Comment by globuous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by globuous | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Sure. But then, if you live in the "west", please realize the cost of turning on your light bulb or driving your car or wearing your shoes, or turning on the AC, or buying frozen meat. Realize the cost our lifestyle imposes on people elsewhere. The regimes that are protected and the lives we ruin in exchange for us being able to live the lifestyle that we have.

Please don't make me say what I didn't. I'm just asking, as a non googler, am I much better than someone working at google on some of their darker project ? Objectively, everytime I do one of the things I listed above, I kill more people.

My point being, your 4 points don't only apply to google employees. Indeed, at the very least, I feel they also apply to me, a non google, chillin at my house with AC and cold water.

I pick your third bullet point. Because 1 would be lying to myself, I don't believe in 2, and I'm too weak to pick 4: I won't stop using my AC. I conclude I must be a much worst person I thought I was.

On to watching netflix, I need to know what happens next in this one very important show.

I’ll just copy-paste a comment (not mine) from a different subthread: “This all-or-nothing approach to morality is stupid. Just because not every decision in your life may be 100% morally justifiable, that does not mean “throw all ethics over board”.”

> Sure. But then, if you live in the "west", please realize the cost of turning on your light bulb or driving your car or wearing your shoes, or turning on the AC, or buying frozen meat. Realize the cost our lifestyle imposes on people elsewhere. The regimes that are protected and the lives we ruin in exchange for us being able to live the lifestyle that we have.

Ah the old veiled blame capitalism and blame the west argument. Except for the fact that capitalism has been nothing but a boon for the entire globe, even the non-westerners, and that western traditions and values (which are not necessarily coupled to capitalism) have been instrumental in introducing ideas and institutions that have freed a lot people globally for the first time in all human history.

Capitalism overall has been nothing but a force of good for the world:

- The number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide declined by 80 percent from 1970 to 2006.

- Poverty worldwide included 94 percent of the world's population in 1820. In 2011, it was only 17 percent.

- Globally, those in the lower and middle income brackets saw increases in pay of 40 percent from 1988 to 2008.

- The world is 120 times better off today than in 1800 as a result of capitalism.

- Mortality rates for children under the age of five declined by 49 percent from 1990 to 2013.

Doesn't sound like its ruining too many lives to me. All those people should feel terrible though? Do you think the non-western Chinese sit around and pine about how terrible their people/culture is for turning on lights, wearing shoes, and enjoying climate controlled spaces? No they don't, and they shouldn't, because its ridiculously naive point of view on the world. Instead they are proud of what they've accomplished. Meanwhile some in the west are sitting at Starbucks on their mac books or smart phones whining about how terrible the "west" is while checking to see if their steady paycheck was direct deposited before they uber back to their furnished home or apartment, all without being arrested by secret police for their negative post upon arrival. Fancy that.

As opposed to that parallel universe without capitalism where no improvements happened?

You can't just point to improvements and say "look the system is good". If feudalism had remained the dominant system then we'd still have had some improvements in quality of life, and I'm sure the aristocracy of this hypothetical world would be pointing to that and saying "look feudalism has been nothing but a boon!" just as confidently as you.

The question is, could another system be better? And given that by pretty much any measure, we've had the resources to lift everyone out of poverty for years, and yet haven't used them to do that, I think it's not unreasonable to suggest that another way of allocating resources might be an improvement.

>Meanwhile some in the west are sitting at Starbucks on their mac books or smart phones whining about how terrible the "west" is while checking to see if their steady paycheck was direct deposited before they uber back to their furnished home or apartment, all without being arrested by secret police for their negative post upon arrival. Fancy that.

Meanwhile many people in the west can't afford most of these things, don't have a steady paycheck because they do shift work, live in a trailer, and are often harassed by the non-secret police for no reason. And they're the ones lucky enough to be born in developed economies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com