^ 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.

Okay, so the op takes the bike, leaves his email, advertises with fliers, craigslist, etc, is it still okay? It's the same as the state holding onto it and returning it if the owner claims it. Only difference is that it's somehow okay for a faceless government to do it than another fellow cyclist.

I dont think it's "ok" -- and just because he's a cyclist is not an excuse.

and it's "ok" for a government entity to do so. why? because that is the job we've given them. conversely, until a majority of citizens have agreed and set a contract to let the original poster steal locked bikes, then it is not "ok."

Either way I have no problems with the police seizing abandoned bikes, and nor do I have any problem with other cyclists taking abandoned bikes. Granted that they have been abandoned for an extensive amount of time and attempts are made to find the owner; which is often more than what the police do.

LOL posting here to justify attempted theft?

If you see a car parked on the side of a street for a month straight does it give you the right to hot wire and take it?

...only if you're a car enthusiast, apparently.

I think the OP and anyone in that situation should steal the bike then be required to donate it to someone else, so they don't personally profit from it. How much effort would go into "liberating" the thing then, do you think?

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...1&d=1244441245

I wouldn't be surprised if there have been car enthusiasts that have taken old abandoned cars and restored them.

so?

I'm actually surprised this isn't a joke thread...

If you need to make a post on an internet forum justifying stealing a bike that's probably a sign you should just walk away. I'm sure the guy who jacked the rear wheel is a "rear wheel" enthusiast.

Why not just report the locked up bike to the police? They'll cut it and try to find the owner. If the owner comes files a police report with the serial number well voila they get their bike back.

what about bikes that aren't locked. is that like a given that the owner doesn't care? or is it like it's expected to be stolen?

ya my uncle took over an abandoned ghia, it was at a shop and the owner never came back, made several attempts to locate the owner, and had to go through some process through the dmv to get it under his name.

Well, first off, I don't ever justify anything to myself. If I'm doing something, then it's justified (for life in general, not just the topic at hand). I know my limits for "right" and "wrong", and I know when I'm on the verge of crossing those lines. I toe them, but I don't cross them. But, like everyone else, sometimes it's worked out and sometimes things have gone south. It's impossible to know the outcome of everything we do in life, and that's the rub.

In general, all we have to go by is our ethical interpretation of the law. We speed, we run red lights, we break the law everyday because of the perceived benefit involved. And we throw a ton of qualifiers in there before hand to make sure it's ok with ourselves, the first one usually being that no one gets hurt in the process. I wouldn't take a bike or anything off a bike just randomly, not if I saw it everyday for a week, 2 weeks, 2 months, a whole year. It's usually pretty obvious when a bike is still being used, no matter how ****ty it looks. If it's obvious the thing hasn't moved though, if it's already half stripped, if it has every sign of being abandoned, then i will interpret it as being abandoned. I'm not taking things then just because I think I can use it more readily than the owner, I'm thinking that the owner is no longer in the equation and how it can be re-purposed into something better. Yes, their maybe extenuating circumstances like the one pointed out earlier where the person was in the hospital. But in the absence of any other information, all one has to go by is what they know. And if we lived everyday of our lives contemplating all of the ramifications of every decision we make, we'd never get anything done. Granted, you should think about what you're doing before you do it. But if I run a red light, I'm not going to think about the guy in the car behind me getting pissed off because he couldn't do the same and running the next cyclist he sees off the road.

I'm not condoning the theft of bikes, but like someone else said, it comes down to what we define as theft. And when it comes to the ethics of the law, everyone on this board, and I mean EVERYONE, has had their own interpretations of what's right and what's wrong.

Jaa, sometimes stealing is ethical until it's your stuff that gets stolen.......

Save it. Don't steal it. Don't take it to build it up for yourself, take it so that no more harm can come to it. But do everything you possibly can to find the owner. Wait long enough, like six months long enough, and if the owner can not be found, donate it. And if you do find the owner, be a good human being and fellow cyclist and replace the owners lock, they already have enough to replace. You might just make a lifelong friend out of all this, which is much better than a free frame.

I once lost a debit card 3 times over a 2 month span. Lo and behold, sometime started charging it up the third time around. Do I blame someone else for doing something that is a pretty basic human response, or do I blame myself for being stupid enough to lose my card that often? I would say the blame lies with me, and that's how I took it.