As hard as it might be for you to believe, your subjective worldview is not absolute reality, and not everyone shares your world-view and definition of utility, so you can't actually judge whether their actions are self-defeating for them.

Laws are simply the consequences you face if you get caught performing behavior deemed illegal. The chances of someone being punished for removing the DRM from an eBook are essentially nil (provided you're not sharing it).

Moreover, I think consumers who have purchased a legal copy of a physical or DRM'd book have the moral authority to torrent a matching non-DRM copy, legal technicalities be damned.

Please don't try to paint everyone with the same brush, or resort to name-calling. Techies usually understand the trade-offs and risks, and non-techies simply need to be educated.