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Comment by duaneb | Hacker News Reader

Why is it you do not care about the US consuming that much? Do you not care that 96% of the world only has 75% of the world's resources? Are you really so centered on yourself and your culture you literally want us to exploit the rest of humanity?

I don't think it's unfair, just morally despicable.

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The US produces 22% of the world's GDP. There's nothing despicable about consuming what you are producing.

What is despicable is people who think they are entitled to the labor of others for free.

> There's nothing despicable about consuming what you are producing.

I agree, what's despicable is ignoring the rest of humanity. No, there's no entitlement (whatever that means really, a pejorative term for rights), but I do think you have a moral obligation to help people who need it.

I want China and India and Africa to have first-world standards of living, with similar per-capita GDPs. That will be awesome, both for them as well as for the US and Europe.

Yes, standards of living is the big thing, and not just across china, india, and africa. I would be fine with the US's dominance if I though other people in the world could have satisfying lives where they don't have to worry about employment (and the resulting food, shelter, health care). But, we are probably decades from achieving that in even China and India, both of which have a lot to offer the world even now.

Unfortunately, the US also has many inherent resource advantages (pretty amazing farming, for instance), which much of the rest of the world doesn't have. I really don't see at least the arid parts of Africa competing any time soon on material goods, and they don't have the education or cultural draw to attract production of intellectual goods. So at some point, the world does need to help itself out. It's not just going to magically fix itself without people helping each other.

I guess I should make this clear: I'm not advocating some kind of world socialism thing. I'm pretty sure things like classes are inherent in human societies. But I would like to drastically reduce the difference between the poorest and the richest people, and I do want to make sure that the basic things we take for granted in the US are available everywhere.

How much would you pay to save the life of your wife? Your best friend? An acquaintance? A random American? A random Somali?

The further away, in relation, a random human is from myself, the less that person's well-being affects me directly. It is, therefore, entirely rational to care less about their well-being than the well-being of humans closer to me.

The morality of that is neither here nor there--and indeed it strikes me as a very corrupt system of morality that rejects one of the most basic of human instincts.

Well, you're envisioning a world where your "moral" living, if you can get away with than Ayn Randian bullshit, is actively removing the ability of many other people to do the same. By pretty much every moral system, America is a pretty shitty place in a worldwide context. You think Kant, who wrote "Perpetual Peace", or John Stuart Mill, who advocated generating the most amount of happiness globally and said the best pleasures are intellectual (read: what people pirate on the internet), would approve of the way America (and Europe) holds the rest of the world hostage, economically and militarily? And honestly, most people on this site live far, far above what is necessary for a good life, in the sense of good health, food, and stability. It's a little sickening to see people not only ignore the rest of the world but to claim that it's "moral". Go spend a day watching people starve or die of curable sickness and then defend buying that nice car or that new computer. Hell, go into the ghetto and claim that what the upper class does to the lower classes (which is much nicer than what America does to the rest of the world) is moral.

Look, we all want to provide for our loved ones, but to claim that the level of excess we all indulge in is moral is just disgusting. I literally want to vomit at the thought and I'm ashamed to share a citizenship with you—at least I have the grace to admit that I'm a pretty shitty person for not giving back to the world to the extent that I could.

And at least I do SOMETHING (namely, volunteer and give unneeded money to efficient charities) to save the life of someone outside the US, which is more than most people do. I'm pretty sure the view of people suffering in third world countries is economically an entertainment product sold by CNN and christian charities.

How many rural villages in China were polluted from a nearby factory producing components of the computer you used to make this post?

Every single person posting in this thread is guilty of consuming far more resources than a majority of global inhabitants. The time and energy to even have this specific debate is mark of privilege. What's the solution? A global return to agrarian subsistence living?

I get where you are coming from, but I think the battle is already lost. The "haves" have always, intentionally or not, screwed over the "have-nots", and while it varies by degrees based on how little or much you "have", it ultimately comes down to the innate selfish nature of creatures living in a world of scarcity.

Hey, I already admitted I was as guilty as the rest of this country. But how the hell do you avoid products from china? Shit's impossible. I'd much rather make china (and india) rich enough to divorce themselves from the states, it would also help us reduce dependency on people who hate us (for a pretty good reason, I think).

As for a solution? I don't know, I really don't, and I suspect it won't be addressed until it absolutely needs to (overcrowding?). But I don't think that's a valid excuse to GIVE UP and continue to be a blatantly selfish nation. I think that if everyone gave a significant portion of their paycheck to efficient charities, the world would be a much better place. It doesn't even need to be charity, most people just need a little help to bootstrap themselves: http://www.kiva.org/start

> The "haves" have always, intentionally or not, screwed over the "have-nots", and while it varies by degrees based on how little or much you "have", it ultimately comes down to the innate selfish nature of creatures living in a world of scarcity.

I totally agree, I think this is a natural phenomenon in society (if the world natural means anything). However, we can raise the standard of living for everyone, so even the have nots aren't living in hell on earth, and reduce the distance between someone who is broke and someone worth many billion.

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