Technical arguments aside, this node is one of the very few nodes that I feel compelled to reply to. Shoplifting is a form of stealing. In every nation that I've had the privilege to visit, stealing is against the law. This means that if you do it, and you get caught, you wind up in jail.

Let's say you manage to steal fifteen designer shirts, worth a total of... I don't know... five hundred dollars and are then caught stealing the sixteenth shirt. You just saved yourself a lot of money. You will also get to spend several weeks living with your fellow convicted criminals. Now, would you rather do that, or would you rather get a minimum-wage job for ten days, or only a little over a week?

Personally, I couldn't steal, because I feel that it is wrong. I'm leaving those feelings out of this writeup. The bottom line, though, (no pun intended, of course) is that if you look through this node and decide to try some of these techniques I would first suggest considering whether you feel that waiting to purchase your CD or shirt or jacket for a week or two is better than

  • Going to jail for somewhere between a week and a month.
  • Having a criminal record tied to your name, which may mean never getting a job again outside of construction sites.
  • Never being welcome to shop in that store again.
  • Having to explain to your parents and employer why you felt that a brief article on the web justified theft.

ShadowNode: To start with, my parents were both staunchly anti-war in the sixties, and I personally feel that things are not right or wrong solely because of society's opinions on them. That said, however, interfering with the 'searching', as you call it, is very likely to get you accused of stealing, with the consequences I mention above.


ThePope: "Stay out of trouble" covers it exactly. I like and respect the diversity of people on this site, and while I am not a drug user (aside from caffeine), I must say that I have appreciated some of the pro-drug nodes here. However, stealing is wrong for reasons above and beyond the fact that the government doesn't like it, and the consequences for it are severe and, if they happen to you, they have a probability of one. Such things tend to render irrelevant any discussion of odds and how to improve them.