[twinkletwinkle_]

Crime is a social construct.

edit: A poor person who steals is charged. A rich person who steals behind the facade of a company is not. We call the poor person a criminal. It's entirely divorced from an actual moral framework, but simply constructed. I was agreeing with the commenter I replied to.

[tolbish]

I don't understand why you are getting downvoted. When people say they support "Law and order" they are not talking about all crime—they are not referring to fraud or market manipulation for example (white collar crime). They are referring to enforcing laws on just a certain subset of society.

[twinkletwinkle_]

I think if I'd instead written "This is what people mean when they say 'Crime is a social construct'" it wouldn't have been downvoted from the outset. "X is a social construct" is heavily associated with a certain viewpoint that HN tends to reject. But I quite like the symbolism of being downvoted "superficially" until I edited to explain in more detail.

[Chris2048]

> They are referring to enforcing laws on just a certain subset of society.

Or enforcing a certain subset of laws on all society.

And it's not just the "bigbiz-friendly" reds, it's also the blues with their "lets not punish non-violent crime". The fact is laws in the US (and elsewhere) are written, but unevenly enforced, as such what remains is quibbling over priority. I want to see more punishments for white collar crime, but I also want to see less leniency for repeated blue-collar crime too.

[mdavidn]

So are criminal charges.

[usrusr]

And the entire concept of ownership.

It's actually quite unbelievable how there can be societies that do have the concept of a death sentence, but don't have the concept of a property nullification sentence. "You may live, but you have to start at zero and any obligation someone might have to you is nullified". The inverse of bankruptcy, basically.

[GIFnotGIF]

So are movies.

[Chris2048]

Simplistic. A poor person is not usually trusted, so their thefts are often more egregious.

[lotsofpulp]

I disagree with the characterization that MoviePass’ theft is less egregious than a poor person’s theft, such as of a physical item.

MoviePass’ theft contributes to a weakening of trust amongst everyone in society, which is a much more difficult problem to address than theft of physical goods.

Not that society should be lenient on either.