Comments on: The Sunday Papers

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:30:14 +0000

What can I say? I befriend geniuses on principle.

By: Bhazor

Bhazor — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:23:38 +0000

You would say that.

“Problematically, I was due to leave for Germany the next day, which rather inhibited my investing in a bandana and storming into the MoS’s offices with a heavy machine gun spraying lead justice. So, I contacted my chum J Nash. Truly, he is a man to have around in a crisis. In fact, you can usually contact J Nash anyway and he’ll bring his own crisis. We decided to draw the matter to the attention of The Panel.

Many of us on The Panel have worked together at some point, but that’s incidental. It exists as a fluid email group devoted to pessimism, dangerous gossip and, on Tuesdays, the destabilisation of various nation states. Its members include NTK’s Dave Green, Cam Winstanley (a former special effects technician, now of Total Film, who once advised me about dealing with a persistent burglary problem I was having with detailed instructions on how to make and lay homemade landmines), bed-hopping PC Gamer writer (and sometimes sinister The Register informer) Kieron Gillen and The Reverend Stuart Campbell, who kills people. “

By: aoanla

aoanla — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:30:26 +0000

@neems: Read his blog. Last time I looked, he came across as the kind of guy who’d happily write fuming editorials for the Daily Mail about how wooly socialists were destroying Great Britain by accusing People Who Worked Hard And Thus Deserve to Have Money of causing Global Warming (when actually it’s a socialist conspiracy).

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:14:11 +0000

Mil: Mil Millington is a genius.

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:53:37 +0000

Mil: Well, I’m not sure about the ethics of belief. Again, if someone believes something objectionable that has no ill effect on others, presumably that’s OK (and in Card’s case, his whole intent is to affect others, presumably either because he views certain rites as sacred or because he is an intolerant person, but this isn’t strictly what I’m talking about here). I know someone who believes/believed in the divine right of kings, which is openly undemocratic, but I get on with him fine.

Legally, of course you’re allowed to believe what you like – the law doesn’t legislate thought, as long as it doesn’t translate itself into an action that constitutes a crime.

By: MD

MD — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:21:09 +0000

(Also, there is a significant difference between ‘public figure with a major symbolic and financial link to product X, who actively, publicly campaigns on issue Y and seems to be a relatively significant player in that debate’ and ‘minor employee at the company making X, who happens to hold an opinion on issue Y, and may or may not be politically active’)

By: MD

MD — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:12:35 +0000

@merc: I wasn’t trying to argue that boycotting is objectively good or bad, but that it is a reasonable course of action from the perspective of the individual who wants to steer the world a tiny bit closer to their preferred path. I see politically-motivated consumer action as a tool that can be used for good or ill, just like all other forms of political action and participation. I’m actually fundamentally uncomfortable with the way ‘consumer democracy’ privileges the interests of those with the most money to spend (or withhold). But I still think that it’s a rational course of action in certain circumstances.

By: Kommissar Nicko

Kommissar Nicko — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:57:03 +0000

@merc: Boycotting products and services has brought around all kinds of changes through “tenuous” links. Look up the effects of boycotting in the U.S. on ending apartheid in South Africa. In this particular case, students at my university (University of Colorado Denver) actually joined a nationwide boycott of Coca-Cola products because of the support Coca-Cola was giving to the South African government in the late 1970s. The eventual effect was that Coca-Cola withdrew their support of the South African government under consumer pressure to do so, and in that way, helped to place pressure on the government by reducing the flow of money.

It’s how politics work in a capitalist economy–all links are tenuous, but that doesn’t make them unimportant.

By: merc

merc — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:46:32 +0000

@MD

“if people don’t want to be tarred with the same brush, they will choose not to employ the target of the boycott.”

Fixed that for you – and if think companies should be worried about vetting their employees based on whether they have political views that might get the company boycotted, then just imagine fundie Christian organisations organising boycotts against companys that employ individuals who hold pro-SSM or pro-choice views. You don’t think that there will be any harm done by that?

By: Mil

Mil — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:21:46 +0000

@Novotny: I don’t know who or what Mil Millington is, and I’m not going to try to find out, in case I stop liking my nick.

@Adventurous Putty: Read some of his articles on ornery.org. Full of sympathy for his fellow man indeed.

By: MD

MD — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:09:37 +0000

“And you consider that game deserving of a boycott because it’s ‘financing’ something you disagree with. ”

I specifically said that I haven’t yet formed an opinion on whether a boycott is reasonable. Personally I won’t be doing any boycotting, and indeed won’t have a decision to make, as I was never a potential customer in the first place.

I think one key difference in our attitudes is in how big a deal something has to be before we consider a boycott reasonable. Personally I simply weigh up the ‘cost’ of boycotting vs. the estimated benefit.

In this case the estimated benefit (again, in calling it a ‘benefit’ I am assuming one is against Card’s campaign — this is about the question of whether boycotting is a logical course of action for those who want to oppose him, not whether one opposes him) is very small, but even by your logic is greater than 0.

The cost of boycotting is negative in monetary terms (money is saved), and negative in terms of time (time is freed up by not consuming the product, though this may be offset by those who choose to incite others to boycott, rather than only participating). The only significant positive cost is that the boycotter forfeits any value they would have received from the product. For most this will be pretty insignificant, but more importantly the value judgment of [personal enjoyment] vs. [(very small) contribution to (one's conception of) the public good] is one that can only be made by the individual. If they make a greater sacrifice than you would consider reasonable, that’s not necessarily a mistake on their part — it could simply be altruism, in that they place greater value on ‘the common good’ than their own narrowly-defined interests. You have no right to attack them for this. I get that you’re annoyed, you think the whole thing is a bit silly, etc. But that’s just an emotional reaction that is ultimately baseless.

(You could also argue that they are ‘hurting’ those caught in the crossfire by refusing to reward their hard work, but leaving aside the fact that those people have no inherent right to the consumer dollar, this is one way in which ‘boycotting a person’ can be effective — if people don’t want to be tarred with the same brush, they will choose not to work with the target of the boycott.)

And yeah, of course you’re not going to be able to avoid ever indirectly contributing to a cause you disagree with, at least not without letting those sorts of considerations run your life. You’ll never be able to cut your risk of being hit by a car to 0 without moving into the middle of nowhere, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look both ways when you cross the road. You’ll never be able to be completely safe from disesase without living your life in sterile isolation, but that doesn’t mean you go around kissing people with pig flu. You’ll never be able to take consumer democracy to its ideal extreme either (at least without going crazy), but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care where your money ends up. It’s all about picking the low-hanging fruit, and for some people this boycott is an example of just that.

By: Weylund

Weylund — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:39:32 +0000

@Novotny: I owe you one as well, as my reply was rather more snarky than it needed to be. Using ellipses is a bad habit I’ve been trying to break. They’re so useful for indecisive people like myself, though.