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Climbers & their money do tons for the Sherpas and their communities - but that exchange is at gunpoint: Risk your lives for us, or your wives and children go without food & medicine. It's a no-win situation for them, and it's precisely because it's a no-win situation for them that this is morally fraught.

First of all, keep in mind that many of the alternatives - like going to build the 2022 World Cup stadium in Qatar - are also dangerous. Even the safe ones involve spending your life in a foreign country away from your family (often including your wife and kids), & having to learn a completely new language. For a lot of Sherpas, that's not even an option, since they're needed in their village for the crop seasons. At best, they have a set of ugly options to pick from.

Secondly, telling someone who has no financial security "I'll pay you to risk your life for me" is very different from telling someone who has money. The US military recruits heavily from the poor - and in fact that might be one of the most significant factors (http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&cont...). Is it fair that simply because someone was born into a lower standing, they have fewer options to live a safe life? The morality of that question alters drastically when you offer universal basic income.

As for moving to the US... that's also just not a possibility for 99% of Sherpas. Literacy & education rates are low, therefore so is knowledge about the visa systems (the main one they'd be eligible for is the diversity visa, which is a long-shot lottery anyway), not to mention the obvious language barrier. By design, immigration could only work out for a fraction of the population. Plus, a lot of them probably don't want to leave their family and culture behind. There's maybe 10,000 Nepalese in the US, and most of them from Kathmandu or the southern areas, which are culturally pretty different.

Climbers & their money do tons for the Sherpas and their communities - but that exchange is at gunpoint

I have a big problem with characterizing it thusly.

The Sherpas lived and died in Nepal for thousands of years before the arrival of western adventure seekers. A people continuing to live in the same manner as their ancestors isn't the worst thing in the world, especially if that's what those people want.

We can best raise standards of living for people around the world by engaging in trade with them. We bring a lot of western problems, like obesity and heart disease but we also bring western solutions, like medical care and abundant food sources.

The morality of that question alters drastically when you offer universal basic income.

If there's a morality question with, as you describe it, offering opportunities at gunpoint; how can there not be morality questions with taking tax money from others, actually at gunpoint?

There's also the cultural imperialism that's implicit in your scenario. Why would we assume that most Nepalese want to come to the US?

If travel and trade boosts their standard of living, because of their voluntary participation, that's a good thing.

> If there's a morality question with, as you describe it, offering opportunities at gunpoint; how can there not be morality questions with taking tax money from others, actually at gunpoint?

Non-taxation is also at gunpoint. Particularly in the case of land/property ownership (possibly the biggest factor in inequality), the thing that makes a wealthy person's land and buildings "theirs" is ultimately their ability to expel other people from them by force.

Ultimately you can frame anything as a negative or positive right. We as humans need to decide what sits best with our own consciences. Personally, I feel a visceral sense of injustice at the gross inequality of today's world - a sense that I don't feel when we talk about taking a fraction of the incomes of the wealthiest (provided we do so from all equally) and redistributing it to those less well off. It's possible that I'm peculiar in this regard, but I suspect not.

The crux of ownership is having the right to determine who has access to something and under what conditions.

You own your body and can use force to prevent someone from having sex with you against your will. I wouldn't say that you're going around not having sex with random strangers at gunpoint.

We as humans need to decide what sits best with our own consciences.

I can agree with that. It's just that our consciences are different.

I feel a visceral sense of injustice at the gross inequality of today's world

It's not just today's world. There has always been inequality and injustice. It used to be far worse. You won't be thrown into debtors prison for not being able to repay the usurious loan you had no choice in accepting to feed your starving children. You won't be executed for illegally killing a deer to feed your family. You won't be worked to death on a chain gang for stealing a loaf of bread.

> You own your body and can use force to prevent someone from having sex with you against your will. I wouldn't say that you're going around not having sex with random strangers at gunpoint.

I think that just boils down to the statement that it's very natural and instinctively moral that you control your own body. Whereas for one individual to control huge tracts of land or buildings that could house hundreds of other people is not natural or instinctively moral.

> taking tax money from others, actually at gunpoint?

Oh, please. The 'gunpoint' in the tax system is the same 'gunpoint' in any legal dispute - you have to go through a long and tedious process before you get the deputies with guns at the door, and even then, they're not there for your tax money, but to take you into custody.

> Risk your lives for us, or your wives and children go without food & medicine.

This isn't so.

There's many choices. One is to accept a relatively high risk, for the reward of a good earning and being able to both live in your country and be nearer your family.

The last choice is to not take any job, that's true.

But the actual second choice is either to find a different job for less money, or move away for better earnings to send money home.

The same could be said about sweatshops, but I find them morally disgusting.

My comment didn't take a position on morality, but was illustrating that the choice is not the simple (false?) dichotomy presented.

They ought to build a combination of cable cars and heated reinforced concrete tunnels to the summit. There should be a Starbucks at the top.

That couldn't possibly be less of a desecration than leaving increasing piles of dead human bodies and discarded oxygen bottles year after year.

The question isn't whether we moralize about the dangers they face in a profession they choose from options available to them. It's whether they're paid equitably for the job or are exploited for the benefit of western companies which neither provide adequately for their families in the event of their death nor enforce safeguards to limit their risk to the extent possible.

> What's wrong with allowing the Sherpas to make that choice

The parent comment wasn't suggesting that they shouldn't. Doesn't mean we can't discuss our own opinions on the matter.

> What's wrong with allowing the Sherpas to make that choice, instead of us moralizers

This point is exactly why I'm ok with sweatshops. Choosing assembling piececes for an iPhone instead of receiving an education is a perfectly valid option.

Apologies for invoking Poe's Law, but you mean that sarcastically, right?

No apology needed since you're completely right.

> I would wager there are many boxers out there who disagree.

A boxer would say YDKSAB.