Child Sex Trafficking: And a the desensitization of global TV viewers.

[Phlosphr]

My wife and I were watching a CNBC (I think) program about the world of child sex trafficking. Not only were we horrified that it is going on in nations around the world, but horrified that they were showing in grafic detail the life and age of some of the children being horrifically sexually abused. Highlighting a Minnesota doctor working in Thailand I believe. He brought the undercover reporter to a home where he went into grafic detail about how he was purchasing 2 little girls for the night. Absolutely disgusting!
We started talking about the show after we turned it off, philosophically, the viewers of the show are naturally disgusted by the actions of some people in nations where this is a prolific phenomenon. But how many people we wondered, actually did anything about it. What sorts of power does it give the perpetrators of these crimes to commit such heinous acts? Families in the poorest of conditions actually selling children to known sex trafficer's.
We were postulating between ourselves, Americans, how horrible the situation really is. And how absolutely foreign it is to our way of thinking, our social and societal norms. Nothing in our respective folkways and mores prepares us for the atrocities around the globe being commited everyday.
So what now? I for one feel ignorant to the horrors happening in other countries to their children, to their society of tomorrow. But what about right here in our back yard. Though Serial murder is not a decidedly American phenomenon, it was thought to be so just a few decades ago. We have our fair share of pedophelia, societal maniacs roaming our streets.
We turn on our news of choice and watch as there is another slaying, another abduction, another campus rape, another sex abuse trial, another super star infront of court T.V. - and we come to the sudden realization that what we are watching is not a regional-centric view but something people are seeing on their TV's all across the country. The sickness of greed no matter of what type be it for sex or money is cast across the globe via satelite for people to watch the world over, and to what end? To the desinsitization of several billion people to the atrocities around the world?

And the twist at the end. My wife and I just spent an inordinate amount of money on a T.V. that shows everything in 42 inches of plasma splendor...Don'y mistake the crystal clear picture in what ever kind of tv you own...because the voice behind the faces can tell you the same terrible news: The global viewers of the world get to some degree desensitized to the horror around us, some become depressed, some block it out, but the images can stay in our collective memory for ever.
What can we do about not getting desensitized? Is it an insurmountable mountain we are all trying to climb?

[Ex Machina]

The cosmic equation always maintains itself. Wealth implies poverty. For Carnegie to become obscenely rich small children had to suffer and die in his mines. For people to afford to live in gated communities fellow humans must toil in factories and suffer in slums. A famous philosopher named Jesus of Nazareth understood these things. He understood the effects of material wealth on humanity. Here is the butterfly effect as applied to your situation: every time you go to a store to buy the latest plasma t.v. a child is sold into sexual slavery in Bangkok. The inequities created by the craving for superior comforts are always eventually balanced by the tears of innocents. If you cannot understand this then you are already desensitized beyond remedy and your soul is lost. Just change the channel.

[Phlosphr]

The inequities created by the craving for superior comforts are always eventually balanced by the tears of innocents.
Well said.

We are not desensitized...this is the point. Holding onto the fabrics of trying not to be ignorant of such things is our plight.

[FriarTed]

The cosmic equation always maintains itself. Wealth implies poverty. For Carnegie to become obscenely rich small children had to suffer and die in his mines. For people to afford to live in gated communities fellow humans must toil in factories and suffer in slums. A famous philosopher named Jesus of Nazareth understood these things. He understood the effects of material wealth on humanity. Here is the butterfly effect as applied to your situation: every time you go to a store to buy the latest plasma t.v. a child is sold into sexual slavery in Bangkok. The inequities created by the craving for superior comforts are always eventually balanced by the tears of innocents. If you cannot understand this then you are already desensitized beyond remedy and your soul is lost. Just change the channel.


yeah, and every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. :rolleyes:
Only the Carnegie point has actual validity. Plasma TV sales have no connection to the sexual predator industry. Indeed, one could argue that greater demand for plasma TVs means more job opportunities in those countries & hence less desperation for families to sell their children. I wouldn't claim that as an absolute truth but it has a slightly better grasp of reality than the Zero Sum anti-wealth argument.

[John Mace]

Phl:

Be careful about chastizing other countries. This is going on in the US as well. In fact, this week's NYT Mag has it's cover article, The Girls Next Door (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25SEXTRAFFIC.html) on this very subject.

EM:

I think you have created a new Logical Fallacy which I will dub the "Ying/Yang Fallacy": If A then -A. Sounds really cool in a New Age-y sort of way, but it's still a fallacy. I suppose it's just a rewording of a simple non sequitur argument, but it's common enough that I think the new name is justified.

[Phlosphr]

I certainly do not want to come across as chastizing other nations...In fact I'd like to keep that as far from my OP as possible. In fact I say here: Though Serial murder is not a decidedly American phenomenon, it was thought to be so just a few decades ago. We have our fair share of pedophelia, societal maniacs roaming our streets.
We turn on our news of choice and watch as there is another slaying, another abduction, another campus rape, another sex abuse trial, another super star infront of court T.V. - and we come to the sudden realization that what we are watching is not a regional-centric view but something people are seeing on their TV's all across the country.

We have our own atrocities going on right here. My ref. to other nations was in lieu of the program we were watching taking place outside the US. Yes, please do not misconstrue my intentions.

[Ex Machina]

yeah, and every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. :rolleyes:
Only the Carnegie point has actual validity. Plasma TV sales have no connection to the sexual predator industry. Indeed, one could argue that greater demand for plasma TVs means more job opportunities in those countries & hence less desperation for families to sell their children. I wouldn't claim that as an absolute truth but it has a slightly better grasp of reality than the Zero Sum anti-wealth argument.Be careful who you roll your eyes at my little intellectual pretender. You are dealing with an intuitive genius. First of all I have not made an "anti-wealth" argument nor am I personally "anti-wealth." Some people have more resources at their disposal than they could ever consume and some people go to bed with hunger gnawing at their stomach every night. This is a situational fact, not a moral opinion on my part. Second, I don't claim that there are direct connections between plasma t.v.'s and sexual slavery. Butterfly effects are complicated and require a scope of comprehension possessed by few. The point in eventual balance of wealth and poverty is that the wealth expended on television sets cannot be expended on alleviating poverty. It is not implied that the factory worker who assembles the t.v. in Indonesia is the seller of children in Thailand. What is implied is that all efforts expended in concentrating wealth and well-being in one area detract from expending the same effort in other areas. A universal truth which is beyond the reaches of high-school debaters.

This post is directed to John Mace also even though I don't get his "if A then -A" interpretation.

But getting back to reality and the OP, and addressing Phlosphr, my point is that you can't empathize with all the suffering that goes on in the world...you have to be desensitized. It is a mental survival instinct. If you knew the horrible things going on in your own city it would rend your heart. The only real thing anyone can do is to leave the seat in front of the t.v. and go to the very place you are worried about and make a difference. But that is nigh impossible. So every time you go to a store and purchase things you are not expending that effort on solving those problems. (This is why I said every time you buy a t.v. a child is sold etc.) Don't listen to the hyper-literal analyses of the previous posts. The karmic-cosmic balance is real, regardless of my imaginative phrasing.

[John Mace]

...I don't get his "if A then -A" interpretation.

The cosmic equation always maintains itself. Wealth implies poverty.

If Wealth (A) then Poverty (-A).

And you are clearly using "poverty" in an absolute sense (people starving), not a relative one (people not being able to afford a 3rd TV).

[sturmhauke]

Originally Posted by Ex Machina
Be careful who you roll your eyes at my little intellectual pretender. You are dealing with an intuitive genius... Butterfly effects are complicated and require a scope of comprehension possessed by few... A universal truth which is beyond the reaches of high-school debaters.

Saying "I'm smarter than you" is not a valid debating tactic, especially around here. Neither is, "X is a universal truth, that's just the way it is." You shall have to provide cites if you expect anyone to believe you.

And what the hell is an "intuitive genius" anyway?

[threemae]

Ex Machina, careful here, you're getting close to sounding like Just Think II, New and Improved.

You are dealing with an intuitive genius.

You are dealing with someone that wants to laugh his ass off.

Let me introduce you to a little concept that made some headway a number of years ago (centuries, actually), that in free transactions, everyone only makes decisions that benefits their own lives. Explain to me the exact manner by which one person having a 42" plasma TV harms another. If there was some magical "resource god" or fairy that flutterered around the world distributing resources (primary production resources, work-hours, etc.), then you'd have a point. But there isn't. Technology has allowed certain worker's efforts to have more economic value than other workers. A worker in the plasma-TV factory that can spit out 500 $4,000 TV sets a day or someone driving a tractor over 1,000 acres of genetically modified soybeans benefiting from the advantages of the green revolution has more value than a subsistence farmer working a 2 acre plot strugglying to barely keep a family alive. This is, "A universal truth which is beyond the reaches of high-school debaters."

So, take your simplistic little zero-sum game back to the drawing board (or Etch-a-Sketch, crayons, finger paints, whatever the hell it is you are using) and reconsider.

[labmonkey]

I don't think people are more desensitized to violence now than during other periods of history. If anything,Phlosphr, people are more aware and more sensitive to the plight of others via media like your TV. Also, for most people, I would hazard that daily brutality is much less common and acceptable now(of course this is dependant on the area of the world you live in) than in prior generations. Even the concept of every human life having intrinsic value is a relatively new one. I think it would be pretty fair to say that you and your wife's response to what you witnessed (not even firsthand, mind you) is not at all uncommon, and hardly seems desensitized to me.

[Ex Machina]

Ex Machina, careful here, you're getting close to sounding like Just Think II, New and Improved.



You are dealing with someone that wants to laugh his ass off.

Let me introduce you to a little concept that made some headway a number of years ago (centuries, actually), that in free transactions, everyone only makes decisions that benefits their own lives. Explain to me the exact manner by which one person having a 42" plasma TV harms another. If there was some magical "resource god" or fairy that flutterered around the world distributing resources (primary production resources, work-hours, etc.), then you'd have a point. But there isn't. Technology has allowed certain worker's efforts to have more economic value than other workers. A worker in the plasma-TV factory that can spit out 500 $4,000 TV sets a day or someone driving a tractor over 1,000 acres of genetically modified soybeans benefiting from the advantages of the green revolution has more value than a subsistence farmer working a 2 acre plot strugglying to barely keep a family alive. This is, "A universal truth which is beyond the reaches of high-school debaters."

So, take your simplistic little zero-sum game back to the drawing board (or Etch-a-Sketch, crayons, finger paints, whatever the hell it is you are using) and reconsider.Are you people really this slow? Do you not get satirical philosophical hyperbole when you hear it? (I don't even know what a "butterfly effect" is exactly.) Do you think you have discovered a "communist" and are going to impress people with arguments against the 'redistribution of wealth' and such? This thread is not a debate about economic principles.

A member calling himself Phlosphr asked this question "...how many people we wondered, actually did anything about it" and he mentioned gaining this information over an expensive piece of electronic equipment. So I answered him in the ersatz manner of a philosopher, saying essentially, in inventive language, that people do immoral things because they are poor, and if you really want to do something about it you should get up from the t.v. and do something, and if you simply continue to buy t.v.'s then you are just perpetuating the status quo in which moneyed people surround themselves with comfort and poor people do bad things for money, and that it is highly impractical to effect change so forget about it - "change the channel."

If there is anything that bothers you about the "cosmic equation" (a term and concept I just made up on the spot for the post) then maybe there are elements of truth you recognize. One element being that much of wealth is attained at the expense of others - an unemotional fact but hardly a basis for a "karmic-cosmic" theory of a universal balance of gain and loss). But maybe it is true that every addition to one man has an exact correlative subtraction from another. I'll have to look into it. In any event your attack on my words (which were directed at another person) is probably due more to feelings of guilt which you harbor than any threat of a serious economic philosophy promulgated by me. Think about that.

So drop the pose of 'defender-of-free-enterprise' and 'explainer-of-capitalism.' You are attacking a make-believe theory and you look silly doing it.

Maybe you can start another thread about economic philosophies and keep that boring business confined somewhere else.

P.S. Threemae, every time you buy a new car six babies die of starvation in Botswana. Bothers you, doesn't it? It's that karmic umbilical cord which connects the events through a cosmic wormhole. It's the truth behind the insanity that gets you. You know it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle...

[threemae]

Frankly, the only way that I can explain you is along the lines of:

1. Just Think II has arrived

2. You're kidding about the whole thing, but everyon seems to have forgotten to laugh

3. Last and most likely, you are a troll.

I don't even know what a "butterfly effect" is exactly.

You seem to be using one to argue in all seriousness in your previous posts.

I'll have to look into it.

Maybe you should look into these thing prior to posting in the future. Just a thought. Although, if you are trolling, this would seem to match nicely. As would, "Do you not get satirical philosophical hyperbole when you hear it?"

You should look into your satire skills a bit there. Or just drop the whole bit, because us slow people don't seem to be picking up on it.

In any event your attack on my words (which were directed at another person) is probably due more to feelings of guilt which you harbor than any threat of a serious economic philosophy promulgated by me. Think about that.


I don't own a car. Nor a 42" plasma TV. Or any TV for that matter. I'm not wealthy. I'm a student, and I'm not feeling guilty about much right now.

Seriously, Ex, be real on one thing. Are you serious about any of this or are you making some pathetic attempt at humor here?

[Apos]

I've got bad news for you Phlosphr. (warning, very blunt statements about very horrible things done to children ahead)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25SEXTRAFFIC.html

It's apparently all over America too. Not just prostitution: outright sexual slavery. That's right: America has, at the most conservative of estimates, at least 30,000 slaves still in slavery, most of them children, most of them foriegn nationals either tricked or kipnapped into coming here. And instead of sowing fields, their service involves being raped, beaten, tortured, and even murdered for the fun and profit of wealthy American citizens, who induce incredible demand. In Mexico, there exist markets where buyer come to size up either lucrative investments in a stable of underage children, or buy personal sex slaves. Entire crime families in Mexico live in splendour and impunity on the rape of children, and they are so powerful that the government barely bothers to acknowledge their existence, much less combat them in a serious way, and indeed in many cases government officials participate. Collectors in the U.S. trade children out in the open at Disneyland (which provides great cover), color coding them for various uses, one of which includes the "damage" class: which means a child not only to have sex with, but whom johns can also physically abuse and damage, for a higher price.

Are you throwing up yet?

Here's what bothers me: instead of buying a 2000$ computer, or you buying your plasma screen, I could have bought a little girl from these people to save her from a life of hell, or I could have used that money to try and rehabilitate such a victim, or fight this trade, or so on. The moral choice couldn't be much starker: a computer vs. saving someone from a life of unspeakable horror and degredation. And I picked the computer. You picked your plasma screen. What the hell is wrong with us?

[Ex Machina]

Seriously, Ex, be real on one thing. Are you serious about any of this or are you making some pathetic attempt at humor here?1. No one invited you to "explain" me.
2. Read my second post. When a reasonable person sees the phrase "But getting back to reality and the OP..." what would he assume about the preceding remarks?
3. The fact that you are incapable of detecting the seriousness in my posts is irrelevant. Phlosphr had no problem with it. And he was the one being addressed. Which brings me to
4. Why would you react so to words intended for someone else?
5. Where do you think you are? At the student union arguing philosophy with the other sophomores?

This is what I'm serious about: 1. If a person is not going to take any real action to remedy situations of depravity or injustice then it makes no difference whether or not they feel "desensitized" to the matter.

2. It is a fact that free societies become stratified because some people are successful and others are failures. It is hypocritical for the wealthy to criticize the poor for their methods of staying alive when their condition is "created" by the wealthy, and the selling of drugs and prostitution are made practical alternatives to sustain themselves. But what I said about this in generalizations and pseudo-profundity was hardly intended to be an articulation of a detailed economic philosophy.

Don't invite yourself into a discussion, create an argument, and then accuse your victim of being a "troll." Look back at this thread and you will see that you smarted off to me before I even addressed you.

And don't call me by the abbreviation "Ex". That suggests a familiarity I reserve for people I like.

[II Gyan II]

If Wealth (A) then Poverty (-A).


Leaving aside the truth value of EM's philosphy, your conclusion doesn't hold simply because the recipients of those two conditions are different. I don't think EM ever implied that the people who are wealthy and poor, are the same!

Wealth and poverty can be compared two ways:

1)Absolute wealth and its power
2)Relative weath and its power

With purely regards to two, it seems obvious to me, that a few will be always be relatively rich and few relatively poor. Their absolute condition and standard of living might improve across the board, but its debatable whether humans will ever achieve a state of economic wealth distribution where the relatively poor have adequate access to the needs of that current generation.

[John Mace]

Leaving aside the truth value of EM's philosphy, your conclusion doesn't hold simply because the recipients of those two conditions are different. I don't think EM ever implied that the people who are wealthy and poor, are the same!

No. Although not explicity stated, I think most people would reasonable assume that the statement was:

If Wealth [exists in the world] then Poverty [will exist in the world].

With it clearly being different people in those different states.

[threemae]

And he was the one being addressed.

Get over yourself. This is a public message board in which posters post to discuss topics not only with the OP, but for the benefit of lurkers and anyone else who feels like piping in on the topic. The suggestion that commenting on your post is somehow a violation of board etiquite is ridiculous. Threads are nothing like actual conversations. Anyone who feels that they have something to add may say it whenever they want.

I have no reservation or regrets about addressing you before you addressed me. There is no physical presence in the SDMB, and therefore no way to "invite" people into a thread like in real conversation. Again, get over youself. I "smarted off" to you because you presented a simplistic view of the world that I would disagree with. Your subsequent support for this view made me wonder if you were serious at all. You didn't provide any hint of humor in your first post, but then said that you'll have to look into what a "Butterfly Effect" is (I haven't the foggiest notion either, but since you used the term...) and that you would hve to look into wether or not the wealth of one creates poverty for another.

Getting back to the OP, just consider that you haven't created the situations that cause the suffering of others. Unlike what others have suggested, again, this isn't a zero-sum game, and your wealth does not lead to their poverty, nor does your happiness lead to their sadness. Unlike what some have suggested (not in this thread, but elsewhere), I do not believe that those who are idle in times of crisis are worse than the evil doers. The people that actually harm others are. Using a commonly cited example, the hottest places in hell are still reserved for Hitler et. al, not the fence-sitters.

So, I guess the question becomes, do we still have some duty to the sufferers in the world to improve their lot? I would answer yes. Personally, that is where private charity and some limited government power comes in. And finally, I realize that the world seems impossible to solve. Too many deaths, too much suffering, too much violence. You are correct, no one person can end all of it. But they can help. Any action that provides comfort or help to another is something that has a definite impact on somone else. It may not make the news. It may not change the horrors that we percieve in the world. However, it will make a difference.

So, my personal take: Don't sweat the big stuff. You didn't create disease, famine, or poverty. One should still seek a path in life that allows you to help others. The easiest is working a job and simply giving a portion of your money away. Harder is to volunteer locally. Harder still is to organize some sort of effort to help those far away from you. Do whatever you want, knowing that helping others might relieve some of your own anxiety about it.

[Apos]

I should say that now that I look into this NYTimes article, I should have been more skeptical. Not that the sex slave trade doesn't exist and isn't horrid, but some of the more extreme claims, such as the estimated numbers and the Disneyland handoffs, seem distinctly undersourced, and probably should not be taken at face value.

[John Mace]

"Butterfly Effect" is (I haven't the foggiest notion either

Funny you should both be unfamiliar with this phrase, as there is a movie just recently released with that title. It refers to the interconnectedness of seemingly meaningless or random events. A butterfly could flap it's wings in Africa and that might set off a chain of events that leades to, say, a particular man being elected president in the US. Go back in time and change even the smallest detail, and all history might be different.

[Apos]

I do not believe that those who are idle in times of crisis are worse than the evil doers.

I don't purport to know what an "evil doer" really is, but I do know that when I sit down to make a decision between either seeing a movie I probably won't enjoy that much for 12$, and helping someone with that money, and I consistently pick the movie.

What's worse, I somehow ALSO feel morally outraged when I hear a story about some damning case of neglect. The question is: why am I allowed to be outraged about evil doers or people who refuse to help those in need, but comfortable about my own lack of help? Might it not be that what we think of as moral principles are really just principles of convienience? Like WMD law, in which illegal weapons just happen to be those which the countries who write the laws no longer need to use, having invented much more deadly and effective weapons?

Using a commonly cited example, the hottest places in hell are still reserved for Hitler et. al, not the fence-sitters.

But I'm not sure that's true. Hitler was a violent anti-Semite. He didn't HAVE the moral values that you and I claim to have, and so he wasn't playing with anything like the moral deck we have to play with. That means that we can expect LESS from someone like him than we should expect from ourselves.

You didn't create disease, famine, or poverty.

It's never that simple. I didn't create disease, famine, or poverty, but neither did I do anything to be born privaleged, reasonably together, and reasonably intelligent. That was pure dumb luck. That might well not be a good reason to create a society that would take some of my good fortune away to give to others, but it sure is no defense of my own actions or inactions.

[II Gyan II]

No. Although not explicity stated, I think most people would reasonable assume that the statement was:

If Wealth [exists in the world] then Poverty [will exist in the world].



And there's no fallacy there unless you hold an absolute definition for those terms.

You claimed earlier that, that's what EM was referring to, but I don't see that from EM's first post. He brought up a few examples (Carnegie/mines, gated/slums, plasma TV/slavery) but they are all paired with the corresponding relative 'wealthy'.

If you are inferring that since all those three conditions satisfy criteria for "absolute" poverty as well, the Wealth <-> Poverty refers to the absolute condition, then that's a presumption, bolstered only by the circumstantial fact that relative poverty often means absolute poverty even today.

[Testy]

I should say that now that I look into this NYTimes article, I should have been more skeptical. Not that the sex slave trade doesn't exist and isn't horrid, but some of the more extreme claims, such as the estimated numbers and the Disneyland handoffs, seem distinctly undersourced, and probably should not be taken at face value.

The whole bit about trading children in wholesale lots has the same ring about it as the panic in the US a few years ago about satanic cults sacrificing children on a weekly basis and even raising them for the purpose. As you know, the whole satanic-cult thing turned out to be total bullshit and I expect that this will also. I suppose this post has a certain "me too!" sound about it but I'm not going to get worked up about something that probably doesn't exist.

Regards

Testy

[John Mace]

The whole bit about trading children in wholesale lots has the same ring about it as the panic in the US a few years ago about satanic cults sacrificing children on a weekly basis and even raising them for the purpose. As you know, the whole satanic-cult thing turned out to be total bullshit and I expect that this will also. I suppose this post has a certain "me too!" sound about it but I'm not going to get worked up about something that probably doesn't exist.

You may dispute some details, but I think this business has been well documented by many reputible sources. Having said that, I listened to an interview on NPR today with the autor, and he was clearly as interested in promoting himself (and his heroic reporting efforts) as he was in bringing this story to light.

[labmonkey]

I should say that now that I look into this NYTimes article, I should have been more skeptical. Not that the sex slave trade doesn't exist and isn't horrid, but some of the more extreme claims, such as the estimated numbers and the Disneyland handoffs, seem distinctly undersourced, and probably should not be taken at face value.

Difficult to assess the veracity (http://slate.msn.com/id/2094414/) of the author's claims. What's with the Times journalists lately? I don't think this story requires sensationalistic claims to have an impact. :dubious: Most of the hard statistics I could find include adult women, so it's difficult to say what % are actually children.

[labmonkey]

The whole bit about trading children in wholesale lots has the same ring about it as the panic in the US a few years ago about satanic cults sacrificing children on a weekly basis and even raising them for the purpose. As you know, the whole satanic-cult thing turned out to be total bullshit and I expect that this will also. I suppose this post has a certain "me too!" sound about it but I'm not going to get worked up about something that probably doesn't exist.

Regards

Testy

I had that same deja-vu when I first read the article.

[elfkin477]

The whole bit about trading children in wholesale lots has the same ring about it as the panic in the US a few years ago about satanic cults sacrificing children on a weekly basis and even raising them for the purpose. As you know, the whole satanic-cult thing turned out to be total bullshit and I expect that this will also.

That sort of sounds like they were using the novel Oryx and Crake as source material. But Atwood must have gotten the idea for her character's childhood experiences somewhere...problems like this probably exist in isolated spots, even though they may not be of the mythic proportions reported.

[labmonkey]

Originally posted by Ex Machina :
"Be careful who you roll your eyes at my little intellectual pretender. You are dealing with an intuitive genius."

This statement is possesed of a rare sublimity to beautiful to dissect here.

Originally posted by Ex Machina :
"It is hypocritical for the wealthy to criticize the poor for their methods of staying alive when their condition is "created" by the wealthy, and the selling of drugs and prostitution are made practical alternatives to sustain themselves."

Fortunately, however, (and in keeping with the cosmic-karmic balance) this one " has a certain understated stupidity." Just so as to not go off in a complete hijack, I'll illustrate with an example related to the OP. So, by the very virtue of being poor, the poor are immune to any critique of their behavior? So the Thai sperm donors who sell their children into prostitution to support their predilection for junk, they're just working with the only means a stratified society has left them for sustainence, correct? I should somehow feel guilty because some waste of space can't kick like a real man, instead, condemning his own children to a life of misery? Right, gotcha. Think I'll go pick up that new DVD player I've been wanting now.

[Testy]

You may dispute some details, but I think this business has been well documented by many reputible sources. Having said that, I listened to an interview on NPR today with the autor, and he was clearly as interested in promoting himself (and his heroic reporting efforts) as he was in bringing this story to light.

When I re-read my previous post I seem to come off as doubting that children are sold for sexual purposes which was not my intent at all. Children are sexually abused and always have been. Whenever there is a demand, someone will cater to it and efforts to stop the supply simply result in a higher price. The effort to stamp out child prostitution is probably doomed to failure but is still worth making.
I think what I objected to in the OP was a perceived casual nature of the transaction. Having lived in Thailand, speaking the language, etc. I can say the the "Minnesota Doctor" had better be more careful. The Thais have a lower age of consent (14 or 15 if I remember correctly) but if the doc was renting pre-pubescent children the prison term is lengthy and the Thais don't like child-molesters any better than the average westerner.

Regards

Testy

[Testy]

That sort of sounds like they were using the novel Oryx and Crake as source material. But Atwood must have gotten the idea for her character's childhood experiences somewhere...problems like this probably exist in isolated spots, even though they may not be of the mythic proportions reported.

Thanks for the Oryx and Crake reference. I haven't read it but intend to as soon as the Saudi authorities decide it isn't subversive. *S* I'm sure that children do get sold for sex, people are arrested for it all the time and in many different countries. I would never dismiss the problem as non-existant but I suspect that the author has taken a real social problem and blown it up into a crusade for reasons of his own. As John Mace pointed out, the guy seems pretty intent on selling lots of books.

Regards

Testy

[Testy]

I had that same deja-vu when I first read the article.

After reading the link in your previous post it seems that this probably is like the Satanist thing, a lot of smoke but no or very few actual examples.

Regards

Testy

[Phlosphr]

Originally posted by Ex Machina One element being that much of wealth is attained at the expense of others - an unemotional fact but hardly a basis for a "karmic-cosmic" theory of a universal balance of gain and loss).

Much - if not all - of what my wife and I have came from pure unadulterated Blood, Sweat, and tears shed by no one but ourselves. Our earnings are based solely on our work ethic and background. I and my wife did what we needed to to get to where we are. We are certainly not afraid to get up early, and work our asses off to afford whatever luxuries we have.

You have that right as well, you can work your ass off to afford what you please...Or not. Rarely are things gifted to you on a silver platter. Most of the time you need to work for what you have....

Originally posted by testy I think what I objected to in the OP was a perceived casual nature of the transaction. Having lived in Thailand, speaking the language, etc. I can say the the "Minnesota Doctor" had better be more careful. The Thais have a lower age of consent (14 or 15 if I remember correctly) but if the doc was renting pre-pubescent children the prison term is lengthy and the Thais don't like child-molesters any better than the average westerner.

Excuse the casualness of the OP. I intended no casual nature of the words, I was just sketchy on remembering the actual facts on the show...I'm quite sure the doc was from minnesota, but as for thailand it may have been a different country in that region.

[Paul in Qatar]

The danger of EX's odd philosophy is both that it weakens personal responsibility ('I am evil because someone else is good.') and that it makes any effort at moral progress meaningless ('If I save this person, I am killing another.')

Even if it were true, I would choose to think it was not.

[Phlosphr]

I suddenly paid attention to your signature Paul's. Very relevant! And I agree with your last post.

[Ex Machina]

The danger of EX's odd philosophy is both that it weakens personal responsibility ('I am evil because someone else is good.') and that it makes any effort at moral progress meaningless ('If I save this person, I am killing another.')I knew a woman who was living alone, abandoned by her husband, who needed to pay the rent etc. She lived in a tiny house on the "wrong side of the tracks" and was becoming increasingly desperate. The job we both worked at was low paying and tedious. She confided to me that a female friend was encouraging her to become involved in prostitution. The selling point was that her customers were "nice clean successful men" from the "right" side of the tracks. The attraction of the money eventually overrode her reluctance.

This was a nice lady whom I had grown fond of and it was not pleasant for me to see this turn of events. I did not consider her "evil" because someone else was "good." I believe I have left moral judgment out of my description of reality. It is not my "odd philosophy" that this is how things should be but how they are.

I don't know what the expression "moral progress" means.

If a person chooses to continue in his position ensconced in his recliner before the t.v. then children will continue to be sold into sexual slavery. I don't say that people should remain in their lazy boys. I say that if you choose to remain there you shouldn't pretend that just being upset about a matter makes a difference. I don't see how the statement "If I save this person, I am killing another" follows from that.

I made general statements about the balance of wealth which were half serious and half tongue-in-cheek. These were opinions to support a conclusion and not intended to be self supporting arguments. It's as if someone said "there's nothing new under the sun" and someone else disputed the contention by documenting the invention of Silly Putty.

The disparity of wealth creates unpleasant situations. Some people have an excess of wealth and some have a lack. This enables people with base or perverse desires to live out their fantasies. Whether it is some rich gentleman getting a blowjob in his town car or a wealthy doctor renting young girls in a village in the Orient doesn't matter. It is the same the world over.

We have settled on a system which makes some people billionaires and some people homeless. This system of inequity will probably hold sway over most of civilization in the future. This means that perversions will be perpetuated.

As long as poor people fear death, and as long as the rich have human natures, depravity will continue.

[Testy]

<snip>



Excuse the casualness of the OP. I intended no casual nature of the words, I was just sketchy on remembering the actual facts on the show...I'm quite sure the doc was from minnesota, but as for thailand it may have been a different country in that region.

My apologies. Your description was fine. I was referring to the pedo doctor taking a journalist (or anyone else) along on a trip to buy children. That was the part that seemed casual to me.

I can't say too much about the other countries in the area. I believe Cambodia had a reputation for such things, it is a very economically depressed and chaotic place where just about anything is possible.

Regards

Testy

[Mtgman]

Here's what bothers me: instead of buying a 2000$ computer, or you buying your plasma screen, I could have bought a little girl from these people to save her from a life of hell, or I could have used that money to try and rehabilitate such a victim, or fight this trade, or so on. The moral choice couldn't be much starker: a computer vs. saving someone from a life of unspeakable horror and degredation. And I picked the computer. You picked your plasma screen. What the hell is wrong with us?Except that the result of buying one of these poor children out of slavery simply perpetuates the industry. The seller now has two thousand US dollars(which translates into far more resources in the rest of the world) to buy other victims. To publish misleading phamplets to ensnare other desperate invidivuals or families. To grease palms. To afford transportation.

Increasing demand, even for the right reasons, increases the problem. Demand needs to be reduced. Either by identifying the root causes of these desires and combating them, or by some other method. Using the system to thwart the system simply doesn't work. You can't kill it by feeding it.

Enjoy,
Steven

[Ludovic]

If a person chooses to continue in his position ensconced in his recliner before the t.v. then children will continue to be sold into sexual slavery.
Ahhh, but as other posts here have made clear, sometimes it is difficult to tell whether an active stance will, indeed, make things any better, rather than most likely not making any difference at all, or even hurting things. You must ask yourself whether one completely ruined life is better than one completely ruined life AND one completely frustrated, broke, bitter individual who has not made a difference despite giving it their all.

Mere action provides no guarantees. If there were some identifiable way in which bad situations could be helped, you can be assured many people, even in this thread, would avail themselves of them. But it remains to be seen if even the best efforts of these individuals would yield any result at all.

[Apos]

Except that the result of buying one of these poor children out of slavery simply perpetuates the industry. The seller now has two thousand US dollars(which translates into far more resources in the rest of the world) to buy other victims. To publish misleading phamplets to ensnare other desperate invidivuals or families. To grease palms. To afford transportation.

Except it's unlikely that whatever I pay to save one girl will not likely itself be enough to induce demand for an entire other girl. Regardless, there are plenty of equally worthy other options that don't include this downside.

[Evil Captor]

The disparity of wealth creates unpleasant situations. Some people have an excess of wealth and some have a lack. This enables people with base or perverse desires to live out their fantasies. Whether it is some rich gentleman getting a blowjob in his town car or a wealthy doctor renting young girls in a village in the Orient doesn't matter. It is the same the world over.

We have settled on a system which makes some people billionaires and some people homeless. This system of inequity will probably hold sway over most of civilization in the future. This means that perversions will be perpetuated.

As long as poor people fear death, and as long as the rich have human natures, depravity will continue.

I have to side with EX here, with reservations. Historically, women have been enslaved. Sexual service was simply one of the terms of their slavery. In short, sex slavery is not purely the product of capitalism as it long predated capitalism, and in fact capitalism may ultimately prove less friendly to sex slavery than most other systems, like feudalism, which perpetuate social and economic inequality. (I'd argue that socialist democracies, with their greater concern for their welfare of all members of their socieities, are the least slavery-friendly form of society going).

In the Third World there are an awful lot of families that have a lot of children and very little food. Under those circumstances, selling a female child into slavery might be considered giving her a way out from near-certain starvation. We might not like thinking about that but to parents who are looking at their last bowl of rice and their very skinny young daughter, it may be a pragmatic attempt to save her (and their) life rather than a shameful lack of morals. Plus, I have to believe that very poor people in countries where having lots of kids with the knowledge that a certain number of them may die young in hopes that some may survive to support them one day is a common stratagem, may have more distant, colder feelings toward their kids than we in America do.

That poverty is the root of sex slavery. Until everybody in the world has enough to eat, there'll always be quite a few young girls available for the sex trade. Beats letting them starve to death.

Of course, the people who buy women as sex slaves have some moral flaws, but they can probably comfort themselves that they are saving the girls from starvation. And the hell of it is, they are probably right.

[Ex Machina]

I don't claim that capitalism invented poverty. And I don't claim that the world would be a paradise without it. This is not an anti-capitalist rant.

A free pyramidal society starts with a pool of humanity. Some will find themselves on top, whether by their own ingenuity or fortune of birth, and many will rise to the middle classes, and some will lack the intelligence or the initiative to avoid a life of poverty. The poor are part of the pool which makes extreme wealth possible, simply looking at it from the other direction you see that "wealth implies poverty." But the poor don't vanish into thin air. It is not as if you were sorting through a crop of apples and tossing the rotten ones into the garbage. As Jesus said, "you have the poor with you always." So it is hypocritical for someone enjoying the comforts afforded by a system to look at another intrinsic part of that system and pass moral judgment. The extreme example of this is a man, gorging himself on prime rib and pastries, observing the lack of morals of a hungry man who steals a loaf of bread.

I don't believe that morality is absolutely relative, but it is relative to a great extent. For example, every day some debutante marries a promising young man because of the physical comforts promised by the union, bringing to it her pert breasts, sparkling smile, and firm young bottom. The deb will thereafter be known as a pillar of society. But the desperate young woman who fellates Miss Debutante's husband in exchange for a crisp fifty-dollar bill would be considered a whore.


When I talk of the "cosmic equation" I am not talking about specifics where the purchase of a big-screen t.v. from Pete's Electronics Shop in Peoria can be linked by a consequential chain of events to the selling of 12-year old Susie X in Thailand. I am talking about big pictures, large concepts of human stratification. And I am saying that if people are not willing or capable of making real changes in that structure then don't make a show of beating your breast.

Sexual submission and prostitution are as old as humanity and exist under any social system, whether it is pharoahs or feudal lords or plantation owners or any order where the weak submit to the powerful. (The argument can be made however that smaller organizations such as tribes have less sexual depravity because of the more personal relationships and the trust required between the leader and the tribesmen.)


Don't mistake television images for closeness of the event. There is more pain in the world than any person's armchair empathy could possibly comprehend. Shedding a tear in your dip is as feckless as trying to extinguish the sun with a squirt gun.

[olanv]

Wealth in and of itself is not a bad thing. LOT's of wealth, in and of itself is not a bad thing. In fact, it's considered THE good thing. Wealth is what allows us to feel certain that we have the option to fulfill desires and/or impules. We strive for it, and evidence of lacking it, is our inabiliy to have a life where our intent is not circumvented or violated against our ultimate consent. This is true, individually, for every being on earth. Wealth more than anything, is defined as the posession of certainty; certainty that we will be able to continue being certain. It's about using your intent to preserve your ability to have an intent, otherwise known as survival, so far as intentional beings are concerned.

Wealth is attributed as access, potential, this free space of mind from which certainty is derived and stress can abate. The primary problem that people get so frustrated about with wealth, is when people think that access to something means that you have the right to exersize use of the material able to be accessed before it is translated wealth. Wealth that is translated means that all beings can use it, which gives society and each individual MORE wealth, more certainty. When someone decides to run amuck with untranslated wealth that has been accessed by society, they are basically making it VERY difficult for society to translate that wealth. This phenomsnon is the hording of capitalism. It's the anti-thesis of being an intentional being. People who do this, aren't considered "evil", they just aren't considered intentional beings -- their processing of information is not an actual state of intentionality, but rather a simulated one, using linguistic tokens to simulate the intelligence of intentional beings while representing the intelligence of lower animal forms.

An intentional being is not going to use coersion to get the wealth back from you, as this entire act contradicts what it means to be an intentional being in the first place. If you're going to figure out how to assure that your existence can run intent without circumvention or violation of consent, you need to live that way, otherwise you're knowlingly signing your own death warrant. The moment you violate the intent of another being against it's consent; even simulated intelligence, as an intentional being, you are contradicting the purpose for being an intentional being.

The point here is that the contention that wealth implies poverty, is only true when unintentional beings and intentional beings co-exist. Eventually intentional beings will get a handle on the situation. Translated wealth doesn't necessitate the poverty wealth dichotomy... it is untralstated wealth that is USED that accounts for this situation. Of course looking upon the globe and seeing the USE of untranslated wealth, is evidence that this occurs for the whole system.

Currently, it is absolutely true to state that welath implies poverty, in all instances. You only need to observe the use of untranlated wealth (stratification) to know this to be a fact. The acceptance of this untranslated wealth forces all of the lines being exploited as "evidence that you even deserve it". Of course you deserve it, but the point is that you actually don't posess it until it is translated wealth, which is a concept that non-intentional human do not grasp. They are not aware of themselves.

[drachillix]

We have settled on a system which makes some people billionaires and some people homeless. This system of inequity will probably hold sway over most of civilization in the future.

Its not just a system it's the law. (http://home.alltel.net/mikeric/Misc/Pareto.htm)

From the link

Pareto, an economist, found that a large percentage of wealth was concentrated in a small proportion of the entire population. From this, Pareto advanced the theory of logarithmic law of wealth distribution, or what has come to be called the Pareto principle.

[olanv]

Its not just a system it's the law. (http://home.alltel.net/mikeric/Misc/Pareto.htm)

From the link

It's not difficult to make positive claims about 3 "pareto people" who invert (at a 96.2% rate) the 80:20 rule of wealth distribution that you cite, an argument that leaves an unresolved contradiction.

With regards to statistics in general, from my point of veiw, I have a 50% chance of actually existing, and from this, there is an additional 50% chance that you and I exist. There's only a 25% chance that I should humor you even writing this post. State lotteries are usually designed between 1:2 - 1:3, rarely as low as 1:4. We all know that even these odds will bankrupt you quite quickly. No reasonable statician would bet that this post exists.

[Ex Machina]

The Pareto Principle is interesting but when I envision a rule behind the correspondence of wealth and poverty it is the bell curve, or the normal curve, of statistical distribution.

The Pareto Principle may even be one half of a bell curve.

[drachillix]

The Pareto Principle is interesting but when I envision a rule behind the correspondence of wealth and poverty it is the bell curve, or the normal curve, of statistical distribution.

The Pareto Principle may even be one half of a bell curve.

It pretty much is half a bell curve. IANA stat guru but IIRC bell curves only work on an Apples-Apples comparison. The Pareto principle is used for isolating high and or low performing patterns within a group.

Like it or not we are not all born with the same combination of skill, ability, and opportunity. The latter half of olnav's post starts to demonstrate that. For example, being born in the US and having the higher standards of living that we do will contibute immensely to your position in the grand scheme of financial success.


As a very loose example:

Born in the US

survives childbrith process

Does well in school

Survives to legal adulthood

does well in college or first employment

gets the promotion

gets another promotion

aquires investment capital to start own company

survives brutal competition

company seen as valuable enough to be bought by another company for an immense profit.

In each step above many others are "selected out" some of us die, some of us make poor decisions, some of us miss opportunities. The chance of my choices and opportunities placing me in the position of someone like say Bill Gates is so tiny its not even in my realm of realistic possibilities that I will ever see the man in person.

Pareto's law has nothing to do with fair, it has everything to do with reality. If more people looked at things in this 80/20 mindset, the world would be far less of a shock to many people.

[Bryan Ekers]

If a person chooses to continue in his position ensconced in his recliner before the t.v. then children will continue to be sold into sexual slavery.

Well, it sucks to be them.

[opens another beer while getting ready for the Super Bowl]

[olanv]

drachillix,
My actual point was that reasonable statistics shows that we are unreasonably posting to each other. The point here is that we are unreasonable staticians.
Yet, we are making statistical claims. Self refuting.

Even if the rule is correct, my first point was that "high or low performing patterns within a group" is itself subject to inversion with very little effort. I can define high performance work as translating wealth; state that only 20% of the population does this. People who translate wealth don't use or accept untranslated wealth. The other 80% of unintentional human beings are in a mindless rat-race of competing for wealth in a very manner that is the opposite of high performance. Simply accepting startified wealth is evidence that a person is a low performer, or, is not really doing anything other than circlar reasoning to accept that wealth and consider themselves 'deserving of that wealth" or a "high performer". Therefor I can state with certainty that you're more likely to be exposed to and represent the circular thinking patterns of 80% of the population, that aren't intentional beings.