There are "people" on this board RIGHT NOW who pay money for books instead of just downloading them for free

>There are "people" on this board RIGHT NOW who pay money for books instead of just downloading them for free

Explain.

I'm not poor

I'm not poor either. That's not a compelling reason to pay people money like a sucker for things that are freely available.

I'm not a self-entitled poorfag and I like to collect and own books.

The books are buy are less than a bottle of soda and I like to read with a book in my hand instead of staring at a screen constantly.

Pussy is freely available, so why are you still a virgin?

>own books

You can own a computer that contains books with the added benefit that they exist as pure information rather than pleb paper.

Are you retarded, user? Do you actually not understand what I mean by "own books?" Do I really have to explain it to you?

Because I'm too smart for women. My vocabulary and noble bearing intimidate them.

>reading from a screen
Top pleb

Hahaahahha Ugly 2/10 detected.

It's you who don't understand that the real Form of the Book is pure Idea for you are still trapped in the cave with mere instances of participation in the Form of the Book as shadows cast on the wall of your mental prison.

It is written
>Thou shalt not steal

i can't retain anything when reading pdfs

>Looking at a copy of already widely distributed information is theft

wew

It is not your choice to make. The owner of this "widely distributed information" did not give it to you.

>owner
>information

No.

If you actually believed it was just an arbitrary mathematical sequence as your reductionism insinuates, you would not have seen a reason to download it.

>There are "people" on this board RIGHT NOW who are physically incapable of not posting anime faces
Explain.

>arbitrary

It's not arbitrary. It's also not a thing that can be stolen. Learning the melody to a song doesn't remove the melody from the head of the songwriter.

>this board

You mean this anime website board?

If it isn't arbitrary, it is not "just" information. It is the work of a creator, the product of a business, and you stole it without paying.

The rest of your post is false equivalence.

>If it isn't arbitrary, it is not "just" information.

That doesn't follow. If anything you could arbitrariness means it *isn't* information.

>stole

When you steal a thing the person you steal it from loses that thing. If the original person still has that thing then you didn't steal it.

*could argue

The moral culpability with regards to theft is that YOU took something that didn't belong to you. That is the sin for which you must seek forgiveness from God, and for which your guilt is palpable.

>took

You didn't take anything. The "owner" still "has" what he or she "had" to begin with.

But very importantly, YOU now have something that rightfully belongs to them, but you did not compensate them for it.

Again, the moral failing lies with you. You're attempting to play a "tree falls down when no one is around to hear it" game, but it doesn't absolve you from your crime. Such is goodness and truth.

>you did not compensate

So you want there to be compensation for knowing information because a lack of technology in the past used to allow for that. But technology today doesn't let knowledge of information yield the same opportunities. Too bad.

Technology allows us to commit many evils that were previously outside our ability, but not outside our nature. That is why morality has to do with human nature rather than with human technology. Just as murder is still a crime even if it is done painlessly or skillfully on the innocent and the guilty alike, theft remains theft no matter what twist of language you use to deny it.

If the person you "murder" doesn't die then you have a fair analogy to what you're calling "theft."

If the author is still alive I try to buy or rent, if they are dead I download or rent.