thievery

[ruroken]

how do you feel about it? I think its fine to steal from big corporations but total bullshit to steal from people. Plus, you get your shit brand new when you steal from big corporations.

I see the hypocrisy in this, but its different because big corporations and the people who run them don't have sentimental value with the shit in their stores. People with their personal possessions do.

...of course, its still against the law. But its a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark amirite?

[Tijs]

I got myself a pair of fine bowlingshoes last week. They're actually quite comfertable, a bit slippery though; I think it's fine to steal as long as you're not hurting anybody.

[JohnnyNemesis]

I see the hypocrisy in this

Personally, I don't see any hypocrisy in what you said at all. And I can't stand when people try to act as if corporations = people. Fuckin' fuck that.

[HeadAroundU]

Have you got any big corporation? If no, you suck. If yes, then you know what...and then I'll punch you in the dark.

Now srsly.

"but its different because big corporations and the people who run them don't have sentimental value with the shit in their stores."

If I had a corporation producing soccer balls, I'd kill you in the dark.

"But its a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark amirite?"

I'm gonna steal you from your family like Madelline. It's like killing a worthless BBS member.

amirite?

[ruroken]

I love Sam's Club because they don't have trackers and they leave their Wii and DS games out in the open. They even said Phantom Hourglass had an "anti-thievery device" in it. Bullshit. I checked. After I left with it. They don't have a big selection of games, but its still worth it because you can trade them in somewhere else for what you want. Fucking awesome.

[H1T_That]

I disagree with physically stealing things from stores.

[ruroken]

"physically"...? wtf

[0r4ng3]

Shoplifting, as opposed to, say, illegally downloading.

[Biggest offspring fan]

The cops once caught me for fraud... Tru PUNXX!!!

[Omni]

You could get off your punk ass and get a job, then you wouldn't have to steal shit.

[Biggest offspring fan]

You could get off your punk ass and get a job, then you wouldn't have to steal shit.

Could be hard, cause i'm in upper secondary school...

[Jakebert]

Or because you're stupid, but both are valid.

[Biggest offspring fan]

You're a faggot.

[DexterWannabe]

and you're a maggot

[Biggest offspring fan]

I'd rather be a maggot than a faggot.

[BREAK]

ruroken, do you have qualms about shoplifting if your actions result in someone losing their job due to a shortage in inventory weighed against number of units sold? Someone has to account for the loss eventually, after all. What if it was someone with a family to support, who needed the job to survive, or just to support their raging drug habit, and they got canned as an indirect result of your thievery?

If no to all of the above, would you have qualms about stealing if you got caught?

[BREAK]

DexterWannabe and BOF, both of you stfu. Stop ruining these forums.

[Andy]

Replies #10 to #15 of this thread were fabulous. Especially #15.

[ilovellamas]

I love Sam's Club because they don't have trackers and they leave their Wii and DS games out in the open. They even said Phantom Hourglass had an "anti-thievery device" in it. Bullshit. I checked. After I left with it. They don't have a big selection of games, but its still worth it because you can trade them in somewhere else for what you want. Fucking awesome.

I used to work for a big corporation, and I had the ins on security... I'll just say that you might want to be careful. The rules at most places are very tight, and they can't touch you unless they have proof on the spot that you've got something. Well, they do watch all those videos... and if they see the same person stealing on their videos over and over, they can wait until you hit a certain threshold (at some places, it's around $500 worth of stolen goods)... and then you go to jail AND have to pay back everything you stole.

That said, I don't have issues with that junk. When I worked there, the only reason stealing pissed me off was because people actually thought I was stupid enough not to notice. But I didn't give a shit that they were taking something from a huge company. And yes, stealing from a person is hugely different and I don't agree with it at all.

[Jakebert]

I think stealing in general is immature as hell. Yeah, a few video games or whatever may not make a huge dent in Walmart's overall sales, but it's still stupid. If you want something badly enough, work, get money, and buy it. It's not hard.

That said, I do download music, but usually I end up buying the CD if I like it enough. Just last week I bought an album that I already have downloaded. I like to support the band, plus CD's sond much better than MP3's.

[coke_a_holic]

I think stealing in general is immature as hell. Yeah, a few video games or whatever may not make a huge dent in Walmart's overall sales, but it's still stupid. If you want something badly enough, work, get money, and buy it. It's not hard.

That said, I do download music, but usually I end up buying the CD if I like it enough. Just last week I bought an album that I already have downloaded. I like to support the band, plus CD's sond much better than MP3's.

I almost entirely agree with this.

I don't always buy cds that I like after downloading; if it's a band like Streetlight Manifesto or a band who seriously deserve the money for their hard work, I certainly will, but a huge percentage of my music is downloaded and I do not intend to pay the RIAA for this music. It was shared with me by others, not limewired, and that's legal. RIAA, you got nothin' on me! Nothing!

[T-6005]

Personally, I don't see any hypocrisy in what you said at all. And I can't stand when people try to act as if corporations = people. Fuckin' fuck that.
Legally, corporations are people. That's how we've gotten to limited liability and such.

[Jakebert]

It depends on the situation. If it's an album that I absolutely love, like "Daydream Nation" or "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea", I will (and in those cases, have) go out and buy them.

If it's something that I like but won't listen to a lot, like a Foo Fighters album or something, I probably won't go buy it because I'll listen to it maybe once every 4 months and that's it.

[Wolfbutter]

Every time I steal something, I feel immensly guilty about it. I know that is a dumb and weak reaction, but it is an emotion; I cannot control it. The times that I did steal, I tried to return it in a nonrevelable way, just to get some of my sanity back.

[Jakebert]

Every time I steal something, I feel immensly guilty about it. I know that is a dumb and weak reaction, but it is an emotion; I cannot control it. The times that I did steal, I tried to return it in a nonrevelable way, just to get some of my sanity back.

So, feeling guilty about stealing is weak? wtf.

[All About Eve]

I can't steal; my conscience is a major bugger. The only music I download is stuff shared with me by friends, like Mike said.

[MaF]

sometimes u need to steal (i mean download), cause u can't find it legaly! It's about old or rare games, music, movies... Or even about things that u can easy buy in UK and u've got no chances to find em in RF... for example - huge variety of punk albums... only fuckin sum or blink & no pennywise or bad religion! Or it's about old or super-new tv shows or about product on native language, cause sometimes it's like a torture to play in some games with russian actors... and other stuff...

[Sinister]

I don't physically steal but download music and games and the like.

[MaF]

Or it's about games for dreamcast!
U can't buy it legaly now (only few shoot-em-all-titles from japan). Only way to get games s to download em.

[JohnnyNemesis]

Legally, corporations are people. That's how we've gotten to limited liability and such.

I know that, and taht's why I brought it up, actually. I just don't buy into such bullshit no matter how codified it is.

[0r4ng3]

I don't physically steal but download music and games and the like.
Me too. It's just not the same. You wouldn't steal a car, but if a friend had a car and offered to make an exact copy for free, wouldn't you take it?

[ilovellamas]

I'm so glad that I download before buying albums now. I love "apologize" by onerepublic... and in most cases, if I love one song that much, chances are I'll really like an album. But wtf is up with OneRepublic? They have this smoothe, catchy, melodic, rnb sounding (which is a negative in my book, actually) single... and then the rest of the album is bland wannabe Coldplay/Fray/Snow Patrol crap. It's listenable, but nothing I'd ever spend money on. Thank god for stealing!

[wheelchairman]

Stealing from "big corporations" doesn't bother me in the slightest. Although it's super pathetic when you have a huge allowance and just want to look cool.

I guess I like the idea of "take what you want and pay for it." If you want to steal, fine with me. If you get caught, well you should really expect that... It's part of the price.

[BREAK]

Bands make more money from merch/shows than records anyway(unless they run the label), so I've never felt bad about getting music for free on the internet. I don't care how talented you are, FUCK YOU GET A REAL JOB.

[Meg]

If it's businesses that can afford it...Who gives a fucking shit? The only thing i've ever rbbed was a bracelet from claire's accessories. And i'm glad I didn't buy it as it broke a few weeks later. Or is that just karma?

[wheelchairman]

Wow that was soooooo convincing. Oh you eloquent Brits.

[Bazza]

Me too. It's just not the same. You wouldn't steal a car, but if a friend had a car and offered to make an exact copy for free, wouldn't you take it?
I feel like I may have to use this in my defence at some point! Awesome analogy!

[Mota Boy]

First off, stealing is not a "victimless" crime. Jaywalking is a victimless crime. Stealing, by its very nature, requires a victim. Just because that victim is a corporation and not an individual does not change a thing. In fact, stealing from a corporation has many, many more victims than stealing from a person; they're just more spread out.

First, stealing affects the individual store. People love to think of "large corporations" as some abstract logo, powered by a small group of fabulously wealthy white men in suits, who also happen to be assholes. People then love to justify stealing, as somehow payback against that group of men, as if a hangdog plutocrat shuffles into the boardroom one day and somberly announces, "Sorry boys, but no Cubans this week - we'll have to stick with domestic cigars. Some kid stole a DS game."

No, those executives will be just as rich as before. The repercussions will be felt at that specific store. The store owner, manager, the employees, all have to deal with the effects of shrinkage. The two ways of dealing with the costs of thievery are smaller salaries for all involved, and higher prices for every consumer. If I recall, about five percent of the price of any given good is a premium that honest consumers have to pay because some jackass kid somewhere justified stealing. Yes, one more slight stolen product won't jack up prices or get anyone fired, but the cumulative effect of the logic behind it does result in those negative impacts.

Look, the universe doesn't owe you a fucking DS game. A large number of people put their time and energy into making that, making it a damn good game, so that people would enjoy it and give them a bit of money in return. Sam's Club doesn't fucking steal your money. In fact, it's set up specifically to deliver the cheapest possible goods to you, with a minimum of profit that's made up in volume. How the hell do you justify stealing? What, you can't afford it? Boo-fucking-hoo. It's not a goddamn loaf of bread, it's a thirty-dollar way to kill time.

As for the security, Sam's Club is set up in a way to be as convenient as possible for the consumer. And you want to take advantage of that implicit trust? Way to go, asshole. I really love being in stores where the employees follow me around, spying on me, where I have to hunt them down to get them to unlock a box so that I can get the product I want, where my bags are searched before leaving the store. I'm so fucking glad that you're helping make that possible, because apparently you're too damn weak to resist the urge to take advantage of people's trust.

Every time I steal something, I feel immensly guilty about it. I know that is a dumb and weak reaction, but it is an emotion; I cannot control it.
I don't know where on earth you got the idea that a strong sense of morality is a weakness, but that's wrong. Giving into temptation to take advantage of others is a weakness.

Now, having a strong, outdated sense of morality, or just a fucked-up sense of morality is another thing. But stealing is an activity that interferes with the system of trust that underlies a free society. It's objective and universal. Thinking that people who steal without remorse are "strong" is as wrongheaded as thinking that people that shoot up their schools without remorse are "strong". They're not - they just have a moral disconnect that allows them to justify selfish behavior at the expense of others.

[mrconeman]

I'm entirely agreed with Mota Boy. The last thing I stole was a mint aero chocolate bar when I was like, 11 years old.

Fuck stealing from corporations, if you want something bad enough, fucking earn that shit, outdated morality or no, I just can't personally justify myself actually stealing something. In fact I don't ever even feel the temptation, even when I want something pretty bad and have absolutely no means by which to afford it, it's like "fuck it, move on."

[Little_Miss_1565]

Claibe---word.

Don't steal from corporations because you think you're making a point. Steal because you're poor and desperate, and even then, the forgiveness factor there is reserved for things you need to live, like food.

There is a long chain back from the store connected to every product. Somewhere along that chain is someone for whom that product is their entire job. Like, for example, me. Yeah, I know, stealing music is rampant and will never be stopped and the industry is going to have to learn to embrace it. I have a few bands that I work with. I could show you a CD and tell you that three solid months of my life were spent putting together and executing the marketing campaign for it, flying to the west coast with the band to supervise promo, endless planning meetings. I get almost as attached to the record as the artist does. For people to just go and rip it off, even though I know they will, it's like "fuck you--even though I heard of this CD because of the time, effort, and budget you spent on it, I'm not going to reward or support that."

Stealing is just a dick thing to do, period.

[Vera]

As a rule, I don't steal. I used to pocket some candy as a kid, but then this one time I nearly got caught stealing this glitter thingy that came with some stupid teen magazine, and I felt so enormously bad about it, I threw the glitter thing away and never stole anything again.

Then there's downloading, which is stealing but also a somewhat complex issue for me personally.. I like a lot of stuff I could never have discovered unless for downloading on the internet. The sole reason I ever discovered Asian music was the internet. Nowadays when I have a credit card and moolah, I try to order and buy all of the things that ARE available to me, but the process usually is something like - download -> listen/watch -> buy if you enjoy/delete if you don't. When I get into a band, I start to buy without downloading, sometimes I risk it and buy based on a few songs I listened to myspace.

I've worked myself into this routine where I feel bad to download an album, keep it on my iTunes, listen and love it and NOT buy it eventually. Just last week I got some music I had downloaded previously, deleted all the tracks from my HD and then moved the tracks from the cd's onto my iTunes. I understand it's still a crime to download even if I delete it because I didn't like it, but eh.

However, with individual songs it's somewhat different - especially the ones I could never get on iTunes or any Western legal download site.

With that said, the latest mp3 I downloaded was shared by the artist (Korean rapper Tablo) on his own weblog and the song is called "Free" (the file was called freemusic.mp3 - appropriately!). The lyrics are fairly angry and make it clear why he decided to share the song for free.

There are also some things whose legality/illegality I wonder about. If I watch something copyrighted to not the uploader on youtube, it's illegal, given but is my crime lesser than the uploaders? Is mine a crime at all? I watched the whole season of Ugly Betty on a Chinese video site..

[Lodat225]

Hahahah. The original post is hilarious. oh, you card.

well, i don't steal. I don't even have torrents/p2p so i can't steal from there. I don't even have an iPod or an MP3.

Oh yeah, i'm nice.

[wheelchairman]

"Pirating" is a natural reaction to the high prices of the 90's. I love those high prices. They led to pirating, pirating led to lower cd and dvd prices. I no longer burn music anymore. I haven't done it in years. I like albums, I like lyric booklets. I like having a real physical copy. I don't know why. But I also like that I can afford them now.

[Tizzalicious]

I once stole a sharpie from school, it made me feel guilty. That's all I ever stole, and all I probably ever will steal.

I download music though, I don't even see that as stealing.

[wheelchairman]

I don't remember the last time I stole. I never considered it worth the cost (getting caught.) Especially when I'm not really in any dire situation.

[Jakebert]

"Pirating" is a natural reaction to the high prices of the 90's. I love those high prices. They led to pirating, pirating led to lower cd and dvd prices. I no longer burn music anymore. I haven't done it in years. I like albums, I like lyric booklets. I like having a real physical copy. I don't know why. But I also like that I can afford them now.

I'm the exact same way. I like being able to hold the whole CD case in my hand.

[Vera]

I'm a huge fan of physical possession - especially when there is cool shit that comes with the CD's - but not when my stuff goes missing. Yesterday I had a sudden need to listen to Denial, Revisited and found my Co1 cd case empty.

I cried for hours. :(

Well, I didn't but it still fucking blows.

[wheelchairman]

I came home from work one day and Maartje said she hated me. Apparently she spent a lot of time trying to find a hanson cd. I usually put cds in the nearest container to me. And then put them back. It's not hard for me to find music, I just got to go back in time. Tizzie had to look through all the cases until she found the Ratatat case with Hanson inside.

I'm just surprised that I didn't throw Hanson over the edge of the balcony.

[Tizzalicious]

I haaaate my CDs not being in the right case. My HANSON CDs not being in the right case = hell for Per.

[DexterHollandIsGod]

I dont steal from shops and stores etc. I think its morally wrong, if you can't afford it, work for it. Someone spent time, making, designing a product and all of that time and effort goes down the drain if its stolen.

I do however download music. This may sound like im contradicting myself here but I really dont consider it stealing especially as it is done by millions of others all over the world.

On the front of physical possesion, I love holding the actual CD/CD case, but only for bands I really do totally love! (The Offspring :P)

One time though I stole something by accident. I walked in to a movie rental store with my dad when I was younger and he picked up a film he was going to rent and I asked if I could have some sweets, so I picked up a packet of Bon-Bons (Bon-Bons ftw!) Anyway, I was halfway home when I realised I still had the packet of sweets in my hand, I didn't really feel guilty, I was young and foolish and I did it by accident.

Oh, and I hate it when I lose my CDs, I found my Splinter CD after over half a year of losing it, I then proceeded to finally add The Noose to my iPod.

[ruroken]

Did no one get that I was referancing The Simpsons when I said "stealing is a victimless crime"?
ruroken, do you have qualms about shoplifting if your actions result in someone losing their job due to a shortage in inventory weighed against number of units sold? Someone has to account for the loss eventually, after all. What if it was someone with a family to support, who needed the job to survive, or just to support their raging drug habit, and they got canned as an indirect result of your thievery?

They do it like that...? I didn't know. Fuck stealing from stores then. Even though I wouldn't be the only one stealing, it would still be partly my fault. The possibility of that happening also seems high. I don't want that on my concience(spelled right?).
Every time I steal something, I feel immensly guilty about it. I know that is a dumb and weak reaction, but it is an emotion; I cannot control it. The times that I did steal, I tried to return it in a nonrevelable way, just to get some of my sanity back.
No, it means you stand by your morals. That's something to be proud of.

[wheelchairman]

Yes people got it, someone said "like punching someone in the dark."

[ruroken]

Yeah... I did. Right after I said "stealing is a victimless crime"

[H1T_That]

Shoplifting, as opposed to, say, illegally downloading.

nail/head.

[Sin Studly]

I agree with almost everything Mota Boy said, but having morals IS a weakness, and I fail to see how anyone can dispute this. Conscience is a weakness which holds people back from greatness. Would business magnates ever get to where they are today if they didn't ruthlessly crush their opposition? Would the Allies have won WW2 if they didn't commit horrendous atrocities? Morality, in any quantity, weakens you ; and if it's so crippling that stealing a packet of gum makes you identify with Raskolnikov, then you're really really weak and pathetic.

I agree with everyone who says stealing is a shitty act done by shitty people. I also agree with everyone who says that people who try to politically justify their thievery are stupid faggots. That being said, I steal things all the fucking time, just because I can.

[Mota Boy]

I agree with almost everything Mota Boy said, but having morals IS a weakness, and I fail to see how anyone can dispute this. Conscience is a weakness which holds people back from greatness.Would the Allies have won WWII had they not committed horrible atrocities? Who knows. Did their humane treatment of West Germany and Japan, along with their willingness to rebuild, help them in the Cold War, compared to the Soviet Union's constant hassles with its satellite states? Did the allied economies grow even stronger from having wealthy trading partners? Would WWII even have been a problem had the Allied powers in WWI not given into the temptation to soak Germany for all it was worth in the first place?

As for business magnates, they have a much greater chance of success if they focus on their own bottom line rather than taking down the competition. In today's corporate atmosphere, most times the competition was merely crushed as a side effect. Hell, even Wal-Mart, loathed in liberal circles as the epitome of a greedy corporation, considers itself one of the most moral institutions out there. They refuse to stock pornography or bad music, and despite being one of the world's largest companies, their executives have some of the lowest salaries out there, and their corporate office is bare bones. They destroyed every other retailer not because they lacked morality, but because they were fanatical about being the best at what they do.

Though discussing the qualities of an abstract noun without defining it clearly won't get us anywhere. Personally, I think of morality as a certain code of conduct, defining our relation between ourselves, our friends, our family and our society, that places restraints on actions which might allow us to gain at the expense of others. Encompassed in that definition, however, is the concept of a "fair deal". If I sell someone something at an agreed-upon price which is vastly higher than I personally think the object is worth, it is not taking advantage of the other person in the deal, who values the object at that price (or might, in fact, value it even higher). However, if I think the object is worth less because I know of some defect which I've kept hidden, then I've taken advantage of the other. If someone smaller than me attacked me, however, I wouldn't worry about the fact that I have a size advantage as I tried to beat the shit out of them, however - morality does not equal nonviolence.

So essentially, as I see it, a lack of morality is defined by the ability to give in to temptation when you see that you'll be better off at the advantage of others, a character failing, a weakness. Not that I don't do it often, mind you. I just try not to. Unless it looks really, really fun.

[wheelchairman]

The Walton family is one of the richest in the world... I think two or three of their members are in the top 20.

I wouldn't call the censorship that Wal-Mart does as morally good. It's a marketing tactic. Partly in because they are well aware of how well that will be viewed in their consumer circles, but also because American parents are notorious for overreacting to everything, and since Wal Mart is a family store, why take chances?

I'm not sure you're aware of it, but you're stepping into areas referred to as "Economic Good." (I'm translating this from an article I read in Danish so please bear with me) The idea is that if a transaction can be made that pleases both sides, then it is economically good. (And then modern free-market economists can then prove what is economically good without having to refer to an abstract completely free-market nation-concept that has never existed.) But the idea is that if you had a car you wanted to sell. And you wanted to sell it for at least 10,000$ (it's a nice car, maybe it was Hitler's car). And a buyer wants to buy it, but he's only willing to spend at most 20,000$. Then there is still plenty of room there to make an economically good deal where both people are happy.

As you can see the kinds of transactions that tend to be most economically perfect or good would happen to be auctions. But I love the concept, economically good as opposed to morally good.

[T-6005]

Morality strikes me as more of a dominant social agreement than anything else, so I'm in agreement with Mota Boy there.

Who sets the tone for the way a group of people interact with others around them? Perhaps, to some extent, it is the individual themselves (as with these kids who steal), but the dominant worldview, the social agreement, held by the "majority" (I'm using that loosely because I can't think of the word I really want. I just got up.) still applies and that is why people still generally feel guilty about breaking any part of that implicitly understood social contract.

[wheelchairman]

Well kids who steal are just being rebellious in essence, and they usually outgrow it. I have no real problems with people testing moral boundries and morality as a whole (even if they don't know it.) If you don't test your boundries ever in your life, well that's just even more pathetic than stealing .25$ candy. srsly.

[Mota Boy]

The Walton family is one of the richest in the world... I think two or three of their members are in the top 20.

I wouldn't call the censorship that Wal-Mart does as morally good. It's a marketing tactic.
I wouldn't call it morally good either, but Wal-Mart would. I'm just using it as an example that it is a rather moral company. And I highly doubt that it's a marketing tactic - every other major retailer sells parental-advisory CDs without a complaint.

As for the Waltons, they actually just got pushed out of the top ten this year, though their fortune's somewhere around eight to fourteen billion each. It's all in stock, however, ownership of the company Sam Walton founded. Walmart's also famous for giving stock options to everyone that worked at the company during its earliest years, so there are all sorts of former secretaries that are now millionaires.

I'm not arguing that Wal-Mart is a good company, by the way - in fact, I try to avoid shopping there if I can - , but neither do I think it's evil. I think it's just damn good at what it does, and utterly single-minded in its focus of delivering the cheapest possible goods to the consumer.

[HeadAroundU]

I agree with almost everything Mota Boy said, but having morals IS a weakness, and I fail to see how anyone can dispute this. Conscience is a weakness which holds people back from greatness. Would business magnates ever get to where they are today if they didn't ruthlessly crush their opposition? Would the Allies have won WW2 if they didn't commit horrendous atrocities? Morality, in any quantity, weakens you ; and if it's so crippling that stealing a packet of gum makes you identify with Raskolnikov, then you're really really weak and pathetic.

I agree with everyone who says stealing is a shitty act done by shitty people. I also agree with everyone who says that people who try to politically justify their thievery are stupid faggots. That being said, I steal things all the fucking time, just because I can.
Lolz, you're not serious, are you?

[ilovellamas]

I wouldn't call it morally good either, but Wal-Mart would. I'm just using it as an example that it is a rather moral company. And I highly doubt that it's a marketing tactic - every other major retailer sells parental-advisory CDs without a complaint.

I just want to say that I've unfortunately known enough people in my life who shopped at Walmart instead of Target because they didn't agree with Target selling explicit content. I think that Walmart probably gains plenty of rather conservative customers through this.

[Lodat225]

Stealing is wrong.

end of topic.

[Sin Studly]

It's still easier than working for things.

[Duskygrin]

how do you feel about it? I think its fine to steal from big corporations but total bullshit to steal from people. Plus, you get your shit brand new when you steal from big corporations.

I see the hypocrisy in this, but its different because big corporations and the people who run them don't have sentimental value with the shit in their stores. People with their personal possessions do.

...of course, its still against the law. But its a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark amirite?

Stealing I would do if I could:

- tax statements

Stealing I can do but don't because of the risk of being taken:

- stealing personal belongings, portable property and other chattels from people
- shoplifting

Stealing I do:

- pickpocketing

As for circumstances, such as, say, a wallet bang under my eyes, its owner vanished, nobody around and no camera. I'd first examine the contents of the wallet, and if its owner appears to be rich, take it, if its owner seems poor or in uneasy circumstances or if for some reason I take a shine to them, I'd give it back to the police station.

Hmm... I don't see what "stealing from big corporations" means.

[JohnnyNemesis]

That was the quintessential Duskygrin post right there.

[0r4ng3]

Forsooth !

[Duskygrin]

Indeed. Needless to say I never saw any wallet in those hypothetical circumstances. But one can dream on, it doesn't hurt and it keeps the imagination open.

I forgot to mention I download music and films from time to time. I'm a budding criminal.

[Duskygrin]

Some tottering tod mentioned "jaywalking" as a "victimless crime". I feel quite certain that through the course of time, more than one was injured by this misdemeanor. I actually saw a little girl have her foot crushed by the front-right tyre of a car.

[Little_Miss_1565]

Some tottering tod mentioned "jaywalking" as a "victimless crime". I feel quite certain that through the course of time, more than one was injured by this misdemeanor. I actually saw a little girl have her foot crushed by the front-right tyre of a car.

That might be more a crime of "insufficient supervision of a child" or "not looking both ways" than "jaywalking"...

[Sin Studly]

"Finding somebody's wallet on the street and taking it to the lost and found" isn't generally considered to be pickpocketing, Maria.

[Duskygrin]

It's Lady Maria.

[JohnnyNemesis]

You're annoying sometimes.

[ruroken]

It's still easier than working for things.
Exactly. Laziness ftw

[Nina]

I used to work in a drugstore. That drugstore is all over Germany, and partly in a few European countries. I think my city alone has 20 stores. = big big company.
To make it short: Right before I quit that (shitty) job my co-worker was close to getting fired because people shoplifted while she was working.

What really bothered me was WHAT they shoplifted: Mainly hairdye and aftershave.

Stealing food I also dont agree with, at least in Germany. In Germany you can register as unemployed. If you do that (and prove that you really cant find a job although you try) you get money from the state. It's enough to live, I know that because a person close to me was in such a situation before and he had an okay life. In addition to the money you receive you are also able to go to a food bank twice a week; they give you quality food for free. And a LOT of it, too. So, if you live in Germany I dont see why you'd want to steal, because I cant think of an exception.


Stealing music is probably just as bad, but I dont disrespect people for doing it. The reason why I am not musically up to date at all is because I cant afford CDs and dont like to download. The only times I download music is when there is a song I REALLY like. The temptation is just too big. It doesnt happen often though, maybe 3 songs in a month.


As a kid a friend and I were in a store and she stole something. They caught "us" and I remember being really fucking scared.

[Sunny]

it depends. if you're so broke that you can't afford food, warm clothes, medication or other *basics*, then i honestly see nothing wrong with stealing. if you have a basic need, and you're desperate enough to steal to fill that need, who am i to judge you? i'm no position to cast judgment on these people as i sit comfortably in my warm little room with my little fucking laptop... amirite?

however, i absolutely hate people who go into stores, pockets full of money, and steal candy, jewelry, hair thingies, whatever. it seems to be a popular past time among rich white girls in my area, and it's sort of sickening. it's done mostly for the "thrill" of it, i suppose. ugh. yes, you're such a rebel, now go kill yourself.

as for music... if it's some obscure little band that i like and want to support, then i buy it legitimately. for obvious reasons. however, if i wanna shake my booty to some mainstream crap that makes millions, uh, FUCK no. download alllll the way. i also get little pleasure out of owning the actual CD... i always scratch them up and lose the cover, while my iTunes library always displays album covers beautifully. :]