We all have our own distinctive sense of what is moral or ethical, but the more we think about this, we realize how complicated our morals can become.
In some cases, this might lead people to even break the rules if they feel that breaking the rules could serve a greater purpose.
Curious what others might say, Redditor RGDJR asked:
"What's a common rule that you break regularly because you fundamentally disagree with it?"
Salary Transparency
"'Do not discuss salary with colleagues or people outside this company.' F**k that."
- fiiindca
"I love to talk about salary with people. I’m a data analyst with a BA and two years of experience, and I make $81,800."
"If we don’t talk about salaries, it will enable our employers to financially take advantage of us."
- Moon_Beam89
Access to Content
"I disregard rules about pirating content that I am geographically restricted from streaming legally."
- nolawnchairs
"It's insane when they try to section off certain content for different parts of the world. Come on, the internet hypes everyone up at the same time. Marketing spills over across the ocean, and not letting a different part of the world see the thing you're marketing locally is just a waste."
"Oftentimes, people will have lost interest by the time they try to half-a**edly re-market it in different territories, and it's difficult to reboot hype after the wave dies down the first time. So again, to see the thing while they're still excited for it, people will pirate it if it's not made available."
- Pikka_Bird
Digital and Physical Copy Pairs
"If I paid the money for a CD, I can rip it to mp3, and for books, if I paid for a physical copy, I should be able to have a digital one."
- Urururpian
Subscriptions... Everywhere
"I'm so tired of the 'subscription' world we live in now. I basically just pirate everything. I used to buy the discs still. But many movies don't get released in UHD, so what's the point of even looking."
"I don't want to stream compressed 4k. And I certainly don't want to worry about whether or not the company pulls the movie from their service or just stops it altogether."
- ArcRus
Only Smart Laws
"In 1950s New Zealand they used to have six o’clock closing for all the bars by law. My dad was barely of drinking age but he used to line up with everyone else and hand over his cash while the publican sold flagons of beer over the back fence."
"He told me this story to teach me this axiom, 'You don’t obey the STUPID laws.'"
- DadLoco
...Fair
"Account sharing. I bought the game, service, movie, etc, I get to decide who uses it."
- zane411
Both Fair Points!
"Jaywalking. If the street is obviously clear, I'm not going to wait for nothing."
- hapster113
"I feel safer crossing in the middle of a block. I only have two directions to worry about. Not four directions and if they are going straight or turning."
- frix86
Time for an UNO Reverse
"The rule that you cannot place a plus-two on a plus-two in UNO. I am always going to break that rule no matter what anyone says."
- pheonix_aryan
Breakfast Is What You Make It
"'Breakfast foods.' I've had coworkers walk in on me eating steak and mashed potatoes with asparagus at 7:00 AM for breakfast. When questioned, I always respond, 'I don’t subscribe to societal norms of proper mealtime foods.'"
- TheDUDE1411
Who Doesn't Dream of Finding a Giant Bag of Money?
"If I find cash on the ground, I'm not going to give it to the authorities."
- kyubeyt
"100% this, especially if the authority in question is a private business."
"I worked at Gamestop when I was younger. A gentleman waited in a 'Christmastime at the mall' length line to give me a $50 bill he'd found on the ground and asked me to hold it in case the owner came looking for it."
"I thanked him. Immediately after he left, my manager said that if the person didn't claim it, it would be given to the store and put in the nightly deposit."
"I said 'f**k that' and made it disappear shortly afterward. After my shift, I went and bought a few homeless folks some hot dinners. I figured that was more in the spirit of the gentleman who brought it in and f**ks just giving a multibillion-dollar company $50 when it can do a lot more good."
- PoetryUpInThisB***h
A Managerial Role Model
"My employees don't pay for food on my shifts. We don't pay them a living wage. I’m not about to make them pay for a meal for themselves after they've given me eight to nine hours of their day."
- aviatorium
Don't Ever Listen to Big Laundry
"Do socks really need to match, or is this just a bill of goods sold to us by Big Laundry?"
- GreenAdder
Going with the Flow
"I'm conscious of the speed limit, but typically follow the speed of traffic first. So if traffic is going faster than the speed limit, I'm going to go faster to keep pace with everyone else."
- icenuelle
"Agreed, and it's actually safer this way because you're not causing a disruption by being "slow." Especially in an area without safe passing space."
- magicrowantree
There Has to Be a Better Way
"I'm so sick of jobs trying to milk me when I work. I have a pretty good work ethic, but I don't want to work 40 hours a week. I want to work 32 hours, but am always pushed to 45 to 50. I work hard, so every manager wants to take advantage, leading to me burning out and needing a new job. I just want something comfortable long term."
- hyucktownfunk2
This One Will Make Some People Squirm
"The rule against ending a sentence with a preposition. That is one rule, up with which I will not put."
- KumquatHaberdash
"That actually is a very archaic rule from back when linguists were trying their hardest to make English make sense and started making up a bunch of Latin-based rules, even though English is not a Romance language and some of these rules simply do not make sense."
"In most romance (or derived from Latin) languages, you simply cannot split an infinitive without breaking a word and speaking gibberish; in English, it is not only possible but perfectly acceptable and more natural-sounding."
- Eana_M
There was a lot to think about brought up in this thread, from how we navigate language to how we safely navigate traffic.
It's important to remember that exceptions have to be made, sometimes even to the rules.
@LeeMerrittesq/X
@bob_moss/X
@jelanijones/Bluesky
@Aurkayne/X
@sadcommunistdog; @froglok/Bluesky