Silicon Valley's Problem

I hear this argument a lot, and for some reason, I always think of slavery in the US.

Imagine you are a slave. You don't like it, and wish slavery would end. Another slave tells you:

"Given the fact that slavery exists and slave owners have immense power, I think we're presented with two choices. We can either try to make slave owners better or we can ignore slavery."

Put in that light, the suggestion seems absurd: empower slave owners to be even better at slavery? Really? How does that help us not be slaves? And how does ignoring slavery help?

And why are these the only two options? I can see why the slave owners would want these to be the only two options, but you're a slave, too. Surely, surely, ending slavery has to be an option too?

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My favorite slavery thought experiment concerns democratic slavery:

One day, a slave notices that his owner is, well, something of a dictator. He's the only guy in charge, and hey, who picked him anyway?

So the slaves get together and demand the right to vote to choose their slave owner. (The possibility that slavery might be wrong, in and of itself, does not occur to them.)

Two different slave owner "parties" arise (let's call them the Rs and Ds), and every four years, the slaves are given the opportunity to vote for the slave owner candidate from the R party, the D party, and usually one (or sometimes two) fringe candidates not associated with either party.

The slaves do a great "get out the vote" effort to choose their slave owner for the next four years, but still, less than half of the slaves vote.

Those slaves that don't vote for a new slave owner are told to STFU about slavery, since they didn't vote, by the slaves who did vote.

Now replace "slavery" with "government", "slave owners" with "politicians", and "citizen" with "slave".

At the very least, it should be clear that the act of voting doesn't legitimize government, just like voting doesn't legitimize slavery (which is not the same as saying government is illegitimate, it may be, or may not be, but voting doesn't make it so).

Voting also doesn't confer any moral benefit over those that choose not to vote, for similar reasons -- those telling non-voters to STFU are, in fact, wrong to do so.

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All of this is to say that, it seems to me, the mere existence of a thing, regardless of its "immense" power, doesn't mean anything with regard to whether we should attempt to prop it up further, ignore it, or tear it down.

And as with the democratically-elected slave owners, even the presence of things like 'voting' and 'elections' is no guarantee that the system (slavery) is in any way moral -- voting slaves are still slaves, after all.

IMO no one should feel obligated to help an entity they believe is actively hostile to their own, or others, interests -- regardless of the current power and/or respect said entity has with their peers -- government included.

It's a lot like Kiva, except there's no MFI acting as a middleman. Thus, borrowers pay far lower interest rates.

You see, borrowers of Kiva loans actually pay a lot in interest, with an average rate of about 35% - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiva_(organization)#Current_int... . At Zidisha, borrowers pay as little as 5% in interest.

Kiva has a pilot program inspired by Zidisha called Kiva Zip.

Disclosure: I'm on the board.