I think you have to decide where to draw the line. I worked in oil exploration for a well known multinational and the system of management bonuses, perks and travel arrangements really appalled me. I enjoyed my technical work, which was paid well enough, so I used to refuse promotions to higher management because I didn't want to be part of it, and I told them exactly that. They really couldn't understand how someone could refuse more money. I stuck to my principles and thoroughly enjoyed doing so.

If you can afford principles then stand by them and almost certainly be happier, guilt-free and enjoy your life.

Slappy has principles?

Slappy thought process"

Principles.

=

Victoria Principle.

=

Victorias Secrets.

=

BOOBS.

How to get to boobs in three steps. Always works.

PS: I don't have any Principles, Secrets or Boobs. Can I play with yours instead

I'm reporting this post cause yer making a TIT of the thread

Slapp's analysis is precisely what has been apparent for donkey's years. Many third world countries have been held down by aid, and their populations have become dependent on it while the leaders and advisors stuff their Swiss accounts.

I don't feel at all ashamed of living in a consumer world: the third world would much prefer that to grinding poverty. But it's wishful thinking to say that transferring cash from one to the other, with much of it leaking away en route, is going to alter the situation in most places.

Me too! - I don't mind living in a first world country and I don't mind a degree of consumerism - simple pleasures and comforts can indeed be just what the doctor ordered. So a steak perfectly cooked, a glass of wine. What I don't get is baseless people who have never known anything beyond the local shop/mall, town or suburb - or favourite TV series...and obsess over fashion - all made in China, or the latest model of car. Who would go to pieces outside their comfort zone. Hmmm...my trousers are once again around my ankles...and I am assuming the position a man adopts whilst waiting for a beating...

There is a degree of truth that a lot of people live in poverty in Africa and Asia and actually have enriched lives in their own way. Clearly, I'm not talking about the people who trek 40 miles a day for water or live in mud..or in flood waters....Queenslanders even?

Ah! Here comes my first customer....OucH!

True however there is a trade off:

Many people in the third world just don't get the "work ethic" - get up at 6:30, shower, put on a suit, catch a train for an hour, office by 8AM. One hour lunch and still there at 6PM, home by around 8PM.

For them a snooze in a hammock is a working day. Especially if an aid worker is cooking lunch for you....

Trust me, I pulled my hair out trying to get people to turn up at the office at all. Real excuses: "Oh my pig was feeling sick". "Oh it was raining".

Similarly they don't get hygiene - why wash your hands after a crap? We worry about water quality when the REAL problem is basic ass to mouth contamination not the water....

And they don't get western morality - gender inequality is a fact of life, underage sex is normal (who are these foreigners who arrive telling me I can't have sex until I reach an age THEY determine), etc etc.

The issue is they want what we can give them WITHOUT taking up the rest of it.

Take Kiribati, where there is no drink driving laws, and for 65% of the female population their first sexual experience is rape at around 14 years of age. Why? Because we ship in boatloads of VB and they guzzle it by the crate load. Tell them they can't drive western style cars when they drink western beer and they get angry. Tell them being drunk is an office and you have a riot.

Its not as simple as it looks.....

You're right, that's crazy.

So many questions posed.....


Does anyone have any answers?

It's a worldwide problem so it's going to take something that changes the world.
Asteroid impact, a new global disease/pandemic, war, knocking the earth out of its orbit, alien invasion, extinction of bees, gigantic burst of solar radiation that zaps all satellites, phones and the internet.

Or Slappy in a bad mood.....

Saints don't have bad moods

Never thought of it that way. Good point

Animals are important to some people. I had a Brit (male) missing half a day in the office because "The kitten fell out of a tree and hurt its ankle".

But the pigs aren't pets. They are are ritually slaughtered with the whole family taking part and then cut up and cooked.

I was invited to a pig killing like it was an honour. (I declined..)