Stealing

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Watch the bandits....that is how I feel. But, don't judge me until you watch the movie.

Standard practice in Kwambuni [name changed to avoid suits, among other]: You park the car. You lock it. You leave it OBVIOUSLY empty. You open the glove compartment to show that THAT is empty. Any electronic equipment you carry with.

Amusing tragic story - visiting Kwambuni one year, a geologist. Collects samples. Research over, team comes in to Eauville to catch the next plane out. Park on the busy street. Leave suitcases containing researcher's clothes and rock samples in car. Gone 15 minutes. Come back - suitcases gone. Friends supplemented researcher's wardrobe, but months of rocks gone.

Me, I try to imagine the look on the thieves' faces when they got it open.

Wow, that really stinks.

It would serve them right if chains were attached to those very rocks and then to iron bracelets around their ankles, although lugging heavy suitcases to a safe distance only to find the weight they're carrying to them is valueless is kinda poetic justice to a small extent also. Unfortunately they'd have probably just counted such as a "bad catch" and try again later.

Bandits. Now THERE is a movie.

Also very different but very good in its own direction Crminal

listen i am in no way saying that the very act of stealing is right, i had my room ransacked while living at an art school once, my photo's, my lp's and my computer was gone, something i spent my time on and it sucks.

what i am saying is that if we want to combat theft we have to take care of the numerous underlying reasons, i dont think anyone except a very select few greedy sobs deserve to be robbed of their possesions, and even them only to a degree, many of them have a claim to much.

we might oralize and justify but virtually everyone does have a direct negative finacial impact on someone somewhere and that is what we have to combat, we have to fight the perception that obscene amounts of money is anything but a show of ego and greed.
i am being contrarian, i think it is neccesary to start a debate about why people steal, that is a precursor to any solution.
also a debate of what responsibilities we have towards eachother and how these could help everyone.

Yes! Bandits is one of my favorite movies!! !

It was criminal, but at least it wasn't targeting one specific person, plus, there were nice about it.

Theft? You and I both live inside the system, so we would both agree that theft is unacceptable. However, for the guys who stole your stuff, they don't care. They got out of the "system". Survival of the fittest is truth, but what social Darwinists don't get is that men can actually redefine their environment. What the thieves did was to notice that they can't survive in the environment that was set by society. By ignoring the concept of property, they become able to survive without the blessing of the society.

All in all, it does not matter if we think it is unacceptable, it will continue to happen and to suggest changes to society to make it impossible to happen won't work, because thieves are already outside of our society. Ok, there is something that we could do to remove theft, and it would be to remove the concept of property so that theft would be impossible, but we do not want that, do we?

Neither you nor I know the economic state of the thieves with any certainty, and yet you are willing to assume off the bat that they're some sort of "noble survivor".

As for the not wanting to "remove the concept of poverty", what? If I could help others to earn money I gladly would, but I can't even find an employer for myself yet much less provide work for others.

Even without property there would still be killing which is theft of life. So theft will not go away even in a society without property.

ruveyn

Sorry, ruveyn. Even if you allow Mind you cannot get away with "theft of life" Despite such pretty phrases as "the gift of life", until there is a big technologic shift life cannot be traded, stolen, borrowed, or given to another [though it can be given FOR another]. What we have is ending or destruction of life. Which is not theft. If I break your window or kill your dog I have possibly committed a crime, but I have stolen nothing.

I don't think this is the case most of the time. If most thieves were really destitute I would feel some pity for them. The thing is there are so many other reasons people commit theft. I think many of them may have already been in jail before and the thought of going back isn't really a deterrent. They may also be psychologically addicted to the thrill of it.

I'm not saying that the world and capitalism in particular is just. I think our notions in the US are screwed up in a lot of ways. I just don't think feelings of injustice are primarily what motivates criminals.

i think you are right, but i also think the shift that would come from a more "just" world order might have a "trickle down" effect in the long run.

most of the 10 commandments are in large part against theft, so theft is an important ethical issue. Interestingly enough, the Jews were the first to note that not just space or objects can be made holy, but that time itself could be sanctified, and just as it could be made holy, it could also be stolen. Time stealers are not always of the worst variety so not much thought is ever given about them, especially against a material(car) thief.

You are wrong my friend, I never attributed nobility to their actions. To me (and you) their actions are crap. And they are evil and a very big inconvenient.

There is nothing noble in their decision to prefer the good old violent way to access resources rather than accepting our arbitrary conventions about property. There is probably nothing noble in the way these arbitrary conventions were set either (I guess that a lot of people were tired of having to constantly fight for things so they, as a society agreed to make theft illegal).

There are thieves of all economic levels. I think that many thieves are actually struggling people, but then we have thieves that already possess a great monetary position and continue stealing.

The decision to just dismiss the notion of property, I would say is composed of many possible reasons. A common one should be that the individual is unable to perform well under our rules. Whether it is because of lazyness, a disability, a society bias against them or a broken economic system that does not allow people to climb from the bottom by just hard work. Or maybe they just want the "thrill" of a thief's life. Or maybe they want 10 times more money than they do, even though they are actually in a good, decent economic position already.


I meant to say property.

On the other hand, those people that decided to live more like animals and be thieves probably think the same of those who don't.





That's interesting.

And murder is really something that you cannot discourage people of doing. We have the psychos who get almost-sexual pleasure from it. Then on the more normal side of things, crimes for advancing position in a hierarchy will always happen as long as we have organization in society. And even if we get rid of that. Crimes of passion will occur for as long as there is some emotional part left in humans.

Right, merely societal convention and mere notions of property that they're willing to throw away when it comes to taking from others, but I'd be willing to bet that they'd be ticked off if you tried to take theirs from them.