Where are these supposed sex slaves of mine and why haven't I met them for their annual performance review?
Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
41–50 of 54 posts
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#42A lot of the moral judgements made on the linked site about a materialistic lifestyle don't really have anything to do with the fact that people in the west are evil, but rather that the culture in certain parts of the world where manufacturing takes place is conductive to exploitation. For instance, if I buy a diamond ring, I am not responsible for lives taken with weapons that have been bought with diamonds. If I d…
I don't think we can be expected to be responsible for the damage that a product makes. Its just to unreasonable to expect people to be informed about everything they buy.
However, products should have to give full disclosure about harm caused. If I buy something that is made using child labour; it is deceptive and fraudulent not to disclose that.
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#43Maybe I am oversimplifying here, but I'm sure that a detailed audit of most companies could find behavior that some group would find unconscionable. I think that one could literally end up exhausting themselves by finding and actively avoiding these companies. I also think that if someone has no qualms breaking the law/exploiting people to make money, that cutting off one revenue stream would not stop the behavior of that person, they would move along to the next scam.
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#44The survey app takes an interesting approach to raising people's awareness of slave-labor conditions, but it doesn't make sense (or only makes sense for a particular demographic) to base calculations on how many items of a particular kind the survey-taker currently owns.
It matters just as much how often the items are replaced (once a year? once every 20 years? once in a lifetime?) and whether they're acquired new or used. In a materially rich society it's possible to buy almost all goods except food, medicine, and energy in the second-hand market. And, with a few tools, the life of many consumer goods can be greatly prolonged.
Some of the most politically and socially conscious (and most slave-labor averse) people I know are low-income old people who remember the Great Depression, live with packed closets, and spend their days repairing hand-me-downs and broken machines. They aren't, obviously, the target market of the slaveryfootprint app, but some of their consumption strategies might mentioned in future versions. There might be future questions along the lines of, "How many broken computers have your repaired in the past five years?" Or, "How many worn and outmoded garments have you mended and re-sewn into something more stylish?"
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty obvious that if you stop drinking CC, no one else will stop because you did. Meaning the events are conditionally independent. In my opinion, rallying large groups of people is the only way to make a difference. So really day to day choices you make on what to purchase have no effect on the system. I would argue that the only real way to change is attempting to effect group think. Individual purchase deci…
I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but my view is that I was not asked to be born under these circumstances (over population, unequality of wealth, unfairness, etc). I never was in charge of dictating the type of world I wanted to live in. Therefore, why do I have the burden to do something about unfairness in this world? It's like saying to a developer "Go fix this bug RIGHT NOW!", and then when he/she asks for…
I never meant to imply that you did have the burden. As engineers its easy to see something broken and think that it is our duty to fix it. But honestly, we can't fix everything (and fixing it doesn't always make it better haha).
The other assumption is that the only way to change this is to stop buying a product. The truth is robots are probably better than slaves. That day is coming hopefully!
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#46I know, completely irrelevant, but coltran is not a supercondctor.
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#47Apparently I have 60 slaves working for me. Anyone beat my "high score"?
Well the interface is very bad so I gave up after 8/11...
Interesting, I nearly gave up around that point. I think they tried to make the user experience a good one, but in the end it just looked confusing, and had my eyes scanning several times to try to figure out what was going on.
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#48After taking the test (69 slaves), I thought I would try to see if I could minimize & maximize the results. So as a 1-year old naked infant in Bangalore with absolutely nothing to her name, I had 14 slaves. As a 40-year old homeowner in NYC with 16 children, a large house and tons of stuff, I had 151 slaves.
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty obvious that if you stop drinking CC, no one else will stop because you did. Meaning the events are conditionally independent. In my opinion, rallying large groups of people is the only way to make a difference. So really day to day choices you make on what to purchase have no effect on the system. I would argue that the only real way to change is attempting to effect group think. Individual purchase deci…
I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but my view is that I was not asked to be born under these circumstances (over population, unequality of wealth, unfairness, etc). I never was in charge of dictating the type of world I wanted to live in. Therefore, why do I have the burden to do something about unfairness in this world? It's like saying to a developer "Go fix this bug RIGHT NOW!", and then when he/she asks for…
This way of thinking doesn't make sense. No one is claiming that you're responsible as in you need to fix this. We're claiming that you're responsible in the sense that you're part of the cause (or, in the language of Nagarjuna the "dominant condition" -http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/307/nagarlec.htm) of the exploitation of people in third world countries. There are many other conditions besides you, of course.
The most important goal is to deeply realize your position and relation to other people - how you act after you realize this is up to you/your emotional makeup/your virtues/etc.
My claim is that because of the complicating factors (visibility and ineffectiveness) inherent in this situation you aren't able to fully understand this relationship.
Re: Estimate how many slaves work for you based on your possessions and lifestyle.
#50A lot of the moral judgements made on the linked site about a materialistic lifestyle don't really have anything to do with the fact that people in the west are evil, but rather that the culture in certain parts of the world where manufacturing takes place is conductive to exploitation. For instance, if I buy a diamond ring, I am not responsible for lives taken with weapons that have been bought with diamonds. If I d…
I agree with the general principle of your comment, but I do think there is a difference between some of your examples concerning the consumer's proximity to the exploitation in question. Someone who buys a coke in Brooklyn is certainly far removed from the actions of a Coca-Cola subsidiary seizing drinking water in a far-off land, but someone purchasing the services of a sex worker who has been trafficked is much cl…
Yes, of course, if you buy sex from someone who is trafficked, I agree that you have a large moral responsibility. Not only to not buy services from these women, but also to inform law enforcement. And hopefully trafficing would pay less and become less popular if a lot of people did this.
I'm still skeptical to the degree that acts like these will actually lead to large-scale improvements in people's lives - as you're saying, the sex traffickers might find another way to exploit people and the consequences are really hard to quantify. Although some good could come from consumer pressure and boycotting, it's very hard to tell what the net effect would be. The way to get a real impact on the core problems here is to improve the cultural and economic conditions in the countries where exploitation happens.
I guess my argument is that although it is comfortable to believe it, consumers in the West actually have very little power over the wrongs that happen in the name of economic development in developing countries. Having demand for the services of developing economies in the first place is, at least potentially, a very promising source of change.