There are more malnourished people in India than in all of sub-Saharan Africa
At least in the IT and call centre industries in the United States, “India” is synonymous with “cheap outsourcing bastards who are stealing our jobs.” Quite a few customers are actively hostile towards India because they “don’t speak English”, “don’t understand anything”, and are “cheap outsourcing bastards who are stealing proper American jobs”.
I absolutely hate this idiocy, but it’s a pretty compelling case not to try and use India as an emotional hook...
I’d also assume that people are primed to the idea of “Africa = poor helpless children”, so Africa is a much easier emotional hook.
It seems Lucid fox has a point. LW isn’t that heavily dominated by US based users, also dosen’t it seem wise for LW users to try and avoid such uses when thinking of difficult problems of ethics or instrumental rationality?
No, but if my example is going to evoke the opposite response in 10-20% of my audience, it’s probably a bad choice :)
avoid such uses when thinking of difficult problems of ethics or instrumental rationality?
Conceeded. I was interested in gauging emotional response, though, not an intellectual “shut up and multiply”. The question is less one of math and more one of priorities, for me.
At least in the IT and call centre industries in the United States, “India” is synonymous with “cheap outsourcing bastards who are stealing our jobs.” Quite a few customers are actively hostile towards India because they “don’t speak English”, “don’t understand anything”, and are “cheap outsourcing bastards who are stealing proper American jobs”.
I absolutely hate this idiocy, but it’s a pretty compelling case not to try and use India as an emotional hook...
I’d also assume that people are primed to the idea of “Africa = poor helpless children”, so Africa is a much easier emotional hook.
It seems Lucid fox has a point. LW isn’t that heavily dominated by US based users, also dosen’t it seem wise for LW users to try and avoid such uses when thinking of difficult problems of ethics or instrumental rationality?
No, but if my example is going to evoke the opposite response in 10-20% of my audience, it’s probably a bad choice :)
Conceeded. I was interested in gauging emotional response, though, not an intellectual “shut up and multiply”. The question is less one of math and more one of priorities, for me.