@backstagebethy Me three. I even tried a bigger city than the one I actually live in thinking maybe my small town lifestyle didn't compute, but no dice.
@wee_ramekin I want to know but I also don't want to know! But maybe just throwing up my hands at the broken website is a cop-out and I need to woman up and learn some hard truths? Fuck.
@all Yeah, apparently I don't have enough slaves to make this site work with any internet browser. I'll just keep living in ignorance and bliss. Who wants to go shopping at Forever 21 then pick up some snacks and $5 DVDs at Walmart?
(jk, except I do shop at F21 sometimes, but I am really curious to know…)
@emilylouise Yeah I took advantage of the fact that I couldn't take the quiz yet and went to Payless for some cheap Yeti shoes during lunch. (I have really big feet at Payless is the only brick-and-mortar where I can buy shoes.)
I got a 24! I don't wear make-up and rarely wear jewelry, so that helped a lot.
Edit: Okay, I didn't think it posted my first comment, but I just noticed it did after all, and now I look like a liar. I actually went back and fine-tuned my results because the first time through I didn't realize until halfway in that I could do so, and there were a lot of inaccuracies.
@backstagebethy Hmm I got a 53 (?) I call BS on some things. My house is not carpeted, and I have a lot of jewelry, but 90% of it was purchased used. I do eat a lot of shrimp though… Is nothing safe?!
I was able to use it, and I think it was successful. I've known I need to break my Forever 21 addiction for a while, and this is the last straw. Just can't justify it anymore.
Ugh, THIS kind of thing again. Yes, it's terrible that forced labor is going on in certain industries, but 'Pinners, I implore you, rather than taking this rubbish and misleading survey, why not read this or this or perhaps some of the helpful links here? THAT is what "transparency in the supply chain" means in actual practice. Unfortunately this is NOT a problem that can be fixed by not shopping at a certain store. People who say it is are doing a massive disservice to actual poor people trying to survive in very difficult situations.
(Oh, and if you're really interested in the issue of forced labor, and what it might take to get rid of it, you can also read this paper (ungated). You might also note that the vast majority of "slaves" reported by this web site are actually child laborers engaged in agriculture, which is really sad, but probably better than the other option, child non-laborers engaged in slowly starving to death…)
@Jon Custer Thanks so much for the links – I admit that I am woefully undereducated on forced labor, except for a vague sense of 'this is happening, and it is bad'..
@Jon Custer – I know this is going to sound callous, and mean, and everything BUT…
I kind of feel like sometimes when academics right stuff about why we should feel less bad, it's just to mitigate the guilt we feel over our complicity into horrible things. But the fact is this:
Everyone reading this website is choosing to let people die. I promise that for every single person that reads this, there is more you can be doing to help starving people somewhere in the world not die. Like, me. I give to charities – my cause of choice is people who don't have clean water. But I also spend a huge amount of my income on shit I don't need – booze, shoes, fancier than the bare minimum food stuff, etc. The list goes on. So do all of you.
And you know what? It's kind of fucked up. I mean, I have never in my life been able to rationalize why this is okay. Maybe it's not at all? Maybe it's fucking horrible that I am letting people die. But I kind of am, and you have to accept it. But still…I think things like slavery footprint calculators are great. People saying to NEVER EAT CHOCOLATE because any of it, even Fair Trade / "transparent supply chain" shit since that's mostly lies….I'm not going to listen to them, but it does make me think twice, and be a little bit better about how I live.
And the fact is, nobody is ever going to "do everything they can" to help out other people. But at least with people like the Fair Trade Fund creating new and engaging ways to inform us of how the world could be better, and blogs like this encouraging discussion of it, some of us will move the needle a little bit further in the "better world" direction, and maybe, if we keep doing more good than bad, even if only a 51/49 split, eventually shit will get fixed and the world will be a mostly decent place.
@leon.saintjean I respect that opinion. My own inability to feel less bad about this stuff is kind of why I entered the field of international development… But: it is really, really, REALLY important for people to understand that campaigns like this, in addition to simply not helping much, can have real NEGATIVE impacts. Which is what I was trying to point out with the above links.
In that situation, people were quite understandably upset about rape in DR Congo. When they found out coltan from Congo is in their phones, some of these people decided, "Hey, here is how we can help!" They campaigned hard and finally got language inserted into the Dodd-Frank bill that DESTROYED THE LIVELIHOODS OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POOR PEOPLE while having no discernible positive impact on conflict or rape. The people of eastern DRC would have been much better off if these campaigners had not tried to help them at all.
I guess what I'm trying to say, aside from PLEASE BE AWARE OF POTENTIAL NEGATIVE OUTCOMES, is that things like this can't be changed "on the margins." If everybody eats a little less chocolate, the lives of cocoa producers do not get a little bit better — if anything, they get a little bit worse. Systemic change is a long, hard road, and one that poor countries are going to have to walk largely on their own initiative, unfortunately. And as a general rule of thumb, "Boycott X" is not usually a very good way of helping the people who make X (and presumably the point of "transparency" is that people won't buy things if they know they are made by slave labor, right?).
What is it that they say in AA? "Accept the things you cannot change?" Honestly, if you can't commit to doing quite a bit of research and investing quite a bit of time and energy in making sure your proposed way of "helping" doesn't actually HURT, you are probably better off doing nothing at all (or "helping" someone closer to home, such as the hundreds of thousands of forced laborers in American prisons). I mean, if someone collapsed on the street, you would feel terrible for them, but you wouldn't start poking them with medical instruments unless you were a doctor (I hope). See this for example, particularly point 3: "Everyone should have the opportunity to help. Wrong. “The poor”, disaster survivors, “beneficiaries”, etc. are not toys for us to sort of play around with. Aid needs to be delivered by people who know what they’re doing. Aid needs to be about the recipients, not about the provider."
@Jon Custer Gah, sorry for going on and on here, but another important thing these kinds of campaigns ignore is that the world's poorest countries are not poor because we are relentlessly exploiting them for iPod materials. Sub-Saharan Africa is, in fact, barely linked in to the system of global trade at all, and accounts for a tiny fraction (4.5%) of US imports, most of which, I believe, is oil from places like Angola. Most poor countries are actually desperate for us to import more of their stuff.
And the countries we trade the most with — Canada, Mexico, and the European Union, are generally pretty nice places to live by global standards. Fair trade or not, your morning coffee MIGHT be supporting child slavery. Or it might be helping some nice Ehtiopian lady send her little girls to school. It's not black and white.
@leon.saintjean Hmm. I've thought about this topic SO MUCH… like about using electronics, having a diamond engagement ring, about being complicit in so many things, about our mindless American consumerism. I find it very upsetting, and even more so that it seems we, or me as an individual, is powerless. Anyway, I give to lots of local and international charities – for what, to assuage my privileged American guilt? But at the core, I agree with Jon Custer and think that unfortunately, there isn't a whole ton that outsiders can do for a particular group or nation. That is why political power is so important; these people ultimately have to walk this hard road alone. If we decide to boycott or pass particular bills, as Jon mentions this can have huge unintended consequences. At a certain point, I think that knowledge is the best thing we can have, compassion and a willingness to step in and help when it is asked for, but our "help" in so many parts of the developing world has really, quite honestly, fucked up so many things.
Oh I feel I should also point out that if you take the implied meaning of "this many slaves work SOLELY FOR YOU" then the US as a whole has something like 7.5 billion slaves. So I guess some of them live on the moon or something? #endmoonslaverynow
My slaves need to make this website work better, because I can't get past step 1.
@backstagebethy I know, me either?
@backstagebethy Me three. I even tried a bigger city than the one I actually live in thinking maybe my small town lifestyle didn't compute, but no dice.
@backstagebethy No dice here either. And I'm curious.
@backstagebethy Having the same problem, two different browsers.
@sheistolerable Me too. Neither FireFox nor Google Chrome worked.
@backstagebethy haha I think we've overloaded the server.
@backstagebethy I'm glad all of you are having issues, too. I thought it was my dumb firewall at work.
@backstagebethy I'm glad it's not just me.
@everyone Hey all. I just wrote to the website, so hopefully we'll hear something soon. I'll post back here if they write back to me!
@wee_ramekin Thanks! Otherwise we're all just destined to be ignorant of our slavery footprint.
@wee_ramekin I want to know but I also don't want to know! But maybe just throwing up my hands at the broken website is a cop-out and I need to woman up and learn some hard truths? Fuck.
@all Yeah, apparently I don't have enough slaves to make this site work with any internet browser. I'll just keep living in ignorance and bliss. Who wants to go shopping at Forever 21 then pick up some snacks and $5 DVDs at Walmart?
(jk, except I do shop at F21 sometimes, but I am really curious to know…)
@emilylouise Yeah I took advantage of the fact that I couldn't take the quiz yet and went to Payless for some cheap Yeti shoes during lunch. (I have really big feet at Payless is the only brick-and-mortar where I can buy shoes.)
@backstagebethy I finally got it to work for me using internet explorer … and apparently I have 69 slaves :\ so that's great.
THIS IS NEED TO KNOW RIGHT NOW. Meaning, I have a midterm to finish in 3 hours and need to procrastinate.
@backstagebethy Try again. It finally works for me.
I got 35, but I'm sure it would be way lower if I didn't have so many damn shoes.
@backstagebethy The site works now. Try it again!
I got a 24! I don't wear make-up and rarely wear jewelry, so that helped a lot.
Edit: Okay, I didn't think it posted my first comment, but I just noticed it did after all, and now I look like a liar.
I actually went back and fine-tuned my results because the first time through I didn't realize until halfway in that I could do so, and there were a lot of inaccuracies.
@backstagebethy Hmm I got a 53 (?) I call BS on some things. My house is not carpeted, and I have a lot of jewelry, but 90% of it was purchased used. I do eat a lot of shrimp though…
Is nothing safe?!
@backstagebethy Ooof, 53. Guess I should buy fewer clothes. Which I kind of knew already.
@DrFeelGood Yeah, I didn't count the secondhand stuff and it made a difference.
My worst culprit is shoes.
eesh, 44? that seems like a lot.
Does this take fetish gimps into account?
@applestoapples Is the sitter coming over? Did you know about the benefits of having someone sit on you?
I fear I may never know, as this website is failing in three different browsers. I wonder if there are any other similar calculators.
I was able to use it, and I think it was successful. I've known I need to break my Forever 21 addiction for a while, and this is the last straw. Just can't justify it anymore.
@franceschances What browser were you using? Did you just type in your city and then click on the little arrow next to it?
@tigrrrlily I used firefox, and yeah that's what I did. The navigation is definitely not super intuitive.
Ugh, THIS kind of thing again. Yes, it's terrible that forced labor is going on in certain industries, but 'Pinners, I implore you, rather than taking this rubbish and misleading survey, why not read this or this or perhaps some of the helpful links here? THAT is what "transparency in the supply chain" means in actual practice. Unfortunately this is NOT a problem that can be fixed by not shopping at a certain store. People who say it is are doing a massive disservice to actual poor people trying to survive in very difficult situations.
(Oh, and if you're really interested in the issue of forced labor, and what it might take to get rid of it, you can also read this paper (ungated). You might also note that the vast majority of "slaves" reported by this web site are actually child laborers engaged in agriculture, which is really sad, but probably better than the other option, child non-laborers engaged in slowly starving to death…)
@Jon Custer Thanks so much for the links – I admit that I am woefully undereducated on forced labor, except for a vague sense of 'this is happening, and it is bad'..
@Jon Custer – I know this is going to sound callous, and mean, and everything BUT…
I kind of feel like sometimes when academics right stuff about why we should feel less bad, it's just to mitigate the guilt we feel over our complicity into horrible things. But the fact is this:
Everyone reading this website is choosing to let people die. I promise that for every single person that reads this, there is more you can be doing to help starving people somewhere in the world not die. Like, me. I give to charities – my cause of choice is people who don't have clean water. But I also spend a huge amount of my income on shit I don't need – booze, shoes, fancier than the bare minimum food stuff, etc. The list goes on. So do all of you.
And you know what? It's kind of fucked up. I mean, I have never in my life been able to rationalize why this is okay. Maybe it's not at all? Maybe it's fucking horrible that I am letting people die. But I kind of am, and you have to accept it. But still…I think things like slavery footprint calculators are great. People saying to NEVER EAT CHOCOLATE because any of it, even Fair Trade / "transparent supply chain" shit since that's mostly lies….I'm not going to listen to them, but it does make me think twice, and be a little bit better about how I live.
And the fact is, nobody is ever going to "do everything they can" to help out other people. But at least with people like the Fair Trade Fund creating new and engaging ways to inform us of how the world could be better, and blogs like this encouraging discussion of it, some of us will move the needle a little bit further in the "better world" direction, and maybe, if we keep doing more good than bad, even if only a 51/49 split, eventually shit will get fixed and the world will be a mostly decent place.
@leon.saintjean I respect that opinion. My own inability to feel less bad about this stuff is kind of why I entered the field of international development… But: it is really, really, REALLY important for people to understand that campaigns like this, in addition to simply not helping much, can have real NEGATIVE impacts. Which is what I was trying to point out with the above links.
In that situation, people were quite understandably upset about rape in DR Congo. When they found out coltan from Congo is in their phones, some of these people decided, "Hey, here is how we can help!" They campaigned hard and finally got language inserted into the Dodd-Frank bill that DESTROYED THE LIVELIHOODS OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF POOR PEOPLE while having no discernible positive impact on conflict or rape. The people of eastern DRC would have been much better off if these campaigners had not tried to help them at all.
I guess what I'm trying to say, aside from PLEASE BE AWARE OF POTENTIAL NEGATIVE OUTCOMES, is that things like this can't be changed "on the margins." If everybody eats a little less chocolate, the lives of cocoa producers do not get a little bit better — if anything, they get a little bit worse. Systemic change is a long, hard road, and one that poor countries are going to have to walk largely on their own initiative, unfortunately. And as a general rule of thumb, "Boycott X" is not usually a very good way of helping the people who make X (and presumably the point of "transparency" is that people won't buy things if they know they are made by slave labor, right?).
What is it that they say in AA? "Accept the things you cannot change?" Honestly, if you can't commit to doing quite a bit of research and investing quite a bit of time and energy in making sure your proposed way of "helping" doesn't actually HURT, you are probably better off doing nothing at all (or "helping" someone closer to home, such as the hundreds of thousands of forced laborers in American prisons). I mean, if someone collapsed on the street, you would feel terrible for them, but you wouldn't start poking them with medical instruments unless you were a doctor (I hope). See this for example, particularly point 3: "Everyone should have the opportunity to help. Wrong. “The poor”, disaster survivors, “beneficiaries”, etc. are not toys for us to sort of play around with. Aid needs to be delivered by people who know what they’re doing. Aid needs to be about the recipients, not about the provider."
@Jon Custer Gah, sorry for going on and on here, but another important thing these kinds of campaigns ignore is that the world's poorest countries are not poor because we are relentlessly exploiting them for iPod materials. Sub-Saharan Africa is, in fact, barely linked in to the system of global trade at all, and accounts for a tiny fraction (4.5%) of US imports, most of which, I believe, is oil from places like Angola. Most poor countries are actually desperate for us to import more of their stuff.
And the countries we trade the most with — Canada, Mexico, and the European Union, are generally pretty nice places to live by global standards. Fair trade or not, your morning coffee MIGHT be supporting child slavery. Or it might be helping some nice Ehtiopian lady send her little girls to school. It's not black and white.
@Jon Custer: Hey, your comments here have been really helpful and thought provoking. Thanks so much for taking the time to share them with us.
@RK Fire: Agreed. Really interesting perspective.
@leon.saintjean Hmm. I've thought about this topic SO MUCH… like about using electronics, having a diamond engagement ring, about being complicit in so many things, about our mindless American consumerism. I find it very upsetting, and even more so that it seems we, or me as an individual, is powerless. Anyway, I give to lots of local and international charities – for what, to assuage my privileged American guilt? But at the core, I agree with Jon Custer and think that unfortunately, there isn't a whole ton that outsiders can do for a particular group or nation. That is why political power is so important; these people ultimately have to walk this hard road alone. If we decide to boycott or pass particular bills, as Jon mentions this can have huge unintended consequences. At a certain point, I think that knowledge is the best thing we can have, compassion and a willingness to step in and help when it is asked for, but our "help" in so many parts of the developing world has really, quite honestly, fucked up so many things.
Oh I feel I should also point out that if you take the implied meaning of "this many slaves work SOLELY FOR YOU" then the US as a whole has something like 7.5 billion slaves. So I guess some of them live on the moon or something? #endmoonslaverynow
Booooo, can't get it to work for me. I've bookmarked it for later though, looks really interesting.
I registered just now (I KNOW LATE TO THE GAME) just so I could also complain that I've tried to calculate my slave quotient all day!
And then to point out that @Jon Custer has definitely spoken truth to power in front of me today!
still doesn't work!