Suppose a soda vending machine is broken so that the quarters are backed up the slot. Suppose people are too stupid to realize this and keep jamming coins in. Suppose you see someone smart enough to bend a card and pull a few quarters out and use them in another, working, vending machine. Would you get upset at said person for violating some supposed law against taking coins you find somewhere? Would you threaten to call the cops on said person? Would you harras the person?
(Those of you on my Facebook can find a less hypothetical scenario).
a person who cheats the taxes is often considered to be "clever" - and the more he cheats it - the less he risks to be punished for it
a person who cheated thousands in a "pyramid game" - might get away with a monetary punishement. - a person who stole a purse with merely 20$ in might be put into jail ( even if only for a night or two - but for some ppl thats enough to ruin their life )
a person who cheats a cheater is considered to be cool - a person who cheats an honest man is a bad man. - even if the process is the very same. - the funny thing about it is .... who is a cheater and who is an honest man is usually a matter of interpretation.
anyway - if you cheat or break the laws, you re doing wrong ( at least from the pov of the law ) no matter what. - doing everything by the laws doesn t necessarily mean you re a good man though. - being lawful doesn t mean its the right thing to do.
thats what we have brains for - and ethics, moral and reason ( at least some ppl - there are always ppl who just do what others do )
' Wrote:There are more important issues in the world right now.
That is so totally irrelevant to the question being asked.
It's like asking a friend how their weekend went, to which they mechanically reply "There are more important issues in the world right now", presumably before they melt you with their merciless robot-laser-eyes.
Good on you Zapp for taking otherwise redundant coins. The crazy, screaming person was probably jealous they didn't think of that first.
I'd consider this to be overly trivial, if it's indeed an offence according to the local law.
However, if you must discuss this, I can give you my perspective from an analytical and logical standpoint. It's to do with the individual's morality and really the previous people are to blame for abandoning their money inside the machine to begin with. If they do that then they clearly no longer want the coins and therefore there's nothing wrong in this smarty pants to come along and extract unwanted money.