@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.
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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.
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
I never even mentioned USPS why would I have to... my criticism as I said is of your policy to boycott companies that transport shark fin. I made no endorsement or debasement of a specific company.
To repeat my stance is:
It is unethical as it leads to pressure to violate customer privacy, to expect a shipping company to make ethical decisions on the content of the packages being shipped and use that to determine if they will or will not ship a package. Any boycott which adds pressure on companies to violate customer privacy is an unethical position to take.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil "I never even mentioned USPS why would I have to" <= you claimed that a boycott on FedEx is a boycott on privacy.. that the other companies must be doing pkg inspections. But it's all speculation on your part. You need to to better than that.
@thenewoil @realcaseyrollins @freemo if you have some shred of proof that FedEx respects privacy more than USPS, UPS, or Airborne Express, I would be interested in seeing it because that is something that I would account for when making an ethical decision.
I never once claimed that any of those companies were better towards customer privacy than any others. so not relevant.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil that's right, the privacy claim must be scrapped because until you can actually find a privacy difference, it's irrelevant
That makes no sense. I am evaluating the unethical nature of your boycott not the unethical natures of the company.
The truth is if your going to ban shipping shark fins then that implies a company has a right to knowledge as to the contents of what your shipping in the first place. You can do all the mental gymnastics you want but you arent going to get away form that.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins "I am evaluating the unethical nature of your boycott not the unethical natures of the company." <= bingo, that's the problem. If you neglect FedEx's wrong doing, of course there is no grounds for a boycott. "then that implies a company has a right to knowledge as to the contents of what your shipping in the first place" <= they always have a *right* to know what they're shipping
@realcaseyrollins @thenewoil @freemo they have an obligation to not ship cocaine, for example. How they meet their obligation to not ship prohibited items is indeed interesting. All couriers have to work out how to avoid shipping prohibited items (and when I say "prohibited" that's the union of prohibitions by law and by corp policy)
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins but until you can show that FedEx is more privacy respecting in how they avoid prohibited shipments, your privacy claim is dead.
@realcaseyrollins @thenewoil @freemo and i'm still interested in hearing how you think FedEx ships dolphins without knowing it's a dolphin.
Huh? We werent talking about dolphins. We were talking about shark fins. Which Are in an opaque box with ice the vast majority of the time and thus unable to be identified without looking inside. Dolphins are an entierly different issue.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins if you go back to the 1st post about fedex, i said: "FedEx ships shark fins, slave dolphins, and hunting trophies".
@realcaseyrollins @thenewoil @freemo If the fins are in an opaque box then they probably would sneak through USPS and UPS, but they have to sneak that shit because those couriers don't allow them. FedEx doesn't give a shit.. you can label them shark fins, insure them for their value, and even expect FedEx to pay a claim if they get lost. FedEx serves shark fin dealers well.
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.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins if they are all inspecting pkgs just the same, then it's a moot point. The boycott is over what's on the list of prohibited items, not how inspections are done.
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.
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.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil if they all shipped shark fins just the same, then indeed the boycott would be moot, mostly. Exceptionally, there is sometimes the option to go without (to ship nothing), but apart from that I patronize the lesser of evils.
@thenewoil @realcaseyrollins @freemo I have dirt on all three (FedEx, UPS, & USPS). I have no dirt on Airborne Express, but they don't operate around me. So making an ethical choice means weighing those evils & avoiding the greatest evil. The only significant dirt I have on USPS is that they block Tor, which is not as harmful the other two, so USPS wins my business.
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.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil Again, you're still trying to play the privacy card without any proof that FedEx has less intrusive inspections, or that they would even necessarily have to modify their process to be more intrusive (hint: you can't, because they could simply add shark fins to the list without changing inspetions)
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.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins your whole argument hinges on the unsubstantiated claim that adding 3 items to the prohibited items list entails a privacy hit. it's a dead b/c as I said the list can be expanded with no change to inspection procedures. It's unreasonable to expect a company to break the law (to do less inspection than legally mandated). Legal pressure trumps any consumer pressure you can imagine.
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.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil when law requires a merchant to "violate customer privacy", no consumer pressure to the contrary can change that, particularly when all merchants are complying with the law to violate privacy.
There is no such law, in fact the shipping of shark fins is explicityly legal.
There is no law that obligates the shipper to open up and search through customer packages.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil this proves my point. There is no privacy issue. Customers still have the same privacy expectation.
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
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins the shark fin trade *loves* FedEx, because they get full service no different than if they were shipping marbles. So of course BDS'ing the shark fin supply chain achieves the goal of disrupting that unethical trade.
@realcaseyrollins @thenewoil @freemo s/supply chain/distribution chain/
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins it's a gross oversight to neglect to take a boycott to the supply chains and distribution chains, because they are all elements that the bad business depends on.
@realcaseyrollins @thenewoil @freemo this is why ethics orgs typically focus on supply chains. You may be treating your workers right, but if you get raw materials from slave labor upstream, orgs like FairTrade aren't going to approve.
I really could care less what ethics orgs do or dont do, I decide my own ethics.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins sure but your not putting useful leverage behind your ethics if you choose to ignore the supply chain. It's trivial for companies to outsource to put the wrong doing under another company name.
@realcaseyrollins @thenewoil @freemo i'm not saying adopt the ethical orgs ethics (nor should you). I'm saying that you can learn something from them operationally. The supply chain is important.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins Nestle tries to skirt blame for using child labor by saying "not our company", but you'd be a fool to let them get away with simply hiring a company that uses child labor
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.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil The courier is of course relevant. Simple test: remove the courier. Does this disrupt them? Of course it does. We don't boycott unknowing participants, but FedEx is known to be knowingly complicit.
@thenewoil @realcaseyrollins @freemo The terrorists that attacked the Brussels airport took a cab. I don't boycott the cab company because they had no knowledge of what was in the normal looking luggage. But if they had known, it would make all the difference. FedEx knows they are shipping shark fins, but they don't give a shit.
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.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil it's not the same as shipping, because shipping has a policy, and if you're caught breaking the policy you lose service, or you get away with it until a box accidentally breaks open
@thenewoil @realcaseyrollins @freemo fedex knows when you show up with a truck load of unpacked shark fins and pack them onsite using fedex packing materials. Fedex knows when you hand them a dolphin
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.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins nonsense. if your distribution chain dies, you're not moving product and thus not getting paid. You have to find someone else. And if you can find someone else, the price is higher (or you would have been using the other guy in the 1st place). That means margins shrink, and the business becomes less interesting
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).
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil it's costly and disruptive to have to change couriers every time a courier ditches them. That cost cuts into the bottom line that motivates the shark finning
@thenewoil @realcaseyrollins @freemo losing fedex, UPS, national post, and airborne express is a big deal, because not just any courier is equipped to reach all parts of the world. Private service costs are much higher because of lack of competition
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil FedEx is the one company that makes it viable for shark fin shippers to cheaply reach the world's markets
And yet loosing UPS had absolutely no effect on any scale on worldwide shark fin sales.. go figure.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @thenewoil because of fedex, although who's to say fedex isn't charging them more. The leap after losing fedex would be a big one
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.
@freemo @thenewoil @realcaseyrollins wrong law. I wasn't talking about shark finning prohibitions, but laws that require couriers to violate consumer privacy.