Finder's Keepers?

I was going to post a thread about what I should do with the trip to Europe I will be taking on behalf of the American taxpayers. But I don't want GGT to explode, so I will post a hypothetical dilemma involving a different issue of things falling into your lap.

Imagine you are at the gym. You get onto one of the available cardio machines and there is a Kindle just sitting there on the control panel. You look around to see if someone nearby is actually using the machine and stepped away. An attractive person on the adjacent machine says someone just left it there maybe 20 minutes ago and walked away with their towel and iPhone.

So you work out for half an hour on the machine and no one comes to get the Kindle. Given some particular knowledge of the gym staff, you know there is a 90% chance turning-in the device will lead to that staff member taking it home when the shift changes in an hour and a half.

When you turn on the Kindle, you look for any contact info of the owner. There is none, but the device is named "Mindy's 5th Kindle!" :rolleyes:

Do you:

A) Pursue the 10% chance the staff member won't steal the device and turn it in.

B) Take the Kindle home, even though you never really wanted/needed one. Maybe it'll be useful on some taxpayer-funded trip to Europe.

C) Get a description of the person who left the Kindle from the person on the adjacent machine. Hold onto the Kindle, and bring it with you each time you go to the gym. When you run into the person who fits the description of the owner, ask them if they lost something here, if they say yes, a Kindle, give them back their Kindle.

Dread, there's no question that (b) is wrong; the only question is whether there is a better alternative to (a) along the lines of what Timbuk said. Anything that has personally identifiable information on it (e.g. Kindles are personalized) should be default be returned to the owners using all reasonable means. To do otherwise is theft. Only anonymous goods (e.g. cash) should be treated as 'finder's keepers'. Amazon might actually be able to help on this one; according to some discussions on their website, they'll send you a shipping label, read the serial number, and return it to the correct individual.

A detailed and fairly reasonable discussion of these issues can be found in the second chapter of the Babylonian Bava Metzia, and I've found that it's one of the aspects of ancient legal discourse that applies just as well today as it did 1500 years ago.

You can't justify your own theft of something simply because there is a good chance someone else is going to steal it. Like Timbuk and Wiggin have stated, if you don't want to leave it with the gym staff to give back, or leave the Kindle where it is, then there is the option of using your own means, within reason, to find the owner or get it back to them.

Someone want to make the connection between gym kindle and taxpayer Europe trip? :bulb:


anyway, for Kindles, Amazon already has a system in place to help get the kindle back to the original owner.

For sod's sake you're getting a free eurotrip, you can afford to get your own kindle and return this one to the no-doubt super-cute ditz who or may not have lost four others already. You can have coffee with her and discuss the G-Shot, but whatever you do don't give her any presents.

And then when it turns out to be a dodgy white-suited lawyer you can ask him for a favour

Since you can send it back to Amazon apparently, do that, obviously :p Otherwise, either get personal information from the other person at the gym, or stuff on the Kindle, and get it back that way, or, either drop a note at the staff that you find it and that the owner can contact you (or post a note, or something like that), or drop it off at the staff but get their information down so you could check up on it later (so they can't steal it). Or just turn it in at the police, or the manager instead of a low level employee.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

I was going to post a thread about what I should do with the trip to Europe I will be taking on behalf of the American taxpayers. But I don't want GGT to explode, so I will post a hypothetical dilemma involving a different issue of things falling into your lap.

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Hey! That sounds like the better moral dilemma thread! :p

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An attractive person on the adjacent machine says someone just left it there maybe 20 minutes ago and walked away with their towel and iPhone.

So you work out for half an hour on the machine and no one comes to get the Kindle.

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Was s/he soooo attractive that your brain froze, and you couldn't get more information? :picard:

Dude, seriously, you should have asked more questions right then and there, then asked the gym "staff" to connect the puzzle pieces and identify the gym "member". (I'm assuming this is a private membership gym, right?) Then you'd leave a note for "Mindy", so the next time she comes to work out and asks the staff if anyone found a Kindle at the cardio machines....

You can still do that by posting a note on the gym's bulletin board, or leaving a note in Lost and Found, if you don't trust the gym staff. Or let Amazon do it for you.

Leave a note with your best Dreadnaught-face :o

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Imagine you are at the gym.

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Stopped reading here. Did not compute.

Why not "Imagine you're at a bar"?

The contrast between the responses here and the responses I got in real life are fascinating. Everyone in real life thought either were entirely valid options, and no one was all high-and-mighty about option B. Some basically said finder's keepers. Which suggests people are more high-and-mighty on the Internet.

A few things some of the high horsemen/women seemed to miss in the original post:

1) This gym is packed with hundreds of people during peak hours. And it's the time of year where everyone tries working out for a week or two then fades away, leaving us regulars to our peace. There was no way to see the woman on the machine next to me; haven't seen her since.

2) A lot of people seemed to miss the point that the gym staff would undoubtedly steal it.

3) I don't want a Kindle. I don't really like them.

The one thing I wasn't aware of was that one could e-mail Amazon. My one concern here: if the person never calls Amazon, does Amazon just sit on it? Resell it? The fact that this person has had five Kindles makes me think she may have never figured out this whole thing.

How do you know she didn't give the first four to friends/relatives? And are you really going to use the socialist mindframe that if someone is rich enough to get 5 of something, they don't really need the fifth one? Seems like a lot of rationalization to me. Amazon is hardly going to steal it. Send it to them and let them deal with it. I would imagine they'd send it straight to the person since they have their address saved.

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

The contrast between the responses here and the responses I got in real life are fascinating. Everyone in real life thought either were entirely valid options, and no one was all high-and-mighty about option B. Some basically said finder's keepers. Which suggests people are more high-and-mighty on the Internet.

A few things some of the high horsemen/women seemed to miss in the original post:

1) This gym is packed with hundreds of people during peak hours. And it's the time of year where everyone tries working out for a week or two then fades away, leaving us regulars to our peace. There was no way to see the woman on the machine next to me; haven't seen her since.

2) A lot of people seemed to miss the point that the gym staff would undoubtedly steal it.

3) I don't want a Kindle. I don't really like them.

The one thing I wasn't aware of was that one could e-mail Amazon. My one concern here: if the person never calls Amazon, does Amazon just sit on it? Resell it? The fact that this person has had five Kindles makes me think she may have never figured out this whole thing.

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or you know, your social circle is full of assholes. Wouldn't be the first time the questionable quality of your IRL friends have popped up in conversation here :p

I wouldn't doubt it if Amazon would attempt to contact the original owner. The whole marketing plan behind the kindle is to sell content for the device. The idea doesn't fly to well when they are only selling devices. If you are that paranoid about Amazon refurbing it, they suggest turning it into the local police so that the owner can collect it from there, or they give you the information to a couple of electronic recycling programs.

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Originally Posted by Loki

And are you really going to use the socialist mindframe that if someone is rich enough to get 5 of something, they don't really need the fifth one?

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Go fuck yourself, huh

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Originally Posted by Loki

How do you know she didn't give the first four to friends/relatives? And are you really going to use the socialist mindframe that if someone is rich enough to get 5 of something, they don't really need the fifth one?

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Nice try, but I am of the belief that someone should be smart enough to not leave their 5th digital device out in the open. And that they risk someone else taking it and selling it on Craigslist for a cool $20. Hyper-kapital. :o

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Nice try, but I am of the belief that someone should be smart enough to not leave their 5th digital device out in the open. And that they risk someone else taking it and selling it on Craigslist for a cool $20. Hyper-kapital. :o

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He's the morals of the Lager without ever visiting one! What a gem-stone.

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Originally Posted by Nessus

Go fuck yourself, huh

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I'm actually basing that on the logic used by a socialist friend of mine. He claimed that if someone has two yachts, the government should be able to take one of them. :noob:

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Originally Posted by Loki

I'm actually basing that on the logic used by a socialist friend of mine. He claimed that if someone has two yachts, the government should be able to take one of them. :noob:

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So do I get to use Edison as short-hand of your logic, then?

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

Nice try, but I am of the belief that someone should be smart enough to not leave their 5th digital device out in the open. And that they risk someone else taking it and selling it on Craigslist for a cool $20. Hyper-kapital. :o

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And if someone dresses like a slut, it's ok to rape then. Sorry, but someone being stupid doesn't justify committing a crime against them.

Imagine you are at the gym. You're on one of the cardio machines and you're reading your kindle. You finish up at leave, but 30 minutes later you realize you left your Kindle at the gym and turn round and go back for it. By the time you get there, it's already gone. You ask the gym staff, but no one has handed it in.

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

Imagine you are at the gym. You're on one of the cardio machines and you're reading your kindle. You finish up at leave, but 30 minutes later you realize you left your Kindle at the gym and turn round and go back for it. By the time you get there, it's already gone. You ask the gym staff, but no one has handed it in.

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This.

There is no excuse to hold onto it, plus "5th kindle" could mean a few different things.

Plus, next time Dreadnaught hassles Ominous about being a pirate, OG can be all like "hey dread do you remember that time when you helped yourself to someone's kindle in a gym and then justified it by saying it was ok because she was stupid enough to leave her shit lying around?"

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

The one thing I wasn't aware of was that one could e-mail Amazon. My one concern here: if the person never calls Amazon, does Amazon just sit on it? Resell it? The fact that this person has had five Kindles makes me think she may have never figured out this whole thing.

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See, I'm not trying to be high and mighty. I (and you) know that each electronic device is personally identifiable by Amazon - each has a unique serial number. From there, it wasn't a big leap to do a quick google for 'return lost kindle' to find the information. It took me about 30 seconds to figure out that there was a simple solution to the problem that was responsible and not morally ambiguous. The person doesn't need to contact Amazon - Amazon has ALL of their contact, billing, and address information, and it's a cinch for them to return a lost item. To me, this isn't a moral dilemma, it's a no-brainer on how to be a Boy Scout.

based on some knowledge there was a 100% chance of a ginger taking the kindle home and until recently a 90% chance of him just keeping it :o

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

Imagine you are at the gym. You're on one of the cardio machines and you're reading your kindle. You finish up at leave, but 30 minutes later you realize you left your Kindle at the gym and turn round and go back for it. By the time you get there, it's already gone. You ask the gym staff, but no one has handed it in.

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Then the gym staff probably told her "It happens a lot. You leave something on a machine for a moment without thinking about it, and some douchebag takes it and keeps it. They probably tell themselves that if they turn it in to lost and found, that we'd just keep it, so why not keep it themselves right? People can be such assholes."

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Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

or you know, your social circle is full of assholes.

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Damn you, I wanted to write that, I need to check all threads each day :(

What I am surprised about is, that Dread is going to a gym that he knows the staff is taking lost items for themselves. For me, such a behavior would be a reason to change the gym. Now maybe New York don't has a gym without such jerks as staff, but that would than be a bad sign about your city in general. :|

This would be a good sitcom episode. Six months from now Dread will be at a swanky bar hitting on a very fit lady...

...

...

... "You jerk!" *SMACK* :(

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Originally Posted by Dreadnaught

The contrast between the responses here and the responses I got in real life are fascinating. Everyone in real life thought either were entirely valid options, and no one was all high-and-mighty about option B. Some basically said finder's keepers. Which suggests people are more high-and-mighty on the Internet.

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High and Mighty on the internet, huh. :rolleyes: Dread, you can't really compare RL with internet responses, since we all know you didn't hand those RL people a piece of paper they could read, vote, and submit anonymously. That certainly wouldn't have given you the same type of discussion you asked for here.

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A few things some of the high horsemen/women seemed to miss in the original post:

1) This gym is packed with hundreds of people during peak hours. And it's the time of year where everyone tries working out for a week or two then fades away, leaving us regulars to our peace. There was no way to see the woman on the machine next to me; haven't seen her since.

2) A lot of people seemed to miss the point that the gym staff would undoubtedly steal it.

3) I don't want a Kindle. I don't really like them.

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The place and thing don't matter much in principle, do they? You might as well say you found a $300 watch in a department store fitting room. Maybe it was a "cheap" watch but was engraved on the back "from Mindy, with love". Either you want to return the item to its proper owner, or you don't. The WHY and HOW is up to you.

double post