The 14 Worst Corporate Evildoers

Absolutely not. I feel that one's spelling offers insight into the quality of thought and amount of time that went into their post. Although, in this case I could not pass it up, as along with the conspicuous misspelling, the author specifically asks if he was the only one who paid attention in writing class.

Sometimes I cannot resist myself. (Sorry, Chosen.)

~Ulrika~

The actions of businesses are merely the sum-total of their customer's desires.

Walmart would not exist, the oil corporations and wars would not exist save for the customer's desire for more, while paying less.

Even when customers know what evil goes on in the world, it is distant, and sanitised.

Then why does a pair of Nike sneakers not cost the $10 that it costs to make them (including the abysmally small wage that workers will earn for assembling hundreds and hundreds of pairs)?

I don't know how you zeroed in on "article." "It's" (two words later in "it's lack of evidence" is a much more serious comprehension error for someone criticizing comprehension.

I'm right there with you (except for the part about the radical left). I didn't vote for bulldozers, arms dealers, or mercenaries. I am also both confused and amused by people on the poll who would consider avoiding Lockheed Martin products. Dang, guess you guys will have to buy some Canadian ATBM's next time you are out shopping for munitions.

Because in that case you are paying for a brand name, which people covet for far more than $10. And because in the third world countries where they are made, people are willing to work for far less.

Nike is the 'glamour case' that plays well as a 'tale of greed' in the media, but the real leveling of offshore wages lies in all the small things; the things often with no brand at all. But you won't hear that story - it's not sexy enough.


Sam Walton was correct, in business terms. Sell many lesser-known-brands, as cheaply as possible to the end consumer, and strip every possible expense from the supply chain.

Make thinner margins that are made up for on volume, volume, volume, and offer a 'total solution' - essentially everything. In the business, this is nicknamed 'size as your strategy.' It works. Crushingly.


In the end, it's not your semi-yearly purchase of Nike sneakers that makes the difference. No matter how glamorous their tale of greed may sound.

It's the 40 trips yearly to discount warehouses like Walmart in your oil-burning SUV, buying bagfuls of no-name ultra-discounted 'stuff' 100 USD at a time, that define the economy more than all the Nikes put together.


Consumers often blame 'those evil corporations' for ruining the world, while stuffing handfuls of McFries in their mouth between the words.

...where we import the vast majority of our commercial goods from...

I think it means these forums do not have a spell check function.

I wouldn't trust any company doing business with meat or dairy if I was trying to be righteous, which I was for a while until pizza brought me back to dairyland.

I never claimed to be a great typist. I have certain unfortunate habits in my typing, and that's one of them. Not that it matters, but when I write by hand, my spelling is just about perfect, but for some reason when I type, there are certain mistakes I tend to make repeatedly. You found one. Congratulations.

That's not uncommon, by the way. Lots of people when they type tend to mix up things like "there" and "their", or "here" and "hear", or to forget that I comes before E except after C, but then when they write those same people have no problem doing it correctly every time. I don't know what the reason is, but I assume we probably use a different part of the brain to type than to write.

What I do know is that this common tendancy is the reason word processors are programmed to look for such things in spell checks and the ask the user to double check if the right one is being used in each case. It's too bad we don't have such functionality here.

Now, got anything to say about the actual message, or would you rather keep nitpicking about tangents?



Nice try at justification. It doesn't really fly though.

I thought your comment had been just a joke until I read this. Had your response to Jake been something to the effect of "Hey, it was just a friendly jibe," I would have kept believing that, and I would not have been offended, but now I see that Jake's interpretation of it as "petty" was right on the money. It WAS petty, and you should be above it.

No amount of trying to explain it away as some sort of judgment call about time and effort will change what it actually was, and using said try at explanation as an opportunity to throw around further insults certainly doesn't help your cause. It's more than a little obvious that you don't have a real response to anything I've said, so you've chosen instead to hunt for any little victory you can find, and you settled on my spelling. How pathetic.

In regard to your "Sorry, Chosen," I'd accept the apology if I thought it were sincere, but I don't, so I cant. If you really expect me to believe you're sorry after you accuse me of having low quality thought, then that's a bigger insult to your own intelligence than your original attack could possibly have been to me. You should have the awareness to realize that no one would beleive a thing like that.

As for the paying attention in class bit, there's a huge difference between grasping major principles of writing like supplying evidence when you claim facts, and executing perfect spelling. Yes, I know HOW to spell, but that doesn't make me immune to error. I'm sure there are plenty of simple things you know how to do that you screw up too. It's called being human. Habits can be hard to break, even when we're aware of them.

That's a far cry though from presenting an article (A R T I C L E, happy now?) as fact and then offering no supporting evidence whatsoever to back up its claims. Such is not an error; it's lack of effort at best, and deliberate deception at worst. I suspect the motivation of that author incorporates a bit of both. In any case, there is no rational comparison between that and spelling. To believe there is is lunacy.

So, once again, care to comment on the actual content of the discussion, or are you so afraid that you can't refute the message that you're content to hide behind petty slights and to waste time focusing on realtively inconsequential details of spelling?


Yes, it should have been "its" and not "it's". My mother was a magazine editor for many years, and she'd probably have a heart attack if she saw that.

Anyway, while it's admittedly embarrassing to be caught in such a silly mistake, can you really call it a "comprehension error" with a straight face? It's a spelling error, plain and simple. I trust you can comprehend that, right? Okay, good.

The above is assuming, by the way, that it was me that you were accusing of "criticizing comprehension". You weren't very clear, so I'm not sure to whom you were actually referring, me or Ulrika. I criticized the legitimacy of the article in discussion here, but not anyone's ability to understand it. Ulrika criticized my spelling and my "quality of thought," whatever that means, but I don't think she was trying to say I didn't understand what I'd read. So, in your mind, whose comprehension allegedly was being criticized, and who was doing the alleged criticizing?

For what it's worth, I'm really suprised at you, Chance. I've come to expect little jabs like this from Ulrika, since I've seen her do it before, but I really thought you were above this kind of thing. Disappointing.

Agreed. Linden Labs would be a great model for other corporations. What other company has to have the flexibility and friendliness of LL? What other (non-military) organization deals with perpetual terrorism?

No kidding. Linden Labs deals with more mujahideen than even Habbo Hotel.

Walmart I avoid like the plague not due to overseas crimes, but due to the horrible way they treat middle management.

I wonder if Ulrika's purpose in starting this thread was to show the use of such a rag as a SL Tourbus to Hell? Seems an interesting correlation there, anyway.

I voted on the ones I knew about as wrongdoers through other sources. An undocumented / unsupported assertion is a flawed assertion as far as I'm concerned.

Desmond, I think that this is a truly eloquent post and well worth reading and considering.

I find the notion of "volume, volume, volume" particularly alarming as it pertains to Wal-Mart and Sam's. The waste produced from "volume, volume, volume" is astonishing. That said, Nike and other high-end clothing manufacturers should not get off so easily; they need to be watched closely.

I, personally, have dropped out of consumer culture as much as possible. I buy local; I don't watch television; I buy only what I absolutely need and can't make myself or make-do.

I have posted this link before; I think it is worth thinking about.

http://www.revbilly.com/

Great discussion. This will change my focus from high-profile corporations to high-volume corporations.

~Ulrika~

Don't send a book when a simple STFU will do. In other words don't take me too seriously. Sometimes I'm just being a pain because I'm too lazy to reply to a post.

~Ulrika~

So your answer to my question is, no, you don't have an intelligent response to the content of my message. That's what I thought. Next time that's the case, kindly just say so, and leave the insults at home. Go it? Good.

e·vil ( P ) Pronunciation Key (vl)
adj. e·vil·er, e·vil·est
Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.


How can one who rejects sin suggest anyone or any corporation is evil? Wouldn't that require a moral judgement? Who decides what is right or wrong if there are no markers?

Sin is for suckers.

Becuse there can be right conduct and wrong conduct that does not involve a component of guilt for violating a stricture of a transcendent deity. Sin as a concept is dependent on guilt and god.

In Buddhism we do not have a real concept of sin. 2we have right conduct and wrong conduct. Felling guilty about wrong conduct int he past, is itself wrong conduct.

Morality exists on its own, completely independent of sin or gods. IIRC people who are unalbe to understand morality on their own are called sociopaths.

I'm kind of dismayed that Lockheed-Martin got as few votes as it did, in fact the creator of the poll didn't choose it.

This one should be a no-brainer. They make implements of war, including vehicles that are designed to release area-effect weapons.

But it makes a perverse kind of sense. To a statist, modern mechanized war is legitimate. Bombing people is 'necessary' to promote 'national interests'.

The corporate behavior I am opposed to is that which involves fraud and violence - including having government contracts(especially military ones), which means being an arm of the state, which is founded on fraud and violence.
This also includes most modern financial practices, most "white-collar" crime, and operating sweatshops in countries where statist oppression and monetary fraud keeps the labor market artificially cheap.
I don't expect any business man to turn down an opportunity to make a buck, as long as he doesn't cheat or rob or physically assault anyone to do it.

"Check every company you would consider avoiding due to their overseas crimes."

How do you avoid a company you would never buy anything from in the first place? It should be a no-brainer not to check it. It's a trick question.

You didn't answer my question... who decides what is right and wrong? Who sets the moral compass?

That would be me.

I certainly "go" it.

~Ulrika~