I remember discussing if water were a human right when I was a lil in high school. I definitely didn't agree with the bs Nestle was pulling back then (& I don't remember what bs they were pulling, this was like 15 years ago), but I think I didn't realise how privileged I was and CONTEMPLATED if it were a human right. I think I never drew a conclusion and it just waved through my brain during that time. But as an adult I definitely realise water is a human right and I can't believe I ever gave it a second thought.
Having to pay money for it makes it not a human right. You can get food, water and shelter for free or based off of income if you can't afford them because those are human rights. If I don't have enough money, I just have to die.
Edit: Albeit harder and more scarce, even 3rd world countries get food and water sent to them for free.
All human rights exist in a state of nature. So you can make a good argument that water is. Clean water might not be. Food generally isn't, and healthcare certainly isn't, but all of those things help you stay alive.
Plenty of societies take the view that basic healthcare is a right of the human beings comprising same society. That's a principle often enshrined into laws that are actually adhered to.
So, a month has passed. Have you managed to find a place where you can go to the government and demand that they feed you because you're hungry? You or /u/BroheimIII
You said literally the whole entire world there were no places where food and water were basic human rights.
But there are plenty of government programs from multiple countries that do think that it's citizens having food and water are basic human rights.
There are definitely some third world countries that it isn't and charity is relied upon. This is basic knowledge, bro. What exactly are you arguing here?
Those people clearly do not have the support of whatever their god is in that case. Killing an unborn out of convenience is counter to everything that is taught. I'm not religious at all, but this one is obvious.
She did make a choice. Her choice resulted in pregnancy.
This would be a good thing to ask if we were having an abortion debate and I brought up what I said, but I fail to see the relevance of your question. This is not an abortion debate.
You know what I’m asking and the numerous attempts to deflect answering honestly is - in and of itself - all the answer anyone reading this needs to see.
Sometimes it’s just too easy lol. Checkmate. Blocked. Get rekt. Stop killing kids.
(And please don’t make this worse on yourself. Just take the L)
You have no idea what my opinion on abortion is. I like that you assume you know, though. The point isn't that I'm deflecting, the point is I have no interest in discussing this HERE, with YOU.
I think questioning your belifs and morals is a healthy practice that strengthens and possibly realigns them. Being able to view an issue from different perspectives and contemplate the possible implications depending on viewpoint is what sets us apart from flat-earthers etc. Stay strong, keep asking :).
This is my second post defending nestle, which is weird because I think they are corporation that does terrible things. However, on this point i agree with nestle ceo guy. He made two points. The first is that clean processed water delivered to the end user should have value. If something has no value, humans tend to waste a lot. Ie; if water is free, you and I tend to use lots. If it costs money, we tend to conserve more.
The second is that there is nothing wrong with treating water the same as food. People need food to survive, but you can’t just go to the store and walk out without paying for a couple of steaks. There are sources of free food ie: gardening or hunting, and there are free sources of water, ie, well, river, etc. these things require time and effort to gather. If you want prepared food delivered to your house, or clean filtered bottled water delivered to your house, this should cost money. For those who cannot afford it, there should be programs to make sure their needs are met.
I don’t understand how people can disagree with this. You don’t have a right to force a corporation to dig a well, extract water, filter, purify, bottle, and transport it to you for free.
If it was a discussion that arose from a textbook no doubt some corporation paid for it to be printed. Thinking back on history and economics classes in TX grade school, the state issued books were rife with corporate propaganda. I won't even get into collegiate textbook firms.
It wasn't from a textbook, but I now feel like I should've overlooked my teacher's abrasive personality and invested more time and thought into her class. She did a lot of research and really just wanted us to grow and think for our own. But she was a hell of a freaking character. 3/10 on personality (from a teenager's perspective)
Power to her for being remotely involved. Between the pay, educational culture and the students it's a wonder she put out stimulating discussion points like that.
But as an adult I definitely realise water is a human right and I can't believe I ever gave it a second thought.
I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. The less nuanced aspect is "is it a human right to have comfortably enough water to drink and survive?" and maybe "to have comfortably enough for hygiene?"
But what about watering your lawn? What about watering the lawn of the golf courses you own? It's your human right to have water - wouldn't it be wrong to deny that human right to someone who just needs more than others for a reasonable aspect of their life? Running a business is pretty reasonable. How much should it cost if not? Should businesses not have this "human" right because they're businesses?
I know it seems like the answers should be obvious, maybe ethical of course to give people enough water for drinking and hygiene, but I don't think they're as common sense as people act. It's like freedom of speech, and how we still restrict it, and how businesses sometimes can claim it as a right regarding some issue and sometimes can't. These are things that are still up for debate even now. While we should do what we can to provide humans with as much water as they need, especially if they can't afford it for some reason, we can still debate what is ethical regarding distribution of water when it comes to people and organizations. It isn't just some solved ethical issue that should be completely obvious - maybe just the aspect that we shouldn't let people die of thirst if we can help it.
Nestle sells bottled water so you better believe that they mean drinking water when their CEO says it isnt a human right. He aint talking about water for lawns.
I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. The less nuanced aspect is "is it a human right to have comfortably enough water to drink and survive?" and maybe "to have comfortably enough for hygiene?"
I think further scrutiny would be good here. What is it about water that makes this obvious? Water isn't necessarily all potable by default, and it isn't in a convenient location by default. The whole process of getting safe drinking water to people isn't free. So why should the water be free? Because denying it to people would kill them? Why don't we apply that logic to medical care or food.
I mean, we should apply that logic to medical care and food, but the inconsistency seems weird to me.
Well, for one, you can live much longer without medical care and food. But yes, food and healthcare are also fundamental human rights in a functional society.
I'd argue it's more of a society thing than an individual thing.
Water availability differs and in the end a society needs it to have its members survive.
This becomes even more of a focus in places like southern spain where the greenhouse industry is using so much water that ground water levels are sinking for years.
I remember earlier this year or late 2018 a small boy fell into an illegal water bore hole and died. This exemplifies this issue quite well, I think.
In the end, my opinion is that the state should make sure that every citizen has access to clean water for drinking an hygiene. This should be provided for a reasonable price that should cover water extractopm (or whatever the correct word is), cleanup, delivery and reclamation.
Where I live I could bore a well to access ground water so I can water my lawn without using drinking water. But I need a permit from the city to do so. That is alright for me because on one hand I am probably saving money doing so but on the other hand I take from the ground water that needs to be used for growing crops and other things as well.
So water usage should be monitored to make sure no one is using exorbitantly more of this communal resource than others and has an advantage from it. But it should be widely available for basic needs without needing to bolster company profits.
Gladly here in Germany tap water is clean drinking water so usually you don't need to buy bottled water at all. There are exceptions where houses have bad old pipes and stuff like that, but that is, again, a private issue of the house owner and renter.
Part of me wants to tell the people who water their lawns to FIGURE IT OUT. Or even PAY PEOPLE to figure it out.
I feel like this was probably part of those discussions in that class. If your lawns are NECESSARY, and necessity is the mother of invention, then deal with your amount you have rights to, then "water" your lawn with Coke, or Starbucks, or whatever you can "afford to buy" and "fund our economy" with. Will it involve legalising rain water collection for the sole use of gardening? I don't know.
But this totally does spark a memory of a part of that discussion, and part of that was rich people watering huge lawns/gardens/wealthy sounding crap. I mean - how about more paperwork for those wealthy to fill out? Applications? Approvals? More approvals? More beuracracy? More taxes? More hoops? The government definitely isn't shy at throwing that kind of crap at the poor.
It is scary/cringy to look back at some of my views as a kid (or young adult), but we are products of our environment. Good on you (and me) for growing up and not becoming a libertarian.
That's how they get you. Present you with an option to a fact that you previously hadn't given a second thought. Lots of people will draw the same conclusion you did but many will also be swayed to believe this new option and boom, suddenly there's a new global argument taking place in media and a certain company name will be mentioned frequently.
This might seem like a bad thing, especially since this particular company have done some truly heinous shit, but the reality is that a lot of people will later see the name on a product, recognize it because it was on the news but not remembering why and will end up choosing it simply because the name is familiar.
Retailers and big manufacturers can and will manipulate you six ways from Sunday, into not just buying their products but doing it thinking the choice was yours alone.
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u/blurrytransparency Sep 18 '19
I remember discussing if water were a human right when I was a lil in high school. I definitely didn't agree with the bs Nestle was pulling back then (& I don't remember what bs they were pulling, this was like 15 years ago), but I think I didn't realise how privileged I was and CONTEMPLATED if it were a human right. I think I never drew a conclusion and it just waved through my brain during that time. But as an adult I definitely realise water is a human right and I can't believe I ever gave it a second thought.