Is it selfish to buy things like DVDs and CDs when there are so many starving people in the world?

[ZombieHorde]

[jakem]

1. big but broken... ouch.

[ret5hd]

2. Why would you refer to ZombieHorde's ego in such a manner?

oh god, i kill me! :rofl:

[ZombieHorde]

5. Bwahahahaha!

[comtec]

30. and misplaced...

just think about the anatomy of a horse...

[ZombieHorde]

35. Centaurs don't like to be referred to as horses.

It is insensitive to do so.

[comtec]

36. I suppose it depends on how they're 'ridden' ;)

but they can't deny their anatomy :)

[rucky]

3. This is why I pirate my media.

for the childrens.

[MsTryska]

6. Word...

filesharing saves the childrens.


Other than that - i only spend my money on Putomayo CDs from Whole Foods.

btw - I heart centaurs with big penises. Should I feel guilty about that?

[ZombieHorde]

10. I heart centaurs with big penises. Should I feel guilty about that?

Sounds like the best poll idea yet!

[panader0]

4. Don't the starving people make the DVD's and CD's?

[ZombieHorde]

8. I imagine that some of them do, some may even be made by child labor.

Though really, I don't know.

[AlCzervik]

7. i think it's selfish to keep posting polls when there are people all over the world

with no access to the internet.

[ZombieHorde]

9. Though people who can not vote in my polls are truely at a loss...

the whole lack of food thing may be a bigger loss.

[Common Sense Party]

11. I feel guilty breathing fresh, clean mountain air...

...because millions of Chinese kids are sucking smog right now.

I guess I'll stop breathing for a while.

[ZombieHorde]

12. Why not just send some of them some of your fresh air?

It is cheap and light.

[Common Sense Party]

14. I thought they charged by volume, not weight.

[AndyTiedye]

13. If We Didn't, The Musicians Would be Starving Too

Though paid downloads from the artists' own websites work too.
I still have to burn those to CDR though so I can

[otherlander]

15. I don't understand

what the picture has to do with the question. Is the goal to make us sad and amused at the same time?

Another question: Is it wrong to listen to songs like "Bleed for me" by the dead kennedys? Are we deriving entertainment from other people's suffering?

[ZombieHorde]

18. what the picture has to do with the question.

Nothing. I thought that that picture was really funny, but I did not want to start a new thread for it.

Is it wrong to listen to songs like "Bleed for me" by the dead kennedys? Are we deriving entertainment from other people's suffering?

I don't think so, the entertainment is inspired by suffering, but is not the cause of deep suffering (as opposed to the suffering caused be listening to DK if you hate them (i actualy like dk)).

[uppityperson]

21. Only if you then don't use that money to help others, where'd that sign come from?

If you would use that money to help others, and instead use it to buy music, yes, that is selfish. If you don't instead spend it on another thing for yourself, not selfish. The best thing to do would be to figure out how to donate some amount to a decent group to help end suffering, and to do what you could yourself also.

If your question is "music springs from suffering" and if you don't buy music but work to end suffering will music then end because there is no suffering? Still wrong because music spring from joy also.

[ZombieHorde]

24. I meant DK's music, which is usualy about injustice.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

16. Any degree of personal wealth is incompatible with morality.

There are large numbers of children dying every day who could be saved for only a few pounds.

Either you devote your entire life and wealth to saving them, or - like me - you accept that you're not even a morally ambiguous person, you're a bad one, and you just hope that none of the religions that claim that we'll be judged in the next world are right.

[Boojatta]

22. What control would you have over what happens next?

What if you save one hundred children, but by the time they are 30 years old, there are a total of 120 people who have been infected with HIV by members of the group you saved? What if some of them are recruited by war lords and a total of ten innocent civilians are killed by members of the group you saved?

What are the logistics of saving children? Does a child receive checks in the mail to pay rent for a room in a boarding house, spend time at a public library, go shopping for food every few days, etc? Are they independent citizens who make their own decisions but for some reason are not permitted to vote and receive no financial help from their government?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

27. That sounds fine until you think for a second.

You see a child about to be run over by a bus. Do you really doubt that saving it is a good idea, because it may grow up to infect people with HIV?

[Boojatta]

28. Maybe refusing to intervene to stop an emergency accident

is comparable to refusing to donate a fraction of your wages to traffic safety research. However, is refusing to intervene to stop an emergency accident truly analogous to refusing to donate a fraction of your wages to people at bus stops who claim to have forgotten money or bus tickets and who allegedly are in the process of trying to get to their place of gainful (i.e. paid) employment?

(This is all somewhat obscure. However, gainful employment of one person may sustain at least that one person. There's a final straw of lateness or absence that will likely provoke dismissal. Not to mention the potential consequences to patients if the employee is a nurse or to customers if the employee is a secretary, etc.)

[many a good man]

17. "It is a sin to sleep with even one penny beneath your pillow."

You should have given it away to someone who has none.

On the other hand, if you asked some poor soul he'd say "If I had any money I'd certainly want to buy that CD!"

[ZombieHorde]

20. "If I had any money I'd certainly want to buy that CD!"

What would they play it on? If they have no food, or the money to buy food, there is a good chance that they have no CD player.

"It is a sin to sleep with even one penny beneath your pillow."

There is no such thing as sin.

[MedleyMisty]

19. I think there's a gray area.

So I couldn't vote because my answer is somewhere between yes and no and is all complicated, but I don't have time to write it all out right now.

[sourmilk]

23. Consumerism is killing Western Culture and destroying the world.

[Boojatta]

25. Overall, is it better to use ink and paper to record information than to use CD-ROMs?

For example, if people stopped buying CD players, then they could buy sheet music and visit someone in the neighborhood who owns a piano. Of course, it would be harder to hear a full symphony orchestra. On the other hand, if you are confident that the sound of a full symphony orchestra is an unacceptable luxury, then why aren't people throughout the third world confident that large families, animal flesh for food, alcoholic beverages, refined sugar, white flour, tobacco, etc are unnecessary and potentially harmful luxuries?

Note: many people in the third world live in cities or towns and aren't farmers. However, even for farmers there's a limit to feasible fertility. In some parts of the world, it's well-known that dividing fields into thinner and thinner strips over generations to provide separate land for adult offspring and their families is eventually an unsustainable process.

[Freddie Stubbs]

26. No, because hungry people can't eat DVDs and CDs

[bertha katzenengel]

29. every time i want to buy something i don't need, i ask myself

similar questions.

:shrug:

[marmar]

31. Who buys CDs anymore?

:shrug:

[B3Nut]

34. People like me who detest lossy compression

and want something tangible. Downloads are ephemeral and all but fake. Having original source media is ideal, and you get artwork you can pick up and look at. Give me a CD or SACD or DVD-A or LP any day...hell a 7" 1/4-track open-reel tape even...

[treestar]

32. No. You're contributing to economic activity and that can't be

bad. Not doing anything would make it worse.

Though I suppose one could give the $$ directly to the poor. But people would rather have a job, and that's more likely if people are in the market for something.

[aine p]

33. No

I vote no. If we didn't buy these things the flow of money would stop out our greedy selves instead of going to those who actually make/produce these goods for a living

[Toucano]

37. Yes.

Go live in a hole and stop spending money electricity to power your computer.