Originally posted by: Skoorb
Originally posted by: Amused
Originally posted by: MAME
Originally posted by: Amused
Originally posted by: MAME
because it's free
and if 1 person thinks that them NOT stealing will help reduce the price, then you're sorely mistaken. Therefore it's not enough cause to stop stealing
Bullsh!t. Retail theft costs consumers TENS OF BILLIONS of dollars per year in both increased costs of goods (shrinkage is figured into overhead) and insurance.
http://retailindustry.about.com/library/weekly/02/aa021126a.htm
31 billion to be exact. And who the fsck do you think pays for that???
Read what I said. ONE person will NEVER make a difference in the cost of an item. Thus, why would they not steal?
Because the world is made up of individuals. You should treat others as you wish to be treated.
The golden rule exists for a reason. The pity is, you can't see that.
Morals came about not because of a god, but because of a selfish need for security. We do not like to be killed, therefore it is immoral to murder. We do not like to have our property taken from us, therefore it is immoral to steal.
One person CAN make a difference because the world is made up of a bunch of "one persons." Change happens one person at a time.
But only in a large group can these single people make any difference. In the same vein a single vote almost never means anything because voting almost never comes within a single - even in the last presidential elections a single vote was meaningless (on a jury it's obviously more significant). Only a group of them was, but since an individual person knows that they have only one vote, whether they vote or not is all but meaningless. It's really a collective narcissism that allows democracy to work at all, and also a false feeling that if _I_ don't vote then maybe nobody else will, whereas in actuality my voting will not affect them in the least.
This has more on the exact psychology behind it all.
I personally wouldn't steal a CD. Not because my single theft would affect a damn thing to anybody else, but because I, on an individual basis, would feel bad about it. That conscience or principle isn't something I can really logically prove the benefits of, since the almost negligible effect I have on a stores finances is more than made up for by my personal benefit. It's based partly on upbringing, and partly on maybe something else - perhaps conscience is God? I find it very difficult to logically compel a person not to steal. If within a group of 100 a single person steals instead of working himself then that 100 people goes down perhaps to 99% productivity, but that single person is perhaps 200%, so why shouldn't he steal? Hopefully society has engrained in him a sense that it's bad, because although he can get away with it easily, if everybody does then they're up sh*t creek. Their response is to punish him, and in a world where few let their morals and principles truly dictate their actions, society has to use the justice system to beat it into them.
Literature backs up the fact that few allow their morals to develop past the law; ie. if the law says it's ok I'll just go ahead and do it.