8 said
This is inapplicable here.Both parties did something wrong in this situation. It's common sense not to leave valuables out in the open where you can't keep an eye on them. That's on you for getting your shit stolen, maybe be more careful. Not to say it's okay for people to steal, because that's completely wrong of course. Both parties are in the wrong here. (of course the person w/ their things stolen is to a lesser extent)Not everything is black and white, just because the whole "asking for it" is applicable in some places, doesn't mean it makes sense in every situation.edit: jorick said it better and less rudely below.
There is absolutely nothing morally wrong with leaving your stuff out in the open. You aren't a bad person for doing so. You are not "in the wrong" for not having taken precaution against someone else's shitty actions. As that is my belief, in my view what I said was perfectly applicable. But considering you're edit, I'll primarily respond to Jory-senpai. My thoughts are in a hider below though, because I've typed them all out now and I may as well put them there.
You act as if they are somehow partially in the moral wrong for having not taken cautionary measures (that until very recently had never been necessary). Well, no - I think that's a pretty flawed view, and it's one that shitty people use as an excuse for what they do. It's enabling people's shitty behaviour. At the bottom line, if you steal from someone, you are responsible for that. You did a bad thing. It was your decision to do that. You did not have to. You voluntarily chose to do it. The fact that it was easier does not somehow make it more morally okay, or less on you/not fully your fault. The crime was 100% perpetrated by you; you and your decision to do it were the sole factors in whether it occurred or not, because if you had chosen not to it would not have occurred.
As an example: my father's block of flats was broken into recently. One flat was burgled and damaged. The way this occurred was through breaking through two correctly-locked, relatively secure doors. In the normal course of things, this is a perfectly reasonable, usual level of protection. After the event, the police installed extra protective measures on all the doors. By the logic used by you and 8 and Marik, for not having the extra preventative measures (that had never been necessary or seemed reasonable until after the burglary), my father and the people in the burgled flat are partially to blame for the robbery. After all, they did not take sufficient preventative measures to avoid it, did they? Never mind that those measures had never been required before. Never mind that it's pretty hard to lay blame for a burglary at the feet of someone who's just lost everything to some twats with a crowbar or two.
I do not believe you would be saying these things if it were a more charged issue like murder or rape. I would certainly hope you wouldn't say to someone who had been raped that, because they were dressed a certain way or walked the last 200 metres home alone or were drunk or whatever that it was on them, that it was their fault to some extent that they were raped. I'd hope you'd believe a girl has a right to have a drink, or two walk 200m, or to wear a skirt, without being raped for it. Because that's fucking preposterous and abysmal. The fact that the loss of a mechanical pencil is obviously a less serious issue doesn't actually change the principles behind the morality of committing the crime or not.
Jorick said
There are reasonable precautions that one should take against the awfulness of other people. Is it shitty that the bad thing happened to them? Absolutely. Could they have done something to prevent it? Well, maybe, maybe not, it's not a sure thing one way or the other. It doesn't mean that it's they're fault for what occurred if the bad shit happens when they weren't taking those aforementioned precautions, bringing them up is just a way of saying that perhaps it might not have happened if they were cautious instead. It's more of a tip for the future for the wronged person, and something that others can learn from so they might take said precautions and perhaps never be the victim of douchebaggery themselves.
I don't think Marik's post was meant as a cautionary tip, which is why I replied the way I did. It certainly came across the same way as 8's post above - "well you left it where it could be stolen so it's your fault." In applying the concept of "fault", you place blame at their feet in some way or another, no? If you go back and read Rax's post, nowhere is it implied that advice is being sought. It's pretty obvious that Rax is aware that leaving the pen out led to it being stolen. That's why she addressed it by stating that it had never been necessary before thanks to her much more conscientious classmates. This is, after all, a pretty elementary conclusion.
So I rather doubt that Marik was offering genuine good-hearted cautionary wisdom, considering it's pretty obvious and Rax clearly knows. There's pretty clearly an element or vibe of blame or fault being placed on Rax for it. The tone of sarcasm (probably not the right word, but whatever) involved in intentionally pointing out such a thing, something the other person is obviously aware of, gives it an entirely different meaning. And you can see my thoughts above for my response to the concept that it's somehow on Rax above.
If I thought Marik's post was actually a genuine piece of cautionary future advice, I wouldn't have anything against it. But it doesn't really read that way, does it? Which is why I responded as I did.
LetsFly