this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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First of all, I don't think trying to gauge something as amorphous and multi-faceted as intelligence is particularly useful. Most people aren't stupid or smart, even people in traditionally difficult or easy fields. People instead license themselves to believe narratives that justify what they believe benefits them. Everyone does this, we aren't immune to it.
Secondly, profits are not distributed to employees. Workers are paid wages based on the customary cost of labor in society, pressed downward by a capitalist's desire to pay workers as little as possible and upwards by worker organizing and necessity of sustaining themselves as workers. The capital advanced in wages usually is paid before the commodities are sold, and after the labor has been performed, meaning the capitalist already had the capital to advance initially.
Shoplifting targets profits, wages aren't impacted, at most and at scale the capitalist takes reduced profits. They can cut jobs, but that hurts profits as well, meaning in the end they must eat the reduced profits or spend more on security.