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I dont buy things based on what I need... if that were the case i wouldnt be buying a game or fancy shirt in the first place I dont NEED those at all. I can wear a potato sack for a shit and it would meet my **needs**. But I do usually WANT it overnight, because i get excited and I dont enjoy waiting for something im excited about.. may not be a need, but it is what i want, and im the one with the money. Business is all about giving people what they want, if people want it overnight (which is clear they do) and you dont provide it, expect all the business to go to amazon (as it tends to).
While I am against trophy hunting I also dont feel that is the place or the right of the shipping company to get involved in. In fact in my view there should be legal protection and privacy over the content of my package.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins Is this what you envision: (courier) Is that a dolphin in that box of water sir? (seaworld) No, that's just a heavy box of water, don't worry about it.
No, I envision that any enforcement would come down to the local government. Yes they will fail to enforce it sometime and stuff will get through, but that is no excuse to violate what I view as privacy rights.
That said a blanked ban on all trophy hunting is itself counter productive. While we obviously want to eliminate poaching of animals illegally there is legal trophy hunting which is ultimately beneficial to the species. Distinguishing between the two would not be practical for any shipping company and indeed that is what we see where companies that have banned shipping of animals as the result of a trophy hunt do so blindly to the nuance (whether it was actual poaching or not).
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil when you say "enforcement", you're implying that there's a prohibition to begin with. It's an ethical problem not a legal one. IIRC, FedEx said they would stop shipping shark fins if it becomes illegal to ship them to/from the land they operate in. That is, FedEx is not limited by ethics, only law
No I am implying that it **should** be illegal, and enforced. It is not FedEx's place to create their own set of "laws" they enforce seperate from the countries being shipped from. If its legal to hunt shark fins in a country then fedex should be ok shipping it.. if we feel sharkfins should be protected (and I would support that) you should be fighting for that at the governement level not fedex.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins the law is a different tool that calls for different actions. You need to elect officials who will ban shark finning. If you don't have voting rights where it's happening, then all you can do is lobby in that area. Luckily we are not limited to election voting power. As consumers we have power to vote with our feet. We'd be fools to disregard that power.
You can effect laws without voting rights.. refuse to buy anything from the country until they ban shark finning, if enough people do that it would put pressure on them changing their laws.
You can also seek to ban the import of shark fins in your local country, which will go a long way to reducing it.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil "refuse to buy anything from the country until they ban shark finning" <= noble move but boycotting a whole region is much more blunt than boycotting the bad actors. Let's say shark finning happens in Vanuatu. You would get behind a boycott on bagels made in Vanuatu, but not FedEx who ships shark fins from there, in an anti-sharkfinning action? That's not using your pwr effectively
I'm not saying its a good way to boycott, but i am showing the failure in your assertion that you cant effect laws in countries you have no voting power, which isnt true.
The other point is, boycotting fedex wont do a damn thing to prevent shark fin import anyway. They arent hurt in anyway to have to use different companies for their shipping, or even to need to provide their own distribution as is quite common. Its wasted energy that wont get you any closer to solving the problem anyway.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins I never said you can't affect foreign laws. I said the opposite. I said you can lobby. Our power to affect law is weak even locally in a 2 party system, so you're putting a lot of stock into something unlikely to pay out. This is why it's important to use your consumer power
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins "If its legal to hunt shark fins..fedex should be ok shipping it" <= this presumes complete alignment with law and ethics. My ethical views are very much not aligned. There are prohibitions that shouldn't be in place, and tolerance where there shouldn't be
> this presumes complete alignment with law and ethics
No it doesnt. What it does presume (as I already pointed out) is that when the law and ethics are not in alignment the correct way to address that is by putting pressure on governments to change their laws, not by requiring FedEx to take the roll of a government and legal system by determining for themselves what they will deem appropriate or not.
@realcaseyrollins @thenewoil @freemo I've seen photos of hundreds of sharkfins getting ready to ship in open crates. When the shark finning happens in a 3rd world country of orgin, they have no need to hide them. FedEx knows they're shipping #sharkfins.
The onus in that case is on the 3rd world country to step up and make it illegal, not on FedEx, thats not their purview nor should it be.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins whether it's banned or not, ethical consumers have a duty too. It's our duty as ethical consumers to boycott wrongdoing.
Sure, I agree. But FedEx are not the ones doing wrong in my view. In fact to ban shipping items that are otherwise legal to ship would be fedex engaging in wrong doing in my view...
So yea by all means boycott shark fins, ill support you, but do it where you should be, at the consumer level and at the government level. Its not the place of a package shipper to do that sort of level of investigation or enforcement.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil "to ban shipping items that are otherwise legal to ship would be fedex engaging in wrong doing" <= absolutely profoundly absurd. FedEx has a right to control their own business. They can refuse service. That's how business works. They choose to engage in what's profitable.
@thenewoil @realcaseyrollins @freemo If shark fin shipping hurts their business (b/c of the boycott), they should then stop for business reasons and for ethical reasons.
I disagree.. it is not their place for many reasons..
When something is made illegal by law there are proper provisions put in place. For example sharks that are butchered for all their meat, including their fins would be perfectly legal to ship the fins. Similarly farm raised sharks one would expect to be legal even if wild shark fin hunting were illegal.
Therefore if made illegal the government would go through many steps to prosecute someone, they would have to verify the finning was done unethical (as opposed to the ethical sources above) among other things.
FedEx does not have the resources nor should be expected to go off investigating the source of the fins, deciding if they were sustainably harvested, or even what is or is not considered sustainable and ok.
So no, that is not where the solution lies, nor should it, and its absurd to think they should play the role of a police officer and investigate the supply chain and ethics of the things they ship, it is not their place nor should it be.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil the boycott on shark finning business and the legal actions to legislate are not mutually exclusive. I use /all/ my power, both as a voter and as a consumer to fight the shark finning trade.
Your welcome to use as much power as you'd like. But by the looks of it (by pushing for a ban on FedEx on those grounds) your causing more ethical issues than your solving from my PoV.
Of course they have a right to do it. But as you already pointed out simply having the right to do a thing doesnt make it ethical to do it. It is, in my view, unethical for fedex to play that role regardless of if they have the legal right to do so or not.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins now you've contradicted yourself. First you said FedEx would be "in the wrong" if they don't ship shark fins, now you're back peddling.
How so? I am still saying they are in the wrong if they didnt ship shark fins (assuming they were legal to ship).
"in the wrong" = unethical, and I stand by that..
They have a **right** (they legally can do so) not to ship them, but they are **in the wrong** (it is unethical) not to do so
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil "I am still saying they are in the wrong if they didnt ship shark fins" <= that's a serious claim.. to claim that a business must not refuse business. It's neither ethical nor is it capitalistic to demand that a business engage in a certain trade. The right to refuse service is important, especially if the service is ethically dubious enough to risk losing business due to boycotts.
@thenewoil @realcaseyrollins @freemo Suppose I have a bicycle shop and I sell Brompton's and Schwin bikes, and I choose not to sell Mongoose bikes. Who are you to say I have some kind of duty to sell Mongoose?
Thats not even remotely related to my claim here is.
It would be more akin to a shop owner demanding they strip search every customer that comes in the door and then decide if he likes you or not, and thus will sell to you, based on the contents of your pockets.
While a store owner would have a right to do this, I'd find it unethical as well..
The issue here with the shipping and with the analogy is one of a right for the customers privacy, nothing else.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil right, but you're just guessing. You don't know how UPS and USPS are refusing shark fins. Maybe they refuse shippers with the name "Shark Fin Soup Inc."
@thenewoil @realcaseyrollins @freemo FedEx has zero diligence.. you can bring them an open crate of shark fins after cutting them off across the street from their office before throwing the live finless shark back, and fedex is still shipping them. UPS and USPS are doing something to stop it, which doesn't necessarily mean pkg inspection.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil Because FedEx is doing nothing, not even a written policy, they lose ethical consumers.
I'd say they loose unethical customers.. the customers they loose are making unethical demands not ethical ones.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins you've failed to substantiate the claim that USPS is abusing privacy. If you produce an article that shows them to be relatively more invasive, that will affect the ethical judgement. You don't even seem to agree with having a written FedEx policy against shark fin shipping, so the privacy argument is just a prop
Good, as i said its not their place to do diligence on the contents of your package. That is why we have laws and police officers.
It isnt about UPS policies, its about your choice to boycott companies that ship shark fin.
Are you saying your stance is such that if UPS is shipping just as much shark fin as FedEx but just require the company not be named "shark fin soup inc" then you would not boycott them? Obviously that doesnt appear to be your stance. It appears you care that shark fins are being shipped, if they are shipped you boycott them, which implies you expect them to take invasive action to ensure they dont get shipped (as anything else would be ineffective short of changing laws)
Its not about "a company must not refuse any business"... my claim is that people shipping packages have a right to privacy as to what they are shipping. In my view it is unethical for a shipping company to feel they have a right to snoop through my packages in the first place unless they suspect there is something dangerous.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins the privacy issue is a separate issue. Do you have any supporting evidence that UPS gives less privacy than FedEx? Maybe UPS only turns away open crates with fins, but not consealed fins.
I am not advocating people use UPS either, nor am I advocating for or against FedEx.
What I am saying is as a cosumer boycotting a company and demanding they take a position that requires them as a matter of course to violate their customers privacy, and then use that violation to determine if they will black list them or not even when they engage in perfectly legal activities is NOT something that is helping the world. The last thing you should be doing is demanding these companies act in a way that prevents them from honoring their customers privacy.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil Another ethical issue with the overnight shipping: that usually means UPS or FedEx. FedEx ships shark fins, slave dolphins, and hunting trophies, which is abusive to animals and the environment. FedEx is only limited by what they can get away with, whereas FedEx competitors are relatively more ethical. So I favor USPS. If shipping method is undisclosed, I add a note to the order.