Subject:
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Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 13 Oct 1999 00:15:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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926 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> OK, what if I buy up ten of them now at $35 each from Larry or wherever
> with the intent of holding them for a year and selling them for $60.
> That's still a useful service. There are a whole slew categories of
> customers that would be receiving a favor when I did that. 1. people
> who are turned on to LEGO in the intervening year. 2. AFOLS who are
> turned on to trains. 3. kids who get jobs and can't aford them now but
> can in a year. 4. people who get internet access in the next year. etcetera.
>
> If a transaction occurs. Both people are happy. Thus, by default
> (unless I'm missing some logic somewhere) a beneficial service is
> performed. The buyer thinks it's worth it, the seller thinks it's worth
> it and why isn't that all that matters?
>
> In the example above, the service I'm providing is warehousing and
> distribution. It's a normal service that is paid for all the time.
That's an interesting one, which you could argue on both sides.
Oddly, the service you'd claim to be providing here is
as much as anything a redistribution service - from
people who want sets now to people who may want
the sets next year (ironically
since redistribution in a different context is something
I normally favour a lot more than you or Larry do :) )
Whether you're benefitting people I guess depends on
factors like whether people who had the sets now would have
got bored with them after a year and sold them anyway. You'd
certainly be denying people the chance to play with the sets now.
I'm not certain either way on that one. I think my view of
whether what you were doing was morally right might depend
on your motives - if you were mostly thinking 'yeah - get the sets now
when they're cheap and reflog them once prices have risen a bit'
then that would sound dubious. If you were genuinely thinking
'some people in a years time will want the sets and I'm
making some money by giving them
a chance to buy them' then that would sound more reasonable.
I do think it's very important when trading to think about your
customers (and to some extent the wider community) as
well as of your own profits. (After all, if your moral standards say
that it's OK to engage in any transaction if your client agrees to it
and you make a profit - no
matter what the wider consequences of that transaction are, then
you'd end up having to conclude that the people who push hard drugs
(often by getting their customers addicted to the drugs) are
doing nothing wrong, or people who sell criminals weapons, knowing
what the criminals are going to do with them, are also doing nothing
wrong[1])
[1] perhaps an example that's more relevant to countries in Europe where
it's very hard to get guns legally.
Simon
http://www.SimonRobinson.com
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| (...) Cute. I think the difference is that one is voluntary. (...) I guess what you're talking about is whether there is a net benefit. Clearly I'd be benifitting some people - the ones who buy them from me. (...) This must be why I prefer the (...) (25 years ago, 13-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| (...) OK, what if I buy up ten of them now at $35 each from Larry or wherever with the intent of holding them for a year and selling them for $60. That's still a useful service. There are a whole slew categories of customers that would be receiving (...) (25 years ago, 11-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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