[GuinansEyebrows]

if a store does not want to hire capable staff to perform an essential function, they should not expect laypeople to perform that action for free (or at higher cost, as we've seen with grocery prices in the US as human cashiers are reduced) at the same level as a trained staff member.

we do not have to accept this decision to reduce staff and raise prices as a matter of course. plus, if you see somebody stealing food, no, you didn't.

[recursive]

If GuinasEyebrows does not want to drive an appropriately security-hardened armored vehicle, then they should not expect that I will not jimmy the lock and hotwire it. If you see me drive it away, no you didn't.

People are responsible for their own actions. If you think shoplifting is morally acceptable, don't try to tell me that I didn't see it.

[colechristensen]

With about a month of practice you could learn to pick 95% of residential locks.

So free everything because homeowners didn't bother to secure their stuff!/s

Growing up our house physically did not have a lock. Keys never left vehicle ignitions. A frequent experience was buying a farm machinery part and picking it up after hours out of the back of somebody's truck.

Living in low trust societies sucks.

I've had friends bring people over to my house who just randomly stole things. I've dated women who stole money out of my wallet or if it'd leave $10 on the table they'd just take it.

Casual theft is just gross as is the need to constantly feel like you need to defend yourself from everyone you meet, but moreso the casual attitude people have towards it.

[viccis]

>Living in low trust societies sucks.

It does, but that trust is established top down. If businesses in this country act lawlessly with impunity, why would you expect people, especially if they are suffering because of some company's greed, to be the chump who acts nobly while seeing a society that rewards theft?

That is not a normative moral defense of this behavior, just a descriptive one. Why would anyone expect a normal person to see a company receiving a tariff refund for a tariff that person paid and then view stealing from them as a continuation of the theft that the company itself engaged in by not paying them back?

[colechristensen]

There's a disconnect because all of the accused corruption are big picture things people barely understand happening with shady political influence, corporate structure to avoid taxes, defrauding investors and those kinds of things.

When do these people that glorify their stealing interact with actual low-trust-society events from corporates? Almost never. They just hear about it on the news and social media influencers sharing stories.

These are people who have no idea what being shaken down for a bribe is like, have always benefitted from strong consumer protection laws, generous refund policies, and all around honesty in most every corporate interaction and the complaints they have are minor compared to their proud theft.

How often are you short changed at the store? Lied to about the weight of something you were sold? Received an adulterated or diluted product?

[landl0rd]

I live in a town with a massive, well-stocked food bank. I don't think anyone is stealing a crust of bread to feed his hungry children.

If I see someone stealing food, yes, I did. It's immoral for you to do otherwise.

[xenocratus]

> plus, if you see somebody stealing food, no, you didn't

Don't tell me, in your view the cost of shoplifting is begrudgingly covered by those evil rich people who own everything, right? It's not passed down to customers, and therefore affects those who obey rules, and especially those who are in a precarious financial situation to begin with, right?

[ryandrake]

I don't understand why we'd defend a megacorporation. Both the corporation and the shoplifter can be wrong.

[lotsofpulp]

The business is not wrong for choosing to use automation. Everyone does it every day, and it is not considered "wrong".

[jrm4]

"Everyone does it every day"

That makes it okay?

"It is not considered wrong"

By WHOM? I go out of my way to avoid self-checkout when I can, because I consider it 'wrong.'

[lotsofpulp]

By everyone who uses any tool invented in human history. You are drawing an arbitrary line at self checkouts for some reason, but I am sure you have no problem with the millions of other ways automation has benefited you, obviously including using a computer to express your ideas on a forum hosted by a business that invests in other businesses that use automation as their springboard to success.

[jrm4]

Reductio ad absurdum big time.

But let's see if I can explain it in a capitalism friendly way, I guess.

I have a preference for cashiers checking my stuff out for me, so that's how I select. Partly because I like the convenience, partly because I like knowing more people are having jobs.

And here's the important part; I personally actually have significant control over this, which makes it different from your silly argument.

[lamasery]

Self-checkouts aren’t automation. They just change who does the work (to someone not being paid for it).

[recursive]

I've heard this argument, and I just don't get it. I've never heard anyone complain about having to push their own shopping carts. No one pays you to push the cart. Should they? If you want the cart pushed, you push the cart. If you want to check out, you check out. If either one of those is a hardship for you, go elsewhere.

[lamasery]

This was an actual thing (complaining about this) when super-markets started to take over from general stores and butcher shops et c. Having to go get your bag of sugar off the warehouse shelf yourself rather than a clerk fetching it for you is unpaid labor on the part of the shopper (and is also not automation).

[ButlerianJihad]

Two thousand years ago, most authors didn't know how to read or write. The erudite author would dictate their words verbally to a scribe, who had learned these specialized skills. Then other scribes and copyists could copy out the manuscript. When Gutenberg made the printing press, more specialized skills emerged: that of typesetting and publishing and printing and all that.

These separations endured well into the 1960s, as secretaries were trained women who could type and take dictation, and their bosses would generally shout into their ears and/or a tape recording device to get their work done. "Diane, take a letter!" was a common trope in the office of yesterday.

When home computing, personal word-processing, and desktop publishing came on the scene, suddenly we had to learn how to type. Suddenly every high school student who needed to write a paper, we all needed to know how to type in order to produce research papers. This was unprecedented. Then with word processing and WYSIWYG, we needed to know fonts, and bold/underline/italic conventions, and this was also unprecdented, because previously this was done for us, behind the scenes, by professionals.

Ultimately all that page layout, and design and visual aesthetics, even finding clipart and adding it appropriately and tastefully, all of that skilled knowledge and labor fell upon the shoulders of the one who was writing a newsletter for a non-profit, or writing technical documentation, or designing an album/CD cover or something.

Eventually those specializations and skills became so democratized that everyone knew them but we all knew them badly. We could do a half-assed job of desktop publishing, whereas a Gutenberg publication in the 18th century could have been a true work of art that was replicated many times.

Now even the em-dash is vilified as a signifier of low-skill slop, when some of us actually took the time to read manuals of style and understand when/how to properly use hyphens, en-dash, and em-dash. But never mind that; elegant grammar and perfect spelling are now the hallmarks of a shitty LLM prompt and HN commenters can just tear down any article by falsely claiming it was AI-written, and you can sic your fake "AI-writing detectors" on anything and 99% tear it down because of your stupid faulty em-dash hueristics.

[colechristensen]

The delusional thing is they think the cost is distributed to the owners.

They just cut worker hours and raise prices. The owners don't see a difference.

The richest person they're hurting is the store manager earning $200k missing some of their bonus.

[nilamo]

Don't tell me, you think the store actually expects to sell all that milk before it goes bad?

[xenocratus]

Yes, I'm sure milk is all people steal. And I'm sure it's better for it to be stolen than given to food banks and charities.

F off

[vel0city]

If people are needing to steal food to survive we need to radically work on changing society so that doesn't happen, not just then a blind eye and ignore it.

But no, most people in the US aren't stealing from grocery stores to feed their kids, they're stealing from stores to resell on black markets.

[colechristensen]

I know people who have during a period of their life needed to steal food to eat.

These are not the people bragging about scamming the self checkouts.