71–80 of 81 posts
People who think it's bad to want the world economy to grow probably haven't stopped to think about what economic growth consists of. Economic growth isn't just fat Americans buying bigger SUVs. It's also people in poor countries increasing their standard of living, and advances in medical care.
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We should question the idea of "growth" especially if its leaving a net negative on other aspects of humanity.
Do you have any data to support that statement? You are going to need a pretty massive data set and significant argument to demonstrate both the cause and the negative aspect of the effect.
Is it just me that's sick and tired of all these extreme all or nothing causes? It's either no patents or leave it the same, it's either capitalism is all bad or all good, it's either we are saving the planet or burning it as we go. You know we can just change certain laws in the patent system to get it fixed right? You understand that the idea of someone being able to sale their hard work for a living isn't evil rig…
"It's called moderation." If moderation was the natural state of things, we wouldn't have to argue for it.
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Yes, the only way you can be free is to be free to produce, buy and sell things. And to do a million other activities that other people might not find virtuous.
The only way? I can conceive freedom without any buying and selling of things.
The fundamental axiom is that you own your own body. It follows from there that you own the output of your body. Trade is fundamentally the voluntary exchange of this output for other people's output. Preventing this exchange amounts to denying you the right to dispose of the output of your body, thus denying you ownership of it, thus denying you ownership of your body.
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That is irrelevant to the point at hand - asking everyone to not buy things on one day, even if successful, merely postpones the retailers' revenues by a day or so. A more poignant campaign would revolve around convincing people not to buy certain unnecessary things at all, ever.
"A more poignant campaign would revolve around convincing people not to buy certain unnecessary things at all, ever." Which is not at odds with Buy Nothing Day and the associated movement. They're not just suggesting you delay purchases, but to buy from independent/local crafters or make your own gifts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day I haven't followed the philosophy to a T, but I've avoided the malls a…
Funny that this is so high up on Hacker News. The first quote on the page: “Today, humanity faces a stark choice: save the planet and ditch capitalism, or save capitalism and ditch the planet.” There won't be too many startup accelerators or funding rounds when we ditch capitalism, folks. Funny how there was none of this talk on iPhone Launch Day, either...
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I buy plenty of things to make me happy. I don't need the internet. Either do you. I also don't need to eat anything other than bean tortillas, but I will. I could probably get through my life wiping with single ply, but I'd rather have double. If that makes me a bad guy in your eyes, ah well. I'm sure a few of the beers I went out my way to purchase will ease the pain.
I guess moderation in peoples consumption levels and the types of consumption are relative, but i'm sure there is a line where they become dangerous for the rest of the people living on the planet, but we in the 1st world really don't understand where that line is since we are not faced with the issues other people in the world are, so we look down and say who cares that i have enough while you don't, that's just how…
Even poor people spend money on non-necessities. I watched a documentary on how being able to afford a Coke is a sign of status in many third world countries. They obviously don't need Coke, but having it seems to make them happy (I can't complain, I love it as well). Even though they might not be able to afford many of things we deem important, they manage to get enough change together to buy a soft drink.
There is little we can do to help those in the poorest countries. We can give our time or our money, but rarely are either of those things given. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you've never taken time away from your job to spend a week in Liberia or Eritrea. Is it a problem? Probably. Is it something that is going to be solved by not buying anything today? Of course not.
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I guess moderation in peoples consumption levels and the types of consumption are relative, but i'm sure there is a line where they become dangerous for the rest of the people living on the planet, but we in the 1st world really don't understand where that line is since we are not faced with the issues other people in the world are, so we look down and say who cares that i have enough while you don't, that's just how…
My point was, it's all relative. Even poor people spend money on non-necessities. I watched a documentary on how being able to afford a Coke is a sign of status in many third world countries. They obviously don't need Coke, but having it seems to make them happy (I can't complain, I love it as well). Even though they might not be able to afford many of things we deem important, they manage to get enough change togeth…
That doesn't mean those things are good. If our society here in the west was focused on exporting things for the good of the people around the world, maybe we would export good education?
But you just cant export good things when everything is money driven, someone has to suffer, someone has to get the short stick from the bunch and in this case it is the poor people because they don't have enough power to do anything about it. They're problems are real, food, clean water, electricity, education so they accept our so called sharp toothed help because it alleviates some of their problems in the short term, but they don't have the right organization to stop us and say "no, you can't dump your shit(chemical waste, etc) here man", no if you can't find cheap labor in your country "we wont work for you here either unless you pay us the right amount" So the west knows this, corporations know this, so they go and exploit and keep it hidden from us because they want us to be at ease when we pay for their products at the cash register.
When you say there is little we can do, we can also abstain from putting forward idiotic ideals into their television sets so they go buy our shit because they think that is the thing to do, since television and ads are the only major exposure they get from the 1st world countries they look up to it because of their ignorance that there are problems there too.
We can also abstain from going over there and exploiting them because they haven't had the proper education to judge our causes in a equal light.
Yes there are things we can do, and yes not shopping one day is a start, i didn't say not shopping at all, but not shopping on one major day out of 365 days is not too much to ask, because if you want to make a impact it has to be substantial, its the same mindset corporations have when they go look for cheap labor, we need a place to make shit that will ensure us with substantial profits.
I've lived in a 3rd world country before so i know that you can make do with less and even here i make do with way less than the average hard-working american(including immigrants), even though i can live a life that includes many more material things, for me those things don't increase my happiness, so i choose not to.
And this western way of going about things assuming that the major problems of earth will be solved by the people who currently are in the have, is faulty thinking as well, no one can say that the person who can contribute most to this world can't be born somewhere in a very unfortunate environment but with the right treatment can grow up and cure cancer, develop clean energy, produce more efficient systems, for us to sit here in the west and pretend we are the only ones that can even deal with and attempt to solve these problems just because we are in the have category is ignorant.
On some level not providing the right education to all of the worlds population is shooting ourselves in the foot at a global level, because you never know where the major game-changer will be born and by not providing a good eco-system for those people to grow in, you are negating this so called progress ideal which is so feverishly rooted in our future
People who think it's bad to want the world economy to grow probably haven't stopped to think about what economic growth consists of. Economic growth isn't just fat Americans buying bigger SUVs. It's also people in poor countries increasing their standard of living, and advances in medical care.
That was an ad hominem response to the question of can we continue using resources at an ever increasing rate. That includes asking if the world can afford to bring the poor up to western living standards. They are ugly questions but it doesn't make sense to burry our heads in the sand about them.
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"A more poignant campaign would revolve around convincing people not to buy certain unnecessary things at all, ever." Which is not at odds with Buy Nothing Day and the associated movement. They're not just suggesting you delay purchases, but to buy from independent/local crafters or make your own gifts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day I haven't followed the philosophy to a T, but I've avoided the malls a…
> Supporting local/small businesses is always a good idea! Why?
I have very little control over consumer electronics, and I am a bit too reliant on Amazon for mass-market goods, but I try to be somewhat conscious of my purchases.