Categories: ethics
Date: 03 December 2007 17:52:09
I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day, and as we were talking she was answering word questions on facebook and consequently donating rice for the developing world! I have since received and accepted an invitation for the same program and I had a go this afternoon. Most of the questions are fairly easy, so it is quite easy to build up grains of rice. But still, something about it doesn't quite sit right with me. It seems odd to be sat at my laptop, playing games and consequently winning rice for people with practically nothing! I think it is just the contrast of cultures which is particularly apparent when playing the game. The way that it is a 'game' for us, and real life for them.
Another recent internet dilemma for me was the creation of an amazon wishlist. I hadn't created one previously because it seemed too cheeky to publish 'I'd like this, and this and this, ooh and this please'. But recently I was on the amazon site, amending my recommendations list - telling it which CDs and books I owned from the ones it was recommending me. I was pretty impressed with its ability to produce a comprehensive list of CDs and books that I would like - it was also quite bad because I discovered several good looking CDs I didn't know existed! Thats good internet marketing for you! And marketing that I've bought into. In the end I decided to create the wishlist because it makes sense for friends / family to be able to see what you don't already own and would like. But that doesn't mean I'm expecting to magically receive all the things I've added to it - all of them I can live without, they'd be nice but they're not critical. I'm not going to link it from here, but if you're interested it should be searchable with my full name on amazon.co.uk.