I was working on my own laptop in a cafe, and someone who was sat near me went to the bathroom without saying even a word, leaving their laptop open and logged in with company excel sheets up of whatever they were doing and I'm like are you kidding me?
I wonder if they expected me to protect it without them asking because I was working too and its like laptop solidarity? Either way, it was dumb on too many levels.
Maybe they hated their company and thought you were a shady hacker who would abscond with it and ruin the company?
Nah, taking the laptop just let's them know you have the data. Grab what you can while leaving as little obvious trace as possible.
They trusted you and it could be taken as a compliment. I'm definitely aware of others around me if I need to get up for a minute to get something.
I watched a great hidden camera segment a few years ago where strangers were asked to watch another stranger’s stuff on the beach. When a new person was sent in to pretend to steal the stuff, some of the strangers chased and began to fight the apparent thieves!
People are generally good (and I will continue to believe that especially because people are more likely to rise to the challenge if they can tell I believe that) :)
People generally want to be good, but they'll commit any number of atrocities if society says it's okay. Like eating meat and driving cars. It's pure, unfiltered evil, but it obeys their idea of what the social construct is, so they do it.
Sentience and the knowledge of it. We know automobiles and meat production are killing this planet. A raccoon does not.
You have eaten of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. A pig doesn't know right from wrong. It doesn't have ethics or philosophy. You do.
What do they know-all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world - about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.
Isaac Bashevis Singer, holocaust survivor.
Either that or I let the first person take it who looks confidently enough to be the owner. It depends on the mood
Agents of chaos point to someone else's stuff and ask a stranger to watch it.
Then they go get popcorn and a vantage point.
