If I was the owner of the only copy of an important book, I would have the legal right to destroy it, but nobody could argue convincingly that I did a good thing.

I'd argue that, if the destruction was done to digitize the book, what you did was a good thing. Would you disagree?

I read the article and don't see what you're seeing. Can you point out the "false pretenses". It seems the order was placed via a site that intentionally allows anonymous purchases.

As a sidebar:

a bookseller suspected that an order they received for 1,000 books on Biblio, a marketplace where buyers can remain anonymous, was for an AI company. So to get to the bottom of the mystery, they agreed to place an Apple AirTag between the pages of one of the volumes.

Emphasis mine.

That seems sketchy to me. I'm not confident it's illegal, but I'm guessing a website that intentionally allows anonymous purchases isn't going to take kindly to a vendor putting a tracking device in an order.

Oh no. Won't somebody think of the billionaire whose monopoly that got exposed by some independent journalists who couldn't be bought or bribed. How tragic.

If Amazon is behaving ethically, they don't need to hide what they're doing.

Hindsight makes people come to very foolish conclusions.

Hint: what if it didn't turn out to be Amazon?

404 media was already thorough in its previous research before actually tracking a book order. Despite your insinuation, there was no foolishness.

But if we follow your billionaire defense to its logical conclusion, they should not have bothered verifying their leads, and left the space billionaire alone.

there was no foolishness

The foolishness was yours. "The ends (in hindsight) justify the means" is not a particularly wise stance.

Like I said, what if it wasn't Amazon that was ordering the books; would it then be okay?

I understand the dislike of billionaires, but don't let it stop you from thinking.

The foolishness was yours

You don't need to stoop to insults.

what if it wasn’t Amazon that was ordering the books

Then the responsible journalists wouldn't publish the story. I don't know why you have so much disdain for this independent group.

I'd hate to hear your takes when Ed Snowden "illegally" leaked files to journalists.

I'm thinking about how your concern (which is borderline concern trolling) leaves no way to hold billionaires and their unethical companies accountable.

Like you said:

“The ends (in hindsight) justify the means” is not a particularly wise stance.

Just imagine if we applied this to the AI weirdos.

Then the responsible journalists wouldn't publish the story.

My concern isn't the story, it's the "hiding a tracking device in an order with an anonymous party". That's an invasion of privacy no matter who it's done to. You're presumably only okay with it because you dislike who it was done to, which is why I'm asking you to consider it without hindsight. What if it were done to someone other than Amazon? Do you still support that invasion of privacy? Why or why not?

They didn't know it was Amazon when they hid a tracking device in someone's order. They suspected, only.

What if it had been a small bookstore, or just some collector? Do you approve of those people being tracked?

Are you really not seeing this, or are you pretending to not get it?

What if journalists learned the names of innocent people in the Epstein files? Do the ends justify the means??? Oh no!

The answer to your question is "then the article wouldn't exist".

Your "concern" reads like concern trolling because the only way to satiate it is to shut down the free press, apparently to defend the space billionaire/pedophile billionaire class.

They sent a tracker in a book before the article was written. Before they knew it was Amazon. It only turned out to be Amazon, but when they sent it, it could have been anyone.

I feel like I have to ask: are you associated with the source? Your inability to understand my very simple and straightforward point is suspicious.

They sent a tracker in a book before the article was written.

Uh yeah. That's why they knew it was Amazon. If it ended up somewhere else, the article would be different, and shills for space billionaires would have to come up with something else to concern troll about.

I feel like I have to ask: are you associated with the source?

No, but since this is your level of politeness and since you've ignored basic statements like "corporations are not people" and claims the Epstein class needs to be exposed, I need to ask: are they paying you to shill for them, or do you do it for free?

If it ended up somewhere else, the article would be different

Yes!! Finally!!

What if it ended up at a mom and pop store? Are they deserving of privacy?

What if it ended up at a mom and pop store?

Then the article would probably be very different or not written at all, which is what I said already.

You're not responding to the Epstein class question I see. Really makes you think

Is this for real?

They sent a secret tracker before the article was written. The problem isn't the article, it's putting a secret tracker in the order. Would you like secret trackers in your orders, or would you consider that an invasion of privacy?

Seriously, I don't know any other way to say it.

Really makes you think

I look forward to seeing evidence of that.

I look forward to seeing evidence of that.

Of the Epstein Class? It's called the Epstein Files, although the Epstein Class defenders will tell you that it's dangerous to release those files because "somebody innocent could get hurt." I asked you point blank twice (now three times) why you're shilling for them, with the same degree of "good faith" you demonstrated toward me.

Except I was capable of answering and you weren't, which makes one think.

I get it, you want journalists silenced and you need to wrap that in whataboutism to make it happen, but sometimes tools can be good or bad depending on how they're used. "You don't want to be bombed, so Dresden shouldn't have been bombed either" is not the moral high ground you think it is.

I meant it would be nice to see evidence of thinking lol

I'm "shilling" (lol) for privacy. Journalists shouldn't be mailing hidden trackers to anyone. That's probably illegal. It definitely should be.

You're aligning yourself with the Epstein Class while concern trolling about privacy. They are the ones violating people's privacy every single day and enjoying protection the average person cannot afford. They are the ones hiding private jet flight records while tracking people's driving habits.

Appeals to human decency only work when you manage to have any yourself, and I see little evidence of that.

I'm not appealing to any decency from you (hilarious). I'm just asking for some consistency. You presumably think violations of privacy are bad, but here you are cheering on one.

I'm certain you understand the point I've been making, you're just unwilling to be intellectually honest about it.

Good luck.

The articles are oversimplifying because the law is impossibly complex, but the moral hazard is obvious.

It’s like they’re murdering orphans and someone tries to argue it’s actually state sanctioned manslaughter.

Booksellers “carry” utter shit.

Guess what they do when the book is refunded by the publisher due to bad sales? They cut off the covers and send them back as proof. The pages are destroyed. Nobody bats an eye.

No publisher or bookseller wants to carry 50000 copies of Joe Bob’s “How to cook maggots” when it flopped

Also how do you know if my fanfic is a physical book sold at a store or not? 😀

Great. The ants, cockroaches and rats will fight over world domination once we drove nearly everything else into extinction. That‘s so reassuring. I only ever cared about the ants anyway. /s

I genuinely don‘t give a shit about the 99% of the planet that isn‘t it‘s outer crust so obviously I don‘t care if „the planet will be fine“ either. That‘s not mine or your world. Neither is anything that happens in millions of years after pretty much every species we ever knew is no longer there. It‘s such a straw man argument. Nobody is talking about what that clown was talking about when saying „the planet“ and he knew it.

you're thinking too small scale.

in 150 million years after humans who knows what kind of life will evolve.

This has been a serious bugbear for me lately. I switched to eBay, NewEgg, Etsy to spite Amazon's monopoly on e-commerce but I have neither the awareness nor the "spoons" to sort out the vendors on those sites who ship through Amazon

It deflates my spirit a little every time one of my orders come in with that damn smirking logo