Between highschool and starting uni, I did a small stint as a cashier.
I called the cops on two people, one was stealing beer, the other some keychain. Both cheap items, but not necessities.
I saw multiple people steal baby formula and diapers and there wasn’t a bone in my body that even thought of calling the cops on them.
The first are stealing to steal.
The later are stealing to survive.
Imho the law should make a clear distinction between the two too.
Agreed. Though judges have some leeway here, there’s nothing official that would give them an incentive to treat the cases differently other than their moral compass.
You probably also thought people were stealing Sudafed because they had colds.
This medication in most stores crap doesn’t exist here.
Ah. My point was that those are some of the easiest to resell. Sudafed is used in the creation of meth.
Wow! Easily accessible to be stolen? In my country, we have 2 sudafed formulas – the meth kind (pseudoephedrine) and a different type (phenylephrine). The meth kind is only available by asking the pharmacist and showing your state-issued identification. The other kind is freely available to steal.
It’s that way here now. It wasn’t yet when I worked in a grocery store.
creation of meth
Another thing that barely exists here XD
Tell us you don’t live in Florida without telling us you don’t live in Florida.
Where is “here”? Because there’s plenty of meth in my location (I don’t do meth, I’m just aware of it).
While there is meth in Europe, there’s nowhere near as much of it anywhere in Europe.
Some countries have a rising meth problem, but it’s really nothing compared to the plague it is in the US.
As Aladin put it “Got to eat to live, got to steal to eat”
Otherwise we’d get along!
And that will be in my head all day…
If they’re stealing it from people, I think I’d do something. But corporations aren’t people.
Depends where you are. In the US they actually are:
I’ll believe it when they execute one
Or just jail a CEO
Why not whole board?
They’re ‘people’, but they’re not people.
Same thing I do when I see someone punch a Nazi.
Barely hold back from loudly rooting them on?
Stop what you’re doing and also punch a Nazi?
Distract any nearby clerks, duh
you earned it.I’ve finally made it 🦾
Or toilet paper/other hygiene products. The first 5 years of my 20s evaporated due to an abusive relationship dumping me into homelessness. I stole more hygiene products than I’d like to admit…
I just can’t be bothered to get involved. Be it baby formula or beer
Lemmy can be so naive about this topic.
It’s an interesting trend i have seen online since the onset of the post-pandemic inflation.
At its core it’s an ethics problem of Kant vs Utilitarianism. On the one hand Kantians are big into the golden rule. They would point out that we shouldn’t accept stealing in society, because we as individuals don’t want to be stolen from. If you can steal from a store why not steal from your friend’s parents or the local community centre? In fact why don’t we just all go steal the things we want whenever we want? Utilitarians on the other hand would argue that someone stealing food (if they really need it) creates more good than some investors losing a small amount of profit does harm. Utilitarians think we should live in a world that minimizes harm and maximizes good. If you’re familiar with the trolley car problem they would pull the switch to kill the 1 guy instead of the 5 on the track. They argue there is no objective system of ethics but rather every moral problem depends on the situation and the circumstances of the perpetrator and victim.
In my experience people on both sides of the political spectrum fall into utilitarian and Kantian camps. But I think people who fall on the left of the political spectrum and who also have utilitarian beliefs have a much more amplified opinion on this because they not only see stealing as a lesser of two evils but they view the whole capitalist system as an exploitation of the working class, and that the gains were ill gotten in the first place and theft is almost a natural revolutionary action to take back what is rightfully there’s.
The additional complication though is that this is also an economic problem in an economic system. Sure maybe if it was a one-off thing where somebody desperate stole something from a store one time then no systemic problem would occur, but because this is happening in larger volumes it becomes a multi-period prisoners dilemma. As opposed to the single period prisoners dilemma where defecting is the optimal choice, in the multi-period version participants develop rational expectations. Recently grocery stores such as target have been closing in inner cities because shoplifting has become endemic and they no longer believe they can make a profit there. This is terrible for inner city residents that do not commit theft because it raises the cost for them to transit and find groceries. So the system of “stealing when you need” isn’t tenable in this economic system.
Whether you believe that means we need to change the economic system or alternatively you believe we need to impose harsher penalties for crime, what’s clear is that in the end we will need a legislative solution, and so we probably should’ve just gone and done that in the first place.
Something something USA NEEDS MORE PARTIES something
i have parties
Can I come?
Can I come?
Oh a Dean Winchester with a thick beard.
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no decent person steals from small business… its common sense to avoid that and most people who do steal do it from walmart and megacorps. idrk where u got worrying ab small business from, its just considered shitty to steal from them. but big corps who lay around in their yacht profiting off of others being too broke to eat and feed their kids? fuck them. steal all you can from them because they will from you.
But end of the day its all the same in society. Corporations suck but so does turning a blind eye to thiefs. It’s never cut and dry as ‘only steal from corporations’ because a decent person doesn’t steal and we should all be more concerned with being decent people instead of ignoring behavior like stealing. Its a good feeling to be at arms length and condone these heroic actions like stealing diapers from Walmart and thinking its some poor mother trying to survive in a harsh world. But everyone I ever met like that in life were people who just assholes in everything else. They lie to your face, they cheat on their loved ones, they’re drama goblins because they’re a mess and they don’t care about others, only themselves.
Who are ‘they’?
The most important of questions.
Hold up. Who do you think “they” are
That only works in Uno, babe.
No seriously because I would have though it’s inherent in the comment but also stated. I just surprised it isn’t and would like to know who you think it is before I say since it sounds like you have another idea
The commenter is asking you to define “they” because they don’t want you to try to squirm out from under the statistical landslide of facts about just how bad the poor in America have it. About how they don’t have the money and they don’t have the means to get more money when even a college-educated person can’t land a proper full-time paying position to cover the expenses of a family anymore.
But you knew that, which is why you started squirming early.
What squirming? What fuck are you trying to say
But you can fuck off with this nonsense. They are people who steal. Don’t give two shits who or what they are.
Never seen anyone steal baby formula outside a riot, because it’s always locked up.
But yeah, I’m sure some people steal because they’re hungry, but the people I saw steal when working grocery stole steaks, lobster, shrimp, eye drops, high-end hair products, and workers’ hours. If someone was ever stealing out of need (fuck, even a single carbohydrate) they were slick enough about it not to get caught. But we tracked shrink, and could tell when something disappeared without account.
