They are saying that the actual victims, the folks in the towers, did not deserve to die. Everyone agrees that the attacks on 9/11 were horrendous. But the US had engaged in activities where this was the inevitable outcome. America as an entity deserved the attacks because of decades of wars, conflict, and instability it caused in the middle east, often leading to similar if not greater acts of violence in those countries. This isn’t a fucked up sense of justice, but an acknowledgement that at some point the roosters were going to come home to roost.

Here is a link to an article from the Brookings institue where they dig into research about this. It goes through basically everything that i have said.

Also, yes I understand that an individual store can be unproffitable while the larger company still makes a profit. I would argue that if these stores are in areas that would become food deserts then there is a responsibility to keep them open even if they are not profitable. I think either government subsidation or, even better, government run grocery stores would be a better option than letting companies decide this.

I do find it interesting that you have not addressed the things i have brought up about the causes of shoplifting. Most people who steal don’t do it for fun or profit but because they are desperate. If so many people feel like they need to steal to survive that it is driving stores under i would blame the systems that create this scenario not the people. You are acting like we can examine shoplifting without looking at the context surrounding the issue. It doesn’t just happen. If you really want to stop shoplifting so bad then we need to bring people out of poverty and provide the resources they need. So once again i will say blame thw companies and politicians that create these conditions, not the poor people who have to survive these conditions. These ideas cannot be disentangled.

Okay, turns out I lied because now you are making an actual argument. I called you disingenuous because you weren’t actually saying anything meaningful or actually engaging what i was saying.

I never shied away from the fact that i think stealing is sometimes the more moral option nor did I brush past this. Sometimes stealing is good if it keeps people alive. I think more people being alive is good. The system being the problem is not disconnected and i think is the bigger point here. I think your anger is fundamentally misplaced and that this misplaced anger and frustration is harmful to vulnerable people in hard sotuations while codifying the current systems that keep people poor and vulnerable.

Almost no large corporation experience a level of theft that requires them to increase prices. Many large stores have been having record profits, while the value of stolen goods amounts to less than 1% of the generated profits. So if an elderly woman on a fixed income can’t afford her groceries anymore, it is most likely not because theft caused a store to raise its prices, but rather because executives decided they could get away with raising those prices. I reject the notion that these large corporations are actually significantly impacted by theft no matter what they say because the numbers tell a different story.

Again if elderly folks cant afford necessities it doesn’t help to blame other poor people. The system is the problem so we need to change the system, not punish other poor people harder. You cannot separate my argument for theft being moral under certain circumstances from the recognition of the system being the actual problem. The former is the branch the latter the root, and if you want to effect meaningful change you need to strike the root.

Ideally i want a world where everyone has access to everything they need without stealing, where everyone has equitabble access to food, energy, clothing, etc, but we arent there yet and the system perpetuates injustice which sometimes requires on to shoplift to survive.

This is my last response to you because you are disingenuous and I’m tired of writing the same things again and again. If you are sick and starving and the society that you belong to refuses to effectively aid you I would argue it is morally good to steal from companies that create and perpetuate the systems of oppression. This is not a hard thought experiment. It is the same as saying there are times where it is morally right to lie. You once again refuse to actually engage with the core of my argument. Your ideas have no substance and your analysis of these situations is elementary to the point that I think I may be arguing with a teenager. I’m done, bye.

That is the most bad faith interpretation of what i said. When i said it was impossible i meant that in reality the vast majority of people will not steal, not that everyone should steal all the time because there will never be consequences. And i am not saying that stealing is morally good in all cases. I am saying that large corporations, their executives and the politicians they fund keep people in poverty so they can become ultra wealthy from the record profits these companies make (weird they can make record profits while everyone is apparently stealing so much stuff from them), so yeah, if a poor person steals from one of these companies to get medicine they need or food they can’t afford, i think they should and that we should not condemn them for it. I would rather a company lose a buck than someone go hungry. And even if it was true that it was happening at a scale where they had to increase prices, i would gladly pay that if it meant my neighbor could eat without being arrested. These companies are not struggling and theft of this nature does not happen on a scale to warrant any of their current interventions including increasing prices.

I find it interesting that you refuse to engage with my actual core argument and instead have opted for picking at random sentences. Engage with this: the systems that cause and deepen poverty are the problem, not the poor people tryong to survive. These systems are perpetuated by large corporations and the ultra wealthy, they are the ones you should be angry with. You are closer to the person stealing to survive than you are any billionaire.

Cool strawman. Obviously unlimited losses would ruin anyone but that is impossible and most stores operate well within their expected loss margins, so markups are arbitrary or caused by inflation. Backing up a bit, you are again blaming the more vulnerable group in this. Be mad at the CEOs and politicians that keep people poor, not the poor people trying to survive. Crime drops in direct proportion to drops in poverty

Also, you keep repeating corporate propaganda. It is more common for these companies to use shoplifting as an excuse to close stores that they already intended to close rather than closing them because shoplifting was actually a problem.

This is naive. Sure, in a perfect world everyone helps people in desperate situations or they have support structures that can help them. This is not that world. Sure some shopplifting is for unnecessary stuff but most of it is from desperation because people struggle to afford necessities. It is a much better approach to blame the systems and structures that lead to people having no other options rather than blaming the poor people just trying to get by.

By your logic why aren’t you, presumably a good person, paying for every persons groceries who cant afford them. Is it because you are actually a bad person? No, its because that is neither feasible nor tenable. And the CEOs of large corporations actively work to maintain things as they are because they make incredible wealth.

As to increased prices, every corporate grocery store or big box store has insurance and works losses into their budgets. They can easily absorb it without increasing their costs. On the other hand do you know what the most common form of theft in the US is? Wage theft. So the same CEOs making bank also keep pay from employees who are already struggling.

In short, fuck the corps, shoplift if you need to, don’t be a snitch if you see someone else.

You are acting like this has never worked against large powerful corporations before. Unions formed and won concessions when the business owners would literally send in pinkertons to shoot people and break strikes. Yes, Rockstar will play ball. Will the union get everything it wants? Probs not, but they will secure a contract with big wins. Again, if Rockstar doesnt play ball the workers will go on strike and start bringing in news outlets to get their message out to apply public pressure. You fundamentally don’t understand how unions work or their history.

Thats not how this works. Union contracts are legally binding, violating one means not only usually a fine but rectifying whatever they did that broke the contract in the first place. And if the contract is broken and the union feels like they haven’t sufficiently remedied the situation then they will call for a more direct action like a strike. Unions offer legal protection, but also a fast and efficient way to organize more serious interventions from the workforce. The whole point of unions is to control the impulses of the hyper rich, so if being rich was enough unions wouldn’t exost at all.

That actually is really interesting, thanks for sharing that article. It is of note that this study is in mice, so who knows if it translates to humans in the same way, but the results are encouraging. Without more info it is hard to say if centenarians got to that age because of the nicotine or if it was some other lifestyle choice/genetic trait or even dumb luck. Im more hesitant to say it’s definitely the nicotine based off of these results.

I’m gonna need you to cite a source for any of that if you want me to believe you are not working for tobacco companies.

This is such a dumb boomer thing to say. I have worked at multiple starbucks locations and i go to coffee shops all the time. I usually order a black house coffee. I have never been to or worked at a coffee shop baffled by black coffee. It is the easiest thing to serve. I promise baristas are relieved to hear you say black coffee as it means less work for them. They probably asked if you wanted a dairy/alternative and you got mad about that for some reason. Also, maybe don’t be a dick to people working a job just trying to live their lives when it seems like you can barely rub two braincells together to effectively communicate what you want.

Elon Musk WAS bullied in high school and Stephen Miller was a social pariah for being a freaky little racist weirdo. They both still turned out this way. I’m so tired of people saying “if only they had been bullied more!”, when we know now that healthy socialization always leads to better outcomes and that having more money than god breaks peoples brains and how they perceive the world.

So far arch is my first and only distro. I moved to linux a year ago and decided to just jump in with Arch. I havent had any major issues.

FYI immaculate conception refers to Mary’s birth not Jesus’