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You’re making the assumption that all of the regulations are just, required and proportional. If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours wo

You’re making the assumption that all of the regulations are just, required and proportional. If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours worked but everyone gets cheaper shipping, do I care? No, not really. If your answer is yes, then do you care about the safety conditions of the factories of the goods being transported? How far are you willing to take this?

oneoff786 4y ago
Do you care if the ship is crewed by slaves who were stolen from their homes?
- aunty_helen 4y ago
  Nope. It’s sad. Would you avoid buying Nike shoes because their factories have slave labor?
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    Yeah I would and do avoid that. And no, I’m not doing research to make maximally ethical decisions. I would greatly prefer if it were either outlawed or at least clearly labeled
    - nobodyandproud 4y ago
      > And no, I’m not doing research to make maximally ethical decisions. I would greatly prefer if it were either outlawed or at least clearly labeled That’s a problem. A law doesn’t mean much unless people are both willing to uncover violations and also enforce the laws.
      - oneoff786 4y ago
        It is not feasible for an individual to stay maximally informed on all things. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
        aunty_helen 4y ago
        Thank you for invalidating any point you tried to make. My point, why worry about shipping when everything it’s transporting follows the same lax safety laws. First world society is largely supported on the backs of third world countries full of people working their arses off for little pay and no opportunity for betterment. Slave children can mine the minerals in the electronics, slave labor can assemble them but by god, if a boat docks port with any crew that are unfairly treated!
        tablespoon 4y ago
        Your whole comment is an example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, which is surprising because the GP literally brought that concept up. If you have to solve all problems to solve any problems, you'll solve no problems.
        nobodyandproud 4y ago
        > It is not feasible for an individual to stay maximally informed on all things. The perfect is the enemy of the good. You don’t have to be maximally informed. What you haven’t convinced anyone is whether it’s at all possible for anyone to reasonably informed, to make enforcement possible. What does it take to even uncover questionable labor and practices? Can it be done without violating sovereignty? If not, should we? The consequences of an unenforceable law is worse than useless.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
"Regulations reducing MOB situations by one person per million man hours worked" are not the issue. The issue is that cargo ships are lawless and working on one of these ships, you have zero legal rights. Nothing prevents ship operators from engaging in stuff ranging from not providing adequate staff levels and PPE, to wage theft, to human rights abuses like retaining people's passports / denying them shore leave / consular access. Need medical care? Tough shit. Don't want to work 100 hours? Guess you're not getting lunch today. Life for a lot of these guys is barely a step above indentured servitude. Nobody cares. The spice must flow.
themaninthedark 4y ago
If that is your take, then how about we repeal all the existing labor and safety records in the US, at least then we can get the economic benefit from having the jobs here.
hourago 4y ago
> If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours worked but everyone gets cheaper shipping, do I care? No, not really. This is one of the most selfish comments I have read in a while. You don't even care. If your only goal is to be able to buy more stuff without any ethical consideration you are a danger for everybody else in other countries, in other states, or anybody that is not you. Looking into three economic side, worse work conditions attract less people and jobs to vacant. Your conclusion very is simplistic.
- dionidium 4y ago
  It's easy to see why that looks "selfish," but it's less easy to see the distributed effects of higher prices, fewer jobs, and less efficient markets so that you can sit remote from all of it and declare yourself to be more ethical than your neighbor.
- legalcorrection 4y ago
  Everything has a price. You can’t have much of a society without creating risks of injury.
tablespoon 4y ago
> You’re making the assumption that all of the regulations are just, requires and proportional. > If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours worked but everyone gets cheaper shipping, do I care? No, not really. If that's your problem, write your congressmen asking for the repeal of safety regulations because you want cheaper prices. However, that's totally orthogonal to the problem I was addressing with my proposal. > If your answer is yes, then do you care about the safety conditions of the factories of the goods being transported? How far are you willing to take this? Yes. Let's go for it and ban imports from those factories with shitty safety conditions, too.
- settrans 4y ago
  Awesome! How do you plan to monitor and enforce this?
- danielheath 4y ago
  A million hours is over a century. One death per million hours is substantially better than natural attrition. You going to shut down every factory where someone has a stroke? The point is that in a world of natural variation and risk, we draw a line somewhere and call the other side unacceptable and this side acceptable. What we have presently is no line at all for foreign vessels; I happen to agree that it would be better to have the US one.
  - rz2k 4y ago
    One in every three boat workers should die by falling overboard at some point in their 40-year career?
    - danielheath 4y ago
      Sure, those specific numbers suck - point well made. Is one death per 10,000 careers too many? One in a million? No regulatory scheme short of "no goods may be transported anywhere" is going to create the latter outcome, so you can either accept that a line must be drawn or accept that anyone who doesn't live on a farm must starve.

oneoff786 4y ago

Do you care if the ship is crewed by slaves who were stolen from their homes?

aunty_helen 4y ago
Nope. It’s sad. Would you avoid buying Nike shoes because their factories have slave labor?
- oneoff786 4y ago
  Yeah I would and do avoid that. And no, I’m not doing research to make maximally ethical decisions. I would greatly prefer if it were either outlawed or at least clearly labeled
  - nobodyandproud 4y ago
    > And no, I’m not doing research to make maximally ethical decisions. I would greatly prefer if it were either outlawed or at least clearly labeled That’s a problem. A law doesn’t mean much unless people are both willing to uncover violations and also enforce the laws.
    - oneoff786 4y ago
      It is not feasible for an individual to stay maximally informed on all things. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
      - aunty_helen 4y ago
        Thank you for invalidating any point you tried to make. My point, why worry about shipping when everything it’s transporting follows the same lax safety laws. First world society is largely supported on the backs of third world countries full of people working their arses off for little pay and no opportunity for betterment. Slave children can mine the minerals in the electronics, slave labor can assemble them but by god, if a boat docks port with any crew that are unfairly treated!
        tablespoon 4y ago
        Your whole comment is an example of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, which is surprising because the GP literally brought that concept up. If you have to solve all problems to solve any problems, you'll solve no problems.
      - nobodyandproud 4y ago
        > It is not feasible for an individual to stay maximally informed on all things. The perfect is the enemy of the good. You don’t have to be maximally informed. What you haven’t convinced anyone is whether it’s at all possible for anyone to reasonably informed, to make enforcement possible. What does it take to even uncover questionable labor and practices? Can it be done without violating sovereignty? If not, should we? The consequences of an unenforceable law is worse than useless.

KennyBlanken 4y ago

"Regulations reducing MOB situations by one person per million man hours worked" are not the issue. The issue is that cargo ships are lawless and working on one of these ships, you have zero legal rights. Nothing prevents ship operators from engaging in stuff ranging from not providing adequate staff levels and PPE, to wage theft, to human rights abuses like retaining people's passports / denying them shore leave / consular access. Need medical care? Tough shit. Don't want to work 100 hours? Guess you're not getting lunch today. Life for a lot of these guys is barely a step above indentured servitude. Nobody cares. The spice must flow.

themaninthedark 4y ago

If that is your take, then how about we repeal all the existing labor and safety records in the US, at least then we can get the economic benefit from having the jobs here.

hourago 4y ago

> If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours worked but everyone gets cheaper shipping, do I care? No, not really. This is one of the most selfish comments I have read in a while. You don't even care. If your only goal is to be able to buy more stuff without any ethical consideration you are a danger for everybody else in other countries, in other states, or anybody that is not you. Looking into three economic side, worse work conditions attract less people and jobs to vacant. Your conclusion very is simplistic.

dionidium 4y ago
It's easy to see why that looks "selfish," but it's less easy to see the distributed effects of higher prices, fewer jobs, and less efficient markets so that you can sit remote from all of it and declare yourself to be more ethical than your neighbor.
legalcorrection 4y ago
Everything has a price. You can’t have much of a society without creating risks of injury.

tablespoon 4y ago

> You’re making the assumption that all of the regulations are just, requires and proportional. > If 1 additional person falls overboard every million man hours worked but everyone gets cheaper shipping, do I care? No, not really. If that's your problem, write your congressmen asking for the repeal of safety regulations because you want cheaper prices. However, that's totally orthogonal to the problem I was addressing with my proposal. > If your answer is yes, then do you care about the safety conditions of the factories of the goods being transported? How far are you willing to take this? Yes. Let's go for it and ban imports from those factories with shitty safety conditions, too.

settrans 4y ago
Awesome! How do you plan to monitor and enforce this?
danielheath 4y ago
A million hours is over a century. One death per million hours is substantially better than natural attrition. You going to shut down every factory where someone has a stroke? The point is that in a world of natural variation and risk, we draw a line somewhere and call the other side unacceptable and this side acceptable. What we have presently is no line at all for foreign vessels; I happen to agree that it would be better to have the US one.
- rz2k 4y ago
  One in every three boat workers should die by falling overboard at some point in their 40-year career?
  - danielheath 4y ago
    Sure, those specific numbers suck - point well made. Is one death per 10,000 careers too many? One in a million? No regulatory scheme short of "no goods may be transported anywhere" is going to create the latter outcome, so you can either accept that a line must be drawn or accept that anyone who doesn't live on a farm must starve.