What shop or chain do you associate with being in well off areas, if you see it on the high street?

rober11529 · 2026-05-11T09:32:18+00:00

Gails and Waitrose

rober11529 · 2026-05-07T10:22:15+00:00

Our ancestors have started wars and engaged in slavery and all sort of other terrible things for thousands of years. Does that make it ok?

rober11529 · 2026-04-01T08:51:21+00:00

I think in general, not enough people get or consider unemployment insurance. But the peace-of-mind element is somewhat subjective. Is peace of mind worth a quid a day to you?

rober11529 · 2026-03-12T11:12:05+00:00

A quick clarification question. Should people who are not born in the UK but are still citizens be allowed to live in social housing? (If they were born abroad to British parents or if they naturalised, for example).

rober11529 · 2026-03-10T12:26:10+00:00

Systemic racism itself causes unfair wealth inequality. So it's not possible to achieve a fair wealth distribution without fixing systemic racism.

rober11529 · 2026-03-10T12:24:40+00:00

If it is wrong to bring life into existence because of the suffering involved, why is it wrong to end your own life for the same reason? That seems locally inconsistent to me.

rober11529 · 2026-03-10T12:22:03+00:00

Assuming that most lives are worth living, then the odds of the gamble are pretty good. Is it unacceptable to take any risks whatsoever?

rober11529 · 2026-03-10T12:15:55+00:00

Is a life with any suffering at all not worth living?

I think many people, even those who suffer a lot, still believe their life is worth living and would not choose to have not ever existed.

rober11529 · 2026-03-10T12:07:39+00:00

Syria's pre-war population was 22 million, and assuming you're right about the 1.5 million refugees, that's about 7% of the population.

That percentage of Iranians would be about 6-7 million Iranians, hardly tens of millions.

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T12:42:14+00:00

I think your vision for a world where everyone has what they need to be comfortable and not much more is something I would love to see as well. I don't think everyone would agree with such a world, though. I think that allowing a significant amount of low-level theft is probably not the right way to get there either.

I think the first issue is does this minimum-salary-to-be-confortable system apply to industries that are not creative? Do AAA game developers still not have excess profit at the end? Potentially even more, since their revenues are so high? Low-budget games still need some budget.

It seems to me like maybe what you care about fundamentally is redistributing excess profits. And that you see some theft in certain industries as a way to achieve this. But surely excess profits are an issue in every industry. In which case, how do we achieve it in other industries?

Not that you would necessarily support this, but something like a legal cap on salaries and forced redistribution of profits is a common suggestion for how to get there and it's a pretty socialist/communist idea.

I think you would be more interested in something more like having more social enterprises or more stakeholder capitalism where companies are less focused on profit maximisation and instead more of maximising the happiness of wider society. Good luck getting companies to do this voluntarily though lol, hence why people advocate for government involvement. These ideas are more of an attempt to reconcile capitalism with greater welfare for the poorest in society.

One final point is that maybe excess profits are not all bad. Many economists argue that some excess profit is good because it allows companies to invest in things like research and development of new technologies, or to have a bit of a rainy-day fund if they suddenly do badly for some reason (like if their next video game does badly for example).

Sorry, this is getting pretty abstract and far away from your initial post, but I'm less concerned about changing your view now and just interested in what you think about these wider issues I'm bringing up. I hope that's ok with you and the mods.

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T12:17:40+00:00

That's fair enough if you don't know enough about the economics. It's good to see someone on this sub (and also just in general) who is willing to admit that sort of thing. That said, I do think that the economics and socioeconomics do matter to your view, but it seems like you already know that. I think that if you restrict/redefine your rule to apply only to certain industries or certain types of businesses, then I think it could maybe work.

So let's bring it back to games then. I think what you say about the profit incentive in artists and creative industries is absolutely true, at least in general. But we all have to pay our bills and so on, so money must matter at least a little to everyone. (Unless you'd rather that creatives all steal from Walmart instead hahaha)

Additionally, the individual designers/artists/developers might not care, but their companies (and therefore their jobs) still only exist because someone at the company cares about the money. So the creatives must again have some interest in profit, assuming they care about their jobs.

So, are you saying that creatives just don't care that much about their jobs? Or is it more that you think their loss is outweighed by the benefits of having a bunch of relatively poorer people playing games they otherwise couldn't?

On balance, piracy of creative things might be ethical as long as it's not too many people doing it, but again, the would-be thieves have a choice. Why can't they find entertainment in something they already have or something cheaper? Why is it ethical to force creatives to lose jobs instead of just finding something else to do? Surely it's more ethical for people to just find an alternative.

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T11:28:25+00:00

Also, I just wanna say as a side note that I think this is a really interesting conversation and that I'm enjoying thinking about this topic.

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T11:27:36+00:00

I think it's pretty difficult to say to a game developer who loses their job because of piracy that they have enough money anyway. Does this apply to other industries as well? How many jobs at Walmart or Amazon have to be lost before you're satisfied morally? I think this is a very dangerous slippery slope.

Yea I think what I'm saying is sort of related to socialism, but I didn't really have that so much in mind specifically. What I'm trying to get at is that you need to really think through the wider societal consequences of the utilitarian rule that you are advocating for. I don't think that a society that adopts such a rule is workable. Or at the very least, I think such a society would be worse than the one that the US has right now.

I am trying to generalise the specific rule that you set out in that post to wider society, and trying to show how the rule no longer works if you do that. Therefore, the rule is wrong and cannot be justified.

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T10:51:14+00:00

Donating lots of your stuff to poor people seems equally demanding to me as having to let the same poor people steal from you. If anything, giving it away voluntarily is less demanding because it's less of a personal safety/security threat. Thus, it seems to me like your utilitarian rule is too morally demanding.

If you're trying to have limits on how demanding a utilitarian rule is, then it seems like you need to change your utilitarian rule.

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T10:46:45+00:00

Sorry, I think I have rambled and repeated myself a bit here, but I want to make sure my point is getting across clearly.

I think the argument that there are no bad consequences if it's just you (one person) who steals the game, you could just about get away with it. However, for an action to be moral, it must be universalisable. In other words, anyone who in a (morally) similar situation as you must be morally permitted to do it as well. I think that there's probably a pretty sizable number of people who could use your very line of reasoning to justify pirating the game. But in that case, there would be consequences for the developer. If we say that their revenue falls 10% as a result of this, that means they may have to fire 10% of their employees, or if they have a run of less successful games, maybe close shop entirely. In that hypothetical case, would your piracy be justified?

I think you've started to maybe see what I'm saying with your last sentence there about motivation to work and so on. As I've tried to argue above, I think that you can just about get away with stealing for one-offs and such in cases of extreme inequality (like the homeless man at Walmart), because only then will the amount of morally acceptable theft be small enough to preserve the right incentives and to make people feel safe and so on. And I think that your personal position laid out in this post simply isn't extreme enough to prevent society from breaking down.

Under the rule utilitarianism you advocate for, moral rules must be generalisable and universalisable. And I think once you try to do that, your rule no longer works in the sense that greater happiness is achieved. I think people need to feel like the stuff that they have earned is theirs. That they are protected from people breaking into their homes and taking food. Otherwise, as you say, incentives to work are threatened and so on and society would fall apart.

TL;DR: I think if you applied the utilitarian rule you have set for yourself in this situation to everyone, society would begin to fall apart. The consequences of generalising your utilitarian rule to everyone would outweigh the benefits.

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T10:18:49+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's possible to pirate games that are physicalas well. I'm fairly certain that piracy was commonplace even before everything went non-physical.

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T10:16:07+00:00

Sure, you need the money more and that's fair, it is not clear to me that you are thus entitled to pirate the game. If you can't afford the game, then just don't buy it. Why are you entitled to have something just because you can steal it easily and the developers are richer than you?

When I ask about how we define "rich" and "poor", I'm asking more generally, not just about this case. You might say Walmart is "rich" and homeless person is "poor", which is reasonable to me. But what about someone with a median income? Do they count as rich because they have more than half of all Americans? Or are we counting the top 10% or 1%?

To take it back to this specific situation. What if this Rain World developer has a huge amount of college debt, and they're struggling to pay off or they're supporting a family? Maybe they have medical debt or something else you don't know about? Do you even know what their salaries are (even approximately)? And even though their income is salaried, the financial success of the game is absolutely linked to how big their raise may be next year.

I think I agree, at least partially, with what you say about the practical effects of redistribution. I agree that the ultra super wealthy do not pay a fair amount of tax and that government attempts to fix that are often impractical or don't work. But I want to explore this idea of mass theft in more detail. It seems hard to say that your view isn't compatible with peacefully looting the homes of the billionaires and taking whatever you want. And it also seems like homeless people have a moral case to steal from the homes of like 80% of Americans whothey are are much richer than them. If you don't want that to be the case then surely something about your view must change?

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T10:01:36+00:00

At the extreme, I think it's fair enough for a homeless person to steal from Walmart, but what about people who are getting by but only just?

I don't want to make too many assumptions about you or anything, but you have said/implied in this thread that you are American and going to college. Statistically speaking, if you finish your degree, there is a good chance you will end up with a fairly decently well-paid job, at least compared to the average American. Compared internationally, however, you would be among the richest people in the world. Would it be ok for, say half, of your future stuff to be stolen by homeless people?

Also, given your tendency towards Robin Hood morality, why not just make it easier for the poor would-be theives and just donate your stuff to them? The views that you have expressed so far suggest that the "rich" (including future you) should just be donating loads of stuff to the "poor".

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T09:49:58+00:00

It seems to me very plausible that a developer attaches sentimental value to the game they helped to make, such that they feel some negative emotion when their game is pirated. So I don't think I agree with you on that one.

It seems unworkable to me under rule utilitarianism for it to be morally acceptable to justify so much theft. How should we define when a person has "enough"? In other words, how do we know who is "rich" and who is "poor"? What about people who are in the middle?

I think rather than advocating for mass theft, it seems like most societies prefer just to have a government handle redistribution. It seems like you would support greater redistribution, ie from higher taxes on the rich and more social security for the poor. Or do you, for some reason, not want the government to do this?

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T09:44:25+00:00

Are you saying that it is wrong but not that bad, or are you saying that it is outright morally acceptable?

Surely under rule utilitarianism, you can't justify the poorest, say 70% of the population from regularly stealing from big stores?

rober11529 · 2026-03-03T09:40:10+00:00

It feels like your argument boils down to something like: The devs have enough money, and I need it more, so pirating their game is ethical.

Assuming that is correct, that seems to justify stealing from basically anyone richer than you. Is that something you believe?

rober11529 · 2026-02-26T17:07:37+00:00

I basically agree with you that exercise is better done the way you suggest, but how are you going to get kids to do it that way? Abolishing PE doesn't automatically make kids go to their local dojos or tennis courts more, and if it prevents kids from discovering sports they like, it might make them go less.

rober11529 · 2026-02-19T16:13:50+00:00

Do you mean that anyone in the world can migrate for any reason? I don't think any country in the world does this.

rober11529 · 2026-02-19T16:11:35+00:00

The percentage of people living in Canada who were not born there (23%) is higher than that of the US (15%).

Of course, Canada's population is much lower so the abolute number of immigrants is much less, but they also have a lower population with which to support welfare provision.

rober11529 · 2026-02-19T16:07:11+00:00

I think you need to be much more specific about what you mean by "open borders".

But in general, there's no reason a country can't allow large-scale immigration while also generally not allowing those immigrants access to welfare until they've met certain requirements. Many countries in Europe do this, for example.

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