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Comment by throw__away7391 | Hacker News Reader

Cool, so theft is morally justified depending on whom is being stolen from. Also, burning 800 gallons of fuel will release over two tons of carbon into the atmosphere, but I guess we just blame the oil companies for that too.

This is where we are at now, the ultimate luxury, everyone has complete moral immunity for life for absolutely anything they do so long as someone else has more money than them, never mind if they are in the top 10% of the world's wealthy overall.

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Seriously, it feels like all morality is situational now. People have no principles.

Something as straightforward as "stealing is wrong" doesn't apply. "Stealing from people I don't like is fine".

Not that I agree that stealing is acceptable (it's not), but this is expected and what happens deep into class warfare when inequality skyrockets and hopelessness sets in. People do what they can to make a buck, and justify it as evening out a perceived imbalance. We should expect to see more and more of this as more and more economic gains are captured by the rich, squeezing more of the middle class into poverty.

The massive wealth inequality has a role to play. People are willing to accept people having more money than them but 10 people owning 50% of the wealth while the rest are literally suffering through multiple jobs and still live paycheck to paycheck, that’s when people think of revolting. What we’re seeing now is the initial stages of a soft revolution where ideas are introduced to the larger public and reactions are gauged. Things aren’t bad enough for an actual revolution but these are the first signs of the growing discontent.

Morality has always depended on circumstances. When life gets hard, ideals held about morality or ethics tend get looser and looser until they fly right out the window.

> everyone has complete moral immunity for life for absolutely anything they do so long as someone else has more money than them, never mind if they are in the top 10% of the world's wealthy overall.

I've never seen anyone introduce the idea of "wealth absolutism". From your comment though I'm not sure if you would allow the bottom 10% to feel complete moral immunity.

Please try to make substantive comments, not wild flames.

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