And the happiness level of all the Uber drivers who shuttle you around...? Remember: not everyone has such luxuries and your average HNer likely has much better QoL than the general populace.
What does that have to do with anything? This seems like reading an article about how exercise is good for you and replying, "But some people don't have time to exercise!" It's not wrong, but it doesn't add much insight either.
Oh so I guess I shouldn't go to a resort to vacation because of the happiness level of the service staff, or eat out at a restaurant. People can afford different luxuries, so you shouldn't deprive yourself of the ones you can afford just because some luxuries are better than others.
Well, kind of. I don't want to be that guy, but the reason you can go to those fancy resorts is precisely because the vast majority of people cannot (like the resort service staff).
My point: many people are dramatically unhappy due to finances... Either because they come from a lower economic class or because they are massively in debt precisely because they buy things (takeout and maid service?) that they cannot afford. The advice "spend to be happier" with this type of services seriously needs the caveat that not everyone should blindly spend spend spend.
Actually, they address this explicitly to some extent:
And it didn’t matter if they were rich or poor: People benefited from buying time regardless of where they fell on the income spectrum. (The authors note, though, that may not hold true for the poorest of the poor.)
Neither the NYTimes article or the research paper addresses debt. Nor does it address if punching yourself in the face increases or deceases happiness, nor if the lesser savings of someone who spends on a maid makes them miserable in 50 years time when they retire.
... is happier than those drivers would be if you weren't asking them to drive you around, because your desire for an Uber ride increases demand and thus their wages.
Yeah. People who plant cocoa and get paid one half of one tenth of a cent for the material for each 2$ chocolate bar should thank you and their corporate overlords as well, because at least they're getting their $0.0005, right?
You're mixing two problems. You paying someone to do work to benefit yourself is almost completely orthogonal to their working conditions. As long as you're not buying slave work, your extra money can either improve or degrade their working condition. That depends only on their company policies/management.
But caring about their working condition is a different problem on its own. (Still valid)
These people are poor because they have shitty governments. Us not buying their cocoa does not make them richer either, in reality it makes them poorer.
The data on this is pretty clear, economics has studied this for a long time.
The alternative is not not buying or paying them 10^-2 cents on the dollar, it's paying them fairly! I understand we have all the leverage at the negotiation table and we can get away with paying them a pittance with which they often can't make ends meet besides working all year and providing the product to make someone else millions of fucking dollars, but that doesn't make it right! It's ethically wrong and we should recognize it and address it, even if it means a couple less grand a month in some fat manager's pocket.
And these people are poor because of several reasons among which is bad government, but not exclusively! The current "world order" (for lack of a better term) in regards to the economy ensures disadvantaged people remain disadvantaged, keeps people who are poor in poverty for the foreseeable future. We can't excuse that just because we like cheap shiny stuff to buy and because the richest among us want a few billions more, as if they don't have enough power on us already. And I'm getting off topic so I'll just stop here.
> The current "world order" (for lack of a better term) in regards to the economy ensures disadvantaged people remain disadvantaged, keeps people who are poor in poverty for the foreseeable future.
I mean, that's demonstrably false. When I lived in Bangladesh as a young child, GDP per capita was $250 per year in current dollars. Today it's about $1,500 per year. In my lifetime it's gone from about 6% of US GDP per capita to 10%.
I absolutely agree with the other poster that the "world order" does not keep countries poor. With a lot of exceptions, it's bad governments and bad value systems that keep people poor. In 1969, Korea's GDP per capita was also about $250 per year (about 5% of that of the US at the time). Today, it's $27,000 per year, or about half of that of the US. Nothing happened to Korea in 1969. Instead, they started getting their government in order (though it was something of an autocracy at first), implemented market reforms, and prosperity followed.
Note that it took Korea just 25 years to go from having 5% of US GDP per capita to having 33% of US GDP per capita. Meanwhile, in ~35 years Bangladesh has only gone from 5% to 10% of US GDP. Nobody is doing anything to Bangladesh to cause it to grow slower than Korea. It's not a victim of some proxy war like some countries. It's all about the quality of the government and the moral virtue of the people.
No, its not a real alternative unless the morality of all people changes and that is unrealistic castle in the sky thinking.
Most people use buy chocolate based on price and quality. That how it is in the real world, and that gone stay that way. Even fair trade chocolate can only give farmers a tiny bit more money and the economics of fair trade basically shows that it does not make a large difference and it makes no difference in the long run.
You can claim it is not ethical, fine, you don't have to participate and you can buy 'fair trade' products if it makes you feel better but in the real world this will never actual solve the problem of poverty. Poverty will be solved when poor people/nations evolve institutions that facilitate growth.
> The current "world order" (for lack of a better term) in regards to the economy ensures disadvantaged people remain disadvantaged
No it does not. A country that manages to establish effective government can turn itself into a middle to high income country within 30 years. Look at Vietnam, China, Botswana, Chile and so on.
In fact its the exact opposite. Never has it been so easy for a country to go from poverty to wealth. Most of the tech is already invented, you can simple jump over many generation of technical evolution. You can use your competitive advantage effectively because you have a huge market to sell to.
