Riot shields are a blast.

I'm lost on how you take a position against this based off of principle, but that it suddenly doesn't apply with respect to water/disaster? I saw your post about the distinction between scale (ie. individual/dollars v. institutional/millions), but one would think that the principle would remain core irrespective of the scale.

All my homies hate scalpers.

This post was edited by Handcuffs on May 7 2021 07:24pm

No no no, you don't get it.

This time it's effecting HIM PERSONALLY. Big difference.

This
don't buy from them easy. Preorder or just wait like a couple of months until more supply is made. Life is hard when you don't get what you want immediately and the entire universe doesn't revolve around you

#tragedyofthecommons

Natural disaster hits. There is a shortage of water and other essentials because people are hoarding. Opportunists from out of state see this shortage and know they can make money. Because there is this economic incentive there is a supply increase that would naturally not be there. Many people who most need this crucial resource pay much higher prices for this resource and at least have some water for themselves and their families instead of nothing at all.

In this case (this actually happened IRL) would you rather the neediest overpay for water or not have any water at all? Because if there's no economic benefit that supplying agent would never be there in the first place?

This post was edited by ofthevoid on May 7 2021 08:38pm

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your example, but it seems (to me) that you're creating two different locations/jurisdictions in your example.

Area A is hit by disaster and there's a water shortage in Area A.
People from Area B buy water from Area B, and then travel to Area A to sell the water at markup.

Is your acceptance of this situation as 'okay' due to this distinction of jurisdiction? For example, if people within Area A that was hit with disaster then buy up/hoard the remaining water in Area A only to then sell it to their fellow Area A citizens as markup, does this change your position?

This post was edited by Handcuffs on May 7 2021 08:41pm

It's not my example, it's something that happened in real life. It makes it okay because the utility they provided far outweighs the reason why they did it. I know it may seem scummy but as I said, I rather these types of people exist and someone in dire need of a resource pays way above what's reasonable then that person suffering maybe even dying because there's literally none of that resource around.

Yes is changes in that example if the sole intention was to just price gouge others. But I put less blame on individual people acting this way rather than business organizations. As I said if a massive store did this for the sole reason of profit then that's highly problematic. If they did it for reasons to create a system of rationing, then that's much different.

I wonder if you're in as much disagreement with previous posters then as a result. Seems to me that there's been a conflation between the perception of principle (scummy or not) v. whether it should be intervened on a governmental/economic force. Certainly would hope that anyone would view scalping behavior as scummy, especially when it pertains to life-sustaining 'commodities' such as water.

I mean I try to have nuanced perspectives about the world. I'm against abortions as a social conservative but that doesn't mean that I have a wooden perspective on it. If the mother's life is in danger, if the woman was raped, incest, then I can be reasonable regardless of how strong or grounded i feel about that specific ethical issue. That doesn't mean that I'm not being consistent with my ideology, it just means that most things in life don't have a black and white answer.

People immediately hear water and graphics cards and immediately formulate in which price gouging should be appropriate and which it shouldn't without hearing the circumstances.