And yet loosing UPS had absolutely no effect on any scale on worldwide shark fin sales.. go figure.
You cant kill their distribution chain, all your doing is moving their distribution chain around to other carriers. Even if every shipping company int he world boycotted it that wouldnt stop them from shipping it overseas on their own boats (which we already know they have plenty of).
If we are talking exclusively used items then I agree, ebay is the clear winner there. I generally buy used items from ebay.
Cab companies **do** know they are transporting terrorists, they just dont know who is a terrorist and who isnt, so they cant identify them.
This is isn fact the same as shipping.. A shipping company does, as you say, know they are shipping shark fins, but unless they are violating customer privacy and opening up packages they have no way to know which packeges are the shark fins.
Wrong. Fedex stepping out as a courier did not in fact disrupt them. In fact it had absolutely no noticable effect on shark fin sale or consumption in terms of global numbers.
Thats a tangent I wont get into, but its not that simple either.
I'm not ignoring the supply chain. I oppose the fisherman who unethically harvest the fins, the warehouse that buy and pack it, the stores that stock it, and the resteraunts that server it. All the relevant players.
Depends, if we were talking about a company that exclusively shipped shark fins I'd agree. Generally these problems are way too nuanced to make those sort of generalizations.
this is why im perfectly ok with boycotting, for example, the stores that sell the shark fin as an ingredient, and the resteraunts that serve it. Most of the chain from bowl to boat is fine to boycott, but again you need to do it with some understanding of the nuance. Boycotting fedex makes no sense, does not advance your cause and only puts pressure on companies to act unethically. So while most of the supply chain is fair game FedEx makes no sense to boycott to me.
I really could care less what ethics orgs do or dont do, I decide my own ethics.
At no point has your point made sense to me, let alone been proved. It does nothing to achieve your actual goals (reduce shark fin trade) and puts pressure on companies to act unethically... its a bad point IMO
There is no law that obligates the shipper to open up and search through customer packages.
Its not an attempt to change law. Shippers are not required to investigate your packages unless they have probable cause of illegal activity, at which point they have an obligation to act.
There is no such law, in fact the shipping of shark fins is explicityly legal.
No, my claim is that any policy where you demand a shipping company violate customer privacy in order to comply with your demands is one that encourages violation of privacy, perpetuates it, and makes it much more difficult for those fighting for user privacy to achieve their goals.
For some vvery strange reason you seem to think im arguing you should or shouldnt use fedex, I am not. I am arguing that your conditions upon which you use to pick what shipping companies you go with lead to unethical pressures and thus should not be employed. Beyond that I am not advocating for any particular shipping company.
I've already explained why I dont need to, nor is it relevant, if FedEx is less intrustive or not. I will not repeat myself again.
Which of the choices you go with after you weigh all the options isnt much of a concern for me, thats for you to decide.
My issues is, as I said, that having a personal policy to boycott companies that refuse to violate customer privacy and therefore will not be beholden to the contents they choose to ship, is an unethical policy to have and to apply when evaluating which company to go with.
Just to illustrate how absurd that statement was imagine this was in the past a bit before Fedex had decided to ban shark fins. Since none of the major companies banned shark fins and they all shipped it by your logic any boycotting is "a moot point".
The truth is just because all the companies act unethically to the same degree in no way makes it a moot point, in fact all the more reason you shouldn't be encouraging that unethical behavior and the violation of customer's privacy.
No its not all the same, you should be boycotting companies that violate customer privacy, your personal boycott is mutually exclusive to this however and in fact **encourages** and rewards this already unethical behavior.
No couriers routinely open boxes and x-ray them to investigate content, all courriers do. Which as I said is a violation of privacy and should be seen as unacceptable. By boycotting in such a way that not only deems those methods acceptable but encourages their use is unethical choice on your part IMO. As I've said you shouldnt be encouraging boycotts which effectively demand companies utilize their already unacceptable violation of customer privacy.
Jeffrey Phillips Freeman
Innovator & Entrepreneur in Machine Learning, Evolutionary Computing & Big Data. Avid SCUBA diver, Open-source developer, HAM radio operator, astrophotographer, and anything nerdy.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, USA, currently living in Utrecht, Netherlands, USA, and Thailand. Was also living in Israel, but left.
Pronouns: Sir / Mister
(Above pronouns are not intended to mock, i will respect any persons pronouns and only wish pronouns to show respect be used with me as well. These are called neopronouns, see an example of the word "frog" used as a neopronoun here: http://tinyurl.com/44hhej89 )
A proud member of the Penobscot Native American tribe, as well as a Mayflower passenger descendant. I sometimes post about my genealogical history.
My stance on various issues:
Education: Free to PhD, tax paid
Abortion: Protected, tax paid, limited time-frame
Welfare: Yes, no one should starve
UBI: No, use welfare
Racism: is real
Guns: Shall not be infringed
LGBT+/minorities: Support
Pronouns: Will respect
Trump: Moron, evil
Biden: Senile, racist
Police: ACAB
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