Comment on No one could have seen this coming
your_dead_pet_goldfish@lemmy.world 1 day agoThat is the most bad faith interpretation of what i said. When i said it was impossible i meant that in reality the vast majority of people will not steal, not that everyone should steal all the time because there will never be consequences. And i am not saying that stealing is morally good in all cases. I am saying that large corporations, their executives and the politicians they fund keep people in poverty so they can become ultra wealthy from the record profits these companies make (weird they can make record profits while everyone is apparently stealing so much stuff from them), so yeah, if a poor person steals from one of these companies to get medicine they need or food they can’t afford, i think they should and that we should not condemn them for it. I would rather a company lose a buck than someone go hungry. And even if it was true that it was happening at a scale where they had to increase prices, i would gladly pay that if it meant my neighbor could eat without being arrested. These companies are not struggling and theft of this nature does not happen on a scale to warrant any of their current interventions including increasing prices.
I find it interesting that you refuse to engage with my actual core argument and instead have opted for picking at random sentences. Engage with this: the systems that cause and deepen poverty are the problem, not the poor people tryong to survive. These systems are perpetuated by large corporations and the ultra wealthy, they are the ones you should be angry with. You are closer to the person stealing to survive than you are any billionaire.
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Okay, in which cases would you say that stealing is morally good?
Please be as precise as possible. This is very important.
Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 21 hours ago
There was a comic on here a while back that had a hungry guy walk up to the grocer and ask for a job. The grocer said no. Then he asked for food and the grocer said no. So he took the food.
If you can’t get what you need to survive using the social system (unfortunately it’s currently poorly regulated crony capitalism), and you can’t get what you need through charity, then you TAKE what you need to survive.
Any system that lets you die when you were willing to work is a failed system.
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 14 hours ago
There are currently several comics on here that feature talking animals. That proves talking animals are real.
your_dead_pet_goldfish@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
This is my last response to you because you are disingenuous and I’m tired of writing the same things again and again. If you are sick and starving and the society that you belong to refuses to effectively aid you I would argue it is morally good to steal from companies that create and perpetuate the systems of oppression. This is not a hard thought experiment. It is the same as saying there are times where it is morally right to lie. You once again refuse to actually engage with the core of my argument. Your ideas have no substance and your analysis of these situations is elementary to the point that I think I may be arguing with a teenager. I’m done, bye.
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 14 hours ago
Why am I disingenuous? Were you or were you not making the case that theft could sometimes be considered morally good?
I find it more disingenuous of you to try and just brush over that by asking me to engage with a completely different argument about the system being the problem.
The system does not care if you steal from it. As you said yourself, the CEO of the supermarket does not pay for the losses out of his own pocket. He’ll just raise prices or lock things up behind glass so that ultimately, we’re ALL paying for it. Your so-called “charity” ends up costing everyone.
your_dead_pet_goldfish@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Okay, turns out I lied because now you are making an actual argument. I called you disingenuous because you weren’t actually saying anything meaningful or actually engaging what i was saying.
I never shied away from the fact that i think stealing is sometimes the more moral option nor did I brush past this. Sometimes stealing is good if it keeps people alive. I think more people being alive is good. The system being the problem is not disconnected and i think is the bigger point here. I think your anger is fundamentally misplaced and that this misplaced anger and frustration is harmful to vulnerable people in hard sotuations while codifying the current systems that keep people poor and vulnerable.
Almost no large corporation experience a level of theft that requires them to increase prices. Many large stores have been having record profits, while the value of stolen goods amounts to less than 1% of the generated profits. So if an elderly woman on a fixed income can’t afford her groceries anymore, it is most likely not because theft caused a store to raise its prices, but rather because executives decided they could get away with raising those prices. I reject the notion that these large corporations are actually significantly impacted by theft no matter what they say because the numbers tell a different story.
Again if elderly folks cant afford necessities it doesn’t help to blame other poor people. The system is the problem so we need to change the system, not punish other poor people harder. You cannot separate my argument for theft being moral under certain circumstances from the recognition of the system being the actual problem. The former is the branch the latter the root, and if you want to effect meaningful change you need to strike the root.
Ideally i want a world where everyone has access to everything they need without stealing, where everyone has equitabble access to food, energy, clothing, etc, but we arent there yet and the system perpetuates injustice which sometimes requires on to shoplift to survive.