Yes. Most of the large and powerful organizations have severe moral problems, almost all of them due to violations of a simple rule: $ < Values
"Love of money is the root of all evil."
We all have choices. We all make decisions.
I would go even further and say that people who ride Uber or buy from Amazon are moral cretins.
Yes, it's an horrible world. I know, I'm saying that it is, I agree completely. What's the alternative? We blame people that work in other companies and claim we are honest and pure? Do we say that since there are X layers between us and them then we're fine? :)
Whew! It's not just me? That's reassuring (As in, yes, there IS a monster on the wing of the plane, but that's so much less scary if you see it too. Little Twilight Zone reference there.)
> What's the alternative?
I don't actually know. However...
Bucky Fuller calculated that we would have all the technology we need to supply our needs globally for everyone, if only we applied it efficiently, by sometime in the 1970's. We have arguably already passed that point, meaning that our problems today are not physical, that they are just psychological (or moral or religious or spiritual if you prefer.)
Starting in the mid-1970's a kind of effective cybernetic psychology has been developed (under a kind of trade name Neuro-Linguistic Programming) that provides simple algorithms for correcting a great deal of malfunctioning psychology. (Be aware that the Wikipedia article for NLP is crap, it's haunted by skeptics. I can vouch for NLP. Not only is it grounded in hard science, I myself was cured of serious debilitating depression. I owe my life in a sense to NLP.)
To sum up, we have the technology to supply our needs, and the technology to overcome our psychological problems, so I think it's a matter of A) dispelling ignorance of the possibility, and B) logistics.
Tag, you're it.
Alright then, where do we draw the line? Can I go buy a person? If not, can I invade Sudan?[1]
> Ethical consumption is a dead end.
Should we give up even thinking about it and just do whatever is most convenient?
Will that solve all our problems?
You know Amazon treats its employees like disposable shit. If you buy from them anyway you are putting your self-love above the love you should have for the folks working there. You know Uber is extracting value from their drivers[2] and will discard them without compunction when the robots come online. And they killed Elaine Herzberg. If you ride Uber you're rewarding them for all this and putting your self-love above the love you should have for those folks driving.
I'm gonna keep fighting for what I think is right. That means telling people that they are moral cretins when they are blithe about it. (I don't think violence solves anything, but a good rant can shake up a body's thoughts. I have friends that shop through Amazon and ride Uber and I don't chide them too harshly or often.)
Working at FB or one of the other emerging technocracies isn't an instance of "Never let ideological purity prevent you from effective action." It's a case of putting money above core values, or not having those values in the first place, or simply not paying attention.
If you're going to be a Morlock at least be a self-aware Morlock, eh?
> You can't even buy slavery-free clothing or food reliably.
You can try.
If you don't even try you're a moral cretin.[3] It's a common malady in this empty and abortive age.
[1] One of the few places where outright slavery still occurs in modern times. If that's not grounds for attack what is? Oil?
[2] "They don’t pay the cost of their capital. The wages they pay to their drivers are less than the depreciation of the cars and the expense of keeping the drivers fed, housed, and healthy. They pay less than minimum wage in most markets, and, in most markets, that is not enough to pay the costs of a car plus a human." https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-market-fairy-will-not-solve-the...?
[3] "Origin Late 18th century: from French crétin, from Swiss French crestin ‘Christian’ (from Latin Christianus), here used to mean ‘human being’, apparently as a reminder that, though deformed, cretins were human and not beasts." https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cretin
Between you and me, I pulled a muscle in my neck/shoulder this morning and I've been in a devil of a mood all day. I'm not trying to make excuses, I shouldn't have taken out my bad mood here. Today's B.S. is not indicative of my best efforts.
HN is an incredible forum (I interacted with Alan Kay the other day!!!) and I'm ashamed to have added such counter-productive negativity. It won't happen again.
I'm sorry for being part of the problem today. Have a great weekend.