Lockpicking

Inspired in part by Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, I bought a Master Lock today, with the sole purpose of learning how to pick it. Just for curiosity's sake - if I wanted to steal anything from school locker's, enough people leave them open anyways.

Anyways, I've been meaning to do this for some time, and I recalled the time when, a month or two ago, I announced my intention of learning to crack Master Locks in the RL locker room. A friend spoke up, mentioning that I might not want to announce that publicly, suggesting, it seemed to me, that'd I'd probably be better off not knowing at all. Maybe I'm imagining things, but it seems to me that general sentiment would concur that lock picking would be an unwise hobby to pursue.

That seems somehow wrong to me. Knowledge, by itself, should never be a bad thing. Learning to pick locks, and then using that ability to steal others' property is wrong. Learning to pick locks just for the challenge it presents, and at worst to execute a practical joke (merely unlocking a friend's locker to spook him out), should not be. Now, I recognize that you can never know for sure why someone wants to learn something, and it's certainly easier to assume malicious intent, and try to suppress the knowledge entirely, this is ultimately a losing battle, and, more importantly, it strikes me as simply unjust and unfair.

Now back to cracking that lock.