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Comcast is in a position to throttle the internet because voters voted against the interests of the consumers. Specifically, the voters restricted other market
by kgantchev 6y ago
Comcast is in a position to throttle the internet because voters voted against the interests of the consumers. Specifically, the voters restricted other market participants from competing with Comcast. So the consumers are not acting in their own best interest as consumers and they're not acting in their own best interest as voters. Why is Comcast on the hook?
With regards to the sweatshop labor: if you care not to buy sweatshop clothes and you can't reasonably establish the origins of the clothes, then don't buy them. Only stick with manufacturers who have had their products verified by a trusted third party.
- fzeroracer 6y agoFor your first argument: Isn't that argument absolving companies of all blame possible? If a company for example chooses to dump waste in a local river and there aren't any laws preventing that, is that because of the consumers failing to act in their own best interest? I just want to establish according to your logic at which point a company should be blamed for immoral behavior. It's also overly reductive and ignores things like voter suppression, extralegal affairs and abusing the court system. For your second argument, you seemed to ignore my original point which is that it's generally impossible to actually establish the origin of said clothing due to the complex supply chain behind the scenes. Even if it's a trusted third party, that clothing is still being delivered via companies that deliver sweatshop clothing and sold in stores which sell sweatshop clothing. At a certain point some percentage of what you pay will go to support said sweatshops whether directly or indirectly, so how can you expect a consumer to operate in a full moralistic behavior when all of their actions are losses? At that point the only winning move is to not play, which is also not possible because, well, Capitalism.
- kgantchev 6y agoOn the issue of moral responsibility, I'm not sure I follow the analogy with dumping waste. Comcast has monopoly status because the government gives them exclusive access to the market. The company should be blames for immoral behavior when it morally responsible for the situation at hand. Comcast didn't make the laws that give it monopoly status, the voters did through their representatives. Given how many people actually don't even bother to vote, I doubt voter suppression is the problem. It seems like an issue of implementation and limitation of the current political system. In contrast, "voter" turnout by consumers is 100%. Every product you buy is a vote you cast. With regards to tracing the origins of a product: you're trying to fix a problem that's even worse with government. If you're so concerned that you aren't able to identify the origins of a product with 100% certainty, then we ought to compare it with the baseline: what is the trust factor with government? At any rate, the traceability of a product can get as accurate as you want it to be... so long as you pay enough money to establish it. If you want, you can be flown to every part of the world and you can personally ensure that every fiber of your clothes is not coming from a sweatshop. Of course, that would be insanely expensive, but it is possible. 99.99999999999% of consumers don't want that much transparency.