He got off, very politely handed me back my bike, and thanked me for letting him borrow it.
Almost made me feel like I was the bad guy in the situation. Anyway I guess in some cases, a stolen bike doesn't go far at all.
One day - gone! I breathed a sigh of relief and went about my day. Two years pass. I'm walking to class one day on the same campus and I see a very similar looking bike on the rack. I walked up to inspect it and it was definitely the same bicycle, but entirely fixed up! All new components, nice tires, the works, with a nice lock.
I'll never know what happened in the interim but it was such a warm fuzzy feeling to think someone had cared for it and elevated it to a new level, even if it was technically the product of theft. In a ship of Theseus kind of way it wasn't even truly my bike anymore.
The whole situation has stuck in my brain a lot better than the classes I was attending....
Behold, the bicycle of Theseus. If you stole it back could you say "arguably, this isn't theft!"? But I guess a judge would say you stole the parts of the bike that the new owner fitted.
That account recovery created some interesting ethical questions.
I imagine your bike was stolen by someone, maybe fixed up, maybe sold as-is for cheap and then fixed up by the new possesor, who may not have known it was stolen, just cheap.
Many people who choose to live outside square-lawed society rely on people remaining docile and sticking to principle in order to prey on them, or at least to live a lifestyle where they don't have to collaborate with larger society to reap its rewards. It took me years to un-program "assume good intent and empathy" with people I didn't know that were trying to take advantage of me.
I simply can't stand thieves. I wish that we had really great public services and transportation--not only would this reduce a huge amount of current theft, it would make actual theft obviously inexcusable.
We all tell ourselves stories (whether true or not) to process our actions and their consequences. For people who have been victimized, they sometimes become a slave to the story they tell themselves which can lead to learned helplessness.
(This includes mental illness and addiction--even if we mentally those people as being in the grip of something beyond themselves, if a peaceful, non-grifting society is desired someone needs to make choices about how to restrict their freedom.)
Helps to ride a $100 bike. If somebody ends up with it, they won't be too attached.
Criminals are criminals often because they can't obtain the higher return than comes from having a) impulse control and b) greater IQ than a toaster.
> politely handed me back my bike
Canada?