[MSM]

I buy plenty of things to make me happy.

I don't need the internet. Either do you. I also don't need to eat anything other than bean tortillas, but I will. I could probably get through my life wiping with single ply, but I'd rather have double.

If that makes me a bad guy in your eyes, ah well. I'm sure a few of the beers I went out my way to purchase will ease the pain.

[creatrixcordis]

I guess moderation in peoples consumption levels and the types of consumption are relative, but i'm sure there is a line where they become dangerous for the rest of the people living on the planet, but we in the 1st world really don't understand where that line is since we are not faced with the issues other people in the world are, so we look down and say who cares that i have enough while you don't, that's just how things are, hurry up and get over here too so you can have this too, what happens when all the people do? what then?

We will just wait for someone else to figure it out while we comment on hacker news and have a beer and use the internet all at the same time and eat 1st world burritos and post on facebook with our 9 billion cell phones, all at the same time, hopefully we can all do this all at the same time, and in the process of figuring it out some of us are just unlucky to be born in a different vantage point, where we don't have cell phones, barely can carry water to drink to our families, try to fish in waters that are not polluted, education is scarce, all this because the ones born into the more favorable vantage point wait for others to fix the problems while they fat on their couches and complain that obesity is a problem because the corporations feed us fat food, and to think that we can actually help those people if we just want to? if we just approached the problem with the same vigor as we approach securing our oil-reserves, but who gives a fuck, all we do is just sit here on hacker news and complain and bitch and comment and feel good because we get points and we are on the main page but it all equates to nothing and i am guilty for it, so i'm going to go out and get breakfast at one of the many places available to me, happy thanksgiving

[MSM]

My point was, it's all relative.

Even poor people spend money on non-necessities. I watched a documentary on how being able to afford a Coke is a sign of status in many third world countries. They obviously don't need Coke, but having it seems to make them happy (I can't complain, I love it as well). Even though they might not be able to afford many of things we deem important, they manage to get enough change together to buy a soft drink.

There is little we can do to help those in the poorest countries. We can give our time or our money, but rarely are either of those things given. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you've never taken time away from your job to spend a week in Liberia or Eritrea. Is it a problem? Probably. Is it something that is going to be solved by not buying anything today? Of course not.

[creatrixcordis]

I agree it's relative, but the major reason those people like this "Coke" was because they've been fed images from the west about how they should be, don't you find it odd that most countries you go to, have some of the same things you have here? Coke, McDonalds, Marlboro, Burger King

That doesn't mean those things are good. If our society here in the west was focused on exporting things for the good of the people around the world, maybe we would export good education?

But you just cant export good things when everything is money driven, someone has to suffer, someone has to get the short stick from the bunch and in this case it is the poor people because they don't have enough power to do anything about it. They're problems are real, food, clean water, electricity, education so they accept our so called sharp toothed help because it alleviates some of their problems in the short term, but they don't have the right organization to stop us and say "no, you can't dump your shit(chemical waste, etc) here man", no if you can't find cheap labor in your country "we wont work for you here either unless you pay us the right amount" So the west knows this, corporations know this, so they go and exploit and keep it hidden from us because they want us to be at ease when we pay for their products at the cash register.

When you say there is little we can do, we can also abstain from putting forward idiotic ideals into their television sets so they go buy our shit because they think that is the thing to do, since television and ads are the only major exposure they get from the 1st world countries they look up to it because of their ignorance that there are problems there too.

We can also abstain from going over there and exploiting them because they haven't had the proper education to judge our causes in a equal light.

Yes there are things we can do, and yes not shopping one day is a start, i didn't say not shopping at all, but not shopping on one major day out of 365 days is not too much to ask, because if you want to make a impact it has to be substantial, its the same mindset corporations have when they go look for cheap labor, we need a place to make shit that will ensure us with substantial profits.

I've lived in a 3rd world country before so i know that you can make do with less and even here i make do with way less than the average hard-working american(including immigrants), even though i can live a life that includes many more material things, for me those things don't increase my happiness, so i choose not to.

And this western way of going about things assuming that the major problems of earth will be solved by the people who currently are in the have, is faulty thinking as well, no one can say that the person who can contribute most to this world can't be born somewhere in a very unfortunate environment but with the right treatment can grow up and cure cancer, develop clean energy, produce more efficient systems, for us to sit here in the west and pretend we are the only ones that can even deal with and attempt to solve these problems just because we are in the have category is ignorant.

On some level not providing the right education to all of the worlds population is shooting ourselves in the foot at a global level, because you never know where the major game-changer will be born and by not providing a good eco-system for those people to grow in, you are negating this so called progress ideal which is so feverishly rooted in our future