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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33461 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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Since the phrasing here seems to be causing a lot of confusion, I will offer a potential clarification. Is it your position that posession of something that doesn't belong to you is immoral regardless of how you came to have it? Therefore quantifying harm done to the original owner is irrelevant?

No, because someone can give something to you and that's perfectly fine.

In that case the item now belongs to you, no? Should we enumerate all the legitimate ways to transfer ownership and assume anything else to be stealing, or should we draw a narrow definition around stealing and consider everything outside it to be acceptable?

This is the “license” solution. GPL, BSD, MIT…they’re all sets of contract terms defining acceptable use.

You appear to be asserting that if I steal my neighbor's chainsaw, that's bad, but if I then give it to you, that's perfectly fine.

I don't think that's what you mean to say, but it is what you're actually saying. I think you should consider stepping away from the keyboard, taking a couple deep breaths, and thinking a bit about how this thread is going, because at the moment you don't appear to be doing a good job of either understanding or conveying meaning with the words you use. I genuinely do not mean this to be insulting, and invite you to show this thread to someone you trust for a disinterested outside perspective. I do not wish you ill, but I do find this thread bewildering; I recognize your name from the old place, and do not remember you acting in this manner in the past. If you like, I'll step out here and leave you to it.

I agree on the object level, but you seem to be overheating a little yourself, dude. Calling his argument "dishonest", "crazy" and "very stupid" isn't too civil.

It's an assessment you're free to make, but I think my objections stand up pretty well in the places I made them. As a whole, this particular sub-thread is bewildering to me, and I'm going to go do something else while it sorts itself out.

Tbh I was expecting you to draw a natural connection between pro-pirating utilitarians and mountains of skulls.

heh. I still owe you a reply, come to think of it. I hit the character limit and decided the result wasn't productive to post, so have to rewrite it for concision.

you don't owe me, save it for next time. I actually feel I owe you when I respond with three paragraphs to two pages, but there must be some limits in time and space to a discussion.

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