The Amazon Thief

When one escapes the concrete confines of the city for the slumbered solitude of the suburbs, they encounter a change in patterns of behavior. Gone are the security goblins, who endeavor perhaps more in keeping one out of their own apartment than unwanted guests. Gone too is that same security that somehow manages to limit delivery theft, thanks to 24-hour surveillance.

Enter Nextdoor, the app that appears to be like a Facebook for neighbors. Sure, one can spend money on products like Nest, or hire security companies to install cameras, but they can’t stop the thieves during their heists, only provide one with footage to perhaps identify the criminal somewhere down the road. This is where Nextdoor comes in. This app allows neighbors to alert each other to potential threats in the area, and if one checks their feed often, they may just decide to spend their days working remotely on the front porch swing.

But why should we care? Amazon claims department is usually pretty outstanding on ensuring their deliveries, whether a porch pilferer visits you or not. Sure, it’s a minor headache, especially if you need that package post haste, but you can still get your deliveries, with nothing out of pocket. The theft is just a minor setback, isn’t it?

When I was younger, my parents had a home invasion when they were out, and later, when they became business owners, were subjected to thousands of dollars of equipment being absconded through an inside job in the dead of night. The real problem wasn’t the loss of material goods, it was the loss of their personal safety and security, which sadly are just constructs within the mind. How does one safeguard a construct?

Well, we can take off our shoes at the airport for starters. Phew, I feel safer just thinking about it. Get rid of that dangerous travel hairspray and fingernail clippers while you’re at it. I’m also not too keen on germs, so if y’all could step back six feet and wear masks under your noses, or as chinstraps, that would be great.

Now we are getting somewhere. I enjoy a little security theater from time to time, as I think we all must, otherwise, we’d stop playing along with these games. Sure, our grandparents were fighting Nazis with their bare hands, but I no longer feel safe because some thief made off with my 12-dollar leggings from Shein.

And why stop there? Sometimes words make me feel unsafe. I used to enjoy constructive criticism from time to time, but nowadays, everything is really triggering to me. And I want everyone to constantly police each other’s words, because I can’t understand anything anymore with relation to context or subtext. With America being a low-context culture, I’m gonna need people to really spell out their intent, because I enjoy having things ELI5 style, and thinking is too hard.

Now we’re cooking with gas. Sure, we’re probably safer now than any other time in human history, as our life expectancies have doubled over the past 200 years, but our collective fears are at a 3-decade high. Why all the anxiety? Is it perhaps due to our access to information now?

News outlets have long profited on sensationalizing and playing on our fears. Fear Mongering sells. It’s clickbait. It’s drama. And though we are constantly being scolded for our inability to empathize with one another, we feel the pain of a child abduction (if we can get deep into the narrative) regardless of race, religion, or sexuality. And it has become borderless, though admittedly, just how it affects us is directly proportional to proximity. However, we still love our groups, and if it happens to a countryman, it may just as well have happened to a family member. Our access to media has enabled us to see more incidents of threat, and even if these threats are low in probability or percentage, our emotions don’t calculate mathematically. Which is exactly why we’ve become so reactionary.

Weren’t we talking about Amazon Thiefs? Sure, they suck. Let me be as low-context as possible: I am not in favor of, nor am I trying to diminish theft. It causes pain that is hard to erase. Perhaps instead of worrying about our problems, we need to take a real look at solutions. I know solutions have fallen out of fashion nowadays, but let’s give it a shot for nostalgia’s sake.

Aristotle had some ideas. You may have heard of him. He had this whole concept of Eudaimonia. I won’t bore you with the details, that’s what hyperlinks are for. Anyway, Aristotle believed in achieving personal greatness, and Eudaimonia was his concept for achieving this. He believed in fostering friendships and community, as well as developing character and integrity (should I hyperlink integrity for you? Damn, context. That sounded snotty). Add these all together, and you may care to have virtue, instead of constantly signaling for it.

We probably won’t eliminate all the ne'er do wells that exist, or will exist, but maybe we can decrease their numbers a tad. We can also try and train our youth to become productive members of society, because if people are invested in society, they’re less likely to break its rules (well, the blue collar ones at least… and no one is worried about a Madoff stealing their handcrafted earrings from Etsy).

Hopefully in the future, our only concerns on theft will be me stealing your time with a plethora of hyperlinks.