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Comment by bandushrew | Hacker News Reader

I dont agree with that. If I stole a loaf of bread to feed my family, that is a very different ethical proposition to stealing a loaf of bread to feed some ducks.

If I rob a bank and give the money to a family who desperately needs it, I am a very different person from the person who steals it to purchase a ferrari.

Legally , there may be no difference. Ethically and morally there is a huge difference in my opinion.

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No there is not. To give away your own money is charity, it's good. To give away money that you stole from someone else is immoral. And then if you say that you are moral, it's not only stupid but also douche-y.

Oh and to steal to feed your own family is a different case altogether. You are not acting like a pretentious douche.

You might be a different person if you steal for poor family and not for a ferrari, but not in the way I think you're implying. You would use the money differently, but still you would be a thief.

Also, this behaviour doesn't scale. If everyone was allowed to steal bread because he/she is hungry, the whole trading system would probably collapse and make everyone hungry.

Well, It is quite possibly scalable to allow impoverished to take free bread, if there is a defined poverty level and an insurance safety net provided by the not impoverished. This is the principle behind Social Security

That's not the principle behind social security. Social security is a store of your accrued wealth of today that is meant to be returned to you once you are retired.

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