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Thieves Are Now Targeting AI Data Center Construction Sites for Copper and Expensive Equipment (www.vice.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Investigators recovered two stolen trailers carrying $1.3 million in data center supplies, including copper wire and infrastructure equipment.

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[–] 10 points 4 months ago (17 children)

Theft is wrong when you're taking something away from someone who will miss it. Multi-billion dollar corporations will barely notice if their shit gets stolen, so I don't care if it does.

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  • [+] -9 points 4 months ago (16 children)

    I'm not asking you to care. What I'm saying is that you're morally inept by not caring. Either you admonish theft across the board or you don't. People are stealing from someone else regardless of who they are.

    You don't have to care, you're just wrong.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    I'm okay with not meeting your strict black and white standard of morality. In fact, I find it immoral. "You stole bread because you were starving?? You're EVIL!!"

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    We're not talking about people stealing bread because they're hungry. We're talking about people stealing millions of dollars worth of construction materials for personal gain.

    Do you really think the thieves stealing those materials from AI data centers are morally justified by their actions?

    I'll even go one step further and fully admit that I don't have a simple defense for someone stealing food because they're starving. That situation is morally complicated and can absolutely be debated from a philosophical perspective. But justice is blind for a reason. We can acknowledge the circumstances behind a crime, show compassion toward the person committing it, and still recognize that the act itself is theft.

    I'm not sure we can apply that same reasoning to organized theft of millions of dollars in construction materials.

    Also, you're the third person to tell me I'm being "black and white" about this. That criticism doesn't really apply. I have consistently said that justice exists on a gradient and that different crimes carry different levels of severity. Recognizing that all theft is wrong does not mean I believe all theft deserves identical punishment.

    Please don't argue against a position I haven't taken.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    The reason I used a "stealing because they're starving" example is that you said there are NO exceptions to the idea that all theft is wrong. I strongly disagree, and further think such inflexible thinking is destructive. While you have said that the punishment should be different depending on the crime, something being a crime is in itself not a reason to believe it's morally wrong; there are unjust laws everywhere.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    You sound well-spoken, yet you're doing what everyone else is doing. You're encouraging a set of circumstances that somehow negates the fact that it's theft.

    A starving man stealing bread so he doesn't starve to death is still committing theft. By the very definition of the word, it is theft. Theft is, in itself, a form of wrongdoing.

    Again, I fully agree that we can justify it morally under certain circumstances.

    What I don't understand is where the disconnect is. Do you genuinely disagree that it's theft?

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago* (1 child)

    Theft is, in itself, a form of wrongdoing.

    No, it is breaking a law, which is not necessarily wrongdoing. As I said, there are many unjust laws. Laws are not the arbiter of morality.

    Since you said it can be justified morally under certain circumstances, but still consider it wrongdoing, this might just be a case of semantics. Something that is morally justified cannot also be considering wrongdoing to me.

    So yes, it is theft. That alone doesn't tell me whether or not it's wrong. In this specific case, the data center thefts, I agree it is wrong of them to take items that are not theirs for the purpose of profiting from them. However, they are committing theft against something that itself constantly commits far greater theft by its very nature, not to mention great harm to the economy and environment. So it's bad things happening to bad people, which I am not going to object to like I would if it happened to someone innocent. There are degrees of wrongness.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    I think we're using the word "wrongdoing" differently.

    Theft is the intentional taking of someone else's property without permission. That is, by definition, a violation of their property rights. In that sense, it is a wrongdoing. Whether that wrongdoing is justified is a separate moral question.

    A starving person stealing bread is still committing theft. I may conclude that it is morally justified because preserving a human life outweighs the owner's property rights. That doesn't magically transform the act into "not wrongdoing." It means one wrongdoing is excused by a greater moral obligation.

    If we say a morally justified theft is no longer wrongdoing, then we've collapsed the distinction between describing an act and evaluating it. Every action we personally approve of would cease to be wrongdoing by definition, which makes the term lose much of its usefulness.

    So I agree that context matters. I agree that there are degrees of moral culpability. But justification doesn't change what the act is. It changes how we judge the person who committed it.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    Theft is too vague to be given a blanket right/wrong verdict for all situations.
    Failure to recognise nuance is morally inept.

    We have courts and juries specifically because morality is not a hard rule.

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  • [–] -3 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    This particular tack definitely seems to be the main flavor of responses to my comment at this point.

    It is a really strange logical conclusion that many of you have arrived at.

    What it sounds like you're saying is that if the theft is morally correct, then it is somehow no longer theft and is perfectly justified. That is a very strange argument to make in the first place.

    That is not how morality works. That is not how anything works.

    If a starving person steals bread, they may have a morally compelling justification for their actions. We can debate whether that theft was ethically permissible under those circumstances. But they still committed theft. The act itself does not magically stop being theft because we understand or sympathize with the reason behind it.

    The distinction between whether an action is understandable, justified, or morally excusable has been debated since the time of the Greeks.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I'm not sure how you came to that interpretation.

    Theft is theft, I never implied it wasn't.
    And I never said it could be perfectly justified. I said each situation was nuanced and that there is no hard right/wrong.

    That doesn't mean the theft never happened, just that some crimes are easier to forgive.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Look, as long as we both agree that theft is, by definition, a crime, which it is, then we're on the same page.

    My point was that the way some people are talking makes it sound as though theft sometimes isn't a crime or isn't morally reprehensible.

    I fully agree that wrongdoing exists on a spectrum and that different offenses carry different moral weight.

    That has never been the point of contention.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    We can debate whether that theft was ethically permissible under those circumstances. But they still committed theft. The act itself does not magically stop being theft because we understand or sympathize with the reason behind it.

    What? By that definition nothing is theft unless ruled such by a court. Which funnily also means that if someone takes anything but doesn't get caught, they haven't committed theft?
    Ergo any corporation powerful enough cannot commit any crimes, due to not being sentenced.

    That's bullshit and you know it.
    This isn't about if the guys stealing the copper committed a crime or not. Obviously they removed property without consent, which is theft.
    However, is there such thing as "good" crime? Yes. Same as the mother stealing formula for her baby, or the homeless person stealing bread, or these guys stealing copper from AI data centres.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago*

    By that definition nothing is theft unless ruled such by a court. Which funnily also means that if someone takes anything but doesn't get caught, they haven't committed theft?
    Ergo any corporation powerful enough cannot commit any crimes, due to not being sentenced.

    I have no idea how you came to this conclusion.

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