Counterpoint:

Saying water isn't a human right is different than saying not everyone should have access to water.

I generally agree that water isn't a right. I think it's a misuse of the word "right" and a misapplication of the concept of a "right".

Rights define what you're free to do for yourself, and the various ways in which those freedoms can't be infringed upon by others. For example, you have a right to free speech and people can't infringe on that. You have a right to not be tortured and people can't infringe on that. In the US, if the government is going to take your property or jail you as punishment for a crime, you have a right to a fair trial first before they can do that to you.

There's a distinction between that and things like water and healthcare. One is a list of rights, and the other is a list of things people generally need to live a happy and healthy life. If we're going to dilute the definition of "right" down to that degree, why don't we just throw in housing and free trips for vacation and a loving partner while we're at it?

South Africa has housing as a right in their constitution. They also have 200,000 homeless people. So who's infringing on their rights? Every citizen of South Africa?

The UN General Assembly declared water a human right. The world also has close to a billion people who don't have access to clean drinking water. Who's infringing on their rights? Are you?

Rights aren't about what resources (time, money, commodities, services, etc) you're free to take from others. When you start defining rights that way, rights all start contradicting each other. What about a doctor's freedom to choose who they perform surgery on? What about your freedom to live a life not solely dedicated to plumbing in Gabon?

I think the key point of contention is about rainwater harvesting.

Making rainwater harvesting illegal (and thus forcing people to overpay a monopolized water system) is arguably a violation of human rights. It is a prohibition of what you are 'free to do for yourself', that forces people to pay for something they need to survive (and could otherwise get for free).

However, I agree on the haziness around the issue. Mandating that everyone receives X amount of drinkable water may be expensive to implement, economically unsustainable and create perverse incentives.

In the US people have mineral rights to the earth under the surface of their property. This can be separated from the surface rights and sold off. If one buys just the surface rights, then the entity that has the mineral rights can, in most cases, access your surface to extract their minerals. Not reading the fine print on your title and having someone want to exercise their mineral rights is a serious issue in the US. I would definitely be very wary of buying land without the mineral rights.

But the right to use water that lands on your property? Never heard of "rain water rights". Unless it was previously declared somehow, forcing you not to collect rainwater would highlight the need for the right to bear arms. I would like to know more about how that came about in those cases.

Apparently it's technically illegal in Nevada. Thankfully, sounds like it isn't practically enforced. http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/05/26/ask-rgj-can-nevadan...

I believe are some serious injustices around water privatization in South America, however.

This is similar to Thomas Paine's argument for a basic income in Agarian Justice. If civilization has deprived you the natural right to live off the land, it should compensate you somehow (access to cheap clean water or free water).

You're explicitly making a semantic argument. When people say "water is a human right" or "Internet is a human right," all they mean is that governments should use public funds to improve (or guarantee) access to those things.

Of course you're correct about the way the word "right" is generally used in philosophy and ethics. But that's absolutely not the definition being used here.

It's exactly a matter of semantics. Condemning people for saying water isn't a human right is also a matter of semantics.

The Nestle CEO was using the correct definition of "human right". Now people are going to attribute their inaccurate definition of the term to his statements, and condemn him for it (like the parent comment did).

It's all semantics.

Now how about we start using the word correctly so we can avoid this? Or how about the liberals condemning him try being intellectually honest for once, and stop deliberately and knowingly misinterpreting what he said just because it's convenient for the argument they're trying to make?

There is enough to disagree with Nestle about without even going into Water Rights.

What they do to women with their formula in developing nations is a crime. They miseducate them by telling them that Formula is better, give them free samples until their milk dries up, and then start charging them.

It's deplorable behavior, and as a result I refuse to buy any Nestle product.

I think that even by your definition water is a human right. Should we not have access to plumbing anymore lets say, and there was a freshwater lake near where we lived, we should be allowed to get our water from it and no other human should stop us from doing so simply because they said that they owned it.

You're arguing that if there's an available source of water, people should be able to take from it as they choose. But then what incentivizes me to build a plumbing system (which, if I should build, I would claim that I owned) if anyone could just take from it?

I think the water quote is unfair, that's not exactly what he said. If you watch the interview of him on his desk, which is what I think you're referencing, he says there should be a difference between what a person needs and what you should be able to treat as a commodity. Obviously Nestle would love to sell the water out from under you, but to say that he doesn't think people deserve _any_ water as a right is disingenuous.

His specific number could be argued - I don't remember what it was, but I think it was in the liters per day. Regardless, I think it's interesting to think about the idea that the commoditization of something begins after a certain amount, unlike chocolate for example.

That being said, I wouldn't trust the current political climate to be able to come up with a reasonable number here

Just for completeness, this is what the CEO of nestle believes regarding water being a human right: http://www.nestle.com/ask-nestle/human-rights/answers/nestle...

I don't know how you think Philz is any different. They're a chain with the same desired path to global domination in the coffee space as any other business. And their coffee is awful.

Don't forget pushing "free" baby formula on new mothers in developing countries, so their milk supply dries up.

Yeah, that was pretty awful. They pushed formula as being more healthy, which it isn't, and it was made extra bad because they did so in countries that didn't have clean water. Adults in those countries have built up somewhat of an immunity to the diseases in the water, but infants don't have that (they get it from their mother's milk!)

So parents mixed the water with the formula, giving their infants diseases they didn't have any protection against because they didn't get any antibodies from their mother's milk

You wrote this in past tense but sadly they're still doing it :(

I posted this above a few times, thanks for reinforcing this with your own post.

This is HEINOUS behavior, and the primary reason I won't support any Nestle company or product.

I imagine the blue bottle customer base is made up of the type of people who would boycott over something like this.

Why? Blue Bottle customers are hipsters who like to pay extra for faux fancy goods. Why would they be especially likely to disacommodate themselves to benefit faraway people?

Pity that all customer bases weren't made up of people who would boycott a company of such a tactic.

Philz is not really an alternative to Blue Bottle - they don't roast their own beans, they don't make espresso.

This is quite inaccurate. From Philz' website:

"Here at Philz, we roast our own coffees at our roasting plant in Oakland, California."

https://www.philzcoffee.com/our-coffee

They obviously don't do espresso drinks but there are about 1,000 places in San Francisco that do (Four Barrel, Ritual, Stanza, etc. etc.)

You can do much better the Philz, depending on where you are at there are lots of good options. In you're in the bay area look up Four Barrel, they roast great beans and their SF coffee shop is really nice.

Everyone is welcome to a preference of course, but I wonder why you assert Four Barrel is "much better" than Philz. If we're talking about non-espresso drinks, I know many people who prefer Philz. They have a huge variety of custom roasts and make remarkable ice coffee with cream. I like Four Barrel too, just surprised to see Philz dismissed out of hand. Most people who come to visit me in San Francisco end up going home with a bag of Philz' beans after trying a bunch of the third wave shops.

I miss Four Barrell since moving out of SF. I don't really understand why they don't seem to be doing as well as Blue Bottle or Stumptown or even Ritual.

There are a few coffeeshops in LA that brew four barrel coffee, I think it's a result of how Four Barrel mostly just sells beans instead of opening their own shops everywhere.

Additionally, Stumptown as well as Intellegencia are both owned by the same private equity firm that owns Peet's, Blue Bottle also got a ton of outside investment to allow them to grow as rapidly as they did, in addition to having a successful business of delivering their cold brew to peoples homes.

The thing about the food industry is that it has really high startup costs that take a very long time to pay off, so opening up a new store using the profits from existing stores isn't really all that easy to do without having a hundreds of stores already.

quick plug for Equator Coffee. Their stuff is great. Woman owned business based in Mill Valley, CA

What about Sightglass?

That list is entirely based on my personal preference for coffee which does not particularly like Sightglass or Verve. There is no objectivity here :)

Heh, no worries ;)

> Sightglass

I'm serious considering leaving my current job because the office coffee moved from Sightglass to some over-roasted junk from somewhere in Marin county...

I'm close to considering the same thing because the two closest coffee shops to my office in SF are both Starbucks...

I guess there's Philz a bit further, or Blue Bottle even more further.. but those are hardly convenient and Philz isn't great anyway.

Verve is also really good and just opened an SF location

I wish counter culture had cafes in the Bay -- they have a huge roasting center in Emeryville and their beans are delicious.

I have seen their coffee being served at various cafés in SF..

I've really been enjoying Black Powder

Blue Bottle sucks. Line is long, coffee is so-so.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

This sentiment sucks. The "player" here sets the rules of the "game". I hate the player.

No.