Do you want to sell sugar water or do you want to change the world?

Re:Do you want to sell sugar water or do you want to change ... by puredemo on Sunday August 28, 2011 @11:14PM (#2935745)

Pet care is a billion dollar industry.

Could we stop arbitrarily dismissing things that are important to hundreds of millions of people as "silly"?

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Re:Do you want to sell sugar water or do you want to change ... by chc on Sunday August 28, 2011 @11:43PM (#2935809)

"X is a billion-dollar industry" is not equivalent to "X is praiseworthy," so it's not really relevant. There are lots of billion-dollar industries that are positively sleazy. Also, the precise example was both irrelevant (since it was deliberately silly) and not a petcare solution.

Anyway, you're free to disagree with this thinking. I disagree with many instances of it. I'm just explaining why the software industry is different.

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Re:Do you want to sell sugar water or do you want to change ... by patrocles on Monday August 29, 2011 @03:50AM (#2936349)

Spot on. cdixon is trying to direct traffic to things he associates with 'gravitas'. These may or may not unleash much value.

Relative cost structures are really complex; a mind-numbing TV show that people use (instead of alcohol) to cope with their jobs may save more lives than an exceptional charity.

If we think something is retarded and yet millions of people do it, we either have different values than them or have failed to see the value. Neither puts us in good stead to judge those people.

Unless we actually prefer a world of Moral One-upmanship ....

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