Every semester I ask students in my class to fill out a survey, asking which of the following transactions do you find so morally unacceptable that you think they should be prohibited by law. Here are the results for 5 years of data.
I don't really notice any time trends, and the relative ranking of the items stays mostly the same throughout the years.
I thought I saw a trend regarding steroids, but this year's data reversed it, so no overall recognizable trend.
What do Stackers think? Which of these do you find morally offensive?
I find none of it morally offensive except maybe indentured servitude. Selling fundamental rights isn't something I've thought about much and I'd be worried it'd snowball into a trend pretty quickly.
In the writing assignment related to this, one of the students pointed out that indentured servitude isn't so dissimilar to being loaded under the weight of debt. Though I think the whole idea of prohibiting indentured servitude is that we no longer allow people to sell their freedom as a way of paying off debt. Instead we invented bankruptcy.
There's a stream of thought where fundamental rights can't be sold. You retain them even if you enter into an agreement to sell them. But if that's the case, and the sale of your rights won't be acknowledged in society, then society has essentially ruled out a certain class of otherwise voluntary transactions, which violates peoples' freedom to do with their own self what they will.
Is my present self and my future self the same self? They aren't exactly the same self at least. That's where this turns for me.
I find short periods of indentured servitude, agreed to and beginning at the same time, less offensive.
Ah, yes, the dichotomy between the present self and the future self. That's an entire subject of study that's really fascinating, but really calls into question what "self" even means.
I probably don't have anything too intelligent to say about it right now. It's something that requires a lot of deep thought.
But your basic insight into that is correct, which is that if the present and future self are likely to conflict, then it's safer for the present self to be limited to short-term commitment options.
Giving adoption to the highest bidder (people?)
That’s the biggest one to me. Although, I’m ok with an auction mechanism being involved once the pool of adopters is sufficiently screened.
That takes me straight back to the old slavery days! Fuck.
Regardless of the mechanism, somehow a decision is being made about who to give a human being to.
Giving it away doesn't bug me that much, but selling it? Hell no!
Commie
It honestly makes me sick just thinking about treating people like commodities!
Orphanages and foster systems need operating funds, right?
Adopting parents are the primary beneficiaries of the system (other than the kids), right?
That seems to be the one most other people find offensive as well, consistently so. Even moreso than indentured servitude.
I also find dog meat to be the strangest one. It seems the least logically grounded, unless you also object to eating the meat of other animals like cows, chickens, and pigs.
Repugnance defies logic, which is why economists usually think it’s dumb.
To me, it seems like the moral concerns come from the production process, rather than consumption.
I don't necessarily think it's "dumb", only "illogical". I wish more people are willing to face up to that and say, "Yeah, it's not logical, and I'm okay with that."
I think sometimes when economists approach these subjects from a logical/rational lens, people who feel strongly morally about it get upset at us, because they think we imply that their moral concerns are dumb or not legitimate. But that's not the case: If you think it's wrong to eat dogs, I totally respect that. I am just trying to look at it from another lens.
I should have said “policy based on it is dumb”, to better capture our prevailing sentiment.
I mean, I wouldn't even object to policy based on it. If people want to ban the sale or consumption of dog meat I have no problem with it.
Just don't get mad at me when I say, "Well, that's illogical but ok"
I feel like that’s when one of us writes “How legalizing dog meat would reduce dog deaths”.
To be fair, economists have a long history of deliberately antagonizing those with bleeding hearts
I'm planning on selling my sperm for sats.
... As soon as I find a taker, I will fulfill my destiny as a Bitcoin wanker.
New Pleblab business idea just dropped @k00b @Car
funny enough we use to have someone building eggchain in austin it was around something like that, she raised some money...let me see if i can find it
😂
I wish I had you for a professor in school.
It's odd to me that people really don't seem to mind paying for eggs/sperm as much as kidneys. I suppose it makes sense because you can't grow more kidneys. Would be interesting to compare to selling blood/plasma.
I think that's a big part of it.
I also think there are more stories of people getting killed for their kidneys, especially in places like China.