[wwalser]

> But I hate MS and they've stolen thousands from me over the years.

I thought it was a cool story and a neat hack. I passed no ethical judgement. Until you went off the deep end with that fantasy-land justification.

MS didn't steal from you. You exchanged money for a product that, even if it was "complete crap", was the product that you desired more than others available in the market at the time of purchase.

It's not difficult to come up with a justification that passes a sniff test of conforming with reality: "I felt no ethical hesitation about this. MS shipped poor code for years. Most of the time the failures of that code most impacted their customers, I just found a case where it impacted them."

[oceanghost]

I was very plain about spoken about being a complete bastard and motivated by hate. I don't know how I could be any clearer about not being a good person in this instance.

Fortunately, I don't give a damn what strangers on the internet think about me :)

My only regret is not stealing more money from them.

[Top19]

I very much agree with your ethical justification.

I used to struggle with this too, but then I realized just how much corporations steal from America.

It wasn’t always like this of course, both consumers/citizens and companies can go back to treating the other not-like-shit, but companies can go first.

This all hit me one day when I realized that, even if I dedicated my life to crime and greed, I would never be able to steal/defraud as much as many companies have in several business hours.

That being said I want to make it clear I pay my taxes in full and take only the standard deduction.

[oceanghost]

Exactly. Thank you.

I don't have morals. I simply reflect them. You treat me ethically, I will treat you ethically.

MS stole from me, I steal from them. There's no moral high ground here. Just reality.

[794CD01]

Denying the concept of morality is merely a transparent excuse for not feeling bad about behavior you know to be immoral.

You were doing better in your previous comment when you admitted you were being a bad person and simply didn't care.

[oceanghost]

Acting morally in all cases is denial of the true nature of the universe.

I destroy what is bad, and nurture what is good.

[jdtang13]

I don't think you deserve to get downvoted for this. You're speaking very honestly about your own motivations.

[oceanghost]

Thank you kindly.

I am a person who is very, VERY concerned about ethics. I spent weeks agonizing about if I should cash the checks.

I concluded, MS had treated me unfairly, but legally. I treated them unfairly, but legally.

[icelancer]

No one is downvoting you because you're a jerk. They're downvoting you for making ridiculous statements like this one:

"But I hate MS and they've stolen thousands from me over the years."

[wwalser]

I didn't down vote you. Sorry if I gave that impression. I don't downvote people who meaningfully contribute to the conversation.

I was just responding to the excuse.

[oceanghost]

S'all good :) I mistook your tone and if mine was off please accept my appologies.

This has all been very interesting.

[jessedhillon]

Not only that, but the people who "stole" from him are so separated in time, space, and purpose from the people who operate the Bing rewards program that there's no way you could reasonably hold them responsible -- even if you accept that he was robbed.

[wombatpm]

Live by the corporate personhood, die by the corporate personhood. It wasn't personal, just business.

[jessedhillon]

Georgia resident shoots postal carrier, claiming revenge against Union government for battlefield death of great-great-great-grandfather

[jdoliner]

Technically you're right Microsoft didn't steal anything, they just did Business. Which often feels to the common man like theft when Business is done as well as Microsoft did it in their heyday. On the other hand technically Oceanghost didn't steal anything either. He just customered a little better than Microsoft was counting on. Seems like fair play to me and I'm not sure how using the word theft is fantasy-land justification. It's not theft in the strictest legal sense, but it's a very common usage of theft.

[astura]

>technically Oceanghost didn't steal anything either. He just customered a little better than Microsoft was counting on.

That's like saying if a business left their door unlocked everything's free.

>It's not theft in the strictest legal sense

It's fraud.

The law doesn't think you're so clever, make no mistake, this scheme is illegal. I posted another comment where a woman was convicted of wire fraud for doing essentially exactly the same thing.

The intent to defraud matters as well as the scale (which goes hand in hand with intent).