Can you imagine the very first guy who came up with outsourcing? Think of his thoughts and try to imagine what was going through his mind as he's pitching this to his superiors: "Hey, so I have this idea. Let's build a factory in China and then import the goods to ourselves, so we can charge a lower price, beat the competition, and increase revenue." On the surface of it, that seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do. The person who came up with that idea didn't have the advantage of hindsight, but I suspect that if he did, he probably wouldn't have suggested outsourcing. It's just so bad for America in so many ways that I don't even wanna get into all the side effects of outsourcing. But let's stay on topic before I get my own thread locked Rationalization happens when a person does something that they know is wrong, but they come up with an excuse for themselves as to why it's ok for them to do stuff they think is wrong as long as it suits a perceived greater good. Literally everything we do today has a long term consequence. Do you think the genetics researcher today is thinking about how in the future, people who can't afford genetic modification will be marginalized? Of course not! She thinks she's doing ground-breaking research that's going to benefit humanity. The guy developing artificial intelligence doesn't think he's making something that will make human thought irrelevant - he thinks he's building the tool that will solve all of life's problems! The point I'm trying to make is that don't delude yourself into thinking that what you're doing isn't part of someone else's plan to exploit the poor and the defenseless. To deny this is to deny human nature. We have thrived off taking advantage of our weakest and most vulnerable. We have touted such atrocities as being essential sacrifices for the greater good of "human progress." But when you ask when these ever-elusive benefits will be realized, you're told, "just keep working till you're 65. We will give you enough to survive while we milk your kids long enough to send them off to pasture as well." The cycle has been this way for as long as human history has been recorded. Delayed satisfaction is the promise of the powerful elite. Meanwhile, the rich get kids with the best genetics that make them smarter, faster, stronger than us. They get the biggest trust funds. They get the most connections. This keeps their bloodlines in control for longer than anyone else. What do we get? The promise of comfortable retirement. Great, I get to take a cruise when I'm 65 while you have super babies and trot the globe in private jets and have million dollar celebrity parties. We are the sheep.
This thread almost can't get locked due to derailment, as you said, history is full of rationalisation, in almost every subject ever known to man, religion, science, politics etc. Unfortunately hind sight is both a blessing and a curse, also unfortunately, there are really nice, genuinely caring people doing ground breaking stuff that will more than likely be abused by those in power / with the money. There are ways for the middle / lower classes to get rich, the same way that most of the rich got rich (although a lot of the time it's their parents or grandparents that did it) If the human race wasn't so greedy, it would be a better time to live for nearly everyone, on the other hand.. It might not pan out like that, we're already overpopulated (as a planet) religion breeds intolerance and violence, segregation and control, scientific breakthroughs are often withheld for the rich for reasons of greed (cancer drugs costing fortunes etc when they cost pennies to make) politicians would run out of money to spend on their constituents. It's a tough world, not a fair one.
It's not even tough. It's really just about how far a person is willing to go to take advantage of others. It seems that extreme financial success is completely incompatible with extreme morality.
Yeah, but morality is subject to societies limitations and prejudices, morality is changeable, flexible depending on the situation. Killing is immoral, yet killing in self defence is not. Who is to say it's immoral for those who have worked very hard to earn a lot of money, to keep that money for themselves and their family? IS that immoral? If that person owned a company that employed 10,000 staff, gave them a decent wage and pension etc, is it immoral for them to keep the rest to themselves? I don't think the problem financially is the rich/poor divide, I think the problem is that the rich keep trying to get richer (maybe they think it will help them in whatever happens when they die?) at the expense of lower wages and poorer working conditions, which in turn increase crime rates, poor health etc
Exactly! It's the cycle of rationalization that I think some elite believe that once they achieve the nirvana of wealth and power that they'll eventually be able to do all the good things they think humanity needs. But in such pursuits, history has shown that such people end up doing great harm. Many criminals who have been incarcerated have rationalized their actions as being necessary and just, including cold blooded murder, among other things. Those are the "hard crimes." There are plenty of "soft crimes" that have been done by people who have rationalized as being beneficial to humanity. The WWII German dictator is a perfect example of rationalized evil. He legitimately thought he was doing what he believed to be right. This begs the question: is there such a thing as "just"? What is just? To have winners, there must be losers. To make money, one must take money. To achieve power, one must have subjects. Is purity possible?
I like to think there are just situations today still happening for some small groups & individuals but an overall justice is not something achievable until more social & economic divides are removed from society first.
Some of the worlds richest, most powerful, and greedy men of the last century did change their ways late in their lives. I believe Andrew Carnegie and JP Rockefeller are two good examples from a long list. Though, it doesnt seem to be a trend thats picking up a lot of speed.
It's indeed about the total loss of social responsibility of the few at the top spots. Paying workers a wage for a full time job that isn't high enough to survive on is basically modern slavery. Treating the workforce just as another commodity that gets squeezed to make the biggest profit is just nonsense. And I won't even talk about tax evasion by profiting from elaborate tax rulings (some of those multi billion companies pay less taxes than I do to my tax office). All this just to feed a few greedy selected ones. A question: what do you think causes more trouble to the stability of your country? Poverty or terrorism? Social responsibility, think about it. I've seen whole towns struck by unemployment and later on poverty just because a plant got moved to a cheaper labor country to reduce costs (or better: to increase revenue as the balance sheet was positive). Is this it?
Its called greed and its a 7 deadly sin for a reason. Dont look in the box....whats in the box,...whats in the box?
@kassio, honestly, the biggest threat to the stability of my country is politicians, for some reason it's more important for these people to be elected than to represent their constituents honestly and without selfish ambition. I was going to go into politics.. Then I realised I'd just be shut away through lack of ambition. I can't remember the last time I trusted ANY government documents. Religion is as guilty as politics for lack of social responsibility, it's a deadly sin not because it corrupts, it's a deadly sin to stop the lower / middle classes from thinking they can usurp power from the church / upper classes.
@Cheese, outsourcing without international trade agreements wouldn't be possible. So before outsourcing was the international trade agreements. If I'd be an American entrepreneur struggling to fight with chinese products competition would be only a matter of time until I'd realize that outsourcing is the only answer for my business.
Anyway, I find it sad that we have more than enough food and resources to support everyone yet choose not too, we could live in a world were 30000 people didn't die from starvation every single day yet choose not too. the U.S(for example) is willing to spend 10trillion on weapons of war over the death of 3000 (9/11) when 40 billion put towards ending poverty could save 50million (or more) lives.
I don't do my homework, but it's okay because I ace all my tests. It's hard for me to fathom the thought process people go through trying to rationalize some of the things they've done. I don't understand how someone and reason in their head how something is okay. Especially evil people, but that's another topic. I don't know, I screw up and say I'll do this later or it's okay because this, but I like to think that I don't do stuff that's bad or evil. Then again, we all think that way, so who can really say I'm good or evil.
Unfortunately that money would be better spent on finding a way for our race to either expand to another planet, or be far, far more sustainable than it is now, if we just saved everyone's lives we would all be dead in 100 years.