Now i cant even flush toilet with good conscience, because "someone, somewhere in the world needs clean water" :S

Anyway, doing that kind of comparison between wildly different countries is just madness - what i mean to say, you cant compare them because the purchasing power of money is so different. If you counted the prices in, lets say USD - the price of some crappy Heineken in forexample USA, China, Congo and Thailand are "bit" different.

--

I forexample would happily move to say somewhere around Thailand (wife's from there) and earn 2000e salary, instead of living in Finland and earning 6000e. My purchasing power in Thailand would be far better, than in Finland. (the numbers are out from the hat). Simply comparing prices and costs as "absolute numbers" between different countries doesnt tell shit about the actual purchasing power.

This is also a question that I often seen raised as a reductive, purely rhetorical, argument. With the implication that : "a line is arbitrary, therefore don't draw any". I let you apply this reasoning to all the categorial "lines" that map your life and your society.

And then, I'd point out that, in this case, it's not even about drawing lines between discontinuities, but about destablishing progressive corrective systems along a continuity. This doesn't imply any "jump".

Oh, ive lived with less than that in Finland as student. I would have been in deep trouble, if I didnt get summer work - but luckily all that turned out just fine for me. For many it doesnt.

Currently I live for 200 EUR / month ;-) And we don't live that far away from each other. :P

http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/why-give/how-rich-am-i

Somekind of calculator if anyone wants to give a shot.
How much for a good dark beer?

Note that keeveek is responding to people who use that kind of logic to accuse rich people of being assholes, not to make you feel bad. The point is that it's always hypocritical to accuse the rich guys of being dicks for spending their money in a wasteful manner because almost everybody does that when put into the corresponding context. Who on Earth only uses his money to get by?

1 EUR :P

The games on steam cost the same as in your country, though :P

But not all lines are arbitrary. You can draw a line when for example ones spending on luxury consist of over 80% of one income. You can say that Lindsay lohan spending is excessive because she spends so much that she had to get 100k in a loan.

So no. You misunderstood. A line can be drawn but I disagree in what way people draw it.


And I do admit not reading whole thread.

I don't believe it to be a question of whether or not the line is arbitrary, but a question of who gets to decide where that line should be based on whatever statistical evidence they have in front of them. No matter what the data show, it would still come down to a decision from a panel of individuals who will be drawing their own conclusions based on the data, and they will decide where the line goes. And if humans are making that decision, then their own personal moral viewpoints on the issue would undoubtedly affect that decision. Humans are incapable of making truly unbiased decisions.

At least in retail they tend to be a lot cheaper than in other European countries (with a few fucked up exceptions like Starcraft 2 - "because we can, because we're fucking Blizzard muthafucka!!!"). But not adequately to the average Polish income. <.<

Well, when i go to buy beer in bar - its around 8e-10e for me (from tap) or maybe 4e-5e for better quality 0,5L can. I dont drink often, but when I do, I buy proper beer instead of the p*** lager most people buy in Finland. I think that if you buy 12-pack / 20-pack or so, the cheapest 0,33L cans will cost somewhere around 2 euros?

I am not really expert on that, as I dont even consider them beer - someone else can correct me if they know better ;)

Indeed. As I said, I too often see that point raised by people who simply advocate some all-or-nothing position as a consequence (which may be, by the way, a valid position for useless lines that make too huge qualitative jumps - such as capital punishment, in my opinion).


That's basically the principle of democracy, though. A society defines its normalities and acceptable margins, based on some collective consensus, itself made of inner tensions between opposing currents, and being perpetually evolving and renegociated.

This thread illustrates it.

Decadence... decadence never changes.

Forgive me for butting in, but I'm laughing my ass off at the fact that this thread has gone from a fight about over spending debutants to a session of ripping Blizzard and a debate on the ebb and flow of beer cost throughout Europe. :D