Yikes that’s a lot of assumptions you made about me from one sentence. Personally I’ve never had to steal, I grew up middle class and had the opportunity to build up savings to become financially independent, just like you apparently.
I just learned empathy while growing up, so I can feel bad for people who didn’t have the same opportunities I had, and now have to resort to stealing.
Take a look at the Wikipedia page. It really is innocuous, it actually originated as a form of measurement like feet.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb
The top comment is using false etymology that was propagated in the 1970s.
I respect your intuition to drop problematic phrases but you may have been lead astray on “rule of thumb” by a very common rumour that that is where it originated.
In fact no law every existed and it was more used between traders as thumbs were an easy mode of measurement available to anyone.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb
The Wikipedia article even explains the “switch” rumour and provides some backstory and explanation to it.