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 El_Gordo_Uno
   
Location: Wenatchee, Washington
Gender: Male
This post brought to you by Allan Smithee
 |  |  |  |  | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 120 on 8/17/2004 9:17 AM >
|  | | | Posted by Octane
So basically you are conveying to everyone that "It's alright to steal."
How in the world do you justify this "Take what you want" mannerism?????
-Octane
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I'm not implying anything. I'm saying if you steal you probably don't have a problem with it and others aren't going to change your mind by shouting 'thief!' at you. So why not avoid all the melodrama and controversy by just not talking about it.
Personally I don't steal, I would just prefer not to see the board cluttered with personal ethics debates every other week.
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges |
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oCtAnE
  
Location: TORONTO, CANADA
Gender: Male
EXPLORER AT LARGE
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 121 on 8/17/2004 3:50 PM >
| | | | Even if you don't talk about it, your still a thief......so why don't these so-called "explorers" that steal just outright stop doing it?? The media knows now from that article that some UEers steal, and that WILL hurt us all in the long run!
Aaaaaand......people here are going to keep debating ethics and moral wrongdoings until we are all blue in the face! This is a volatile subject is seems....
-Octane
FUELED BY OCTANE. |
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uem-Tux
 
Iron Wok Jan
Location: Montreal
Gender: Male
UE Geek
| |  | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 122 on 8/17/2004 4:30 PM >
| | | | I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not trying to enforce some kind of universal ethical code. I don't think all stealing is wrong. For instance, I think stealing office supplies and other small items from a company that's screwing you is a form of justice. (Can you tell I've worked for some morally bankrupt employers?)
In the case of UE though, I think the reasons not to steal are clear and logical. Stealing does damage to sites, and stealing has the potential to damage the hobby as a whole. It makes us all look bad, I think that's the point most of us anti-theft people are trying to make in this thread.
"Birds don't shit in thier own nests" is the principle behind it, really.
Urban Exploration Montreal
Why are you the way that you are? |
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oCtAnE
Location: TORONTO, CANADA
Gender: Male
EXPLORER AT LARGE
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 123 on 8/17/2004 6:16 PM >
| | | | Posted by uem-Tux
In the case of UE though, I think the reasons not to steal are clear and logical. Stealing does damage to sites, and stealing has the potential to damage the hobby as a whole. It makes us all look bad, I think that's the point most of us anti-theft people are trying to make in this thread.
"Birds don't shit in thier own nests" is the principle behind it, really.
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Tux, I fucking love you.
-Octane
FUELED BY OCTANE. |
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tekriter
Location: in the Hindu Kush
Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.
| | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 124 on 8/18/2004 2:03 PM >
| | | | Posted by D-Funked
So I respond by saying: Prove that statement is universal and true to all people.
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A well thought out reply, D-Funked, but how is it that you can counter a perceived argument of moral absolutism with an argument for logical absolutism?
No one has put forth any arguments without context, either explicit or implied. This argument does not concern all people everywhere, but rather a relatively small sub-culture of explorers and this argument is concerned with people who steal from abandoned places that we all enjoy exploring.
Thus we all have a set of common experiences and we share a set of morals (with respect to exploring), that while not universal, is prevalent.
So, even if we concede that the moral argument against stealing is a logically impossible to prove, it is very difficult to argue that stealing from an abandoned site, that is of interest to all of us purely because it is abandoned, does not diminish everyone's experience by denying them that facet of exploring the thief found interesting enough to steal.
If we define an explorer as someone who enters abandoned places purely for the experience, then someone who takes things is not an explorer, but rather a thief that enters the place for personal material gain, and further, that personal gain is at the community's loss.
While the argument that most people agree is also a logical fallacy, it is significant in this context that the majority of people find stealing abhorrent.
This is worse when a thief portrays himself as an explorer in the media, points to this forum and thus incudes us all with one broad stroke of stupidity. The ripple effect of this media portrayal will touch all of us in some way.
I don't think that exploring abandoned structures applies to all people any more than these moral arguments do.
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. Robert A. Heinlen |
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oCtAnE
Location: TORONTO, CANADA
Gender: Male
EXPLORER AT LARGE
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 125 on 8/18/2004 8:11 PM >
| | | | This is beginning to have less to do with common morals and more to do with ethics. It is unethical to take something that isn't yours. In other words, it is wrong. Period. If you don't believe that, please refer to the Ten Commandments.
Also....as I've said before, it was a REALLY DUMB IDEA to inform the meia that you take things from locations. IT HURTS US ALL! There are indications that some people signed up for this forum are people that would just love to go exploring with us, only to catch someone in the act of taking something. So don'y go around blabbing on here that you take mementos.
That's all for now.....
-Octane
FUELED BY OCTANE. |
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MatC
Nobler Donor
Location: ENY
Gender: Male
Accepted everywhere
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 126 on 8/18/2004 10:20 PM >
| | | | Posted by tekriter
If we define an explorer as someone who enters abandoned places purely for the experience, then someone who takes things is not an explorer, but rather a thief that enters the place for personal material gain, and further, that personal gain is at the community's loss.
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Can people not be explorers as well as thieves?
Example: when I enter a location to take pictures, am I an explorer or a photographer? Or, to ask it a different way, can someone be an explorer without being a photographer? Sure. Can someone be a photographer and not an explorer? Again, sure. So, when someone enters a building for the experience of exploring, but also for the sake of photography, are they a photographer, or an explorer, or both? And if both, then can't someone enter a building for the experience of exploring, but also steal an item from the site? If yes, then they are both an explorer and a thief.
I'm not trying to say that what thieves do is right, because it is not, and I am personally against it for the reasons which have been re-hashed here twenty times already. However, I think that it is overly simplistic to make someone out to be JUST a thief if they take something from a location.
-- Mat
[last edit 8/18/2004 10:21 PM by MatC - edited 1 times]
"We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time."
- T.S. Eliot, excerpt from "Little Gidding" |
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uem-Tux
Iron Wok Jan
Location: Montreal
Gender: Male
UE Geek
| | | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 127 on 8/19/2004 2:30 AM >
|  | | | I think some things are mutually exclusive. A thief may have some of the same motivations (curiosity, love of abandoned spaces, etc) as an explorer but in my eyes one of the defining characteristics of urban explorers is that we do no harm. We don't litter, steal, or vandalize. Stealing is in many cases harmful to the experience of a site, and even if you take something that there are a million of, it's a big risk if you get caught, because anything you take, rusty nail, filthy sign on the floor, can cause you to be charged with theft. Way less fun than the ticketable charge of trespassing.
I kinda went off on a tangent there, but my point is I think that thieves and explorers can have things in common, but they aren't the same thing. They do one big thing differently... theft.
Urban Exploration Montreal
Why are you the way that you are? |
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matr0x
Location: Ottawa, ON
Gender: Male
| | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 128 on 8/19/2004 4:22 AM >
| | | | This is alittle offtop, but if Ninj is 22... and he started his zine & coined the term "Urban Exploration" in 1996... he would have started the zine at age 14! Is this correct? If so, thats is pretty young for such a large and impressive undertaking.
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kowalski
| | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 129 on 8/19/2004 5:09 AM >
|  | | | Kahos is 22. It's either bad writing, or (more likely) the Ninj quote was a pull-quote that somehow got stuck in the middle of the body copy when they put the article online.
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Downtown D-Low Brown
Location: The Ill Noize.
Gender: Male
The game is the game.
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 130 on 8/19/2004 5:41 AM >
| | | | Posted by tekriter
A well thought out reply, D-Funked, but how is it that you can counter a perceived argument of moral absolutism with an argument for logical absolutism?
No one has put forth any arguments without context, either explicit or implied. This argument does not concern all people everywhere, but rather a relatively small sub-culture of explorers and this argument is concerned with people who steal from abandoned places that we all enjoy exploring.
Thus we all have a set of common experiences and we share a set of morals (with respect to exploring), that while not universal, is prevalent.
So, even if we concede that the moral argument against stealing is a logically impossible to prove, it is very difficult to argue that stealing from an abandoned site, that is of interest to all of us purely because it is abandoned, does not diminish everyone's experience by denying them that facet of exploring the thief found interesting enough to steal.
If we define an explorer as someone who enters abandoned places purely for the experience, then someone who takes things is not an explorer, but rather a thief that enters the place for personal material gain, and further, that personal gain is at the community's loss.
While the argument that most people agree is also a logical fallacy, it is significant in this context that the majority of people find stealing abhorrent.
This is worse when a thief portrays himself as an explorer in the media, points to this forum and thus incudes us all with one broad stroke of stupidity. The ripple effect of this media portrayal will touch all of us in some way.
I don't think that exploring abandoned structures applies to all people any more than these moral arguments do.
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I take it you seem to hold a view towards ethical consequentialism ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism
Again, my sole purpose for even starting in on this was to point out some logical errors being tossed around here.
My own beliefs on this topic are in flux seemingly everytime a point is made. But let me toss a hypothetical situation out there:
Say you find a $20 at a site. There is no identification with it. You pocket the cash, put it in your wallet. You have just commited theft by your definition, but how would any one know? No one thinks a twenty in a wallet is reason for suspicion, unless there is an owner attached to it. If you define theft as the taking of ANYTHING from a site, then this leads to a a variant on an old question: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?" Except here it is: "If you take something that is not originally yours but can not verified as having an owner, is it theft?"
~D
[last edit 8/19/2004 5:43 AM by Downtown D-Low Brown - edited 1 times]
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
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Plytheman
Location: Lawrence, Massachusetts
Obey The Deer
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 131 on 8/19/2004 5:47 AM >
| | | | | Award goblets from the Thistle Club's basement. An old To Do list from the Pioneer Cleaners laundromat inside the Lister Block |
Its not like he's admiting to looting antique furniture. And the aricle did say that he doesn't take anything that would change the atmosphear of the place. I'm not saying that taking shit is right, but I did think it was somewhat ok to grab one paper out of a stack of hundreds...
I mean, I skipped over alot of this, as it just a ton more to read than I can think up, but I dont think the article is that horrible. People may not understand it that way, but I think the article itself was written well enough without painting us in a bad light.
As for the subject of stealing, I think all of my opinions have been stated, so my comment would be useless.
I'm achin, I'm shakin, I'm breakin, Like Humans Do!!
-Byrne |
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Downtown D-Low Brown
Location: The Ill Noize.
Gender: Male
The game is the game.
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 132 on 8/19/2004 5:48 AM >
| | | | Posted by Octane
This is beginning to have less to do with common morals and more to do with ethics. It is unethical to take something that isn't yours. In other words, it is wrong. Period. If you don't believe that, please refer to the Ten Commandments.
-Octane
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A question: How can you be sure that statement is true? How can it be proven, if you will? On what authority do you have it that the Ten Commandments are the Be All and End All to any debate on morality and ethics, hmmm?
If you tell me God says...then it looks like I'll have to discourse on some heavy philosophy.
~D
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
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oCtAnE
Location: TORONTO, CANADA
Gender: Male
EXPLORER AT LARGE
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 133 on 8/19/2004 12:26 PM >
| | | | My statement that referred to the Ten Commandments was to point out that stealing/theft has been was wrong back then, and it's still wrong now.
Okay, so you take one paper out of a hundred. Then someone else takes one, then another gets taken, and so on. After a while, the whole stack is gone. Any explorers that enter after the stack is gone are now missing something they could have seen in it's entirety.
The location somewhat diminished, the explorer wonders after his exploration if there was anything that might have been there in the not-so-distant past, something that could have added to his memories or photographs of the location.
-Octane
FUELED BY OCTANE. |
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Ninjalicious
Gone, but always with us
Location: Toronto
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 134 on 8/19/2004 1:10 PM >
| | | | Posted by Octane
This is beginning to have less to do with common morals and more to do with ethics. It is unethical to take something that isn't yours. In other words, it is wrong. Period. If you don't believe that, please refer to the Ten Commandments.
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Just for the record, while I agree that stealing from a site is wrong, for me this is more based on my personal sense of right and wrong, and my considerations of potential negative consequences, than on anything handed down from on high. Anyhow, gotta go covet my neighbour's ass now.
Ninj
http://www.infiltration.org
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Silent Knight
Location: Niagara region
Gender: Male
Kastle Archives Productions Inc. (since 1999)
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 135 on 8/19/2004 2:14 PM >
| | | | Posted by Ninjalicious
Just for the record, while I agree that stealing from a site is wrong, for me this is more based on my personal sense of right and wrong, and my considerations of potential negative consequences, than on anything handed down from on high. Anyhow, gotta go covet my neighbour's ass now.
Ninj
http://www.infiltration.org
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I concur. My main reason for not taking anything from a UE location is because I'd rather leave the place intact for others to see it the way I did. Those who pilfer and pillage lessen the 'interest factor' for everyone else.
Silent Knight
You can always tell when you're watching Canadian television - the actors in the show are the same ones doing the commercials. |
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Mike Dijital
  
UEDB Moderator
Location: Boston MA.
Gender: Male
UE ver. 1.0
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 136 on 8/19/2004 5:24 PM >
| | | | I dont do Live infiltration , only 30 year abandoned places, I see nothing wrong with making garbage, treasure. I think Live infiltration Stealing is a little tweeked, but in most abandoned buildings whats left is going in a dumpster when the new owners take it.
Its Called recycling. taking moldy FORGOTTEN garbage, and making it usefull again.
I think SOME people just have a moral stick up there ass. to which I laugh.
[last edit 8/19/2004 5:25 PM by Mike Dijital - edited 1 times]
www.deggi5.com / www.mikedijital.com |
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agent-x
Noble Donor
| | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 137 on 8/19/2004 5:25 PM >
| | | | Posted by Octane
This is beginning to have less to do with common morals and more to do with ethics. It is unethical to take something that isn't yours. In other words, it is wrong. Period. If you don't believe that, please refer to the Ten Commandments. |
things aren't always black and white. for instance, it's wrong/illegal/unethical/whatever to kill someone (oh and it's also in the 10 commandments). however, what if by killing N people, you save the lives of N+1 people? it's unethical to take something that's not yours, however, what if you knew the building it was in was due to be demolished in say a month, and the only way this item would survive the demolition is if you 'liberated' it?
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The Lost Flock
Location: Montreal, QC
Gender: Male
baaah.
| | | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 138 on 8/19/2004 6:57 PM >
| | | | Now, I've seen the argument thrown around a lot that if you take 1 item from 100, and every other person does, then soon they'll all be gone! The problem with this is, after the first person, no one else can take 1 from 100, they're taking 1 from 99, or 1 from 98, or 1 from 97. And the more identical articles are taken, then the less likely it should get for someone to take one. There is a perceptible difference in taking 1 of 10 items or 1 of 100 items.
So theoretically as explorers nab a bottle or whatever from a pile, the smaller the pile gets the less likely an explorer should be to take one, until it reaches a natural balance and there remains a constant, but much diminished, number of bottles.
Obviously that's all from a theoretically logical standpoint and probably won't stand up to real world testing. But if the "thiefs" in this thread's morals are all as they say, then it should hold true. Thus leaving enough for people to appreciate.
Unfortunately there's alway's the guy who'll see 1 of 1 unimportant item where there used to be 100 and figure it's just junk so they'll grab it. THAT guy is a dillhole.
But make no mistake, taking even 1 from the pile of 100 still reduces that pile somewhat visibly and alters that part of the site for every explorer who walks past. It's like the difference of walking past a stack of 1000 papers against a wall, and 100 papers in slight dissarray on the floor. Which is more impressive? Or a massive pile of bricks and a slight spattering of bricks?
Objects in a large grouping can become an object themselves, and taking one reduces it for every person thereafter. So think of the damage you're doing to the objects as a whole, and not just as singularities. Cause they're all tied together.
-Flock
[last edit 8/19/2004 6:59 PM by The Lost Flock - edited 1 times]
The Lost Flock is finding it's way.
Scaffolding is like monkey bars for adults. |
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MatC
Nobler Donor
Location: ENY
Gender: Male
Accepted everywhere
| | | Re: The Ethics of Stealing [was: Hamilton spectator article.]
<Reply # 139 on 8/19/2004 11:59 PM >
| | | | Posted by uem-Tux
I think some things are mutually exclusive. A thief may have some of the same motivations (curiosity, love of abandoned spaces, etc) as an explorer but in my eyes one of the defining characteristics of urban explorers is that we do no harm.
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I appreciate the distinction you're trying to make here, but I really think that it comes down to hairs which cannot be split. To wit:
- Is anyone who has ever stolen anything automatically a thief for good? What if they change their ways? And what if they change their ways for a short time, but then relapse? Are they a thief, and then an explorer, and then a thief again? Is being a thief only a state of mind?
- What if someone steals in some locations, but not others? Are they explorers some of the time and thieves some of the time? Or are they thieves in all locations simply because they stole from one?
- What about someone who takes something from a live site, but it's something that's meant to be taken -- like business cards from the front desk of an active hotel they have infiltrated? Or, what if they take something that would be distributed for free, but isn't for the general public, like soap from a housekeeping cart?
- What about someone who takes something not original to the site/location, but left by another explorer, like a flashlight, or hardhat, or clothing?
- What about someone who decides not to steal ever again from a location, but who decides to keep things that they have already stolen? Or what if they would like to return the things they have stolen, but it would be impossible or dangerous to do so?
I am not making this list to be a jerk. I know that, in the eyes of the law, there is only "stealing" and "not stealing," and that's really how it should be because it serves society's interests. It means that police don't have to sit around having discussions of whether it's really all that bad that you stole a rusty nail -- they just kill you bust your ass and let God the judge sort you out.
But in UE terms, I think it's a mistake to try to become an arbiter of what is completely acceptable and what isn't in order to be a member of a community because the issues involved in doing so are very complex. I have said before (and, hell, I might say it again) that I do not approve of stealing. That's why I don't do it -- I don't want to harm the site and I don't want to take the risk. It's perfectly acceptable for me to say, for myself, that I abhor stealing, I won't steal and (maybe) I won't explore with people who steal. But I can't say that that other person is not an explorer simply because of something else they do while they explore.
If the only reason someone goes to a site is to find stuff to steal, then they are not primarily an explorer -- they are primarily a thief. But if they go primarily to explore and also take things, then I think they are primarily explorers, who also happen to be thieves.
Tux, you and I may just have to agree to disagree on this one, as we seem to have reached an impasse. I don't mean that in a pissy way -- I just hate it when people post back and forth twenty times saying, "you don't get what I'm saying -- scrambled eggs are gross." "No, you moron, they're tasty. Don't you know anything?" "Yeah, but what I'm saying is you're wrong because they're gross." "No, you're totally nuts because they're tasty." Etc...
-- Mat
"We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time."
- T.S. Eliot, excerpt from "Little Gidding" |
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