You keep repeating this as if it is further evidence of your position. Here is the argument: Nestle is selling a safe and effective consumer product that when used correctly, is demonstrably safe and effective given its use with millions, if not billions, of children over the decades of its existence.

Since it is a safe and effective product, the onus for proper use is on those who choose to use it. Similarly, there are extremely dangerous products that are hazardous by their very nature, gasoline, POL, paint, any number of household chemicals, baseball/cricket bats, hammers, et cetera. Those, again, are safe and effective products when used correctly, even though they can have terrible consequences when they are not.

Since these things are inanimate objects, the law holds those that use the product responsible for their use thereof, e.g., the mob boss is charged with murder when he uses gasoline to set someone on fire, even though Shell knows and profited off that gallon of gas before the mob boss does it. The person who has life-threatening allergies is responsible for avoiding peanut butter, even though Peter Pan knows that people will die, worldwide, every day for ingesting peanut butter. The law holds persons that cricketbat another person’s skull open responsible even though Gray-Nicolls or Canterbury profits and knows their bats will sometimes cause massive and often fatal injury.

The argument is the same for Nestle: Since Nestle sells a safe and effective product that when used properly does what it is intended to do; therefore, the responsibility for the use of that product lies with those that choose to use it. Therefore, Nestle is not responsible for the use of that product when consumers use it incorrectly or irresponsibly.

Since Nestle is not responsible for the use of that product when consumers use it incorrectly or irresponsibly, the only argument you have demonstrated is that you consider their marketing techniques to be aggressive.

Firstly the links i posted about what Nestle is doing show full well that they are promoting their product misleadingly to people who CANNOT for all the will in the world use it responsibly. You have ignored time and time again what I have shown you.

Nestle are responsible for the way their product is being used because of the way they are promoting it...and saying it is "safe when used correctly" is kinda obvious...the point which you are so determinedly ignoring is that Nestle is miselling it's product...it cannot be used correctly by the people that they are selling it to and they are selling it in such a way that the buyers are not aware of this. If I were to sell you arsenic in such away that you thought it was a tasty treat because you did not know that arsenic is a poison, I would be charged with murder. The defence of "but arsenic is safe when used sensibly" would somehow not stand up in court.

I’m not sure what experience or knowledge you have concerning corporate law and management and the resulting powers and liabilities—but this suggests you have none, because it is utterly incorrect on its face. The good-faith duty is not to earn profit at any or all cost, the duty is to do what reasonably calculated, again in good faith, to benefit the company, which in turn maximizes profits. Boards can and do change the way products are sold every day. Generally, there is nothing whatsoever preventing the board of any company from changing its management practices, changing advertising and marketing choices, creating, or discontinuing product lines, or any number of the endless decisions involved in running a corporation. Your statement is simply wrong because Nestle could change its marketing tomorrow without fear of repercussion if it felt the change was in the best interests of the company.

I got my information from this guy called Milton Friedman. You may of heard of him. He won the Nobel prize for economics...and oddly enough he thinks Corporations are a bad thing. But what would he know?

You are wrong in saying that the board can do what it wants. It can't because it is bound to maximise profits. If it takes a profitable enterprise like selling products to mothers in the 3rd would knowing they cannot use it safely and not telling them that they are putting their babies at risk by using it... and try to stop doing that, they will lose the Corporation money. They can then be sued by their shareholders.

So the board cannot stop selling formula to 3rd world countries because as you said...that is AGAINST the companies and the shareholders best interests.

Of course, gov’t bestows some individual rights on corps because those rights must exist in order to create the products and services that make individuals lives significantly better. Of course, there are no moral checks a) because people disagree about what is moral and b) because the gov’t cannot hold an inanimate object morally responsible for its use. That is the purpose of law in this instance—rational and reasonable laws limit how people/corps can act.

There are not the same limits on how a corporation acts that there are on a person.

Nope. This only holds true if one accepts the conclusions that you have drawn about Nestle. The only fact you have shown conclusively is that you consider their marketing techniques to be overly aggressive.

Overly aggressive? That's a nice euphemism.

Even if you made the case that Nestle’s product can cause harm to others, it is a nearly insurmountable burden to demonstrate that individuals at Nestle conspired and intended to cause ruinous harm to their primary consumer base, thus harming the company. Especially given that the behavior in question involves using the product in unintended and irresponsible ways.

Rush..Nestle have been asked to stop this practice by the World Health Organisation. You clearly have no concept of what life is like in these countries . As to their consumer base..it's huge...and very very ignorant about things like this. They often have no education, they trust the companies because unlike you (who knows to be more cynical about people selling you stuff) they think they want to help them. People in developing countries are going to trust their doctors advice...if someone says they are a nurse they are going to trust them to know what is best for their baby. Nestle have taken total advantage of this.

I didn’t say that anything is relative in that statement, nor did I cop out because I made a true statement of reality: people disagree about the definition of good and bad and then act accordingly. I did not make a relativist argument that either side was right, or that I agree that this is a rational way for individuals to live life; I simply stated that it is.

If you happen to disagree with the statement that people disagree about what it right and wrong and act accordingly, or if you happen to think that I did more than reiterate a true statement of reality, your best bet would be to present an argument as such.

Knowingly causing the death of babies through 'aggressive marketing' is wrong. The fact that you might think that there is a possible scenario where it is not wrong is what disturbs me about the stance you are taking on this.

If you were doing something in your daily life..no matter how innocent your intention..and it was killing people, you would stop once you realised. Nestle is doing something that is killing babies. They have been told that this is what their actions are doing and they have not stopped.

There are several givens I think that most sane people will go with when it comes to right and wrong. Deliberately pursuing a course of action that will cause harm to others for your own financial benefit is one of those givens.

Some people will always do this, you are correct. Many of them will not, that is also correct.

Nestle are doing this.

I don’t understand your point. This is true why, because you said it is? This is relative why, because you made the statement? How about this “The issue of sanity should be applied to a non-living legal fiction because x x x x… Corporations are not sane because x x x x…. Their relative sanity or insanity matters because x x x x….”

Corporations act in the business world like a person. They can trade, make contracts, own property and so on. Their actions however are not governed by a moral code as a person's might be. In fact the way they conduct themselves is similar to the behaviour of a psychopath. Below is the check list for what makes someone a psychopath. You would be scored for each of these factors and get enough points and you would fit the criteria for a psychopath.

Corporations fit enough of these criteria to be considered psychopathic in their behaviour.

Hare's Checklist and other mental disorders

Psychopathy, as measured on the PCL-R, is negatively correlated with all DSM-IV Axis I disorders except substance abuse disorders. Psychopathy is most strongly correlated with DSM-IV antisocial personality disorder.

Factor1: "Aggressive narcissism"

* Glibness/superficial charm
* Grandiose sense of self-worth
* Pathological lying
* Cunning/manipulative
* Lack of remorse or guilt
* Shallow affect
* Callous/lack of empathy
* Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
* Promiscuous sexual behavior

Factor2: "Socially deviant lifestyle"

* Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
* Parasitic lifestyle
* Poor behavioral control
* Lack of realistic, long-term goals
* Impulsivity
* Irresponsibility
* Juvenile delinquency
* Early behavior problems
* Many short-term marital relationships
* Revocation of conditional release

Traits not correlated with either factor

* Many short-term marital relationships
* Criminal versatility

This is only a fact if you accept your conclusions.

You have yet to say anything that disproves my conclusions. All you have done so far is rename something 'aggressive marketing'. It hasn't made what they are doing less wrong.

I can make a similar statement without coming to conclusions. “It is also in fact in the self-interest of individuals to defend themselves against those that prey on them relentlessly, that define morality on a whim, and that initiate force against them without hesitation.” My statement notes that self-interest does not include being a victim, buying into empty whim, or submitting to force. I, and others that think as I do, do not see society as caring or supportive when it has to use force against me in order to show me how much it cares. Similarly, I will never take any responsibility for what others do, be that rape, murder, or the initiation of force.

Again Rush you are talking about something that is not relevant to this discussion. Corporations have this power because they are given it by 'government force' If you were to revoke their charters they would not be able to get away with what they do. They are protected in their predatory ways by government force. It seems that in this instance you approve of the government force that gives them the powers to do what they do.

You are confusing your opinion about the viability of the planet over millennia versus the use of said planet by the individuals that live on it. The planet can sustain life, and has done so for millions, or billions of years.

Yes..and for most of those millions and billions of years there were no people.

Capitalism, socialism, communism, whateverism are just ideas that survive in the minds of people. However, all of those systems comprise individuals, that must survive using resources that support life because reality has dictated that life must use resources to exist. Since that is true, it is in the individual’s self interest to burn fossil fuels to live and make their lives better, to heat and cool their homes, et cetera. It is in the individual’s self-interest to drive a vehicle that, although using more resources relative to other vehicles, will protect their life and the lives of their family in a collision. It is in the individual’s self-interest to use disposable bags because the cost to the individual is less than the benefits they derive from them. It is in the individual’s self-interest to eat cheap and nutritious protein that is easily and readily available at orders and orders of magnitude less cost than if they had to raise cattle themselves.

Exactly..and because of the modern way of doing things the drawbacks of such choices are now displaced from the people making them. We pump tonnes of Sulphur Dioxide into the air..trees in Norway die..we buy a nice cheap shirt from the high street..some 12 year old kid was paid a penny for every 20 he or she made in desperate conditions...we drive our SUV to work...thousands die in floods in Bangladesh. The cost benefit analysis breaks down because the people paying the costs are NOT the same people who are getting the benefits. The costs have been 'externalised'.

Not one of the things you have stated is in the least bit suicidal to individuals—in fact, I have given you reasons why individuals conclude that such things are in their best interest. You *may* be able to make the case that given complete and utter technological stagnation (extremely unlikely) that *maybe* the earth will become incapable of sustaining life. Good luck trying to convince others that they must live a significantly lesser or miserable existence because of your opinion concerning what might happen sometime in the future.

Well the scientists say i am right..but the media message (paid for by the corporations) tells everyone different...and as long as there is enough doubt people can keep doing what they are doing and pretend to themselves that everything is just fine and dandy.

The product is safe for them to use, if they use it correctly. Just like gasoline, sharp knives and machetes, and nearly everything else. Fraud, in this case, would be "This product is safe to use even with water that will otherwise result in the death of your children," or "This product is better for your children no matter what vicious chemical you mix it with."

The 'aggressive marketing' techniques used by Nestle are not that far from your examples.

We used to dress up in kilts like Scotsmen to give out samples of scotch, too. But we could have dressed up like nurses, it just wouldn’t have been as effective. Funnier perhaps. They could have dressed like jeebus himself or the Pope if they wanted to—that does not give anyone the license to use the product in irresponsible ways. Hell, they could have used actual, licensed nurses—that STILL does not mean the product can be used in disastrous ways. That, however, would probably fall into the fraud category.

This whole paragraph shows your inability to see how others might see things. Dress someone up in nurses uniform and call her a milk nurse and suddenly she has the authority to give advice to mothers. It is fraud. Just because you wouldn't fall for it (thanks mostly to your western education that most of these people have no access to) doesn't mean that it's ok and isn't fraud.

The responsibility for feeding oneself or one’s children lies with the individual and no one else. If one cannot read the instructions on any consumer product, for whatever reason, then it is irresponsible for that person to proceed to use it because the risks to themselves are substantial. If they do still choose to do so, the onus is on them, not the company that produced it.

Yet i bet every time you go to the Doctors you take the medicine they give you without grilling them about clinical trials and testing. Every time you go to Tesco you buy the food on the assumption that they wouldn't sell you something that would harm you. Lucky for you in the west you have more protection against things like that than they do in developing nations.

If mothers used free samples to such the extent that their breast milk dried up, again, that is on them. The formula could just have easily sat on the shelf until the mother decided to use it or not. That she used a free sample, as compared to her free breast milk is her own choice, just as nearly all of her choices about what is best for the life of her child are. Free is free, and she chose to use one free thing over another free thing because to her the benefits outweighed the costs—that choice is hers alone, and since it is, Nestle is not responsible for her choices.

Choices are not free choices without information...and FYI at the early stages of breast feeding it doesn't take much to wean a baby off the breast. For a start Formula is sweeter than breast milk and bottles are easier for babies to drink from. If you start a baby on a bottle it is almost impossible to get them on the the breast. I do not expect you to know that. You have not had babies...but then most first times mothers wouldn't know that either. Nestle knows it though. Do you think they warned the mothers this would happen or did they give out the free samples and tell the mothers it was best for their babies?

Nestle is knowingly causing the death of babies.

No more than any company is knowingly causing the death of (insert whomever you want to in here). Using that argument, BMW is knowingly causing the death of drivers. Shell is knowingly causing the death of people. Peter Pan is knowingly causing the death of peanut allergy types. Caterpillar is knowingly causing the death of people like Rachel “The blessed holy st. pancake” Corrie. This list is endless, and none of it is true because, as noted above, there is an inanimate object between the company and the injury that can only happen when individuals act irresponsibly. Our spelling errors are not the fault of the pen or pencil company, or of the pen or pencil itself, they are the fault of the person using it. Scoring in cricket or murder with a cricket bat is not attributed to the company that made the cricket bat, nor the bat itself—murder and scoring are a result of a person’s choice to use the bat. These, like baby formula, are inanimate objects that can only do harm when an individual chooses to use them in ways inconsistent with their everyday usage.

Rush. The product was missold. You seem to want to ignore this one vital fact.

I don’t know what you mean by “should they be allowed to” in the sense that human beings and the corporations that they form can do nearly anything, except that which is expressly forbidden by law. Even then, human beings and corporations will always exploit weaknesses in that which is forced upon them unwillingly. So “should they be allowed to” doesn’t have any real meaning in that sense.

For example, some restaurants have sharp steak knives. Inevitably, someone in the restaurant will use such knives to stab someone else. But do we say stupid things like “the restaurant acted irresponsibly by not only allowing people to stab anyone they please, but by also providing the weapons.” No, instead we note that the verb “to allow” does not apply in that instance. The restaurant is not “allowing” something simply because they haven't taken steps to forcibly prevent it.

So, should they be allowed to do what? I think that BMW, Shell, Caterpillar, Nestle, Peter Pan, and Gray-Nicolls can make and produce cars, gas, armored bulldozers, baby formula, peanut butter, and cricket bats, and market them generally, however they wish, yes.

and to market them knowing that as a direct consequence to their 'aggressive marketing' that babies will die. Not as an accident..or an unfortunate freak event..but as a direct consequence.

What part of “you can do whatever you want, as long as you do not initiate force or fraud against others” are you simply incapable of understanding???

The bit where you decide that Nestle isn't doing this when i have shown you again and again it is.

Often that’s true. It’s true for individuals too, and communists, socialists, whateverists. I don’t know what you want me to say here, again, because this is a part of the human existence. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m not saying anything about any particular situation, I’m saying that people will always do this because they do not agree, for various reasons (some better and some worse) with what you think or would have rammed down their throats.

They wouldn't agree that it is wrong to pursue a policy that is directly contributing the the death of 100s of babies?

The relevance is clear because if it’s OK for you to seek to use force against Nestle (because that is the ONLY way they will accede to your wishes), then it is OK for others to seek to use force against you, because that is the only way that you will accede to their wishes.

That isn’t irrelevant at all, and it’s the reason I’ve asked you “what then?” a number of times. Because if you don’t seek to use force against Nestle, they won’t ever listen to you. And if they won’t ever listen to you, then your opinion about their business practices is nothing more than that—an opinion.

and again I have told you that Nestle is allowed to this because it is backed up by it's charter..a charter that is protected by..you guessed it..government force.

I disagree with you. I glance around at the world around me and see billions of individuals whose lives have been made immeasurably more pleasant, longer, healthier, and happier by the nearly infinite multitude of products and services that are made available to them cheaply and affordably. I see untold numbers of individuals that do not have to labor endlessly to make a cheeseburger and who are so rich that they have the leisure time to wile away with discussions like these. That is a rational, logical, and desirable outcome of what people and corporations do and it is a direct result of the power they wield using simple economics.

Exactly my point. You see all the wealth and happiness...where as the downside is displaced to the developing world nicely out of sight. You are totally oblivious to the untold suffering inflicted on others so that we can have this way of life.

I hate to break it to you Rush..but most of the world does not have access to the 'joys' that corporations bring...and from the glib way you dismiss these mothers you have no idea that they have to walk for miles just to get water. They pin their faith on doctors and those with education and trust them when they say that the Nestle milk will help their babies. By the time they realise the truth they can't feed the babies themselves. They have to travel miles to get water that they know will make their babies sick..but they have no choice because they can no longer feed their babies themselves.

I don’t know that you can. Ever. Without commenting on the validity of the particular laws that create particular crimes, in the whole history of mankind, no one has developed a way to prevent people from committing crimes. I don’t think they ever will without near total, intrusive, and direct mind control.

Maybe then you can get Nestle to agree with you.

Maybe we can change the way corporations are designed. After all..it was government force that made them. It can take away their powers too.

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Reality Internet Personality

Firstly the links i posted about what Nestle is doing show full well that they are promoting their product misleadingly to people who CANNOT for all the will in the world use it responsibly. You have ignored time and time again what I have shown you.

No, I haven’t ignored it—I disagree with how you characterize it. If those people cannot use baby formula (anything) safely, then they should not use it. Ever. As I said before, this is why: EVERYONE EVERYWHERE HAS AN AGENDA that is often misleading. If mothers have the right and ability to think freely, then they have the right to choose what they think is best among competing interests for the health and welfare of their children. Therefore, if they then exercise that freedom of thought and choice, then the responsibility for doing so is on them.

Nestle are responsible for the way their product is being used because of the way they are promoting it...and saying it is "safe when used correctly" is kinda obvious...the point which you are so determinedly ignoring is that Nestle is miselling it's product...it cannot be used correctly by the people that they are selling it to and they are selling it in such a way that the buyers are not aware of this. If I were to sell you arsenic in such away that you thought it was a tasty treat because you did not know that arsenic is a poison, I would be charged with murder. The defence of "but arsenic is safe when used sensibly" would somehow not stand up in court.

I’m not ignoring anything about Nestle because I don’t care what they do with baby formula, pretty much as long as they don’t hold people down and pound their esophaguses full of formula powder.

But your arsenic example fails because arsenic is neither a tasty treat, nor designed for human consumption no matter how you sell it to me—that is outright fraud. Not only is that fraud, it is egregious enough to likely be considered intent as well. Baby formula, however, is not poison. It is just another foodstuff.

I’m not sure what experience or knowledge you have concerning corporate law and management and the resulting powers and liabilities—but this suggests you have none, because it is utterly incorrect on its face. The good-faith duty is not to earn profit at any or all cost, the duty is to do what reasonably calculated, again in good faith, to benefit the company, which in turn maximizes profits. Boards can and do change the way products are sold every day. Generally, there is nothing whatsoever preventing the board of any company from changing its management practices, changing advertising and marketing choices, creating, or discontinuing product lines, or any number of the endless decisions involved in running a corporation. Your statement is simply wrong because Nestle could change its marketing tomorrow without fear of repercussion if it felt the change was in the best interests of the company.

I got my information from this guy called Milton Friedman. You may of heard of him. He won the Nobel prize for economics...and oddly enough he thinks Corporations are a bad thing. But what would he know?

I don’t know what to tell you here, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry it's so off base. Milton Friedman was a classical liberal economist who, like many classical liberals, libertarians, et cetera, sometimes criticized how some people run their corporations, but by no means did he think, “Corporations are a bad thing.” Especially after writing numerous articles such as, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.” Milton Friedman would likely utterly decry nearly any position you have ever taken—mostly because he actually does understand economics. You can read more of his position here.

You are wrong in saying that the board can do what it wants. It can't because it is bound to maximise profits. If it takes a profitable enterprise like selling products to mothers in the 3rd would knowing they cannot use it safely and not telling them that they are putting their babies at risk by using it... and try to stop doing that, they will lose the Corporation money. They can then be sued by their shareholders.

I don’t know whether you just make this stuff up or what, but these statements are simply incorrect. If you believe such erroneous information, it cannot ever help your position, nor convince others that know better.

Corporations can always be sued by its shareholders, for any number of reasons. Generally, just like here, that is because some people disagree with other people. Although yes, there is a good-faith duty to act in the best interests of the company (often defined as pursuing profit), corporations can and do things that result in a loss of profits if they reasonably believe that it is in the best interests of the company. Yes, that would include changing their marketing techniques or pulling their presence in a country.

So the board cannot stop selling formula to 3rd world countries because as you said...that is AGAINST the companies and the shareholders best interests.

As noted above, this is just demonstrably wrong. Corporations pull out of international businesses, other countries, joint ventures, et cetera, all the time. GM lost BILLIONS doing so in a JV in Russia to produce cars. Why did they do so? Because it was in the best interests of GM to do so, even though that cost billions in investment dollars and lost profits. Nestle could change their marketing altogether, or pull out of x third world country--that doesn't expose them to any more liability to shareholders than their everyday business practices in general.

There are not the same limits on how a corporation acts that there are on a person.

Well, duh. It’s a corporation. Like I said: Of course, gov’t bestows some individual rights on corps because those rights must exist in order to create the products and services that make individuals lives significantly better. Of course, there are no moral checks a) because people disagree about what is moral and b) because the gov’t cannot hold an inanimate object morally responsible for its use. That is the purpose of law in this instance—rational and reasonable laws limit how people/corps can act.

Nope. This only holds true if one accepts the conclusions that you have drawn about Nestle. The only fact you have shown conclusively is that you consider their marketing techniques to be overly aggressive.

Overly aggressive? That's a nice euphemism.

The term I chose wasn’t really the point. The point was that the only fact you have shown conclusively is that you consider their marketing techniques to be overly aggressive. If you would like to choose different terms there, feel free.

Even if you made the case that Nestle’s product can cause harm to others, it is a nearly insurmountable burden to demonstrate that individuals at Nestle conspired and intended to cause ruinous harm to their primary consumer base, thus harming the company. Especially given that the behavior in question involves using the product in unintended and irresponsible ways.

Rush..Nestle have been asked to stop this practice by the World Health Organisation.

You can understand why a corporation may not pay any interest to a collectivist, left-leaning organization, I’m sure. I certainly wouldn’t give much credence to WHO.

You clearly have no concept of what life is like in these countries . As to their consumer base..it's huge...and very very ignorant about things like this. They often have no education, they trust the companies because unlike you (who knows to be more cynical about people selling you stuff) they think they want to help them. People in developing countries are going to trust their doctors advice...if someone says they are a nurse they are going to trust them to know what is best for their baby. Nestle have taken total advantage of this.

I simply don’t know what to tell you here. Where I would not have chosen their particular marketing techniques, neither would I listen to much of what that Ipfan (?) website had to say. I do know that life in these countries is a bitter, brutal, and often short affair—brought on by people who think it is perfectly OK to force their views onto others. Yay.

I didn’t say that anything is relative in that statement, nor did I cop out because I made a true statement of reality: people disagree about the definition of good and bad and then act accordingly. I did not make a relativist argument that either side was right, or that I agree that this is a rational way for individuals to live life; I simply stated that it is.

If you happen to disagree with the statement that people disagree about what it right and wrong and act accordingly, or if you happen to think that I did more than reiterate a true statement of reality, your best bet would be to present an argument as such.

Knowingly causing the death of babies through 'aggressive marketing' is wrong. The fact that you might think that there is a possible scenario where it is not wrong is what disturbs me about the stance you are taking on this.

That was not the point you made, and has nothing to do with my comments above. You tried to make the point that I was somehow being a relativist and I responded. If you wish to be consistent and posit a rational argument, then demonstrating how I was being a relativist would be your best bet. The comment about "Knowingly causing the death of babies," has nothing to do with whether I presented a relativist argument.

But to be clear, I don't think there is a scenario where knowingly causing the death of babies is not wrong. The stance I'm taking on this is whether or not anyone actually is doing so, other than those doing so with contaminated water.

If you were doing something in your daily life..no matter how innocent your intention..and it was killing people, you would stop once you realised. Nestle is doing something that is killing babies. They have been told that this is what their actions are doing and they have not stopped.

And say, for the sake of argument, that you couldn’t convince me that what I was doing was killing people? That, in fact, what I was doing was so innocent, that the conclusion you had drawn could be reasonably seen to be in error?

There are several givens I think that most sane people will go with when it comes to right and wrong. Deliberately pursuing a course of action that will cause harm to others for your own financial benefit is one of those givens.

Some people will always do this, you are correct. Many of them will not, that is also correct.

Nestle are doing this.

Yes, we know you think that—you’ve made it abundantly clear.

I don’t understand your point. This is true why, because you said it is? This is relative why, because you made the statement? How about this “The issue of sanity should be applied to a non-living legal fiction because x x x x… Corporations are not sane because x x x x…. Their relative sanity or insanity matters because x x x x….”

Corporations act in the business world like a person. They can trade, make contracts, own property and so on. Their actions however are not governed by a moral code as a person's might be. In fact the way they conduct themselves is similar to the behaviour of a psychopath. Below is the check list for what makes someone a psychopath. You would be scored for each of these factors and get enough points and you would fit the criteria for a psychopath.

Again, so what? The reason these things don’t apply to non-living entities is because they are non-living entities. You can draw certain parallels, of course, but there are rational reasons that a corporation would do/not do things that an individual would, even if they were characterized as psychopathic in a person.

This is only a fact if you accept your conclusions.

You have yet to say anything that disproves my conclusions. All you have done so far is rename something 'aggressive marketing'. It hasn't made what they are doing less wrong.

I didn’t rename their actions as such, I said that that is all you have managed to show—that you find their actions (“aggressive marketing,” “1st degree murder,” who cares, call it whatever you wish) heinous.

However, you seem to have missed the point entirely: I’m not making any attempt to disprove your conclusions whatsoever. I couldn’t care less what conclusions you’ve drawn about the situation—that is the only aspect in which I am similar to Nestle. I don’t care what you think. You don’t have to accept my conclusions or reasoning. I’m simply giving you possible reasons why Nestle does what it does, and possible reasons why any number of other people reach different conclusions than you do.

I can make a similar statement without coming to conclusions. “It is also in fact in the self-interest of individuals to defend themselves against those that prey on them relentlessly, that define morality on a whim, and that initiate force against them without hesitation.” My statement notes that self-interest does not include being a victim, buying into empty whim, or submitting to force. I, and others that think as I do, do not see society as caring or supportive when it has to use force against me in order to show me how much it cares. Similarly, I will never take any responsibility for what others do, be that rape, murder, or the initiation of force.

Again Rush you are talking about something that is not relevant to this discussion. Corporations have this power because they are given it by 'government force' If you were to revoke their charters they would not be able to get away with what they do. They are protected in their predatory ways by government force. It seems that in this instance you approve of the government force that gives them the powers to do what they do.

If I am talking about something that is irrelevant to this discussion, it is because you brought it up. In this case, you made a self-serving statement about what is in the self-interest of individuals as if there was no other possible statement thereof. I made the comments above to demonstrate how similar statements can be made that conflict with yours entirely.

As to the entirely different point that you now raise, that corps have gov’t charters: without getting into the legal aspects, that’s true, they do. But as I’ve always said, there are rational roles for gov’t. And without getting into the minutia of libertarian thought, there is no need for a corporation to have some charter. But there is rational reason and rational role for gov’t force in creating non-living legal fictions such as corporations. The reason is that overwhelmingly they make life better for billions of people. The good vastly outweighs and dwarfs the bad. They provide the standard of living that nothing and no one else, especially gov’t fiat, can provide.

You are confusing your opinion about the viability of the planet over millennia versus the use of said planet by the individuals that live on it. The planet can sustain life, and has done so for millions, or billions of years.

Yes..and for most of those millions and billions of years there were no people.

Right, and every single one of those life forms that lived used as many resources as possible without regard to anything other than their own survival.

Capitalism, socialism, communism, whateverism are just ideas that survive in the minds of people. However, all of those systems comprise individuals, that must survive using resources that support life because reality has dictated that life must use resources to exist. Since that is true, it is in the individual’s self interest to burn fossil fuels to live and make their lives better, to heat and cool their homes, et cetera. It is in the individual’s self-interest to drive a vehicle that, although using more resources relative to other vehicles, will protect their life and the lives of their family in a collision. It is in the individual’s self-interest to use disposable bags because the cost to the individual is less than the benefits they derive from them. It is in the individual’s self-interest to eat cheap and nutritious protein that is easily and readily available at orders and orders of magnitude less cost than if they had to raise cattle themselves.

Exactly..and because of the modern way of doing things the drawbacks of such choices are now displaced from the people making them. We pump tonnes of Sulphur Dioxide into the air..trees in Norway die..we buy a nice cheap shirt from the high street..some 12 year old kid was paid a penny for every 20 he or she made in desperate conditions...we drive our SUV to work...thousands die in floods in Bangladesh. The cost benefit analysis breaks down because the people paying the costs are NOT the same people who are getting the benefits. The costs have been 'externalised'.

To you maybe, you use that term in a much more general way than an economist would. But be that as it may, the cost/benefit analysis doesn’t break down for the individual as I noted above. It is rational, reasonable, and beneficial for someone to choose to drive a vehicle that, although using more resources relative to other vehicles, will protect their life and the lives of their family in a collision. It is irrational to expect any individual to ever begin to deal with the literally infinite possibilities concerning the costs of the nearly unlimited number of consumer choices they have in making their lives, and the lives of their families better because they can’t ever hope to have access to that information, and it’s beyond the comprehension of anyone.

That their choices bother you, really holds little water, given that your lifestyle alone, no matter what “cuts” or other choices you make, is still a rich, western, lifestyle. Every single aspect of your life was a cost/benefit analysis, provided to you by a corporation, and I don’t see you living the lifestyle of those in Burkina Faso.

But here’s the dilemma. If you want that kid to earn more, nothing and no one else but a corporation will pay him more. You won’t. Thorin won’t. His gov’t won’t. The Tories won’t. Labour won’t. Greenpeace won’t. The WHO won’t. Hev won’t. The Daily Worker won't. Every single person who thinks as you do, while sitting in their heated or cooled home, in front of their computer, patting themselves on the back for caring, with their Prius in their garage won’t pay that kid either. None of them will. The only thing that will is a corporation, and it won’t pay him any more than the market will bear for that labor. Pass some stupid minimum wage law, and that job evaporates.

So, while you can bang on about “externalized” costs, that isn’t an effective argument because NO ONE who thinks as you do can be bothered to provide for that kid. Unless you or those that think as you do are willing to pay that kid more than his labor is worth, no one and nothing else will give him any opportunity whatsoever to earn any living at all, other than a corporation that will only pay what the market will bear. No matter how much you happen to think he should be paid.

Not one of the things you have stated is in the least bit suicidal to individuals—in fact, I have given you reasons why individuals conclude that such things are in their best interest. You *may* be able to make the case that given complete and utter technological stagnation (extremely unlikely) that *maybe* the earth will become incapable of sustaining life. Good luck trying to convince others that they must live a significantly lesser or miserable existence because of your opinion concerning what might happen sometime in the future.

Well the scientists say i am right..but the media message (paid for by the corporations) tells everyone different...and as long as there is enough doubt people can keep doing what they are doing and pretend to themselves that everything is just fine and dandy.

Or, they can simply disagree with the conclusions you’ve drawn about how we’re all going to die. The earth may be warming, but even if it is, many people are STILL going to choose to drive a vehicle that, although using more resources relative to other vehicles, will protect their life and the lives of their family in a collision. Why? Because the risk to the lives of their family isn’t worth the cuts.

The product is safe for them to use, if they use it correctly. Just like gasoline, sharp knives and machetes, and nearly everything else. Fraud, in this case, would be "This product is safe to use even with water that will otherwise result in the death of your children," or "This product is better for your children no matter what vicious chemical you mix it with."

The 'aggressive marketing' techniques used by Nestle are not that far from your examples.

Except that my examples aren’t aggressive marketing. They are direct fraud.

We used to dress up in kilts like Scotsmen to give out samples of scotch, too. But we could have dressed up like nurses, it just wouldn’t have been as effective. Funnier perhaps. They could have dressed like jeebus himself or the Pope if they wanted to—that does not give anyone the license to use the product in irresponsible ways. Hell, they could have used actual, licensed nurses—that STILL does not mean the product can be used in disastrous ways. That, however, would probably fall into the fraud category.

This whole paragraph shows your inability to see how others might see things. Dress someone up in nurses uniform and call her a milk nurse and suddenly she has the authority to give advice to mothers. It is fraud. Just because you wouldn't fall for it (thanks mostly to your western education that most of these people have no access to) doesn't mean that it's ok and isn't fraud.

The paragraph doesn’t show my inability to see how others might see things, it does however show that I don’t have any interest whatsoever in how others see things. They think for themselves, just as I do.

I do find it ironic that you are concerned with my “inability to see how others might see things,” given that you seem unable to see how others, in this case the people at Nestle, might see things. And yet, they do see things differently, all the time, in infinite ways.

What I might, or might not fall for is of no concern. These people are responsible for the lives of their children, ferjeebussakes. Not me, not Nestle, not you. The ultimate responsibility lies with them. But, we still disagree about fraud.

The responsibility for feeding oneself or one’s children lies with the individual and no one else. If one cannot read the instructions on any consumer product, for whatever reason, then it is irresponsible for that person to proceed to use it because the risks to themselves are substantial. If they do still choose to do so, the onus is on them, not the company that produced it.

Yet i bet every time you go to the Doctors you take the medicine they give you without grilling them about clinical trials and testing. Every time you go to Tesco you buy the food on the assumption that they wouldn't sell you something that would harm you. Lucky for you in the west you have more protection against things like that than they do in developing nations.

Of course. I live in two nations where the reasonable default position is to make the assumptions that you noted. Just as it is for peanut allergy sufferers—who still manage to die, every single day, because they err in judgment.

These people we are referring to do not have the luxury of such default position, and as such, the decisions they make have significantly greater consequences, and therefore they have a correspondingly greater responsibility for the choices they make. If they abdicate that responsibility--they pay a very dear price.

If mothers used free samples to such the extent that their breast milk dried up, again, that is on them. The formula could just have easily sat on the shelf until the mother decided to use it or not. That she used a free sample, as compared to her free breast milk is her own choice, just as nearly all of her choices about what is best for the life of her child are. Free is free, and she chose to use one free thing over another free thing because to her the benefits outweighed the costs—that choice is hers alone, and since it is, Nestle is not responsible for her choices.

Choices are not free choices without information...and FYI at the early stages of breast feeding it doesn't take much to wean a baby off the breast. For a start Formula is sweeter than breast milk and bottles are easier for babies to drink from. If you start a baby on a bottle it is almost impossible to get them on the the breast. I do not expect you to know that. You have not had babies...but then most first times mothers wouldn't know that either. Nestle knows it though. Do you think they warned the mothers this would happen or did they give out the free samples and tell the mothers it was best for their babies?

You may think choices “aren’t free choices without information,” and you’re entitled to think that, of course, but that really has no bearing on reality. People freely make choices based on the information available to them, if they feel they have enough, they make their choice, if they feel they do not, they are responsible for finding what they need. No one ever will have 100% of all available information on nearly anything, so they do the best they can with what they have, regardless of whether you think they have enough information or not.

No more than any company is knowingly causing the death of (insert whomever you want to in here). Using that argument, BMW is knowingly causing the death of drivers. Shell is knowingly causing the death of people. Peter Pan is knowingly causing the death of peanut allergy types. Caterpillar is knowingly causing the death of people like Rachel “The blessed holy st. pancake” Corrie. This list is endless, and none of it is true because, as noted above, there is an inanimate object between the company and the injury that can only happen when individuals act irresponsibly. Our spelling errors are not the fault of the pen or pencil company, or of the pen or pencil itself, they are the fault of the person using it. Scoring in cricket or murder with a cricket bat is not attributed to the company that made the cricket bat, nor the bat itself—murder and scoring are a result of a person’s choice to use the bat. These, like baby formula, are inanimate objects that can only do harm when an individual chooses to use them in ways inconsistent with their everyday usage.

Rush. The product was missold. You seem to want to ignore this one vital fact.

I’m not ignoring it. I’ve told you repeatedly that I have not reached the same conclusion that you have. That’s a real problem for you because while it doesn’t matter what I think, it does matter what the people who run Nestle think, and they don’t agree with you either.

So, should they be allowed to do what? I think that BMW, Shell, Caterpillar, Nestle, Peter Pan, and Gray-Nicolls can make and produce cars, gas, armored bulldozers, baby formula, peanut butter, and cricket bats, and market them generally, however they wish, yes.

and to market them knowing that as a direct consequence to their 'aggressive marketing' that babies will die. Not as an accident..or an unfortunate freak event..but as a direct consequence.

No, it is not a direct consequence. A direct consequence would be if the formula contained poison. A direct consequence would be if Nestle employees held people down and pounded their esophaguses full of the stuff. A direct consequence would be if it exploded like a grenade in their stomachs.

In reality, what is killing these children is the contaminated water that the product is mixed with. THAT is the direct cause of death.

What part of “you can do whatever you want, as long as you do not initiate force or fraud against others” are you simply incapable of understanding???

The bit where you decide that Nestle isn't doing this when i have shown you again and again it is.

I haven’t made any comments about what Nestle is, or is not doing. I have noted where the responsibility lies for keeping babies alive.

Often that’s true. It’s true for individuals too, and communists, socialists, whateverists. I don’t know what you want me to say here, again, because this is a part of the human existence. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m not saying anything about any particular situation, I’m saying that people will always do this because they do not agree, for various reasons (some better and some worse) with what you think or would have rammed down their throats.

They wouldn't agree that it is wrong to pursue a policy that is directly contributing the the death of 100s of babies?

They might, however, that is not something that you or anyone else has managed to convince them of, especially since the direct cause of death is contaminated water.

The relevance is clear because if it’s OK for you to seek to use force against Nestle (because that is the ONLY way they will accede to your wishes), then it is OK for others to seek to use force against you, because that is the only way that you will accede to their wishes.

That isn’t irrelevant at all, and it’s the reason I’ve asked you “what then?” a number of times. Because if you don’t seek to use force against Nestle, they won’t ever listen to you. And if they won’t ever listen to you, then your opinion about their business practices is nothing more than that—an opinion.

and again I have told you that Nestle is allowed to this because it is backed up by it's charter..a charter that is protected by..you guessed it..government force.

It isn’t “allowed” any more than the restaurant “allows” it’s patrons to stab each other with the steak knives.

I disagree with you. I glance around at the world around me and see billions of individuals whose lives have been made immeasurably more pleasant, longer, healthier, and happier by the nearly infinite multitude of products and services that are made available to them cheaply and affordably. I see untold numbers of individuals that do not have to labor endlessly to make a cheeseburger and who are so rich that they have the leisure time to wile away with discussions like these. That is a rational, logical, and desirable outcome of what people and corporations do and it is a direct result of the power they wield using simple economics.

Exactly my point. You see all the wealth and happiness...where as the downside is displaced to the developing world nicely out of sight. You are totally oblivious to the untold suffering inflicted on others so that we can have this way of life.

You’ll forgive my unwillingness to accept your position here, given your position, firmly ensconced in one of the richest countries in the world, taking full advantage of the wealth and happiness that it offers, and accepting the “untold suffering inflicted on others” so that you can enjoy this way of life.

That's what nearly everyone does; live their lives the best that they can with the tools that they have at their disposal. That is a rational position for individuals to take. Good luck convincing them otherwise.

But I'm not oblivious to the suffering of others--I know full well who causes it, and how. And mostly, that's people who think it is OK to initiate force against others to make those people do as they otherwise would refuse.

I hate to break it to you Rush..but most of the world does not have access to the 'joys' that corporations bring

They may not now, but they have no hope whatsoever of EVER having lives that have been made immeasurably more pleasant, longer, healthier, and happier by the nearly infinite multitude of products and services that are made available to them cheaply and affordably, without the corporations you so decry. You won’t give it to them. Hev won’t. Thorin won’t. None of the people who think as you do will do it either. You’ll just pat yourselves on the back for how much you care, and how aware you are.

Big deal. That doesn't feed any babies, nor does it pay any kids to make shirts.

...and from the glib way you dismiss these mothers you have no idea that they have to walk for miles just to get water. They pin their faith on doctors and those with education and trust them when they say that the Nestle milk will help their babies. By the time they realise the truth they can't feed the babies themselves. They have to travel miles to get water that they know will make their babies sick..but they have no choice because they can no longer feed their babies themselves.

I am aware of it. That pains me—and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I am not, however, willing to forsake my standard of living for theirs. Almost no one is.

Maybe we can change the way corporations are designed. After all..it was government force that made them. It can take away their powers too.

Yeah, good luck with that one.

You better get Thorin together with you and start building that wall, because I, and everyone who thinks as I do, will always do nearly anything I please, evade and avoid the law, actively seek to waste gov't resources, and will always provide goods and services for profit, whether I have some gov’t powers or not.

In fact, I would prefer not.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

EVERYONE EVERYWHERE HAS AN AGENDA that is often misleading.

And with that said, we discover the difference between righteous people and unrighteous people... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Rush. Your entire post can be summed up as:

1) "Any expert who's opinion i don't agree with I shall call a liberal and therefore his or her opinion is invalid according to the Rush criteria of valid opinions"
2) "I am going to ignore any obvious paradox in giving a company the legal rights to act as a person without any of the checks and balances that prevent a person from acting against the best interests of others"
3) "I am going to pretend that the people in developing countries have as much free choice as us in the west. It does not matter that they have no access to education and other things that give them the ability to make a free choice. If necessary i will redefine what free choice is just so I can pretend that they have it."
4) "I am going to cherry pick which laws I want to keep and uphold them with government force. Rush knows best which laws these are."

Oh..and Milton Friedman is against the way Corporations are structured...you are right, he is against the way some Corporations operate and he would like to see the law (the one upheld with Government force that meets with the Rush seal of approval for use of Government Force) changed to make it easier to deal with Corporations that are not acting (dare I say it) morally.

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Reality Internet Personality

No, I don't really ever see the need to spend much time with ideologues on any end of the spectrum............

Then I trust you will be giving up your association with the idealogue Ayn Rand and her cultish ideology..

No, I don't really ever see the need to spend much time with ideologues on any end of the spectrum............

Then I trust you will be giving up your association with the idealogue Ayn Rand and her cultish ideology..

Yeesh.

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Air Cold, the blade stops;
from silent stone,
Death is preordained

Calm Chaos Forums : Everyone Welcome

Rush. Your entire post can be summed up as:

1) "Any expert who's opinion i don't agree with I shall call a liberal and therefore his or her opinion is invalid according to the Rush criteria of valid opinions"
2) "I am going to ignore any obvious paradox in giving a company the legal rights to act as a person without any of the checks and balances that prevent a person from acting against the best interests of others"
3) "I am going to pretend that the people in developing countries have as much free choice as us in the west. It does not matter that they have no access to education and other things that give them the ability to make a free choice. If necessary i will redefine what free choice is just so I can pretend that they have it."
4) "I am going to cherry pick which laws I want to keep and uphold them with government force. Rush knows best which laws these are."

Oh..and Milton Friedman is against the way Corporations are structured...you are right, he is against the way some Corporations operate and he would like to see the law (the one upheld with Government force that meets with the Rush seal of approval for use of Government Force) changed to make it easier to deal with Corporations that are not acting (dare I say it) morally.

Sounds better to me than telling people they're to stupid to use western forms of health care and therefore will be denied the option all together.

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Sounds better to me than telling people they're to stupid [snip]

Then why don't you try it sometime... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

Sounds better to me than telling people they're to stupid to use western forms of health care and therefore will be denied the option all together.

I don't remember saying people were too stupid and I don't remember saying anything about Western Healthcare.

Not sure what you are trying to say here Brainsmashr.

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Reality Internet Personality

Rush. Your entire post can be summed up as:

1) "Any expert who's opinion i don't agree with I shall call a liberal and therefore his or her opinion is invalid according to the Rush criteria of valid opinions"

Not only did you make a massive mistake citing Milton Friedman in your previous post, you then compounded that error here. You see, I AGREE with Milton Friedman, and more importantly, as I demonstrated with evidence, Milton Friedman would agree with me. I would agree with nearly 99.99 percent of the things he says. I called him him a "classical liberal," because in the world of philosophy and economics: "Classical liberalism (also known as traditional liberalism and [or] laissez-faire liberalism, or, in much of the world, simply called liberalism) is a doctrine stressing individual freedom and limited government. This includes the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitations of government, free markets, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Thomas Paine and others."

Ouch.

He may have some criticisms about how some people run their companies, but so what, plenty of people do. As far as WHO, well they're just another group of gov't wanna be meddlers--you're welcome to listen to them or not, as is everyone else.

2) "I am going to ignore any obvious paradox in giving a company the legal rights to act as a person without any of the checks and balances that prevent a person from acting against the best interests of others"

I'm not ignoring any paradox that you seem to see or have created in your head--I told you why this legal fiction is applied to corporations: Because overwhelmingly and almost without fail they act in the best interests of others by providing the opportunity for billions of individuals to make their lives immeasurably more pleasant, longer, healthier, and happier by the nearly infinite multitude of products and services that are made available to them cheaply and affordably.

There's no paradox there, at all because like in all decisions there is a cost/benefit analysis. In this case, corporations are given the legal fiction because the benefits outweigh the costs. In the Wal-Mart example, there are far greater benefits to the 300 million people in the U.S. who have access to Wal-Mart's lower prices, than there is harm to the relatively few people who have negative opinions concerning how Wal-Mart has treated some of it's employees. That, of course, greatly benefits those that can afford it the least.

That's not a paradox at all.

3) "I am going to pretend that the people in developing countries have as much free choice as us in the west. It does not matter that they have no access to education and other things that give them the ability to make a free choice. If necessary i will redefine what free choice is just so I can pretend that they have it."

Free choice means that they have the right to think for themselves. That their choices aren't unlimited, or that you are utterly unwilling to provide more choices for them, doesn't mean they aren't free to choose for themselves from the options available to them.

No, they don't have the same choices as you, or I, or Alan Rickman, or Bill Gates. They are, however, free to choose among the options they have.

That is the very definition of "free choice" because "free choice" does not mean "unlimited options," or "nice options," or even "beneficial options." One can choose freely even among "completely miserable options." That doesn't mean that they don't have free choice--it means their options are limited, and even sometimes terrible.

I haven't redefined it at all.

4) "I am going to cherry pick which laws I want to keep and uphold them with government force. Rush knows best which laws these are."

Nope. Wrong again. I have said that there are rational principles that gov't decisions can be based on and therefore there are rational roles for gov't. I have never advocated anarchy, nor have I ever suggested that I am the final arbiter of which laws are good and which are bad.

You see the principles involved are not subject to my personal whim, nor to my cherry picking, and therefore they are not subject to me trying to use gov't force to make people do as I wish them to do. They aren't subject to MY personal feelings about what laws I wish to ram down their throats; therefore, I'm not cherry picking.

Oh..and Milton Friedman is against the way Corporations are structured...you are right, he is against the way some Corporations operate and he would like to see the law (the one upheld with Government force that meets with the Rush seal of approval for use of Government Force) changed to make it easier to deal with Corporations that are not acting (dare I say it) morally.

Milton is dead, and while he may have had some criticism of how some corporations are run, so what? Some of them are run poorly. Duh. But was not naive about their benefits, would nearly always agree with me, and realized that corporations do not need gov't sanction to exist.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

I, and everyone who thinks as I do, will always do nearly anything I please, evade and avoid the law, actively seek to waste gov't resources, and will always provide goods and services for profit, whether I have some gov’t powers or not.

This is yet another example of total carelessness and amorality. Beliefs like this can only be examples to budding criminals, oligarchs and totalitarians of any stripe, left or right. It is utterly disgusting, repulsive and repugnant to any and all decent people the world over.

If this was intended as an ironic remark, please remember that irony is lost in print.

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Then I trust you will be giving up your association with the idealogue Ayn Rand and her cultish ideology..

You must be confused again. I don't mention her or cite her (or anyone else) hardly at all, because I'm not interested in the people behind the idea. I'm not a part of the Atlas Society or ARI, and while she had some wonderful ideas, many of them were incomplete.

So, no, I'm not really associated with her at all--I don't know where you got that idea.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

many of them were incomplete.

I love a man whose ideas are the most complete of anyone's.

Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, consider it possible that you might be mistaken."

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Then I trust you will be giving up your association with the idealogue Ayn Rand and her cultish ideology..

You must be confused again. I don't mention her or cite her (or anyone else) hardly at all, because I'm not interested in the people behind the idea. I'm not a part of the Atlas Society or ARI, and while she had some wonderful ideas, many of them were incomplete.

So, no, I'm not really associated with her at all--I don't know where you got that idea.

I believe this is the team you belong to?


Team info
Description All are welcome to join. We're rational data crunchers and will enjoy the company. :-) We're involved in the following distributed computing projects: SETIathome SETI Beta Rosetta Einstein LHC Predictor Malaria Control Chess 960 Spinhenge ============================================ Our philosophy is Objectivism. It is the philosophy originated by Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand once was asked if she could summarize her philosophy while standing on one foot. This was her answer: Metaphysics: Objective Reality Epistemology: Reason Ethics: Self-interest Politics: Capitalism Esthetics: Romantic Realism --------------------------------------------------------------------- The basic principles of Objectivism can be summarized as follows: Metaphysics"Reality, the external world, exists independent of man's consciousness, independent of any observer's knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears. This means that A is A, that facts are facts, that things are what they are—and that the task of man's consciousness is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it." Thus Objectivism rejects any belief in the supernatural—and any claim that individuals or groups create their own reality. Epistemology "Man's reason is fully competent to know the facts of reality. Reason, the conceptual faculty, is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Reason is man's only means of acquiring knowledge." Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism (any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of knowledge), and it rejects skepticism (the claim that certainty or knowledge is impossible). Human Nature Man is a rational being. Reason, as man's only means of knowledge, is his basic means of survival. But the exercise of reason depends on each individual's choice. "Man is a being of volitional consciousness." "That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom. This is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character."Thus Objectivism rejects any form of determinism, the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his control (such as God, fate, upbringing, genes, or economic conditions). Ethics "Reason is man's only proper judge of values and his only proper guide to action. The proper standard of ethics is: man's survival qua man—i.e., that which is required by man's nature for his survival as a rational being (not his momentary physical survival as a mindless brute). Rationality is man's basic virtue, and his three fundamental values are: reason, purpose, self-esteem. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life." Thus Objectivism rejects any form of altruism—the claim that morality consists in living for others or for society. Politics "The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that no man has the right to seek values from others by means of physical force—i.e., no man or group has the right to initiate the use of physical force against others. Men have the right to use force only in self-defense and only against those who initiate its use. Men must deal with one another as traders, giving value for value, by free, mutual consent to mutual benefit. The only social system that bars physical force from human relationships is laissez-faire capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which the only function of the government is to protect individual rights, i.e., to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force." Thus Objectivism rejects any form of collectivism, such as fascism or socialism. It also rejects the current "mixed economy" notion that the government should regulate the economy and redistribute wealth. Esthetics "Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an art's metaphysical value-judgments. " The purpose of art is to concretize the artist's fundamental view of existence. Ayn Rand described her own approach to art as "Romantic Realism": "I am a Romantic in the sense that I present men as they ought to be. I am Realistic in the sense that I place them here and now and on this earth." The goal of Ayn Rand's novels is not didactic but artistic: the projection of an ideal man: "My purpose, first cause and prime mover is the portrayal of Howard Roark or John Galt or Hank Rearden or Francisco d'Anconia as an end in himself—not as a means to any further end." ---Ayn Rand

Then I trust you will be giving up your association with the idealogue Ayn Rand and her cultish ideology..

You must be confused again. I don't mention her or cite her (or anyone else) hardly at all, because I'm not interested in the people behind the idea. I'm not a part of the Atlas Society or ARI, and while she had some wonderful ideas, many of them were incomplete.

So, no, I'm not really associated with her at all--I don't know where you got that idea.

I believe this is the team you belong to?

Sure, and before that I was on Blue Oyster Cult team. I'm not in the BOC fan club, nor do I cite their lyrics. I'm not really associated with them, either.

While I understand now where you got the impression, that doesn't really change the point.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Sounds better to me than telling people they're to stupid to use western forms of health care and therefore will be denied the option all together.

I don't remember saying people were too stupid and I don't remember saying anything about Western Healthcare.

Not sure what you are trying to say here Brainsmashr.

Perhaps you would prefer "ignorant"?

While I'll concede the definition is quite different, it still accurately describes the true reason for the multiple deaths.

Now I realize you didn't explicitly state anything about Western health care, but your posts make it blatantly obvious that you don't think these people should have access to Nestle baby formula, and one would assume that also includes all powdered formulas produced by any manufacturer, correct? Since lack of sterile water and the ability to produce it for product mixing are the true culprits.

What I'm trying to say is the same thing Rush and I have been telling you since day 1. While Nestle may be guilty of unethical practices, that is a FAR cry from being malicious.

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While Nestle may be guilty of unethical practices, that is a FAR cry from being malicious.

It all comes down to definitions and semantics. I confess I don't know enough about what is a very long term row about the ethics of the Nestle company. However, I am bound to say on balance that the power selling of formula milk into societies that do not even need it, given what you acknowledge is lack of adequate water supply, is utterly unethical as well as unnecessary.

The borderline between unethical and malicious here is tenuous indeed.

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Sounds better to me than telling people they're to stupid to use western forms of health care and therefore will be denied the option all together.

I don't remember saying people were too stupid and I don't remember saying anything about Western Healthcare.

Not sure what you are trying to say here Brainsmashr.

Perhaps you would prefer "ignorant"?

While I'll concede the definition is quite different, it still accurately describes the true reason for the multiple deaths.

Now I realize you didn't explicitly state anything about Western health care, but your posts make it blatantly obvious that you don't think these people should have access to Nestle baby formula, and one would assume that also includes all powdered formulas produced by any manufacturer, correct? Since lack of sterile water and the ability to produce it for product mixing are the true culprits.

What I'm trying to say is the same thing Rush and I have been telling you since day 1. While Nestle may be guilty of unethical practices, that is a FAR cry from being malicious.

It becomes malicious when a company is made fully aware of the consequences of their actions..and the harm it is doing and then persists in it's actions.


Also..again I am not sure where you think I bought the healthcare into it. The formula is not a healthcare issue. It is not needed for health (as breast milk is better) and should not be sold as such. So again. Why are you saying that i don't think they should have access to western healthcare? Nestle milk is not a part of western healthcare.

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Reality Internet Personality

It becomes malicious when a company is made fully aware of the consequences of their actions..and the harm it is doing and then persists in it's actions.

Yep, that's why they decided to rid the world of people with morals... ;)

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It may not be 1984 but George Orwell sure did see the future . . .

I just wonder what these babies would be eating if it wasn't baby formula mixed with dodgy water ...

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.