Someone posted this on ssc with a warning about talking to cops, but really just marvel at what's going on here.
Aaronson manages to turn a story where he is briefly arrested for a theft (which he did commit on video!) into paragraphs and paragraphs of indulging in his persecution fantasies.
Zero empathy on display for the people he stole from, the people just doing their jobs, or reflection on the fact that it wasn't a simple little mistake anyone could make but rather... a fairly weird move? Do people usually put change in cups?
If anything, this is an example of a situation in which talking to the cops is actually your best option. If he'd sullenly plead the 5th there's a good chance they'd have arrested him properly and maybe even charged him, causing him to miss his flight.
I can admit this sounds like a fairly unpleasant experience, but airports are high security, unpleasant environments. I'm still not sure how someone could accidentally take a tip jar despite paying with card. Did he black out for 30 seconds?
"It’s like: my accusers arrive on the scene committed to a specific, hostile theory of me: that I’m a petty thief of smoothie bars, let’s say, or a sexual-harassment-loving misogynist."
But he did take the smoothie bar money. He might not have realized he was doing it, he might not have done it on purpose, but he did take the money. In this metaphor, he commits sexual harrassment but it's ok because he's too gormless to realize what he's doing.