[jakelazaroff]

That’s one perspective. Another is that the truly greedy thing is to construct a society such that some people can’t afford basic necessities, and that inflicts far more suffering than people stealing what they need to live.

[LAC-Tech]

You're constructing a strawman fantasy word where by people only do anti-social things because they need to live, thereby painting them as heoric, Robin Hood type figures.

Here on planet earth however, some people are just anti-social and understand nothing except force. No amount of education or counselling or whatever else will change that.

[Ekaros]

I actually believe they choose the easiest path. Stealing is sometimes that. Now if they could get reasonably paid work or other sources of income they probably would not do that much of it.

[rtpg]

Yes, people steal shit from stores and do a bunch of work shipping stuff through FBA because they are anti-social \s

You think fencing happens because of anti-social behavior? Fencing _is_ work!

The simplest explanation for why people steal and resell stuff is money. You do a thing, and at the end you have money in your pocket that you didn't do before. Not complicated!

[LAC-Tech]

A lot of things can require a lot of work and still be anti-social. I'm sure serial murderers work very hard.

[rtpg]

There's a reason there aren't that many serial murderers, and why we don't orient society around catching those at the expense of everything.

[sokoloff]

Take the act of stealing and project it onto the {anti, neutral, pro}-social dimension. It’s clearly not pro-social; I think it’s easy to argue that it’s not neutral either.

[rtpg]

Maybe I misread the original point of the post, but I read it as "the anti-social component is the motivator".

Of course it's ... not good! Stealing is generally pretty bad, all things considered! But this idea that there are some deep psychological flaws that cause this behavior does not, I believe, represent a primary motivator for a significant portion of these acts.

[sokoloff]

The struggle to survive is the starting condition in nature. That society doesn’t completely eradicate it (but only makes great strides in that direction) is not an indictment of society.

[mongol]

I did not consider it like this before but it is so true. Society is not a given, and it is not a perfect fabric in which evil people tore holes. Instead it is woven by everyone that acts in it.

[DenisM]

Some societies do better than others though. It’s perfectly reasonable to set the bar at least that high.

[josephcsible]

Some societies do better than others at stopping crime too. Can we set our bar to match Singapore in that respect?

[jakelazaroff]

I actually wrote another comment in this thread about Singapore [1]. The subway there was particularly interesting to me. While the New York media has used subway deaths to drum up support for police, Singapore has entirely solved the root problem in a non-carceral way by investing in infrastructure.

Plenty of other countries have done the same, actually. The knee-jerk response of adding more cops actually makes society worse for all of us.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737563

[josephcsible]

Sure, infrastructure can stop people from being pushed onto the tracks. How did they solve shoplifting though?

[JamesianP]

I would have thought Singapore had more policing in all respects versus US cities.

Also the subway stories are probably more about general fear of whatever criminals are apparently lurking down there. It can get kind of scary in the subway when it's deserted. especially Upper Manhattan where it's so deep down. Meanwhile when I travel in developed Asian cities, it's not scary at all. Just really really crowded.

[thablackbull]

> I would have thought Singapore had more policing in all respects versus US cities.

You only see police occasionally doing their patrols, so it can be argued there is less of a police presence than say NY. There is no need, there are cameras everywhere and its a small Island, you can't run anywhere.

With respect to the parent's comment on subway deaths: > Singapore has entirely solved the root problem in a non-carceral way by investing in infrastructure.

There are barriers that only open when the train has arrived, so there quite literally cannot be deaths from people pushing others onto the tracks. I presume that is what he means by infrastructure.

[MichaelCollins]

You know Singapore unabashedly beats the shit out of thieves, right?

[thablackbull]

> You know Singapore unabashedly beats the shit out of thieves, right?

They don't...first offense you basically get off with a warning. Recent headlines was a case of Australian school girls shoplifting [1]. Although they're foreigners, same goes for locals.

[1] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/6-austra...

[Ekaros]

I have started to think that corporal punishment might not be actually worst option.

[DenisM]

yes

[gopher_space]

Society has the choice of eradicating it and simply chooses not to do so.

[partiallypro]

This is simply not true. Solving hunger and poverty is EXTREMELY difficult. The US could use more social programs to help resolve it, but solving it outright is basically impossible.

[tdehnel]

Oh knock it off with this crap. The article is about organized retail theft. If you work for a criminal enterprise you should work a legal job and pay for things like everyone else.

[syliconadder]

"like everyone else". This would be a small fraction of people though. The whole of human enterprise is built on stolen loot: the forests razed without permissions and the lands dus and animals chased without anyone's consent. We are conditioned to behave as we own this planet, why is it unfair to consider that between people too this behavior wouldn't show?

[Aerroon]

What are these "basic necessities"? To me it seems like it's an ever-increasing list of things that were largely created in the modern era. A person from a few hundred years would hardly consider deodorant a basic necessity.

We consider them basic necessities, because we're used to them, but all these new inventions had to be made by somebody. The profit motive seems to be quite good at incentivizing people to do just that. If we discourage that then the basic necessities of tomorrow might not get invented.

Society doesn't conspire to cause poverty, nature already inflicted that upon us.

[partiallypro]

> Another is that the truly greedy thing is to construct a society such that some people can’t afford basic necessities, and that inflicts far more suffering than people stealing what they need to live.

Your argument would be more sound if the people stealing were stealing for themselves instead of selling them on a marketplace at slightly below retail with a 100% margin. Their theft hurts the jobs and customers (some shops have outright closed) and it also still has the end customer paying basically the same amount.

[bigDinosaur]

What makes you think people are stealing what they need to live? That can sometimes be true, but is often not true at all. Either way there's no way in which theft, often from people or companies that have no hand in inequality, does not make things worse for everyone else. It screws over other poor people who don't steal because everyone else will be paying for the insurance and restocking of stolen property...

[refurb]

This ignores reality. At least in SF most of the auto break ins and shoplifting is organized crime.

These people could get a job, they just don’t want to be a “sucker” and work 9 to 5 like some chump.

[ars]

If that were actually true someone could hold up a sign in front of CVS or whatever saying "please buy me a stick of deodorant", and I can guarantee you someone will.

They can go to a soup kitchen, or a church, or a food panty and ask for basic necessities.

Americans are very generous, especially conservative ones, who lead the world in charity and generosity. There is no excuse to steal when you can just ask.

[lupire]

Paying the subscription fee for Sunday social club is not charity nor generosity.

Opposing social welfare is along standing political plank for conservative voters, because they don't want welfare for people not in their club.

[ars]

> Paying the subscription fee for Sunday social club is not charity nor generosity.

Did you reply to the wrong person?

> because they don't want welfare for people not in their club.

Hu? If you meant to reply to me, I have no idea what you are talking about.

Churches (I assume that what you mean - what is a "Sunday social club"?) don't require a subscription fee to be given charity.

Are you just trying to be annoying or something?

[mozman]

It’s simple. Get a job and stop blaming the system and asking for handouts.

Petty shoplifters should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[jakelazaroff]

Shoplifting is actually one of the least harmful forms of theft, in terms of dollars stolen. Wage theft costs orders of magnitude more. A few years ago, money stolen by police via civil forfeiture surpassed the amount stolen by burglars.

Yet the form of theft I hear the most about, by far, is shoplifting. Why do you think that is?

[josephcsible]

Why don't we use the terms "rent theft" or "loan theft" when people don't pay their rent or loan payments, since we use the term "wage theft" when companies don't pay their wages? In all of those cases, isn't it just not giving someone what you owe, rather than taking something away from someone?

[jakelazaroff]

Shoplifting is also simply refusing to pay what you owe (the price of the merchandise).

[josephcsible]

No, that would be like if you bought something with "net 30" terms and then didn't pay. With shoplifting, you're just taking someone else's stuff.

[hellfish]

> to construct a society

Did anyone in particular construct this society, or was it just given?

You can't judge society at large by the same ethical standard that you judge an individual

[bityard]

Ah, the old "two wrongs make a right" defense

[thewebcount]

Isn’t there a difference between “I think your conclusion is wrong, here’s another possible scenario where this could happen,” and “I think your conclusion is wrong, and here’s a legitimate scenario that I totally agree with that could explain why this happens”? They didn’t say it was right, just that there are other motivations for why people do these things.

[jakelazaroff]

I’m not saying that two wrongs make a right. I’m saying that you can easily view the situation such that the “other side” is actually in the wrong.

[ReptileMan]

Do you have any sources that determine what part of the organized shoplifters are Jean Valjeans ?

[SnowHill9902]

Jeez