I vow not to steal, but to respect that which belongs to others.
It’s hard to answer this question without reflecting on what ownership is. What does it mean to own something? Owners have more rights to belongings than others. So stealing is a process of changing these rights. It is a very broad definition. Thanks to that, stealing can be very subtle because we can have rights in very subtle areas, e.g. stealing attention.
In some way, there are many layers of illusions:
- Illusion that we own something, i.e. we can control something exclusively. Everything is dependent on everything, so everything we own is also controlled by everything. We may own a house, but it can burn in a wildfire. It is not completely up to us.
- Illusion that the object exists. Objects exist only in our minds. In reality, they are just fluctuation blobs. An apple, when I look at it, is a different apple when I look at it in 5 min. It got changed. It is not exactly the same. The constancy of objects is a delusion of our minds.
- Illusion that the owner exists. Human beings have the same nature as objects. We are also fluctuating blobs.
All these illusions are very practical because they make the reality intelligible and we can operate on it. It is something that nature equipped us with.
Stealing very often is originated in greed. Greed has a base in fear of dying because of missing resources that are necessary to survive. This fear can be out of control and growing. People try to be ready for any possibility and gather more than they need. Sometimes they are desperate.
Moreover, people start to compete for resources. Some are able to gather much more than others. It is also in the same way stealing, although this person did it legally. In this case, stealing from this person may be an act of restoring the balance. However, it is all a very subtle thing to judge. It’s easy to use it as an excuse for stealing.
Another subtle stilling is computer piracy or not paying for a fare. It looks like nobody is losing anything, so there should not be a problem. But we benefit from someone’s work and we do not give anything back. So it is not freely given because authors expect us to pay for their product.
