other|matters

Active Exploitation – Passive Exploitation 20 November 2006

It is easy to recognize Active Exploitation. A person pays you $50 for $50 worth of product, yet you give him/her $45 worth of product. A person wants to cross a bridge, but you’re a troll, and you require that s/he pays you. You give one set of rights for the wealthy in your population, and another set of rights for the non-wealthy in your population. You enslave someone.

Active exploitation is easy to recognize. Passive Exploitation is easy to overlook.

With passive exploitation, you may be sailing through the sunny skies across the ocean, not knowing that the hull of the boat beneath you is overloaded with thirsty passengers. Those passengers are thirsting for water, and when they ask someone in your crew, s/he ignores them. You don’t even know that they are there.

So, what are they to do? They poke a hole in the bottom of the boat, hoping for water. Everyone in the boat sinks.

Passive exploitation is an exploitation that results from lifestyle. When you take a shower or bath, how much water do you waste? You’re taking water away from someone else. That person will never meet you, and you will never meet him/her. That person may not even be alive today. That person may even be your great-grandchild. Your excess is his/her depletion.

Passive exploitation is an exploitation that results from lifestyle. There is no intent to exploit. Rather, your lifestyle, by its nature, is exploiting others. When you drive your car, how many fumes do you unleash into the air?

So, how do you prevent passive exploitation?

1. You tighten your belt. You cut down on the excess. When you’re taking a shower, turn off the water when you are soaping and shampooing yourself. Over the course of a year, you’ll save hundreds — perhaps thousands — of gallons of water.

2. You keep seeking ways to improve your efficiency.

Make that your lifestyle.

And God knows best…