Comment by calibraxis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by calibraxis | Hacker News Reader

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Thank you for enduring the indignant replies!

Yes, this place is dominated by strata of society driven to justify organized child labor, even after seeing the face of one such 9 year old. Throughout history, such people justified all sorts of things.

I know many like them in person, and am constantly weirded out. (One reason I dislike hanging out with programmers, managers and investors.) The banally evil things stumbling from their mouths... For example, when something vaguely feminist comes up, someone often tells me that women are mentally inferior to men, apparently expecting me to smirk with them. (As opposed to wonder what planet these creatures come from, and why they thought they could randomly splutter that in civilized society.) Fortunately, I have the freedom to tell them what I think, and am grateful for the reminder that they're nothing like the person I want to be.

It's logical that people would want to defend these things because abusive labor practices are driving almost every aspect of our lives in the Western world. Our food, our clothes, our phones, our computers, our furniture, almost everything that we buy is manufactured and sold though exploitation.

People have a tendency to fight problems when they seem manageable, but labor exploitation is so out of control, the only options seem like flight into some kind of back-to-the-land movement or justification. It's too bad that this kind of mentality is so prevalent among people who think of themselves as problem solvers.

(bow)

Couldn't have put it better.

Sometimes I wonder who is producing the real STUFF, since we are all working in the non-productive tertiary sector.

It's not justifying the horrible situation - it's pointing out a fact that the obvious naive solution (prohibition) would bring more harm than good to those poor people.

even after seeing the face of one such 9 year old

What is the alternative for this 9 year old (in a country with a GDP per capita of $744, and a population density of 2,850 per square mile. Norway, as a contrast, has a GDP of $99,500 per capita, and a density of 39 per square mile)? Please describe the utopia salvation because I would just love to hear it.

Of course, given the rest of your comment I hardly think you're looking for any intrusion of reality. The sexism bit to auger your ridiculous point about "these people" is outrageous nonsense.

Regarding the views of techies, this is an overgeneralization. The real situation is more nuanced, and there are a range of views, well- and ill-considered, across the ideological spectrum.

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