Hacker News Reader

> "The person who stole it clearly needed it more than me."

Counterpoints that will be unpopular, but need to be said anyways:

1. "Needing" is no excuse for stealing, and that demeans all the people who BUST THEIR ASS to get out of poverty. If the thief is not working 12 hours per day and living on bare necessities, they have no excuse, and being even mildly sympathetic to their plight is bad for everyone, most especially poor people. NEVER pardon stealing, ESPECIALLY from another individual. Condoning ANY stealing is terrible - thieves are far more likely to steal near them, which will be from other needy people, thus making their poverty worse. Never condone a criminal's behavior, especially and above all street crime.

> Find out why he needs it. I doubt it's so he can watch YouTube videos, based on his email. You can buy a cheap desktop (or even laptop) for a few hundred dollars. Offer to trade a crappy computer for yours.

2. This could very well be another scam or attempt to rob MORE (the person has already demonstrated that they have no integrity and will steal from people), and you're encouraging the original poster to walk into the lion's den and potentially risk getting robbed or ripped off even more. This is crazy, reckless, and dangerous for the OP.

> After all, giving him a computer could change his life.

It's a THIEF, dude. You can get a used computer for a few hundred dollars, that's like a week worth of saving at the most low quality minimum wage job. Work 80 hours for a couple weeks and use the money to buy a computer. Some of us do stuff like that to get out of povery. God, this smug "crime is okay because they need it" crap among upper middle class people is awful, it makes me sick to my stomach. NO, committing street crime is NOT okay, EVER. There's ALWAYS another way.

>You can get a used computer for a few hundred dollars, that's like a week worth of saving at the most low quality minimum wage job.

While I mostly agree with you, this point is flat-out absurd. I can tell that you haven't ever supported yourself off a 30 hour minimum wage job before. Supporting a kid on one, and still saving hundreds of dollars a week? Not unless your rent is free.

I 100% certainly see your point.

I don't mean to condone it, I'm just looking for a way for him to get his computer back. By understanding the persons motives, he can figure out the best way to do it. (In this case, it doesn't seem to be about money. $100 for the laptop and the name of the person who stole it, like other comments suggested, isn't going to work.)

If there was a way for him to just get it back and get justice, I'd say go for it. I just feel this is a more realistic approach.

And if he gets it back this way, and happens to help someone out along the way? Good. This person did pay for the computer; he just paid the wrong person. And the fact that he was willing to buy a hard drive probably means there's more to it than money.

There's an interesting article on the top of HN right now called "The Most Powerful Word In The Human Vocabulary: Perspective" (http://blog.sokanu.com/the-most-powerful-word-in-the-human-v...). The point I was trying to make basically boils down to that.

Or maybe I've just seen too many sappy movies about the kid from the other side of the tracks getting a second chance.

[Edit: I completely reworked this post, after thinking about it a bit more]

I am not sure why you think your points would be unpopular - you are exactly right.

They would be unpopular on Reddit, certainly. I know this from experience...

HN isn't Reddit..... yet.

When the front page is full of pro-drugs/pro-gay marriage/liberal propaganda/etc then we'll be there.

I think you can check the 'pro drugs' item off that list.

I would +2 if I could.

Thank you, but that's unnecessary. Also, some people are downvoting it, which is predictable but makes me sad. I understand we have moral feelings, but condoning theft and crime is actually bad for honest needy people. The vast majority of people will never commit crime, and when needy people do commit crimes, it's frequently against others who are also in need. I get scared for a society that condones or excuses street crime - no matter how bad things are, we all have individual responsibility not to do wrong against fellow humans.

I didn't understand the OP to be condoning theft and crime; he was approaching the situation from a place of compassion and understanding: "Alright, this guy stole it BUT he had enough human decency to email me... so he can't be a total dirtbag. Let me try and understand why and see if we can resolve this a different way".

I think that requires a lot more work and thought than slapping a "criminal" label on the guy and giving him the same treatment as a serial car-jacker, drug dealer, etc. because they all share that same "criminal" tag.

That being said... yea of course he would need to keep his wits about him and use some moxxy when it comes to spotting some additional theft/scam like "Ok PayPal me for the hard drive so I can make the backup" -- I'm not encouraging the guy to be half retarded -- but stopping the conversation after the first sentence and filling it full of pre-conceptions because the guy with the laptop is a "criminal"... I can't get on board with that.

At least talk to him and give him a chance to prove he's a dirt bag shithead first :)

In this particular case, I think a non-typical response would yield better results than a black-or-white/militaristic response of trying to get the cops to do something, but that's just my 2 cents.

>While I would have been furious, she was completely okay with it. She calmly told me, "The person who stole it clearly needed it more than me."

There are at least a houndred thousand people in every single country in Africa, who needs your retirement money more than you do. In fact they properly need it just to survive.

So why don't you give it to them?

>After all, giving him a computer could change his life. Think about how much your life has improved by merely owning a computer; something most people on HN take for granted. You could turn a bad situation into one you're really proud of.

If you are giving in to blackmail, why should you be proud?

I think the point here is that the money was already stolen. So what are you going to do now? Live a bitter life of regret, or shrug and say, "I have more money, let's go on with our lives now."?

At least that's the way I see it. You're better off living with charity in your heart than hating your fellow man - God knows there's enough reason for hate, but it'll kill you.

tomjen3,

That kind of thinking turns too easily into "Well, if my 1 act of kindness can't change enough, why start".

It all matters.

-There are at least a houndred thousand people in every single country in Africa, who needs your retirement money more than you do. In fact they properly need it just to survive.

That would be true. We aren't directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of "not our national birth" unless you have the capacity to do something about it. However he is responsible for his actions. And in his situation, he has the capability to do the compassionate thing, even if he is walked over.

As the recent top article says, it is all about perspective. Do the loving thing.

gkoberger,

You have compassion for the human condition and an ability to put yourself in other people's shoes. That is a skill that is lost so easily today.

I don't know that many people that still can do this.

As expected, lionhearted's more absolute "He's a thief, QED!" opinion is a more popular reply (looking at the votes). lionhearted is surely welcome to his own opinion, I just don't think life is ever as black and white as we think it is.

Just added this comment because I know the mass majority of people will read your comment, nod their head in agreement and move on and with the voting trending the way it is, you might get the impression that you were "wrong" and re-think your position of trying to understand someone before condemning them.

I just wanted to make sure that didn't happen.

I think you're trying to cast the "He's a thief, QED!" opinion as the "black and white" opinion while you have the more sophisticated "it depends" opinion, but I think you've got it backwards. The reason why it is important to strongly denounce thievery is actually the second-order effects. A thief almost always "needs" what they have stolen more than the person they stole it from, but that's not the interesting point. The interesting point is that in a society without strong property laws, it is vastly harder to claw your way out of poverty and you have a huge general problem with crime taking a bite out of society's ability to progress. This isn't good for anybody, not even the proximate thief who will still be better off in a prosperous society than one dragged down by pervasive crime.

The hard-line "He's a thief" attitude is the sophisticated view, and wishy-washy "well, I suppose he needs it more than the first guy" is actually the morally-thin cop-out that refuses to consider the greater good.

Anyone whose "guilty response" is to offer to buy you a 160GB hard drive either (i) has enough money to buy a laptop that hasn't been stolen or (ii) is trying to extort you for more money, which you'll most likely never see again

Or realizes that your data may be worth more than the device it sits on.