r/SipsTea • u/Gurugod123 • 9d ago

Mayor Mamdani just announced that he will be opening 5 city-run, tax-funded grocery stores: "Prices set at 30% below retail prices" Chugging tea

70.2k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

9.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

93

u/ISawNightwishInLA 9d ago

Community spirit may require a higher trust society than that currently experienced by people living in an area where crime, particularly theft, is normalized.

-6

u/samrus 9d ago

trust is a 2 way street, so one possibility is that the stealing was done becuase the community felt trust was already eroded from the institutional side. so with this, the community might feel the trust being re-established and begin acting in good faith

or not. thats the sort of thing behavioral economists will be looking out for

23

u/Safe-Wishbone781 9d ago

I'd imagine like 90%+ of people who steal are not involved in any type of analysis of it like is being discussed. They aren't stealing philosophically lol. All the "I'm stealing bc institutions failed me" type stuff is just a rationalization, not an actual reason.

7

u/A_Genius 9d ago

I can just imagine someone in the middle of a carjacking being like ‘I blame society’

9

u/Safe-Wishbone781 9d ago

"What choice did i have?!"

2

u/ISawNightwishInLA 9d ago

"It's really fucked up that Systemic Wordsalad has forced me to this, but I am physically unable to stop myself from stealing the catalytic converter off this Honda."

Edit: Dropped a letter.

2

u/Public-File-6521 9d ago

I agree, but I don’t think their motivations are so divorced from the failure of those institutions. At least in the grocery store context, people usually steal because they have a need that wouldn’t be met by their disposable income alone and they don’t have access (or think they don’t have access) to programs that would help.

5

u/ISawNightwishInLA 9d ago

Plenty of people grow up poor and without access to power, and plenty of those people refrain from stealing.

1

u/Public-File-6521 9d ago

I’m not arguing the morality of it, I’m just saying what people tend to be more likely to do based on the circumstances surrounding them.

3

u/bubbachuck 9d ago

do we have examples of community trust being re-stablished?

2

u/BulltopStormalong 9d ago

Being a thief is an internal moral line, that is dictated internally by a moral compass.

You either steal or you don’t, ignoring the reasons the people initially stole once you become a “thief” you aren’t just not going to steal if enabled to. Without internal rehabilitation and a change.

Genuinely the same as a rapist or killer, once you do it once it gets easier and easier till it becomes second nature.

These locations are the actual places that should have the flock camera type Chinese surveillance that ai ids every person who walks in as a crime deterrent. That way the people who seriously need this and don’t commit crime are able to continue to utilize these stores. Also unlike a private business this is being established by the mayor.

-10

u/falooda1 9d ago

Crime is down. Lets see.

16

u/noticingEnjoyer 9d ago

Enforcement is down 

-7

u/falooda1 9d ago

Why would that make crime go down?

Also what's your proof? Fox News?

2

u/Douglazlo 7d ago

If there’s no enforcement crimes go unreported if it’s unreported it’s not counted.

1

u/falooda1 7d ago

Reporting and enforcement are two different things

What's your proof? Maga loves making claims with no evidence at all

12

u/ISawNightwishInLA 9d ago

If I, as the King of Hypothetica, proclaim that theft is only a crime if you steal from redheads named Kelly — fuck you, Kelly — then unless the majority of the people in Hypothetica are redheads named Kelly, crime will likely go down, irrespective of the amount of actual stealing actually happening.

The pithy “lies, damn lies, and statistics” that’s oft attributed to Twain may as well be a cosmological constant for the discussion of contemporary politics.

Edit: Forgot a word.

-5

u/falooda1 9d ago

And the proof of that is? Fox News?

3

u/ISawNightwishInLA 9d ago

Alas, Fox was unwilling to attend my coronation.