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If you lived next to a diamond mine, you probably wouldn't buy diamond rings. I say this because I assume you are a compassionate/empathetic person to some degree, and I think it would be very difficult for you to separate out your feelings towards the terrible conditions/bloodshed involved in diamond mining and the shining ring that you just bought from the smiling slave-driver. The only reason that you could ever be comfortable buying such a ring is that you are far removed from the suffering involved in your purchase.

There are two complicating factors here: visibility and paucity of influence. You can't see the bad thing happening and you, individually, don't have the power to stop it.

The interaction between visibility and morality is a complicated one, but the fact is that if people in the most affluent nations boycotted diamonds then diamond mining would cease. If people boycotted Coca-Cola and Fiji spring water then villagers would get their water back.

The fact that you can't control these situations also complicates things. You can stop buying Coca Cola but, unless everyone else does to, CC is just going to just keep on stealing resources.

I think that the thing I really dislike about your comment is that you have the audacity to condemn the wrongs committed, but lack the integrity to acknowledge that you play, at least, some very small part in those wrong things happening. Because you do. If you don't buy that diamond ring then that is real $$$ that the diamond miners don't get. The hole created by your boycott has a non-zero probability of shutting down a diamond mine. The fact is that you don't care. I'm not saying you should - I'm just saying you don't. And the people doing these "wrong" things don't care either. Perhaps you could say that you would do differently in their situation, but my guess is that you are REALLY not in their situation and you have no idea what their situation is AT ALL.

I get it. You're in a comfortable position. There's no reason for you to change. You probably don't care enough about people in China, etc. that you're actually going to significantly, or even insignificantly, change your day to help them out. In fact, it's not even clear that you can. This may sound like a criticism, but I really don't care what you do.

The main element missing from your comment is the answer to "what to do?" My guess is that your answer is "Nothing. There are bad people elsewhere, and I'm not to blame, so I do nothing. Let them figure it out." I guess I hope this isn't actually your answer and that you realize that it's a lot more complicated. These people are "unscrupulous" not because they're full of demons, but because globalization exerts pressure and men sacrifice their better intentions when faced with that pressure.

It's pretty obvious that if you stop drinking CC, no one else will stop because you did. Meaning the events are conditionally independent. In my opinion, rallying large groups of people is the only way to make a difference. So really day to day choices you make on what to purchase have no effect on the system.

I would argue that the only real way to change is attempting to effect group think. Individual purchase decisions will not do this. Only organized efforts will. Meaning everyone is just as responsible for not doing this, whether they buy the product or not.

Again, if slavery is going on, whether you buy the product involved or not, we are all equally guilty for allowing it to continue. Buying the product is irrelevent.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but my view is that I was not asked to be born under these circumstances (over population, unequality of wealth, unfairness, etc). I never was in charge of dictating the type of world I wanted to live in. Therefore, why do I have the burden to do something about unfairness in this world? It's like saying to a developer "Go fix this bug RIGHT NOW!", and then when he/she asks for commit permissions, you reply back "Sorry, you need to sign this form, and give it to HR, then send an email to the DBAs, and wait a couple of days.. but still FIX IT NOW!"

I never meant to imply that you did have the burden. As engineers its easy to see something broken and think that it is our duty to fix it. But honestly, we can't fix everything (and fixing it doesn't always make it better haha).

The other assumption is that the only way to change this is to stop buying a product. The truth is robots are probably better than slaves. That day is coming hopefully!

This way of thinking doesn't make sense. No one is claiming that you're responsible as in you need to fix this. We're claiming that you're responsible in the sense that you're part of the cause (or, in the language of Nagarjuna the "dominant condition" -http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/307/nagarlec.htm) of the exploitation of people in third world countries. There are many other conditions besides you, of course.

The most important goal is to deeply realize your position and relation to other people - how you act after you realize this is up to you/your emotional makeup/your virtues/etc.

My claim is that because of the complicating factors (visibility and ineffectiveness) inherent in this situation you aren't able to fully understand this relationship.

Of course I understnd my position relative to others, I think about it constantly. People naturally are competitors in this world. One person having a mate means one less mate for you, and less evolutionary success.

Isn't this the exact point of the App posted? To rally people together?

You claim that "rallying large groups of people is the only way to make a difference," but a large group of people is made up of individuals, and those individuals will participate in that group by altering their day to day purchases.

So to say that it is all about groups and not about any individual decision is a bit of a paradox since without any individual decision, there is no group.

I agree with the general principle of your comment, but I do think there is a difference between some of your examples concerning the consumer's proximity to the exploitation in question. Someone who buys a coke in Brooklyn is certainly far removed from the actions of a Coca-Cola subsidiary seizing drinking water in a far-off land, but someone purchasing the services of a sex worker who has been trafficked is much closer, and thus partially culpable, for the wrong that has been committed. If fewer people are purchasing the services of trafficked women (I'm not talking children here...that's a different issue) then it is safe to say that there will be less aggregate demand for them and that fewer women will trafficked as a result.

This is not to say that the sex traffickers themselves will be converted to an upstanding and pious life; rather, many of them would probably switch to another unsavory line of work. However, I would say that it makes more sense to use the change in number of trafficked women as the appropriate metric in considering the effect of a behavior change.

Yes, of course, if you buy sex from someone who is trafficked, I agree that you have a large moral responsibility. Not only to not buy services from these women, but also to inform law enforcement. And hopefully trafficing would pay less and become less popular if a lot of people did this.

I'm still skeptical to the degree that acts like these will actually lead to large-scale improvements in people's lives - as you're saying, the sex traffickers might find another way to exploit people and the consequences are really hard to quantify. Although some good could come from consumer pressure and boycotting, it's very hard to tell what the net effect would be. The way to get a real impact on the core problems here is to improve the cultural and economic conditions in the countries where exploitation happens.

I guess my argument is that although it is comfortable to believe it, consumers in the West actually have very little power over the wrongs that happen in the name of economic development in developing countries. Having demand for the services of developing economies in the first place is, at least potentially, a very promising source of change.

For some people, awareness of such moral issues may prompt action as was the case regarding divestment from South Africa and the resulting positive political change which came as a direct result.

And yes, I agree that will not be the case for everybody.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinvestment_from_South_Africa]

>A lot of the moral judgements made on the linked site about a materialistic lifestyle don't really have anything to do with the fact that people in the west are evil, but rather that the culture in certain parts of the world where manufacturing takes place is conductive to exploitation.

I think it's probably fair to say that most people on HN are aware that these kinds of problems exist(thus I agree with all points); but I certainly know many people who couldn't imagine that opening a bottle of happiness means that someone in a far away village is suffering for it.

It's true that these problems need to be handled at the source, likewise that consumers changing their habits won't be enough to enact change because the criminals who perpetrate these crimes will simply change tactics. While I said in another comment that the site could use lots of work, I think it's great in terms of shedding light on the topic of human slavery / trafficking to those who are simply unaware. The one drawback is that it can potentially induce guilt among those same people, and it's difficult to get people to change their minds about something they simply aren't exposed to all that often.

I don't think we can be expected to be responsible for the damage that a product makes. Its just to unreasonable to expect people to be informed about everything they buy.

However, products should have to give full disclosure about harm caused. If I buy something that is made using child labour; it is deceptive and fraudulent not to disclose that.