:clap: The Boy Owen got there first.

[Monty92]

Ah. 'The' individual. Where does he live, then? Is he the wealthy slave trader or the poor, abused slave? Because he can't be both.

To talk of 'the individual' is, by its nature, to talk of the collective since you are effectively taking an average of human happiness.

Also, you don't think our way of doing things has its victims? The child in the Cambodian sweat shop of the suicidal worker in the FoxConn tower might agree. We've just moved the problem out of sight and thus largely out of mind. The benefit you derive is affordable consumer goods and for that you're happy to trade off the misery of someone thousands of miles away. So your equality of opportunity and basic human rights schtick is pretty blinkered and hypocritical. What's more, plenty of people outside our comfy little bubble can see it.

I've very intentionally not mentioned democracy or capitalism in any of my posts, yet your post makes it sound as if these have formed the bedrock of my argument. Not sure why you'v brought them up at all, to be honest. Basically I don't believe anything you've insinuated that I do in your post above.

[Burney]

I've very intentionally not mentioned democracy or capitalism in any of my posts, yet your post makes it sound as if it's the bedrock of my argument. Not sure why you'v brought them up at all, to be honest, because I don't believe anything you've said in your post.

I see no mention of democracy or capitalism in my post, to be honest. I merely speak about the power relationships that exist between different groups of people globally and the fact that our system relies to a huge extent on us shītting on other people in other societies the world over who may not feel their sum of human happiness is quite what it might be.