Edit: u/MinimumWage Your quote is more adequate for what the article is about
But this one is still more badass: "Charity may build a few hospital wings, but fear builds a universal health care system"
beat me to it. favorite quote: "If a rich person has something you need, you should take it." this is a bit weird though: "If management wants to replace the working class with computers that maybe aren’t quite as good at protecting company property, make them pay for it." i mean, sure, fuck 'em, but i'd rather get rid of the menial jobs.
INCOMING RANT:
I love the idea of stealing from the rich, but If there is an even slight profit loss the cutbacks only effect the bottom end. I really don't think there will ever be a solution to the wealth problem. There will always be an enormous gap, and there will always be poor people, and yes, it sucks. There are times when I am very satisfied with my status quo, despite only earning about 17k a year and not being able to afford a single thing I want, but I still have what I need. I get jealous from time to time, of my friends who could afford college without loans or a job, my friends with brand new cars, brand new clothes, organic food, or even those who are able to go on vacation. It's only because I think I need those things to be happy, but if that's the case, that happiness is never permanent. It slowly disappears once the vacation is over, or the car breaks down, or the clothes wear out and then you just need more and more. The desire to emulate wealth is a drug. It's expensive and very hard to quit. In my opinion, the only way to defeat the rich is to reject their definition of wealth and to stop being selfish and jealous of others. When I was a kid I was OBSESSED with collecting stuffed animals. I never had dolls or anything that was too pricey, but I had plenty of teddy bears and claw machine toys. I never had enough of them, and I always wanted more. There was a time when I was around 10 or 11, and I had found the coolest stuffed dog you could imagine, and it was only 4 dollars. I started plotting in my head how I could convince my mom to buy it for me and as I did, a question popped into my head. "How will this make my life better?" I responded, "it won't," and I put it back on the shelf and never asked for another stuffed animal or toy again.
It's a super corny story, but seriously, even though we are all much better at rationalizing as adults as to how something may benefit you, ask how if you are able to answer the why, and try to be honest with yourself if the benefit is real or a product of indoctrination. Sorry if this double posts, I'm not sure why my browser keeps doing that.
Just to further my opinion to reject the western definition of wealth, here is a list of words in Latin that mean various versions of the word "wealth". http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookdown.pl?wealth compare this to the synonyms of the english word for wealth http://thesaurus.com/browse/wealth Wealth was not always about things you can touch or see.
ooli, minimum_wage, Janabutts, mk, you all appear to be standing around not exactly voicing disapproval at this novel sentiment. CarpSpirit seems unsure. Will anyone be so bold as to simply say "it's okay to steal, as long as it's from a rich person?" Or is it all just a cerebral exercise in transvaluation of values, or worse, a satire and I'm the only one not getting it.
wasoxygen Stealing is not immoral. If you steal food from a hobo you're hurting him. Even putting his life in danger. That is immoral (hurting people) If you steal a candy from a baby. You're not hurting him. He's displeased, his feeling are torn but you didnt hurt him. At worst you just abused his weakness and that's immoral (abusing weakness) As long as you did not hurt someone (we dont care much for their feelings, it's far too subjective), and you did not abuse some weakness, you're "right" and moral. Stealing from the rich did not hurt the dude. You did not abuse some weakness. It's okay.
Here is a question: If I am wealthy, and you stole my watch, and it was my great grandfather's watch, passed down to me over generations, have you done something immoral? It seems as if you are saying any disparity in material wealth is immoral, and thus stealing from those that have more sets things right. Is that correct?
Damnit I never really though of the stealing moral problem, but you make me wake up in the middle of the night. And I hate debating on the internet. But seriously you're obfuscating the problem.
And you doing it by using the oldest trick: appeal to sentiment.
You put an object into existence. By saying it's old you give it some sort of historical value. Plus you add your grandfather for sentimental hook. And you dit not choose a dumb object like a spoon or a dildo, but an object with mystical , almost sacred values as it does the exploit of counting the time itself. You add layers and layers of irrelevant junk to get your point across. If I used the same type of argument, I would add: What if your grandfather was a nazi with thousand of dead on his conscience ?
You see? That's just blurring lines around until nothing is right or wrong, and we should continue to condemn stealing out of inertia. And dont get me started on your second argument : putting opinionated though in my mind to discredit my opinion on the subject as biased. You're a naughty naughty rhetorician! I hope you received stones and pebbles for Christmas.
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:) sorry about that. However, in all honesty, I think we cannot extract such ideas from the messy reality that we want to apply them to when we are judging their merits. Sometimes the medicine is worse than the disease, and I think the onus is on the one suggesting a remedy to provide a rationale that demonstrates the collateral damage is justified. IMO the large disparity in wealth is one of the greatest social ills of our time. However, that's why I commented elsewhere on this thread: It's not enough to demonstrate that stealing is right, or justified. Even when it is, it might not mean that it is the best course of action. This article suggests that since stealing is justified, it should be done. It does not, however, dwell upon the consequences of that approach. Thus, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.If being right was enough, everything would be so much easier.
(mk say almost the same thing below) I dont know how to address the problem (not being fluent in english, dont help either) Of course the "hurting" part is subjective (that's the mk's old watch dilemma- on a side note, nobody could decently back you up for a fucking old watch-).
And nobody alone should be able to decide what really will be considered hurting. I guess my point was just that Stealing is not inherently immoral like killing, hurting, exploiting weakness is. Stealing just might sometime involve immoral stuff (hurting, exploiting, etc) it is not that
Disparity in wealth is just luck based. Nothing moral or immoral in it. How you acquired your wealth might be. If you did steal to get rich is not inherently bad. But If you hurt people, or exploited their lack of wealth to make them work for less than minimum wage, you're probably an asshole.disparity in material wealth is immoral, and thus stealing from those that have more sets things right
I see mk's moral argument did not impress you; I will try a practical approach. The ethical rule "If a rich person has something you need, you should take it" seems far too subjective to be useful, especially compared to the traditional "You should not take things that belong to others," even though the traditional rule does not give perfect results. First of all, who is rich? There are people with wealth hundreds of times greater than mine. But I have wealth hundreds of times greater than some people. I don't mind if a homeless person asks me for money on the street, but I would object if they took my wallet. The ideas of "need" and "hurt" are also unclear to me. Say my eyes are failing and I need good vision to do my job. Can I force a wealthy person to give me their corneas? Won't that hurt them? Can I force them to pay for my surgery, because losing some money won't change their lifestyle? But if enough people like me force the wealthy person to pay for our needs, they will eventually be as poor as a hobo. Thanks for responding to my request for clarification, and in the language I know best! Your English is clear to me, and please let me know if you would like me to clarify anything I've said. The only linguistic point I would make is that the word "stealing" -- to me -- implies immorality. It is possible to take something from someone in a moral way, for example, taking a coffee from a shop after you have paid for it. Stealing is immoral taking -- taking something that belongs to someone else without their permission. So if I may rephrase your sentence, Taking just might sometimes involve immoral stuff, and in those cases we call it stealing.
I voiced disapproval: http://hubski.com/pub?id=99206 There might be some catharsis in stealing from a rich person, but it's not a solution to inequity, and likely not even a step in that direction.
I found your response a bit cryptic. I like cryptic, but I may not have parsed it well. May I try again?If being right was enough, everything would be so much easier.
If being right (i.e. behaving ethically and not stealing) was enough (to ... what? live comfortably?), everything would be so much easier (than having to game the system to overcome unfairness due to the system being rigged).
I meant that if being in the right does not mean that stealing is the best course of action. It's a flaw in so many arguments. Justification for the ends does not mean justification for the means. Without both, your actions are creating another unjust system.
I condone stealing
Thanks for clarifying. May I ask some followup questions about contexts? Just from "the rich," or candy from babies too, that sort of thing.Nice mass ping
Sorry for the pingspam. This post is a couple months old and I figured it had dropped off the radar.
I would not condone stealing from anyone, but I do feel I was raised to believe in the 'Robin Hood' glamorization of theft. When an entity has become less of a human and more of an opposition to the general public (which is assumed to be a weak but just force), then I feel it is appropriate to attempt to overcome this force. In the Robin Hood story it was very simply put as taking what has already been taken from the people and returning it to them. I can't say that all rich people have taken from the general public in direct terms, but I do feel they cheat the public out of funds or material that could have been used to benefit them, such as tax breaks or import benefits that are only given to large importers/exporters (an example of this is the tariffs put on souls of shoes imported from China that many businesses are able to work around such as Converse or Nike). Because of this, I feel it is not necessary to physically steal from them, but rather exploit the system they have set in place. For example, extending company benefits to others even if they do not meet the credentials, such as being a family member. I would explain myself further, but it is a bit late and I'm just about to go to bed. To summarize, I feel it is best for an underdog to exploit a company within it's own terms than to physically commit theft.