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>Duress requires an unlawful threat. You can use this argument to defend slavery or any manner of horrible things because it was lawful at some point (and stil

>Duress requires an unlawful threat. You can use this argument to defend slavery or any manner of horrible things because it was lawful at some point (and still is, in many places). Is it really a good idea to define duress so narrowly? >continue subsistence farming with risk of death At what point does causing an "increasing risk of death" start to equate with murder or manslaughter? Being shot at increases the risk of death sharply. What about being exposed to industrial effluent without consent?

mlyle 3y ago
> Is it really a good idea to define duress so narrowly? The alternative is terrible-- otherwise anyone with the ability to possibly help is compelled to do so at any cost without recompense. > At what point does causing an "increasing risk of death" start to equate with murder or manslaughter? Being shot at increases the risk of death sharply. What about being exposed to industrial effluent without consent? That's the crummy thing with international law-- it's as each jurisdiction says. The unfortunate thing is, there's large portions of the world that are poor enough that taking risks with industrial effluent seem to make sense. If the increased prosperity lets you pay for wastewater treatment and health projects, you could save considerably more lives. The first world went through terrible times to claw our way to modern prosperity. The thing that is different now, of course, is that we have far more prosperous people looking on the sidelines. On the other hand, we've been trying to come up with a model for charity and NGO-driven durable economic development out of poverty and have very little to show for it.
- CapstanRoller 3y ago
  >The first world went through terrible times to claw our way to modern prosperity. The first world outsourced the terribleness to the "global south" (aka poor non-white people) and continues to do so. >we've been trying to come up with a model for charity and NGO-driven durable economic development out of poverty and have very little to show for it. Agreed, because you cannot fix the inherent problems of capitalism with more capitalism. As long as it's profitable to export misery elsewhere, the misery will keep being exported. It's absurd to try and mitigate the effects of large-scale perverse incentives with dribbles of toothless activism that doesn't challenge those perverse incentives at the source.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    > The first world outsourced the terribleness to the "global south" (aka poor non-white people) and continues to do so. A lot of terribleness just went away. Economic development takes economic output. Your early economic output, before economic development, tends to be bad. Just clustering people in cities has myriad problems and teething pains before you get a lot of the real benefits. > fix the inherent problems of capitalism with more capitalism I don't consider most NGOs to be "more capitalism." > misery will keep being exported Countries and people are generally quite happy to receive these economic opportunities compared to what the alternatives (subsistence farming) would be.

mlyle 3y ago

> Is it really a good idea to define duress so narrowly? The alternative is terrible-- otherwise anyone with the ability to possibly help is compelled to do so at any cost without recompense. > At what point does causing an "increasing risk of death" start to equate with murder or manslaughter? Being shot at increases the risk of death sharply. What about being exposed to industrial effluent without consent? That's the crummy thing with international law-- it's as each jurisdiction says. The unfortunate thing is, there's large portions of the world that are poor enough that taking risks with industrial effluent seem to make sense. If the increased prosperity lets you pay for wastewater treatment and health projects, you could save considerably more lives. The first world went through terrible times to claw our way to modern prosperity. The thing that is different now, of course, is that we have far more prosperous people looking on the sidelines. On the other hand, we've been trying to come up with a model for charity and NGO-driven durable economic development out of poverty and have very little to show for it.

CapstanRoller 3y ago
>The first world went through terrible times to claw our way to modern prosperity. The first world outsourced the terribleness to the "global south" (aka poor non-white people) and continues to do so. >we've been trying to come up with a model for charity and NGO-driven durable economic development out of poverty and have very little to show for it. Agreed, because you cannot fix the inherent problems of capitalism with more capitalism. As long as it's profitable to export misery elsewhere, the misery will keep being exported. It's absurd to try and mitigate the effects of large-scale perverse incentives with dribbles of toothless activism that doesn't challenge those perverse incentives at the source.
- mlyle 3y ago
  > The first world outsourced the terribleness to the "global south" (aka poor non-white people) and continues to do so. A lot of terribleness just went away. Economic development takes economic output. Your early economic output, before economic development, tends to be bad. Just clustering people in cities has myriad problems and teething pains before you get a lot of the real benefits. > fix the inherent problems of capitalism with more capitalism I don't consider most NGOs to be "more capitalism." > misery will keep being exported Countries and people are generally quite happy to receive these economic opportunities compared to what the alternatives (subsistence farming) would be.