[extropy-chat] Seven cents an hour? (was: Riots in France)

[Brett Paatsch]

John K Clark wrote:

> "Brett Paatsch" <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au>
>
>> You're the guy that thinks international law is pure farce as I
>> recall
>
> I don't quite see the connection with 7 cent an hour sweatshops 
> but yes, I do seem to recall saying something along those lines.

You'd introduced the question of morality and whether you were a villain.

What about domestic law is that farce too?  If you make a contract do
you think you should keep you side of the deal?  

>> because there is no force behind it.
>
> Well, if policemen had no guns and no arms, or legs, and were blind 
> and deaf, and a burglar broke into your home, would you call the 
> police of  reach  for your gun?

No, neither. Don't own a gun (I likely wouldn't need one for the sort of
burglar that would be dumb enough to try to rob me when I was at home).
The policemen you describe don't sound like any policemen I'd recognize
as policemen.

>>the reason there  is no force behind it is because at this stage in human
>>history the force of  international law depends largely on the honour and
>>intellect of you and  your countrymen.
>
> Yes, things would be much more honorable and intelligent if the UN
> ran the world, the organization that picked Libya (of Lockerbie fame)
> to run the Human Rights Commission.

" Things " ? 

I've been watching some of your discussion with Jack. You keep 
pulling this sort of switch. 

Libya's villainy doesn't make you or the US honourable, your honour
or villainy turns on what *you* do.

As a citizen of the US you are, for now, able to enjoy some human rights
benefits you haven't had to personally earn.   

What could possibly be your point in pointing at Libya? That because
Libya (of Lockerbie) fame can't be trusted to run a Human Rights 
Commission that *you* are absolved from all responsibilities in the area
of human rights?  

That that is the whole human rights question dealt with and that you may
now get on with the pressing business of screwing other people for 7
cents an hour in a nasty Hobbesian world while the bleeding heart lefties
take themselves out of that game because they haven't the stomach for
it?

>> Would you want to reanimate some smo who in the era of
>> slavery spent  most  of his effort saying his slaves ought be
>> delighted at their good  fortune
>
> If he also had a practical workable plan that would eliminate 
> slavery I would pick him in a instant over a person who blubbered
> and cried and flogged himself with whips to demonstrate to the 
> world how profoundly he hated slavery but who's advice was so
> incredibly mind numbingly stupid it would actually strengthen that
> diabolical institution.

So do you have a practical workable plan to eliminate sweat shops?

I must have missed that part of your argument. 

>> Fuck John, you are not a bad guy. But so far as I can see you
>> are not  by any obvious criteria a good one (one that the future
>> is likely to feel motivated to expend some positive effort to have
>> around) either.
>
> Face it, there is precious little reason a Jupiter Brain would bother
> bringing anybody alive now back. Maybe we'd have a very tiny
> nostalgia value to Mr. Jupiter, or maybe he'd do it just for laughs
> because it will either be absolutely imposable or dirt cheap.

I do face it.  

Its you that seems to hope that you might be of some appeal to it and
be the beneficiary of its charity. 

Its you that is creating the very world that you'd personally need to
avoid.

Without respect for law, exactly how is your ethos any different 
from that of a looter?

Brett Paatsch