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 16:20:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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1140 times
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Simon Robinson wrote:
> 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 :) )
Cute. I think the difference is that one is voluntary.
> 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 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.
> 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
This must be why I prefer the market to work things out. I don't think
motives matter at all. It is demonstrated to be 'good' because the
market rewards that behavior.
> - 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.
I find it interesting that the motive matters in that way. Action a is
good if done by a good person, but bad if done by a bad person?
> 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.
What's the difference? If I'm buying low and selling high then
obviously the buyers are getting an opportunity.
> 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.
I agree in as much as treating your customers well will keep them happy.
I part out sets and sell the pieces I don't want. I make money on it
that allows me to buy frivolous stuff like more LEGO. In addition to
making money, I am providing a service. How does it matter what my
emphasis is? If I don't think about my customers they'll stop buying,
so I continually try to increase the quality of my auctions to keep them happy.
> (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
My making a profit isn't part of it being right...just as long as we
both/all agree to it it's right.
> - 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,
Wrong? I'd call it unsavory, but I wouldn't legislate against it.
Unless you mean they're addicting their customers by force. Then I'd
advocate extreme prejudice.
> or people who sell criminals weapons, knowing
> what the criminals are going to do with them, are also doing nothing
> wrong[1])
Right you are. In both cases, I feel that the activities are OK. And
how can you KNOW what some 'criminal' is going to do with any given tool
that you might sell him?
> [1] perhaps an example that's more relevant to countries in Europe where
> it's very hard to get guns legally.
I don't want to tell Europeans how to operate their lives, so I'm not
sure how to approach this.
Chris
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| A few nits. Clarifications, really. (...) And as long as it doesn't violate the rights of others. (remember, free goods are not a right, nor is it a right that you must accept custom from anyone) (...) or fraud. But of course I hold fraud to be a (...) (25 years ago, 13-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| (...) I'm not so sure of that. Once you've got the sets that you're (hypothetically) planning on holding for a year, there's nothing anyone who wants to buy the sets earlier than that can do. This redistribution may have been instigated by a private (...) (25 years ago, 18-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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| (...) 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 (...) (25 years ago, 13-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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