It's the way of the world. Instead of trying to change the world, you could try adjusting your moral framework to be more in line with the world. Also, trying to change the world without first changing yourself is futile. And if you changed your way to put the benefits of others over yourself it would just amount to suicide, leaving the world as it is.

"A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." --William James

Capitalism isn't the root of this problem and I'm not being a coward, I just made my choice. Fundamentally, I do not have a problem with sacrificing other people for my benefits and I do not pretend otherwise.

If the pretense is important for you, that's fine. You can keep pretending that you haven't made the same choice as me, if it makes you happy. But your actions speak louder than your words.

With limited resources there's always going to be a struggle to gain more benefits than other people. Few people willing kill themselves to benefit others, but lots of people willingly kill other people to benefit themselves. That's just human nature and the root of the problem. If you'd forfeit your own life in a kill or be killed situation your position would at least be consistent, albeit really stupid. But no one really is like that, everyone just loves to pretend that they are good people, which I don't even take issue with. I'm just openly admitting to my human nature.

How about this: what would the lives of these children be like without that work? From your Western perspective, you judge this to be awful and evil, but what if the work they're doing is actually allowing them to make their families more than they could otherwise? What if it's the best option that currently exists? What if it contributes to increasing living standards in their country over time?[0] You can't look at a third world country through the lens of Western standards of living. A dollar a day is worth a great deal in some parts of the world.

The question isn't "why are some people poor", it's "why are some people rich". Human beings are born poor. We receive or make (or steal) whatever we have.

[0] Obviously, I am discounting political corruption that might keep wages artificially low.

To sibling bobthechef, whom the site will not let me reply to directly:

Your question assumes a frame of atomized individual decision making, and forgoes the possibility of changing our political economy so that children don’t have to work.

This is easily doable from a production standpoint (i.e., we could all still have enough if children did not have to work, perhaps Bezos would have to give up a little).

That we don’t do this is an entirely political decision.

Morally motivated veganism is the obvious example.

As long as they own a smartphone, I'd categorize it as pretending. It's like a slave owner who goes vegan. It's clear that they do not give up their own benefits, but merely pretend to, by making choices that do not really infringe on their core benefits.

> Yes, generally we do just silently accept these things. You're typing this on a PC or phone built using slave labor using minerals extracted by warlords to fund campaigns of oppression (despite some companies paying lip service to these issues it really still affects all electronic devices). When you are finished with them, they will be sent to Africa and burned in open landfills by hand to extract valuable minerals. Our oil market is based on dictators extracting their nation's wealth and using it to fund terror, in some cases literally on us.

Let's grant this point. It's arguable, but I generally support it.

Another route is to use the very tools that are produced by these processes to subvert and upend those processes. For example, your comment is one such method of getting started by raising awareness and possibly redirecting behavior.

The same thing could be writ large: a tool like Twitter, for example, enables mass demonstration and a certain sort of transparency that was harder to establish prior to its creation.

We sometimes hear and say that X is not inherently moral or immoral, just how it's used. While I think that's probably not true, in many cases, the seeds of redemption can bloom from the soils of corruption. If we are inextricably enmeshed in a corrupt society and world, it seems then that the moral choice is how to subvert that corruption with its own fruit.

Maybe but still not everyone is the same, is it surprising that not everyone has the same level of empathy or even same definition of empathy ?

Empathy is exactly the wrong emotion to have here. Empathy doesn't work at scale, just makes you pity people that are like you more than people unlike you. Regardless of objective relative hardship.

Do soldiers have to be psychopaths to kill their enemy in a war? It's only a moral dilemma until you've made your choice. Fundamentally, the world is still kill or be killed. It's just hidden behind many layers of abstractions.