“ The law punishes teenage boys who tie up and abuse a stray cat. So why allow industrialists to run factory farms that keep pigs almost all their lives in tiny pens that are barely bigger than they are? ”
“ Most of us would never deliberately choose our own material comfort over the life of another person. Most of us do not consciously choose to work others to death for the sake of lower prices on the things we buy. But we participate in such an economy because we are detached from the producers, the people who actually make our things….We do so not necessarily because we are greedy and indifferent to the suffering of others, but largely because those others are invisible to us. ”
We Shop, They Drop (via marco via azspot)
“ So, do high cigarette prices make smokers happier? If smokers are rational, they don’t. But if smokers are wracked by temptation and are trying unsuccessfully to quit, then higher prices might make them happier by encouraging them to smoke less or even to stop entirely. ”
Why smokers are happier when cigarettes cost more. - By Tim Harford - Slate Magazine