5 ms·

Both are completely immoral.

by stass 2y ago

mandmandam 2y ago
[flagged]
- samatman 2y ago
  It is always immoral to point a weapon at a stranger and demand the contents of his pockets. No circumstance whatsoever justifies such behavior. None.
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    I said "stealing to eat". Because the claim was "stealing is never moral and is just as bad no matter the amount". You heard "point a weapon at a stranger and demand the contents of his pockets". And, since this seems to be really confusing to a lot of people here for some reason, stealing tens/hundreds of millions of dollars from people is in fact unambiguously worse than mugging someone for their wallet. It's far more violent, and causes far more suffering.
    - samatman 2y ago
      The context was, in fact, mugging: which is when someone points a weapon at a stranger and demands the contents of his pockets. Receipts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39854970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39854970
      - kelnos 2y ago
        The topic of the thread changed at some point; you seem to still be on the original topic, when the rest of us are talking about stealing food to survive.
- zarathustreal 2y ago
  You realize Le Miz is fictional, right? No one needs to steal to eat, some people choose to steal rather than earn. Stealing is immoral regardless of the circumstance, don’t take your moral philosophy from Disney movies and broadway.
  - vkou 2y ago
    If we're going to talk morality, a lot of land ownership and resource extraction stands on very shaky ground, given that a lot of land was at some point in recorded (or recent) history stolen from someone else. And stealing is always immoral, so...
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    > You realize Le Miz is fictional, right? Do you think no one irl ever stole bread to feed their family only to be extremely punished? ... > No one needs to steal to eat, some people choose to steal rather than earn. You're wrong. You're a hundred kinds of wrong. That mindset is a deep, deep sickness. > Stealing is immoral regardless of the circumstance If the choice is between stealing and starvation, the moral thing to do is steal. Which is, in fact, the scenario we are talking about. Not everyone can earn - and in a society where wages have become untethered from productivity for over 50 fucking years, where the social contract is broken and ground into dust, where healthcare and housing are seen as privileges rather than rights, you might start to expect getting pushback on such untethered and inhuman views. > don’t take your moral philosophy from Disney movies and broadway. Better than taking it from literal comicbook villains.
    - zarathustreal 2y ago
      The “No one needs to steal to eat” mindset is a “deep, deep sickness”? My brother in Christ what kind of backwards world do you live in? Where on this planet is it acceptable to steal, especially in a mugging situation that implies physical confrontation and the threat of violence? I can’t tell if you’re trolling, you’re actually asserting that you live in a fairytale defending something like Robin Hood. Wages have never been tethered to productivity, arbitrage has existed since before there was even a currency. Healthcare and housing has always been and always will be a privilege, your human rights only extend so far as they do not infringe upon someone else’s human rights. Doctors and construction workers cannot be compelled against their will to do work, neither can the collective taxpayer.
- gambiting 2y ago
  >There's nothing immoral about stealing to eat. Of course there is - being mugged(or having stuff stolen from you) can ruin your life, not even in any physical sense but psychologically it can be devastating. I've had a bike stolen from my house, I didn't even witness it being stolen or anything, just one morning I woke up and the house was broken into and my bike gone - relatively minor financial inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but for the next 2 years I hated living in that place, I was uncomfortable in my own house and scared of walking around, I honestly felt violated in the sanctum of my own home and couldn't get relaxed around there again. Eventually we moved and in the large portion it was exactly because of that. So please tell me, even assuming if that person stole my bike to buy bread - how can it possibly have been moral given the impact it had on the life of another person?
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    You think the sanctity of your home and peace of mind is worth another man dying, rather than eating, when your bike could have saved him? ... You and I both know that your bike wasn't robbed to prevent starvation, making your example completely beside the point. If it had been robbed to prevent the starvation of a human, you ought to feel happy rather than violated - your small sacrifice saved a whole life! America has more than enough wealth to feed everyone on the planet, but 10 million kids are hungry in the US right now. Someone is stealing that wealth, and it isn't muggers. Try to gain some perspective, despite the daily news telling you to be scared of the poor.
    - xyzelement 2y ago
      Your approach is gross. Blessing theft the way you do creates two victims, the one from whom it is stolen and one who is not steered towards a better way to live. The US even still has tremendous opportunity to build a life and earn money. Stealing undermines one's ability and focus to build such a life and undermines the surrounding community as well. You clearly think you're a great guy/gal/whatever for thinking that someone should be thrilled to be stolen from and you're oblivious to the nothing-but-more-misery this approach practically generates.
- stass 2y ago
  I can't believe I'm arguing that it's immoral to steal on HN, but here we are... Yes, you might decide that breaking your moral code to feed yourself or your family is an acceptable tradeoff, but it's a tradeoff nonetheless. It's a conscious choice. A lot of people in history made a decision to go hungry instead. Children might see the world in Marxist generics where some ambiguous, but for some reason always "wealthy" people stole all the fruit trees and poisoned the water. Adults usually deal with specifics. Who are all these mysterious people are? Do you think the food just fell from the sky before the industrial age? What do you think happened to the people who stole before the industrial age, hungry or not?
  - kelnos 2y ago
    If you don't think income and wealth inequality is real, I'm not sure what anyone here is going to do to help you understand this better. The fact remains that we could feed everyone on the planet... if we chose to. Capitalism just doesn't incentivize us to do so. You talk about how stealing bread to survive would be "breaking your moral code", but I think it's absurd that we've gotten to this point. How is a society moral if it allows people to starve? I won't say two wrongs make a right, but when society actively allows people to die of hunger, I think those tut-tutting about moral codes need some side-eyes and eye-rolls directed their way. And we are all culpable to a certain extent, as members of that society. Perhaps those of us who donate our money or time to help those in need are a bit less culpable (along with people who are just scraping by and don't have the money or time to spare). But if we've benefited from that system (as I have), we share some of the blame (as I do). And go further and consider people who actively vote for politicians and policies that remove social safety nets and make it harder for people on the margins to feed themselves. All the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" the US who seem to think that no one deserves any help for anything. It's disgusting.
snapcaster 2y ago
What do you see as the value of removing all nuance?

Both are completely immoral.

by stass 2y ago

Both are completely immoral.

mandmandam 2y ago

[flagged]

samatman 2y ago
It is always immoral to point a weapon at a stranger and demand the contents of his pockets. No circumstance whatsoever justifies such behavior. None.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  I said "stealing to eat". Because the claim was "stealing is never moral and is just as bad no matter the amount". You heard "point a weapon at a stranger and demand the contents of his pockets". And, since this seems to be really confusing to a lot of people here for some reason, stealing tens/hundreds of millions of dollars from people is in fact unambiguously worse than mugging someone for their wallet. It's far more violent, and causes far more suffering.
  - samatman 2y ago
    The context was, in fact, mugging: which is when someone points a weapon at a stranger and demands the contents of his pockets. Receipts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39854970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39854970
    - kelnos 2y ago
      The topic of the thread changed at some point; you seem to still be on the original topic, when the rest of us are talking about stealing food to survive.
zarathustreal 2y ago
You realize Le Miz is fictional, right? No one needs to steal to eat, some people choose to steal rather than earn. Stealing is immoral regardless of the circumstance, don’t take your moral philosophy from Disney movies and broadway.
- vkou 2y ago
  If we're going to talk morality, a lot of land ownership and resource extraction stands on very shaky ground, given that a lot of land was at some point in recorded (or recent) history stolen from someone else. And stealing is always immoral, so...
- mandmandam 2y ago
  > You realize Le Miz is fictional, right? Do you think no one irl ever stole bread to feed their family only to be extremely punished? ... > No one needs to steal to eat, some people choose to steal rather than earn. You're wrong. You're a hundred kinds of wrong. That mindset is a deep, deep sickness. > Stealing is immoral regardless of the circumstance If the choice is between stealing and starvation, the moral thing to do is steal. Which is, in fact, the scenario we are talking about. Not everyone can earn - and in a society where wages have become untethered from productivity for over 50 fucking years, where the social contract is broken and ground into dust, where healthcare and housing are seen as privileges rather than rights, you might start to expect getting pushback on such untethered and inhuman views. > don’t take your moral philosophy from Disney movies and broadway. Better than taking it from literal comicbook villains.
  - zarathustreal 2y ago
    The “No one needs to steal to eat” mindset is a “deep, deep sickness”? My brother in Christ what kind of backwards world do you live in? Where on this planet is it acceptable to steal, especially in a mugging situation that implies physical confrontation and the threat of violence? I can’t tell if you’re trolling, you’re actually asserting that you live in a fairytale defending something like Robin Hood. Wages have never been tethered to productivity, arbitrage has existed since before there was even a currency. Healthcare and housing has always been and always will be a privilege, your human rights only extend so far as they do not infringe upon someone else’s human rights. Doctors and construction workers cannot be compelled against their will to do work, neither can the collective taxpayer.
gambiting 2y ago
>There's nothing immoral about stealing to eat. Of course there is - being mugged(or having stuff stolen from you) can ruin your life, not even in any physical sense but psychologically it can be devastating. I've had a bike stolen from my house, I didn't even witness it being stolen or anything, just one morning I woke up and the house was broken into and my bike gone - relatively minor financial inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but for the next 2 years I hated living in that place, I was uncomfortable in my own house and scared of walking around, I honestly felt violated in the sanctum of my own home and couldn't get relaxed around there again. Eventually we moved and in the large portion it was exactly because of that. So please tell me, even assuming if that person stole my bike to buy bread - how can it possibly have been moral given the impact it had on the life of another person?
- mandmandam 2y ago
  You think the sanctity of your home and peace of mind is worth another man dying, rather than eating, when your bike could have saved him? ... You and I both know that your bike wasn't robbed to prevent starvation, making your example completely beside the point. If it had been robbed to prevent the starvation of a human, you ought to feel happy rather than violated - your small sacrifice saved a whole life! America has more than enough wealth to feed everyone on the planet, but 10 million kids are hungry in the US right now. Someone is stealing that wealth, and it isn't muggers. Try to gain some perspective, despite the daily news telling you to be scared of the poor.
  - xyzelement 2y ago
    Your approach is gross. Blessing theft the way you do creates two victims, the one from whom it is stolen and one who is not steered towards a better way to live. The US even still has tremendous opportunity to build a life and earn money. Stealing undermines one's ability and focus to build such a life and undermines the surrounding community as well. You clearly think you're a great guy/gal/whatever for thinking that someone should be thrilled to be stolen from and you're oblivious to the nothing-but-more-misery this approach practically generates.
stass 2y ago
I can't believe I'm arguing that it's immoral to steal on HN, but here we are... Yes, you might decide that breaking your moral code to feed yourself or your family is an acceptable tradeoff, but it's a tradeoff nonetheless. It's a conscious choice. A lot of people in history made a decision to go hungry instead. Children might see the world in Marxist generics where some ambiguous, but for some reason always "wealthy" people stole all the fruit trees and poisoned the water. Adults usually deal with specifics. Who are all these mysterious people are? Do you think the food just fell from the sky before the industrial age? What do you think happened to the people who stole before the industrial age, hungry or not?
- kelnos 2y ago
  If you don't think income and wealth inequality is real, I'm not sure what anyone here is going to do to help you understand this better. The fact remains that we could feed everyone on the planet... if we chose to. Capitalism just doesn't incentivize us to do so. You talk about how stealing bread to survive would be "breaking your moral code", but I think it's absurd that we've gotten to this point. How is a society moral if it allows people to starve? I won't say two wrongs make a right, but when society actively allows people to die of hunger, I think those tut-tutting about moral codes need some side-eyes and eye-rolls directed their way. And we are all culpable to a certain extent, as members of that society. Perhaps those of us who donate our money or time to help those in need are a bit less culpable (along with people who are just scraping by and don't have the money or time to spare). But if we've benefited from that system (as I have), we share some of the blame (as I do). And go further and consider people who actively vote for politicians and policies that remove social safety nets and make it harder for people on the margins to feed themselves. All the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" the US who seem to think that no one deserves any help for anything. It's disgusting.

snapcaster 2y ago

What do you see as the value of removing all nuance?