Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

inputmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 151 posts

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#101

Post by voldacar »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #90
voldacar wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are actually proving their point by noting the plethora of homeless people who are surviving

"surviving" in slums of filth and crime while likely costing taxpayers more than homing them would (not to mention the high prevalence of mental illness among the homeless) it's just outright idiotic policy to accept the current state of homelessness in many major cities, it's inhumane AND expensive

I generally agree with the second part of your comment, but it is still true that homeless people survive fine, their quality of life is just usually bad. This is very different from starving to death and needing to shoplift

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#102

Post by Apreche »

In this thread: Wealthy tech bros who were never desperate or courageous enough to shoplift a thing in their lives. That describes me as well, but at least I have the decency to be self aware about it.

I agree with most of what this video has to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGB7QnOZj3g

If you are so passionate about stopping theft because it's wrong, then you should be focusing your energy on stopping wage theft and white collar crime which is orders of magnitude more damaging to our economy and society than shoplifting could ever be.

The only case where I would support a larger effort to crack down on shoplifting is when it is organized. The majority of shoplifting cases are just individuals doing it for their own reasons. But occasionally, including recently, there have been cases of organized shoplifting rings. That's a big enough crime that it's worth going after.

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#103

Post by colpabar »

slg wrote: post #99
lancesells wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a little confused by it as well and thought maybe they would go to imply there are racial injustices later in the article but I didn't really see that. Loss Prevention Demographics - https://www.zippia.com/loss-prevention-officer-jobs/demograp... 70% White, 13.7% Hispanic, 8.4% Black US Demographics - 57.8% White, 18.7% Hispanic, 12.1% Black It's a poor choice of words.

>thought maybe they would go to imply there are racial injustices later in the article They did imply it by mentioning that white people are overrepresented in the field. Retail security following Black people around a store is one of the more common forms of everyday profiling and racism. Is this not common knowledge anymore?

Why not include that in the article then?

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#104

Post by lancesells »

colpabar wrote: post #95
lancesells wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a little confused by it as well and thought maybe they would go to imply there are racial injustices later in the article but I didn't really see that. Loss Prevention Demographics - https://www.zippia.com/loss-prevention-officer-jobs/demograp... 70% White, 13.7% Hispanic, 8.4% Black US Demographics - 57.8% White, 18.7% Hispanic, 12.1% Black It's a poor choice of words.

Yeah I clicked the link as well, and I disagree with your conclusion. I poked around the rest of the site, and I am pretty sure they included that because their audience likes to read about why white people are bad. Would it just be a poor choice of words if they included stats on the people who shoplift, and it included "many of them black teens"?

Is the "white men" phrase relevant or needed in the article? No.

I'm not really familiar with the site nor the author's agenda but doing a search for "white" and "black" mostly brought up articles on consumer products.

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#105

Post by mcphage »

tyleo wrote: post #51
feet wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copying my other comment here. There definitely is a moral issue >busting people who are shoplifting items that they either need to survive or items that they can sell to survive to say, pay rent, because our capitalist system has shit on them and left them with no options Property rights should not be above human life. Full stop.

I live next to a grocery store with a high rate of shoplifting and I disagree. Grocery stores are not charity. The issue has gotten so bad that freezers containing frozen sea food and ice cream now have locks on them. Problems should be solved with real solutions rather than sacrificing businesses who are not equipped to solve the problem. In other words, if “property rights should not be above human life” then citie…

> then cities should provide for those lives through taxes and meal programs rather than letting random businesses be targets.

I agree, but America as a nation isn't really big on social safety nets.

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#106

Post by josephcsible »

Apreche wrote: post #102

In this thread: Wealthy tech bros who were never desperate or courageous enough to shoplift a thing in their lives. That describes me as well, but at least I have the decency to be self aware about it. I agree with most of what this video has to say. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGB7QnOZj3g If you are so passionate about stopping theft because it's wrong, then you should be focusing your energy on stopping wage th…

Since we count not paying wages as theft, why don't we count not paying your rent, car loan, or credit card bill as theft too?

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#107

Post by slg »

colpabar wrote: post #103
slg wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>thought maybe they would go to imply there are racial injustices later in the article They did imply it by mentioning that white people are overrepresented in the field. Retail security following Black people around a store is one of the more common forms of everyday profiling and racism. Is this not common knowledge anymore?

Why not include that in the article then?

They probably thought this type of profiling was common knowledge. I would also have assumed most people knew about it. And once you know about it, the connection is easy to make yourself without the article needing to be explicit about it.

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#109

Post by minsc_and_boo »

canjobear wrote: post #11
gretch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah if a doctor said “I don’t really care about my patients’ lives. I just like the power of being able to prevent death” I really think that’s perfectly fine

If they prevent my death, I don't care why.

I would surmise you do care if the doctor lopped off a limb when a couple rounds of antibiotics would have worked.

Motive is tied to the means, not just the ends.

Re: A subreddit dedicated to busting shoplifters

#110

Post by micromacrofoot »

voldacar wrote: post #101
micromacrofoot wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"surviving" in slums of filth and crime while likely costing taxpayers more than homing them would (not to mention the high prevalence of mental illness among the homeless) it's just outright idiotic policy to accept the current state of homelessness in many major cities, it's inhumane AND expensive

I generally agree with the second part of your comment, but it is still true that homeless people survive fine, their quality of life is just usually bad. This is very different from starving to death and needing to shoplift

It's a little more indirect than you're presenting, but it is still a fraught situation where people have significantly shorter lifespans. Starvation is unusual, but murder, exposure, overdose, and withdrawal are common. A lot of these people shoplift to keep up a physical addiction that they can not easily or safely move on from.
Post reply on HN