Wait a sec, 2 is wrong but 1 sounds positive to me. For some people this money could be incredibly important.
That's exactly the problem. In Human Subjects Research this might be considered a violation of Informed Consent in the form of undue influence. From the Belmont Report [1]:
An agreement to participate in research constitutes a valid consent only if voluntarily given. This element of informed consent requires conditions free of coercion and undue influence. Coercion occurs when an overt threat of harm is intentionally presented by one person to another in order to obtain compliance. Undue influence, by contrast, occurs through an offer of an excessive, unwarranted, inappropriate or improper reward or other overture in order to obtain compliance. Also, inducements that would ordinarily be acceptable may become undue influences if the subject is especially vulnerable.
Note the "especially vulnerable" part at the end there.
[1] https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-repo...
> That's exactly the problem.
I thoroughly disagree, and I feel like speaking up about this particular philosophy of consent.
If I buy a used iPhone for $100 from someone who would die if they didn't get the $100, have I acted unethically? Whereas if I bought it from someone who didn't really need the $100, I wouldn't be acting unethically?
This sounds not only wrong, but highly counter-productive to me, since the consequence of not entering into this trade, just because the seller really needs the money, is that the seller dies. How does that make any of us better off?
As a society, we should encourage trading with people who really need the money, not label it as unethical. Whether a trade is unethical or not can be determined solely from the trade itself, not how much either (or both of the parties) needs the proceeds from the trade.
Example illustrating the absurdity: imagine two people who both really need the proceeds trading with each other. Ouch! According to your philosophy, they are both acting unethically (when in fact they are doing the only reasonable thing).
In some cases, you have clearly acted unethically. For instance, if the iPhone is worth $800 and you have more money, but you're getting the $100 price because the man is dying now and there's nobody else around to offer him more than $100.
Yes, it would be unethical to both parties.
In the first case, it is unethical because you are taking advantage of someone's dire need to get a better price on an iPhone.
In the second case you are denying yourself a clear cut opportunity to really help someone in need.
To be in a position to help someone in such a state is a privilege that does not come around often.
In an ideal world, I would just pay the person $100 and not take their phone—but, c'mon, this isn't the world we're living in. People die every day in the US—never mind the rest of the world—because they couldn't afford medicine/shelter/food/etc
In this case you could make it that kind of world, for that person, just for $100.
To be placed in a position where it's so easy to help someone is a privilege.
I agree you can contrive a situation where the best ethical option is to pay the seller $100 for the phone but you really have to work on it (and the situation is pretty contrived to begin with)
Or maybe privacy isn't something we should care about or at least value as much as we do as a society. Maybe I'm wrong. I think I see the dangers down the road but maybe it's just a mirage and privacy will die and it won't be used against use by people in power or with money.
This is not the question that's being asked here. The fact is, there are people like that, and for them, these things are great.
They're not solutions, they're band-aids. But if you're not ok with the situation existing, removing band-aids isn't particularly productive.
No questions, this is creepy. But nobody was talking about a ban. The post I replied to asked whether we should be okay with people who need $20 that badly.
The answer is no, we shouldn't be ok with it. But you're not solving the situation by banning this, you're making it worse if anything.
"We shouldn't be ok with people being homeless." "Okay, let's make 'being homeless' illegal. Problem solved!" "???"
And yes, this logic has been used before. It hasn't solved homelessness, btw.
it's provably affordable to give everyone the average rent of the world which covers housing (rent of buildings), food (rent of farmland), energy (rent of space used for solar panels, windmills, ...), natural resources (rent of mines).
If you guys are so concerned about it then create something that puts cash in my pocket. I'll gladly run whatever app you want on my phone if you pay me.
Edit: and now they shut it down. You can thank us privacy advocates later.
Resulting in thousands of deaths due to organ shortages, and sex workers being abused by pimps and corrupt cops.
That illustrates fairly well why having an underclass who provides healthy organs to the rich is a utterly barbaric idea.
I don't have a strong opinion either way, but my understanding is that it's very very far from proven that legalizing prostitution improves the lot of sex workers -- I am led to believe that trafficking becomes _more_ of a problem in localities where sex work is legal.
Further, and again no strong personal opinion on the matter, but I suspect you'd see a huge rise in coerced organ selling if it became legalized.
These are questions societies need to answer for themselves, and my central point was that there's already precedent for societies deciding that they don't benefit when some things are available for sale, even if an individual in the moment says they want to sell it.
When a person is paid to strip you, nor the house, get to read everything they do on their smartphones.
> For some people this money could be incredibly important.
So I took this to mean "desperate enough" as in there are scales/levels of "desperate"-ness. Maybe desperate is the wrong word and the "enough" modifier wasn't obvious in my meaning.
Maybe a better way to put it:
Are we, as a society, ok with people needing $20 more than their privacy?
I was trying to convey that I imagine I would have to be pretty desperate to give up my privacy for $20/mo.
It's even more unethical to encourage people to do so, like FB did.
What if you have five kids. That’s $100 a month.