Comment by mjr00
2 days ago
> but you're still basically saying "look you're a piece of shit but here's a couple of bucks anyways".
Is it ethical to buy Dilbert books now that Adams is dead and the money's not going to him?
2 days ago
> but you're still basically saying "look you're a piece of shit but here's a couple of bucks anyways".
Is it ethical to buy Dilbert books now that Adams is dead and the money's not going to him?
Ethical? I'd say it would be fine.
Tolerable? I couldn't enjoy the books. It's like when I found out about the Breendoggle and tossed all my MZB books in the recycling bin.
If you (the royal you) thought it was unethical to buy a Dilbert book because the person who stood to make something like $4 off of it had some views you disagree with, you are a broken person. Even if Adams agreed with every single opinion you had, it's a statistical certainty that a dozen people who also make money off that book have views you find reprehensible.
> you are a broken person
On the contrary, I think folks that always try to find some sort of hypocrisy in how folks choose to not spend their money are broken.
It seems too cynical by half, and completely discards any sort of relative morality to one's purchasing decisions. I have also long suspected that there is a selfish motivation to it - as if to assuage your (again, the royal your) own morality about how you choose to spend your own money, you need to tear down other people's choices.
My chief complaint is not only that it's spitting into a headwind during a rainstorm, but also just the performative nature of it. Someone enjoys Adams' (Adams's?) work, presumably for years or even decades. He says something gross. That person then, in order to deprive this multi-millionaire of a few dollars, not only deprives themselves of something they ostensibly enjoy[ed], but also has to turn it into a moral or ethical question so they can either feel better about it themselves, or feel superior to people who a) don't really care what Adams said or did, or b) care but are capable of separating the art from the artist.
It's the same kind of performative virtue signaling that led someone at the New York Times to call him racist twice in the first two sentences of his own obituary.
17 replies →
"You are a broken person" is not an appropriate response for someone engaging in a personal boycott. This is verbiage of flamebait and it really doesn't belong here.
"Ethical" is the wrong lens to see it through. I have only so much money to spend on art. I'd rather use it on something I wholeheartedly like. Ideally, something that wouldn't exist unless I supported it (art buyers, even if we are artists outselves, should not be "gilding the lily" and heap money on artists who don't need it).
Good point, retailers typically get 50% of the purchase price, which means that they're getting as much as the author/printer/editor/marketer/etc. all combined. So perhaps if you bought the book from a bookstore you wanted to support (assuming they would carry it), that could outweigh the impact to the author.
We are really chartering into utilitarian line of thinking here.
Nothing wrong with that and I may be overthinking but utilitarian line of thinking is the reason why a lot of issues actually happen because Politicians might promise something on an utilitarian premise where there real premise might be unknown.
Morals are certainly in question as well and where does one stop in the utilitarian line of thinking
But I overall agree with your statement and I wish to expand on it that if we are thinking about offsetting, one of the ideas can be to keep on buying even books written by many authors, overall aggregate can be net positive impact so perhaps we can treat it as a bank of sorts from which we can withdraw some impact.
Still depends on where the money ultimately goes.
As I once noted to a homeopath regarding their extensive selection of impossibly diluted water remedies, by their own dictum, it's all toilet water.