[thechat] Appalling

Joe Crawford jcrawford at avencom.com
Wed Jul 25 19:39:55 CDT 2001


Ben Dyer wrote:
> I usually don't share this kind of thing, but, this is wrong on so many levels:
> http://www.darwinmag.com/connect/opinion/
> I always knew Philip Morris was evil, I just didn't know how badly.

Ah, the coldness of numbers.

Crass, but possibly accurate.

This is one of the reasons why I like that "life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness" line.

And this is the kind of thing that people know instinctively - that
corporations DO NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR LIFE. They'd just as soon
have you dead as work on life expectancy. Hell, if we stop forking out
money for immunizations, more children die young, and so we save on
education and health care functions. Right.

Thing of it is, places with higher life expectancies tend to have lower
birthrates - so it evens out.

Conversely, places with low life expectancies tend to have high
birthrates (think: central america, africa) - people are rushing to have
someone to survive them. Poor people also tend to be easier to control
politically - if you're worrying about your next meal you could care
less about things like pollution.

I'm gonna reference something I transcribed long ago -- partially about
multinationals:

http://www.artlung.com/smorgasborg/William_Gibson_Interview.html
<snip>
TG: "Multinationals play a pretty important role in your books."

WG: "I think I originally may have gotten that from Thomas Pynchon's
view of the
Royal Dutch Shell Company in Gravity's Rainbow, which is the first time
I realized
that there were companies that could operate on both sides of the Second
World
War and merge seamlessly afterwards and still, you know, these are
entities that
are outside national boundaries and that's always fascinated me. I think
multinationals in a sense are like more evolved life forms."
</snip>

In a sense large corporations truly are INHUMANE - they are constructs
made of human beings but which, as they grow, have their humanity
squeezed out of them. I think if you put checks and balances into them
they can be made to work in ways that serve mankind, but all too often
humanity is squeezed into ones and zeroes in ways that are disturbing.

I'm reminded of the UB40 song "One in Ten" - which is about how we push
people to being just numbers.
http://www.ub40fft.co.uk/lyrics2/oneinten.html

my $0.02

	- Joe <http://artlung.com/>




More information about the thechat mailing list