Trump.
  - WillPostForFood 6mo ago
    Are they being honest? Did Princeton students not need proctoring in the past because the had no means to cheat, or they both maintained some honor, and fear of the institution.
    - sieabahlpark 6mo ago
      [dead]
  - InsideOutSanta 6mo ago
    Cheating was always easy.
ruler88 6mo ago
This doesn't seem particularly related?
- vector_spaces 6mo ago
  I mean, given that belief in moral decline is essentially based on illusory perceptions anyway[1], it's not too surprising that someone handwringing about it would also hallucinate connections between two disparate phenomena they opted to characterize as examples of such. If you opt to habitually rationalize human behavior in a manner that is detached from concern with nuance or driving forces then some amount of reality denial is probably inevitable [1] See e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06137-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06137-x
- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 6mo ago
  Lack of honour, low trust, the breakdown of the social contract. Seems all related to me.
applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
> in some left-wing corners of the commentariat, is out; flagrant disregard of the social contract is in. Interesting that this is posed as the American left disregarding the social contract. I think you could make a pretty good case that the American right disregarded the social contract first in electing an extremely destructive pedophile who starts wars for reasons that can't even be articulated, pardons war criminals, engages in blatant nepotism enriching his family to the tune of billions at taxpayer's expense, large-scale fraud including being convicted of felony, adjudicated rapist, and a list of social contract violations going on for about 300 more pages that I'd be here all day typing out. And once the social contract is gone, it would be pretty weird to expect the other side to continue abiding by the terms. I don't personally make a habit of binding myself to one-sided contracts that impose no obligations on the other party.
- remarkEon 6mo ago
  I can assure you with 100% certainty that the American Right did not elect Bill Clinton.
  - elictronic 6mo ago
    [flagged]
  - InsideOutSanta 6mo ago
    I'm no fan of Clinton, but pretending that he's even remotely as bad as Trump only confirms how leftists see people on the right.
    - b65e8bee43c2ed0 6mo ago
      [flagged]
  - triceratops 6mo ago
    Statistically maybe half the people who voted for Bill Clinton are already dead.
- 6mo ago
RIMR 6mo ago
Moral acceptance of petty theft always increases with inequality. When the poor take from the rich, people don't care as much. The poorer the thief and the richer the victim, the less people care. Go far enough, and people view the thief as a Robin Hood-style hero. Given that we're at a point in American history where inequality is quite extreme, I don't think it's fair to compare shoplifting to the corruption of the ruling class that is largely responsible for the current levels of inequality in the first place. To be quite frank, under current conditions, it is a moral failure to see fault with impoverished people for stealing what they need to survive, not the other way around.
- pickleRick243 6mo ago
  What? It's a moral failure to have an issue with people shoplifting from Walgreens? Do you think they're stealing milk, eggs, and bread?
  - mystraline 6mo ago
    And your types are the same that would see a cashier who steals $100 go to jail.... But a manager who edits timecards of 10 people for $100 ($1000 damage) is just a civil matter. Crime, and who punishes it, has always been a political matter. The crimes have never been equal for those with power other others.
    - pickleRick243 6mo ago
      My types? The person I was responding to claims that if I have a problem with someone shoplifting alcohol and condoms from Walgreens, then it's a moral failing on my part. I responded because I found that absurd. For the record, I do not condone managers editing timecards.
- blululu 6mo ago
  To be clear the shoplifters in question are all rich themselves and stealing expensive items they don’t need. The original article is about students at one of the richest and most prestigious institutions in the country. None of the criminals are poor by any stretch of the imagination. They are just lousy people who are smart enough and entitled enough to try to justify their bad behavior.
shadowtree 6mo ago
Moral code is downstream from culture and not every culture sees cheating as a moral failing. As Princeton's demo skewed hard into a more international student body, the underlying cultural assumptions have shifted. The Christian extension of the Ninth Commandment from not bearing false witness to a blanket ban on lying is unique. Islam has explicit exceptions through Taqiyya, Hinduism gets nuanced with dharma and adharma, Buddhism sees it as one of the ten unwholesome actions, ... WASPs built and defined Princeton, but that is long over.
- applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
  It is rather disappointing to see a take as unsubtle as "white people are pure and honest God-fearing Christians and Asians are dirty heathens with no concept of morality" on this site.
  - shadowtree 6mo ago
    That is not what I wrote - there was no judgement, just that other cultures weigh cheating morally different. It is all moralities. There is no absolute one.
  - 9x39 6mo ago
    Do you have any data to support your disappointment? There seems to be data supporting the GP's observation, which is different than your crude strawman. It's not unreasonable to look for fire when you smell smoke. "A 2016 study of more than 100 UK universities by The Times found that non-EU students were four times more likely to be caught cheating than UK and EU students. In the US, they were found to be five times as likely to be caught cheating than their local peers, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 14 leading US colleges." https://studyinternational.com/news/the-complex-problem-of-academic-dishonesty-among-international-students/ https://studyinternational.com/news/the-complex-problem-of-a... "Public universities in the U.S. recorded 5.1 reports of alleged cheating for every 100 international students, versus one report per 100 domestic students, in a Wall Street Journal analysis" https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-students-seen-cheating-more-than-domestic-ones-1465140141 https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-students-seen-cheating-... In 2015, 4,540 international students were enrolled at Iowa. Of those, 2,797 were from China. That’s 9 percent of the school’s student body. Most or all of the students accused of cheating are Chinese nationals. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-cheating-iowa/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-...
andyjohnson0 6mo ago
> it's hard not to read this as a moral page turning on American culture. Are unsupervised examinations common in the US? Or is this, in fact, simply one institution coming in to line with common US national and international practice?
- junofan 6mo ago
  It’s pretty common in WASP-y circles.
- vector_spaces 6mo ago
  This is not common in an in-person setting -- nearly "unheard of" outside of elite schools or particular faculty at particular programs. So it is the latter
Barbing 6mo ago
“But what about the argument that if everyone just starts stealing wantonly,” Spiegelman replies, “Whole Foods will eventually raise the prices?” “Yeah, chaos,” Piker says. “Full chaos. Let’s go.” “I kind of am inclined toward this,” Tolentino adds. “Everyone, try it. See what happens.” Personal shoppers for everyone! Point at what you want or add it on an app. Eventually would take force/fraud/violence to shoplift (hey I said EVENTUALLY!) :) Source: gas station snack acquisition after 10pm in some USA urban areas, plus stories from abroad
- saalweachter 6mo ago
  Isn't that how stores used to work, before store owners decided it'd be cheaper to just let shoppers bring up a basket of goods? You'd go up to the shopkeeper behind the counter with a list, they'd get it all for you?
  - valleyer 6mo ago
    Yup, and that requires extra labor to fulfill, which will cost money. Luckily, I haven't heard anyone complain about high prices of groceries lately, so I'm sure everyone would be fine with that.
  - Barbing 6mo ago
    Cheaper, and maybe easier to sell personal items with a little more discretion. That kind of service should be available for those who want it, assuming demand exists. Those who want self checkout or whatever else should not worry about their access being restricted due to wealthy authors shoplifting lemons. (obviously no one here is going to bed crying tonight about the gall of hungry people to steal bread, I’m not even anti UBI or anything, just attempting to analyze a trajectory)
tolerance 6mo ago
> [...] it's hard not to read this as a moral page turning on American culture. Turning into what from where is the interesting part.
regnull 6mo ago
People can still behave honorably despite all this. It's easy (and wrong) to justify someone's dishonorable behavior by pointing to the leaders.
tdb7893 6mo ago
I've known a lot of people who justify crimes like shoplifting by the fact that these corporations have stolen from them (and not in some abstract way, often literal wage theft) and felt like the social contract was already broken. And it's not like the leaders at the large corporations I've worked at generally seem to care about their employees or customers (I would describe most places I worked at as, at best, amoral. I've heard "well, if we didn't do it some other less ethical company would" too many times). Edit: not that I'm pro-shoplifting, it's that the article talks about them breaking the "social contract" (though the article is more of a reality show-esque piece as it's a opinions writer beefing with Twitch streamers and doesn't talk to any people actually shoplifting).
- bad_username 6mo ago
  Justifying one's crime because other crime exists - isnot a winning position long term.
  - girvo 6mo ago
    Corporations don’t follow or care about morals, and so their customers and workers begin to follow suit.
    - mystraline 6mo ago
      Chomsky called corporations legal psychopaths in the documentary "The Corporation". He was right. If companies can engage in terrible illegal behavior and then only pay 10% of profit as a fine, so can I. If that means I cancel all streaming services, help friends also cancel streaming services, set up a Jellyfin/Navidrome box and grab everything, I do not give one fuck. Hell, the AI companies grabbed Annas Archive and Libgen. Why not me? So, yeah. I wouldnt steal from fellow humans. I value humans. But companies and corporate "property"? <SPIT>
  - GuinansEyebrows 6mo ago
    perhaps not, but cynicism in kind is understandable when you have no real power to effect change.
Aurornis 6mo ago
> Combined with the increasing acceptance of shoplifting [1] Hasan Piker (one of the people in that link) is a streamer who got popular for extremist takes and controversy. He's just doing what he does to stay famous in that interview. The other person is a writer for The New Yorker who apparently enjoys controversy too. This interview isn't representative of anything other than two people trying to be edgy because they want their interview to go viral.
- throwaway27448 6mo ago
  Hasan piker has extremely bland and milquetoast takes compared to most of the left. He's just the one currently being sold to boomers as a terrorist. But any sane country would see him as a moderate (moderating between "anarchy" and the insanity of two identical corporate parties beholden to israel)
throwaway27448 6mo ago
Idk about corruption, but the shoplifting trend has come from corporate america's wholesale looting of the country. The social contract was abandoned many decades ago.
cucumber3732842 6mo ago
You ever seen a man over 40 pull a building permit for work wholly within his own home? Yeah me either. These days college kids are just as jaded. Of course they cheat the instant they think they can get away with it. The college is there to serve the college, not them and these days the kids know it. Even if everyone cheating degrades the value of the degree there's no guarantee the college won't do that itself if everyone is honest so might as well get away with what you can while you can. Nobody likes this, it's just a rational adaptation to the perceived state of affairs.

kibwen 6mo ago

The fish rots from the head. It's a sucker's game to aspire to selflessly serve the greater good when the most powerful people in the land are brazenly corrupt pedophiles. In other words: monkey see, monkey do.

JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
> fish rots from the head Does it? Did it? We elected the "brazenly corrupt pedophiles." This question seems complex and important enough to not be resolved with a truism.
- afavour 6mo ago
  The brazenly corrupt also own the vast media ecosystem that can help swing elections. Should we all know better? Probably. But they control the education system too, so…
- kibwen 6mo ago
  Trump was not the beginning of the decline, only the terminal symptom.
  - kfse 6mo ago
    Terminal? We don't know if worse is yet to come.
  - marginalia_nu 6mo ago
    Yeah I think Reagan's reforms of the antitrust laws, and the subsequent fall of the Soviet union are probably some of the first dominoes toward the new gilded age. The lack of competition from the Soviets is probably one of the bigger systemic causes. The cold war in no small part a war for hearts and minds in the democratic world. It was existentially important that the west believed in America, both the US itself and its allies. As long as the Soviets were around as existence proof for an alternate world order, the US needed at least visibly have its shit in order. If today's clown fiesta had unfolded 50 years ago, well comrade, сегодня мы все говорили бы по-русски.
- htx80nerd 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- paulryanrogers 6mo ago
  Hard to say for certain. Though I do think it goes both ways. People at the bottom influence culture from bottom up, folks at the top from the top down.
  - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    > I do think it goes both ways If we flip the snake so it goes along the political spectrum, with the biting ends being extremists, I suppose the fish does rot from the heads. Top-down versus bottom-up is a more-complicated situation, and I suspect it's closer to turbulence than anything monotonic.
- Waterluvian 6mo ago
  It really doesn’t. Trump wouldn’t survive election if the electorate didn’t seek, or at least tolerate whatever the hell you can call that. Americans will conveniently point fingers at him (as is their political tradition) but he’s a consequence of a much deeper disease.
WillPostForFood 6mo ago
Or it is a dilution of the culture through mass media, social media, and immigration from countries with different values.
- watwut 6mo ago
  None of those corrupt leaders is from elsewhere. And native born americans have higher criminality then immigrants. All of that corrupt leadership is celebrated by american americans who see themselves as true americans.
- 9x39 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - nkrisc 6mo ago
    Not if your criticism is meant to scapegoat immigrants for homegrown American-made problems.
- pwndByDeath 6mo ago
  Everyone has an anecdote of the immigrant they know who's a much better "American" in their values. The same for anecdotes of the people with the least American values being home grown and inbred
elmomle 6mo ago
Yes, and: the rot started long ago, this is just what it looks like when it goes unchecked. To quote Mencius: Mencius went to see King Hui of Liang. The king said, “Venerable sir, since you have not counted it far to come here, may I presume that you are provided with counsels to profit my kingdom?” Mencius replied, “Why must Your Majesty use that word ‘profit’? What I am provided with are counsels to benevolence and righteousness, and these are my only topics. If Your Majesty say, ‘What is to be done to profit my kingdom?’ the great officers will say, ‘What is to be done to profit our families?’ and the inferior officers and common people will say, ‘What is to be done to profit our persons?’ Superiors and inferiors will try to snatch this profit one from another, and the kingdom will be endangered.”
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
lll-o-lll 6mo ago
> The fish rots from the head. The old adage that the people elect the governance they deserve; comes to mind. The concepts of Virtue, Honour, Duty, and Justice have been declining in the West over a very long period (this is not a US specific thing). The rotting head reflects the rotting society. > It's a sucker's game to aspire to selflessly serve the greater good when the most powerful people in the land are brazenly corrupt You don’t act honourably because that will “get you ahead”. You act honourably because it is right.
- afavour 6mo ago
  > You don’t act honourably because that will “get you ahead”. You act honourably because it is right. As much as I would like to believe that’s true I don’t think it is. You act honourably because society incentivises you to. To act dishonourably is to be disadvantaged, to be shamed, to be cast out. That is the part that’s missing today.
  - jdlshore 6mo ago
    I see where you’re coming from, but something about this framing bothers me. I think acting honorably has to come from within. It’s something that people need to do regardless of rewards or incentives. Now, how we create a culture that actually does so… that has to come from society. But, imo, if people only act honorably because they’re rewarded for it, and they don’t when no one is looking… that’s not acting honorably at all.
    - lovemenot 6mo ago
      You can both be right. I live in a high trust society (Japan), but was raised elsewhere. When I first came here, there were times I had to suppress my instinct to take opportunistic advantage. That was intrinsic motivation. Later, I had adapted to the culture around me. Such instincts rarely arise as it had become extrinsic.
    - afavour 6mo ago
      My pessimistic take is that the majority of the population will simply never do that. Look at organized religion. One of its key promises is “behave in life and you’ll get everything you could ever dream of in the afterlife”. I don’t think it’s coincidental.
whyenot 6mo ago
It's a nice saying, but the "head" changes every 4-8 years and this is a problem that has gotten worse over decades. Sometimes the rot doesn't start from the head.

echelon 6mo ago

> Combined with the increasing acceptance of shoplifting It's the K-shaped economy. Those not participating in the upsides are electing to either not participate in the system at all or to destroy it. Most people think Luigi Mangione is a hero. We had a good post-WWII run. We had factories, then globalization. Massive growth for all economic backgrounds for several generations. But the world caught up. Now the average worker has to compete against their increasingly competent and economically enabled peers around the globe. Costs for everything are rising. We used to have a super sized Big Mac economy propped up by the fact that America was (relatively) peerless. The worker saw so much upside. Now they don't even get free refills, so to speak. I'm hoping the AI boom helps bring down the cost of goods without putting people out of work. If it goes the other way, I think we might be heading for 1790's France.

JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
> It's the K-shaped economy Which side of the K-shaped economy do you think Princeton alumni are predominantly on?
traderj0e 6mo ago
??? This entire thread is unrelated. Princeton realized AI makes cheating too easy, that's it. Not every topic needs to be about Donald Trump.
- WillPostForFood 6mo ago
  Are they being honest? Did Princeton students not need proctoring in the past because the had no means to cheat, or they both maintained some honor, and fear of the institution.
  - sieabahlpark 6mo ago
    [dead]
- InsideOutSanta 6mo ago
  Cheating was always easy.

ruler88 6mo ago

This doesn't seem particularly related?

vector_spaces 6mo ago
I mean, given that belief in moral decline is essentially based on illusory perceptions anyway[1], it's not too surprising that someone handwringing about it would also hallucinate connections between two disparate phenomena they opted to characterize as examples of such. If you opt to habitually rationalize human behavior in a manner that is detached from concern with nuance or driving forces then some amount of reality denial is probably inevitable [1] See e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06137-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06137-x
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 6mo ago
Lack of honour, low trust, the breakdown of the social contract. Seems all related to me.

applfanboysbgon 6mo ago

> in some left-wing corners of the commentariat, is out; flagrant disregard of the social contract is in. Interesting that this is posed as the American left disregarding the social contract. I think you could make a pretty good case that the American right disregarded the social contract first in electing an extremely destructive pedophile who starts wars for reasons that can't even be articulated, pardons war criminals, engages in blatant nepotism enriching his family to the tune of billions at taxpayer's expense, large-scale fraud including being convicted of felony, adjudicated rapist, and a list of social contract violations going on for about 300 more pages that I'd be here all day typing out. And once the social contract is gone, it would be pretty weird to expect the other side to continue abiding by the terms. I don't personally make a habit of binding myself to one-sided contracts that impose no obligations on the other party.

remarkEon 6mo ago
I can assure you with 100% certainty that the American Right did not elect Bill Clinton.
- elictronic 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- InsideOutSanta 6mo ago
  I'm no fan of Clinton, but pretending that he's even remotely as bad as Trump only confirms how leftists see people on the right.
  - b65e8bee43c2ed0 6mo ago
    [flagged]
- triceratops 6mo ago
  Statistically maybe half the people who voted for Bill Clinton are already dead.
6mo ago

RIMR 6mo ago

Moral acceptance of petty theft always increases with inequality. When the poor take from the rich, people don't care as much. The poorer the thief and the richer the victim, the less people care. Go far enough, and people view the thief as a Robin Hood-style hero. Given that we're at a point in American history where inequality is quite extreme, I don't think it's fair to compare shoplifting to the corruption of the ruling class that is largely responsible for the current levels of inequality in the first place. To be quite frank, under current conditions, it is a moral failure to see fault with impoverished people for stealing what they need to survive, not the other way around.

pickleRick243 6mo ago
What? It's a moral failure to have an issue with people shoplifting from Walgreens? Do you think they're stealing milk, eggs, and bread?
- mystraline 6mo ago
  And your types are the same that would see a cashier who steals $100 go to jail.... But a manager who edits timecards of 10 people for $100 ($1000 damage) is just a civil matter. Crime, and who punishes it, has always been a political matter. The crimes have never been equal for those with power other others.
  - pickleRick243 6mo ago
    My types? The person I was responding to claims that if I have a problem with someone shoplifting alcohol and condoms from Walgreens, then it's a moral failing on my part. I responded because I found that absurd. For the record, I do not condone managers editing timecards.
blululu 6mo ago
To be clear the shoplifters in question are all rich themselves and stealing expensive items they don’t need. The original article is about students at one of the richest and most prestigious institutions in the country. None of the criminals are poor by any stretch of the imagination. They are just lousy people who are smart enough and entitled enough to try to justify their bad behavior.

shadowtree 6mo ago

Moral code is downstream from culture and not every culture sees cheating as a moral failing. As Princeton's demo skewed hard into a more international student body, the underlying cultural assumptions have shifted. The Christian extension of the Ninth Commandment from not bearing false witness to a blanket ban on lying is unique. Islam has explicit exceptions through Taqiyya, Hinduism gets nuanced with dharma and adharma, Buddhism sees it as one of the ten unwholesome actions, ... WASPs built and defined Princeton, but that is long over.

applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
It is rather disappointing to see a take as unsubtle as "white people are pure and honest God-fearing Christians and Asians are dirty heathens with no concept of morality" on this site.
- shadowtree 6mo ago
  That is not what I wrote - there was no judgement, just that other cultures weigh cheating morally different. It is all moralities. There is no absolute one.
- 9x39 6mo ago
  Do you have any data to support your disappointment? There seems to be data supporting the GP's observation, which is different than your crude strawman. It's not unreasonable to look for fire when you smell smoke. "A 2016 study of more than 100 UK universities by The Times found that non-EU students were four times more likely to be caught cheating than UK and EU students. In the US, they were found to be five times as likely to be caught cheating than their local peers, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from 14 leading US colleges." https://studyinternational.com/news/the-complex-problem-of-academic-dishonesty-among-international-students/ https://studyinternational.com/news/the-complex-problem-of-a... "Public universities in the U.S. recorded 5.1 reports of alleged cheating for every 100 international students, versus one report per 100 domestic students, in a Wall Street Journal analysis" https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-students-seen-cheating-more-than-domestic-ones-1465140141 https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-students-seen-cheating-... In 2015, 4,540 international students were enrolled at Iowa. Of those, 2,797 were from China. That’s 9 percent of the school’s student body. Most or all of the students accused of cheating are Chinese nationals. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-cheating-iowa/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-...

andyjohnson0 6mo ago

> it's hard not to read this as a moral page turning on American culture. Are unsupervised examinations common in the US? Or is this, in fact, simply one institution coming in to line with common US national and international practice?

junofan 6mo ago
It’s pretty common in WASP-y circles.
vector_spaces 6mo ago
This is not common in an in-person setting -- nearly "unheard of" outside of elite schools or particular faculty at particular programs. So it is the latter

Barbing 6mo ago

“But what about the argument that if everyone just starts stealing wantonly,” Spiegelman replies, “Whole Foods will eventually raise the prices?” “Yeah, chaos,” Piker says. “Full chaos. Let’s go.” “I kind of am inclined toward this,” Tolentino adds. “Everyone, try it. See what happens.” Personal shoppers for everyone! Point at what you want or add it on an app. Eventually would take force/fraud/violence to shoplift (hey I said EVENTUALLY!) :) Source: gas station snack acquisition after 10pm in some USA urban areas, plus stories from abroad

saalweachter 6mo ago
Isn't that how stores used to work, before store owners decided it'd be cheaper to just let shoppers bring up a basket of goods? You'd go up to the shopkeeper behind the counter with a list, they'd get it all for you?
- valleyer 6mo ago
  Yup, and that requires extra labor to fulfill, which will cost money. Luckily, I haven't heard anyone complain about high prices of groceries lately, so I'm sure everyone would be fine with that.
- Barbing 6mo ago
  Cheaper, and maybe easier to sell personal items with a little more discretion. That kind of service should be available for those who want it, assuming demand exists. Those who want self checkout or whatever else should not worry about their access being restricted due to wealthy authors shoplifting lemons. (obviously no one here is going to bed crying tonight about the gall of hungry people to steal bread, I’m not even anti UBI or anything, just attempting to analyze a trajectory)

tolerance 6mo ago

> [...] it's hard not to read this as a moral page turning on American culture. Turning into what from where is the interesting part.

regnull 6mo ago

People can still behave honorably despite all this. It's easy (and wrong) to justify someone's dishonorable behavior by pointing to the leaders.

tdb7893 6mo ago

I've known a lot of people who justify crimes like shoplifting by the fact that these corporations have stolen from them (and not in some abstract way, often literal wage theft) and felt like the social contract was already broken. And it's not like the leaders at the large corporations I've worked at generally seem to care about their employees or customers (I would describe most places I worked at as, at best, amoral. I've heard "well, if we didn't do it some other less ethical company would" too many times). Edit: not that I'm pro-shoplifting, it's that the article talks about them breaking the "social contract" (though the article is more of a reality show-esque piece as it's a opinions writer beefing with Twitch streamers and doesn't talk to any people actually shoplifting).

bad_username 6mo ago
Justifying one's crime because other crime exists - isnot a winning position long term.
- girvo 6mo ago
  Corporations don’t follow or care about morals, and so their customers and workers begin to follow suit.
  - mystraline 6mo ago
    Chomsky called corporations legal psychopaths in the documentary "The Corporation". He was right. If companies can engage in terrible illegal behavior and then only pay 10% of profit as a fine, so can I. If that means I cancel all streaming services, help friends also cancel streaming services, set up a Jellyfin/Navidrome box and grab everything, I do not give one fuck. Hell, the AI companies grabbed Annas Archive and Libgen. Why not me? So, yeah. I wouldnt steal from fellow humans. I value humans. But companies and corporate "property"? <SPIT>
- GuinansEyebrows 6mo ago
  perhaps not, but cynicism in kind is understandable when you have no real power to effect change.

Aurornis 6mo ago

> Combined with the increasing acceptance of shoplifting [1] Hasan Piker (one of the people in that link) is a streamer who got popular for extremist takes and controversy. He's just doing what he does to stay famous in that interview. The other person is a writer for The New Yorker who apparently enjoys controversy too. This interview isn't representative of anything other than two people trying to be edgy because they want their interview to go viral.

throwaway27448 6mo ago
Hasan piker has extremely bland and milquetoast takes compared to most of the left. He's just the one currently being sold to boomers as a terrorist. But any sane country would see him as a moderate (moderating between "anarchy" and the insanity of two identical corporate parties beholden to israel)

throwaway27448 6mo ago

Idk about corruption, but the shoplifting trend has come from corporate america's wholesale looting of the country. The social contract was abandoned many decades ago.

cucumber3732842 6mo ago

You ever seen a man over 40 pull a building permit for work wholly within his own home? Yeah me either. These days college kids are just as jaded. Of course they cheat the instant they think they can get away with it. The college is there to serve the college, not them and these days the kids know it. Even if everyone cheating degrades the value of the degree there's no guarantee the college won't do that itself if everyone is honest so might as well get away with what you can while you can. Nobody likes this, it's just a rational adaptation to the perceived state of affairs.