sorry, i didn't mean to come across as so harsh, i was speaking sarcastically. i just know a LOT of hippy peace-and-love-and-sharing fixed gear riders, and i find it odd that no one ever seems to make a point against the absolute idea of ownership... but maybe none of them own a computer?

I think the debate is really this:

1 to 100

1 = NOT okay to steal
100 = OKAY to steal.

The more rationalizing you do, the closer you get to 100. The more you go looking for reasons why it is okay and how you are doing a "service" to society... the faster you get to 100

The road to hell is paved with 100's.

:crash: What is the shame for you? It's not yours, you are not losing anything. Just because you want it and you put value on it doesn't change the fact that you have no right to it. That lingering feeling you have betrays a dangerous streak of questionable character. Get over it. Life is not a door prize, go to work each day and when you have enough money you can buy your own. Then you can worry about people like you standing on the corner wrestling with their conscience as they covet your bike that you locked up for a night.

OWN a computer, lol. Get it, ownership.

He probably feels it's a shame that someone else is going to steal parts and pieces who won't appreciate it and will just sell it off. And it's a shame that the frame and front wheel that are left over are just going be destroyed laying there doing no good for anyone. It is a shame because he could put it to better use than the fate of it now.

I do love it when people try to come across like angels.

Has anyone on here ever picked up change...or even a dollar bill...off the ground? Why? It wasn't yours...

:bang:

it also doesnt have a lock around it

On one hand, just because you do it doesn't make it right. On the other, that's not even a remotely good comparison, both in the value of the items discussed and the fact that a properly locked bike shows a lot more intent to retain ownership than a dropped penny or dollar bill.

More than likely, a roving band of vigilante bike appreciators swarmed in with convictions of their own self-worthiness - and lovingly liberated those quality components to build up new bikes that will carry on where this sad orphaned bike could not.

And somewhere... of in the distance, the owner bikes true owner barked.

Steal the bike rack so no one else will lock a bike to it and get their bike stripped/stolen!!!
Typical NY attitude!

I think we are getting closer to 100.

I'd say close to 75 right now.:twitchy:

Perhaps what I said about the dollar bill was a bad comparison and 100% ridiculous, but the dude who said the OP should chop one of his hands off was right on the money!
:thumb:

Bikes are not people. They don't have feelings, and they don't have intrinsic value the way a human (or animal, IMO) does. I hear a lot of people on the forums talking about bikes in a weird way. Talking about keeping a bike going so it doesn't die (paraphrasing). This personification happens a lot when people talk about conversions "give her gears back!" Bikes are just pieces of metal just like a gold bracelet, a stop sign, or a gun. I just had to say that b/c it's been annoying me when I hear people talk about bikes like they are people.

at a certain point some bikes become "trash" to people while others like us still see potential

All I know is that after you build it up for your gf, it's gonna hurt when it gets stolen from her.

I see your point, but, I wouldn't have done that without trying to find out the owner first.

I know people who have adopted abandoned bikes on campus...They left a note on the bike for weeks with their name and number, saying they were interested. Simultaneously, they posted on multiple campus forums (craigslist or flyers could substitute) And after a month of the bike not budging and no calls, they took it. And posted up that they had it if the owner wanted it back, with contact info.

I think that kind of "theft" if you want to call it that is perfectly okay.

Get this- In the Army, we would be required to lock a nylon dufflebag. Some smartass would always quip "That's worthless, any thief would just cut the bag open with a knife!" The standard answer was......"It keeps the honest man honest". Yep, wisdom in those words.

It's locked, real simple- walk away.

Coming from a former not good at all kid, now wiser and a better human being, just walk away, trust me.

Sometimes it seems like people on here feel like they will open the floodgates and unleash a tide of bike thefts upon the world if they agree to even acknowledge a shade of grey where this is concerned. This isn't arithmetic where there is only one right answer and an endless supply of wrong answers.

I've looked at bikes that have been sitting the streets for a couple of months and contemplated giving it, or some components off of it, a better home. I'm pretty sure most of the people that have been so quick to judge on this topic have too. I don't feel bad about thinking such thoughts. Do you? If you don't, then why should you feel bad about acting upon them?

Some people have had good reasons for doing what they did to get convicted and incarcerated. I'm sure you weren't implying this with your statement, but do you really believe that everyone matriculated into the American penal system absolutely belongs there?

^ Some math problems have multiple answers (e.g., find the sq. rt. of 4) some even have infinite answers (e.g., name a prime number), while others can never be completely answered (e.g., what is π?). :O)

thinking of math as binary is basically a misunderstanding of math.

there are tons of meanings latent in everything, until you assign meaning to it. one doesn't mean one until you define it as one. the proofs for this take hundreds of pages in math and are some of the first things they teach you in college as a mathematician(so i'm told).

similarly, if you define stealing as wrong you have to define it as wrong with a ton of qualifications... hundreds of pages of qualifications.


basically, if the damage you do by stealing is less than the damage of the abandonment, it makes logical sense.

but the ethics of the situation are not logic. they are ethics. which means that if the bike's owner locked it up and left it, he's not giving you free license to take his **** any more than he is giving someone free license to stomp it into a mangled twist of wire.

you need to stop justifying your own thoughts of unjust appropriation and start thinking about why it's so irregular to see bikes locked up for long periods of time.

the answer is that even "good" people like you will steal **** when your perceived benefit outweighs your perceived malice.

the only meaning that holds any truth for me or most people including those that interpret the law, is that you are taking something that isn't yours because you think you can use it more than the rightful owner.

i'm guessing the people who stole the components thought the same thing. even if you can only make a few bucks off a seat and some bars and a wheel, those few dollars are way more important than a bike in a city where there's a public transit system and your baby is starving or dying of exposure.



sure everyone has thoughts that "wow that is something i want and i deserve it more/can use it better/should be using it instead of the person who's done XXXXXXX to it"... doesn't make it an ethically defensible position.

imagine the self loathing and sense of underachievement you would feel having just spent so much energy and time stealing a bianchi pista...im sure you can do better.

this.

sometimes you just gotta quiet the monkey brain that rationalizes such things and just back off.

I dont know what is right and wrong -- im not a moralist. But I know sometimes it's better for yourself to just walk away and train yourself to overcome dumb temptations. If you rationalize taking someones frame, next time you might be more inclined to take someone's lights because you dont want to die riding home and you promise yourself you'll return them the next day...once the proverbial snowball is rolling down the hill, stealing and lying and scheming become that much more easier.

Well all of you how do you feel about the police taking perfectly locked bikes after being abandoned for several weeks and then auctioning them off?

Is it only okay for the government to, in the simplest form, steal bikes and make a profit?

they hold onto them for a long time, if you abandon your property then better the state make a profit than someone with a set of bolt cutters and whacked understanding of ethics.

I am okay with that. A city government has the job of maintaining public infrastructure. Abandoned property littering the sidewalks can be a nuisance. And you make it seems like the cops/city just run around stealing bikes and pocketing the money for hookers and coke. If they indeed auction the bicycles, then that goes into their budget or the budget of some other department -- which means more money for public works / government. And it should be noted, they typically hold such property for claim until a decent amount of time has passed.

A republic designates certain duties to their elected representatives and their offices. We have granted the police/city to handle such issues.