Oh dear, NS is spilling over into RL. Oh well...
In the interest of not cluttering the forum, I have posted a more detailed response here:
Lazy days White Paper on international labeling standards.
The government of Lazy days has prepared the following elaboration of its position as expressed through the UN forum.
The representative of Syndicalasia voiced a variety of concerns with the position taken by the people of Lazy days. These are answered point by point.
Regarding Article I:
“One would hope that the bodies governing nations would not act in such a reflexive fashion [naming a large number of official languages] to a banal request for information that would most likely improve their customer base. In fact, it is fair to say that such an action would be regarded by the international community as an act of economic sabotage and would be answered with appropriate sanctions and embargoes. Postulating these outrageous scenarios does not really make any kind of argument.”
1) This is exactly why I asked whether the UN was claiming the right to determine official languages. Syndicalasia responded that national governments have the sole right to do so (“…official languages are determined by individual nations. This is, and has been, a standard proactice for hundreds of years…”). Therefore, it is not at all outrageous to explore what would happen under the proposed resolution if a country acted in a perfectly lawful manner.
2) This is not a banal request for information. Article I calls for huge new amounts of information to accompany product packaging (or it doesn’t do anything, which is a separate discussion).
3) Is this a serious threat? The international community should enact sanctions and embargoes against a country for doing what it has the right to do? Either countries have the right to declare official languages or they don’t. A choice made under duress isn’t a choice at all.
“I feel that your response reflects a lack of understanding about the nature of the proposal. You seem to assume the following:
- Products need to be labelled in every language in the world.
- Food production is a primarily domestic issue.
- The goal of the proposal is to protect citizens of nations run by devious corporate conglomerates.
But none of these assumptions bears out the truth of the issue. Products need only be labelled in the language of the market in which they are sold. This does not involve any new translators, as those markets are already receptive to the same product and companies must have invested in some sort of labelling. Furthermore, the job of translation is done by free-lance contractors and is a one time expense.”
1) A disagreement of interpretation is not a lack of understanding.
2) Article I clearly says that products must be labeled in every official language of every country in which they are sold.
3) The issue is not production. Production is not even mentioned in Article I. The issue is sales. And food sales is a domestic activity. Consumers do not import foodstuffs; in fact, that will frequently cause complications in customs (or not, depending on the country) if a citizen tries to directly import food products. Countries rigorously (or not, depending on their choice) enact and enforce laws governing the products that get sold within their territorial borders.
4) The goal of the proposal has been explicitly described as a human rights issue. People apparently need to be protected from being misled by corporate labeling. I do not think those countries are devious corporate conglomerates. But obviously many representatives feel the need to tell other countries how to run their economies.
5) You simply cannot have it both ways. If there are no new translations needed, then Article I does not do anything. It is needless bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy.
6) Making labels is not a cheap or one time expense. Companies have to hire project managers and graphic designers in marketing departments just for one language. There are no free-lance contractors available to translate all product packaging for all time into all official languages, unless of course some nation out there would like to underwrite this activity for all time.
7) This whole answer demonstrates the success of current market forces and regional legislation.
Regarding Articles II & III:
“Food is a primarily international market. It is a simple fact of geography that not all nations can support both their populations and the means to feed them. Some nations have large plains areas in temperate climates. Some nations are merely islands. We even have members of the UN hailing from Antarctica. This is not a domestic issue. The fact of the current vote tally suggests that proper labelling is a subject that most nations find necessary. Thus, it is the job of the UN to provide guidelines for such in the interests of nations without the goegraphical means to provide sustenance to their populations.”
1) This does not answer my concerns about the resolution.
2) This is simply inaccurate. International markets for foodstuffs are important. However, domestic growth and consumption of food is far more important. There is a much larger volume of domestic trade in food products than there is international trade in food products.
3) But again, production is not the issue. See above. The issue is where it is bought, not where it is grown. That’s why even if food was 100% internationally traded, it would be irrelevant because it is 100% bought domestically.
4) What people seem to be voting for is that proper labeling is good. Lazy days agrees. However, the resolution is not about your own country, especially Articles I & III. It is not about countries that cannot grow enough food for themselves. It is about telling other countries that their position is wrong. What a package contains in another country does not affect consumers in your country. You are saying this is an international issue because goods are traded between countries. But yet the “problem” proponents site is not in their own countries, because they have laws regarding labeling. They are only in countries that have chosen not to have those laws.
5) Lazy days strongly protests the precedent this supports. Simply because most nations find something necessary is not at all an automatic need for UN guidelines. That contention destroys all need for regional governance. We will have all become citizens of the United NationStates of the World. Lazy days would only support that if I am named president for life. Otherwise, I think it is clear that we value self-determination and the ability to have distinct countries.
The third bullet is answered by the same argumentation as the second. The people who seek “protection” are those who must purchase their food from consumerist nations.
1) No, consumers do not purchase from “consumerist nations”. Those nations (and companies) must export the products to the domestic marketplace. Consumers purchase virtually all their food from local retailers. The act of importing food into the country currently falls—and should fall—within the jurisdiction of national governments. There is no situation where a corporation can sell a product to a citizen of your country inside your country without being subject to whatever strict (or not) labeling and other laws exist in your country.
2) This does not answer my original concerns. Particularly with Article III, the people of Lazy days have a very important question. This resolution is proposed as a human rights issue. There is a claim that “all people have the right to know what is in the food they eat”. This isn’t about international trade; it’s about human and civil rights. Where does this particular right come from? If the UN made a list of the top ten or 100 human and civil rights, would that be on it? Does it really give the UN the right to override the will of national governments? Is the UN prepared to declare war to protect this right?
“In regard to your comments about language:
Again, only langauges relevant to a particular market need be included. This is common sense for the producer, as it adds to the marketability of one’s product. The imposition of a rule for particular label standards is to ensure the safety of citizens with particular dietary needs (e.g. diabetics, people with allergies). This again makes good market sense to the producer. The pupose of a law is simply to ensure that good practices are followed. For most people, and we would like to hope most companies, it does not require a law to curb behavior, yet we still have them.”
1) This is not what Article I says. Currently, market forces and national laws make sure that relevant languages are included.
2) This response demonstrates that the purpose of this resolution is precisely what I claimed—to protect citizens. This only effects citizens in countries opposed to these laws (in other words, other countries, not yours).
3) This demonstrates a remarkable lack of respect for certain systems of political economy. “What makes sense to the producer?” How about not adding another layer of bureaucracy and restraint of international trade?
4) Lazy days agrees that laws should be passed to ensure good practices. But this law forces nations that disagree with what is a “good” practice to abide by it anyway. Unlike disarmament, for example, there is no corresponding benefit to the offending nations in exchange for this intrusion on the decisions of national leaders.
"As to your concern(?) for the citizens who speak the multitude of lesser konwn languages, it is unfounded. Though the multiplication factor present in this world (over RL) does increase the sheer number of speakers, I assure you that they are not a constituency that is concerned nor need concern us. These types of languages have total speakers numbering in the tens to hundreds. If they do interact much with the standard market economy, then they will know the official language of their native country. Essentially, these lesser known languages do not need to be considered because they represent a tiny population (not the hundreds of millions that you posit). I assure you that in RL you will never meet a person who speaks Tumbuka, Yucatec, or Tok Pisin. In areas where these sorts of languages are prevalent one will also find large amounts of bilingualism with the national or official language."
1) Unfounded? If protecting people who do not speak the major languages in which companies currently sell products is not the purpose of Article I, then what exactly is it for?
2) I agree that companies shouldn’t be forced to market in a language with only 10 native speakers. In fact, my position is that the UN should not force governments to regulate anything regarding what languages they put on their packages.
3) The hundreds of millions of people I mentioned referenced the major languages. Companies already sell products in these languages.
4) In RL, market forces and national governments address these issues. After all, the largest English speaking nations on Earth are not in North America or Europe. The United States does not even have an official language.
5) Again, this does not answer the issues raised by my initial post regarding Articles II and III.
“I think that the above arguments deal quite directly with your believed difference of opinion on the role of the UN. This is very much an international issue and should be handled as such.”
For all of the above reasons and more, the people of Lazy days have asked me to respectfully, yet forcefully, disagree. This response does not answer our major concerns posted in the forum, it is not an international issue, and the UN should not handle it as such.
8 comments:
DEEP BREATH...
Regarding the first portion of your arguments here:
You seem to be arguing that anything possible within the constraints of law is perfectly acceptable. However, you originally suggested the idea of selecting a multitude of official languages as a means of "wreak(ing) havoc throughout the international trading system." Actions performed under such a premise are as much an act of war as the US embargoes against Japan that lead to the Pearl Harbor bombing. The legaglity of a given action does not automatically allow for exploitation of that action. So, yes, it is a serious threat because that is the circumstance that you laid out. And, no, this is not exactly acting "in a perfectly lawful manner."
As to the weight of the request for information, I am not sure what you consider to be "huge new amounts of information." If you honestly believe that the wording of this proposal is specific enough to force all labels to carry all official languages of every country in the world, then you might want to find a website that is not populated, primarily, by school age kids. There has not yet been a perfectly worded proposal. It is for this reason that I tend to argue only big picture concepts on the debate forum. There are certainly cases where wording is bad enough to demand opposition. However, the misreading of Article I defies common sense. There is no way that anyone would propose such a thing.
I will address the issue of whether on not the proposal does anything, later.
Regarding the second section:
See above for my comments on number of languages perl label.
The issue is not production? Who do you suppose labels the food products that are sold in stores? Of course food sales is a domestic activity, the concern is imported food products. If something is shipped in a can or bottle, then it is fair to say that the domestic distributor could follow whatever labelling guidelines exist. But what happens if I want to purchase Thai produced rice noodles or Indian Basmati rice. These products are not repackaged. Thus it is the responsibility of an international body to ensure that appropriate labelling guidelines are a standard throughout the international economy.
The goal of the proposal is not necesarily to protect against misleading labels. There is information that is useful and often necessary to consumers. People with allergies, diabetics, and people who eat a macrobiotic diet all benfit from the tenets of this proposal.
My point about translators was not that nothing would need to be translated, but rather that there would not have to be some huge build-up of translation services. Related to this issue is the issue of label making, which you suggest is an amazing feat of engineering. Most companies have a design department, the only work that would need to be contracted is the translation. I have no idea what you are trying to say in this section:
There are no free-lance contractors available to translate all product packaging for all time into all official languages, unless of course some nation out there would like to underwrite this activity for all time.
Are you saying no one knows every langauge? Are you doubting the number of available trnaslators is enough to deal with the massive task of translating about a hundred words for a given label? Are you suggesting that once the people who are currently translators are done working, no one will ever be able to do that job again?
Regarding the third section:
"Domestic growth and consumption of food is far more important?" Did you even read what I wrote about geography? Consider the RL example of Japan. There is no way that this tiny group of islands has enough land to produce enough rice, wheat, or meat to meet the needs of its enormous population. It is true that this is the reason that they eat a great deal of fish. But even local fishing waters can be overused. For countries like Japan, food imports are absolutely necessary for survival. For this reason, both your argument that international food trade is minimal and that production is not the issue cannot be true. What a label says in the country where it is produced means everything to the country that that consumes that product. This proposal is a safeguard on, and a beneficial supplement to, export food products.
If you think that UN resolutions should not override the ability of a nation to act entirely independently, then why join the UN? The purpose of an international governing body is to do just that: govern. Apparently you would prefer the US vision of the UN as a powerless body that serves only to bolster aggressive countries calls for war. War is not a necessary tool of the UN. It is a conglomerate of, ostensibly, cooperative nations and thus wields the kind of power that a union does with regard to corporate management. Offending countries are not bombed, but diplomatically engaged and, failing this, subject to sanctions and embargoes.
I don't have much to say to the redundancy of argument in the next section. I have already addressed most of the concerns as you had already voiced them earlier.
I am not asking "what makes sense for the producer," but rather stating that this measure does make sense for producers. If you are asking the question, then I guess that a protection for consumers would not make much sense to you anyhow. Also, I have trouble understanding what sort of bureaucracy and restraint is imposed by this proposal. Yes, it is a regulation on an aspect of trade, but is far from punitive. If companies need to spend money to ensure the safety of their consumers and the practice of full dislcosure, then so be it. Nations need not be rewarded for the adherence to law of companies within their borders. Unlike disarmament, this has little, if anything, to do with national governments.
Regarding the section on language, which was the only reason that I responded to your first post:
The proposal is not to ensure that every language is represented on a label. It to ensure that those who speak Lazydain can understand the labelling on Syndicalasian products sold in their market and vice versa.
I had no intention of ever addressing your other concerns. My issue with you was the fact that you posited an impossible scenario (which you did again when you responded). Hyperbole and wild speculation do not bolster an argument.
Though I will be happy to read anything you have to say to me, my responses will be fairly limited for the following reasons:
-I have more important things that I should be working on.
-We just don't agree on the role of the UN.
-I don't really care that much about labelling or about critiquing the specifics of imaginary UN proposals penned by teenagers.
-The proposal is going to win.
I would certainly like to engage you again if we disagree on a topic that merits this much attention. But this one has run the gamut for me.
Good day.
Of course don’t spend any more time than you want. This is supposed to be fun. But I’m doing the same thing you are—that is, attempting to influence the body of nations through participation in the UN rather than the symbolic protest of remaining outside the UN.
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The people of Lazy days have been contemplating the observations of the representative from Syndicalasia. We agree that the focus should be on main points, not technical details. But that does not mean it is not worth exploring practical effects of those resolutions deemed so important that the UN enacts them as legislation, particularly where authors of resolutions have decided to add specific details.
The main problem with Article I is that it forces some countries to abide by legislation with which they disagree. As a matter of principle, that is wrong when the world community does not benefit from this intrusion, as is the case here. [This seems to be a huge matter of disagreement, by the way, which must be a disagreement over how international trade and national legislation interact. For a country importing food, there is simply no way that the country’s domestic labeling laws do not apply to food coming into the country, regardless of where the food was produced.] Free trade combined with domestic legislation addresses this issue better than the UN. Aside from the well-explored question of how many languages, the very nature of naming “official” languages has serious problems. That is why Lazy days welcomes all languages; none have been declared official. English is of course how we communicate primarily, as it is the language of the UN and thus important in international relations, but our market economy serves a wide variety of languages spoken throughout our land.
More technically, Article I does not mean what it says. This is not simply a matter of poor wording. It is a matter of simply being wrong, apparently, in either what it says or what it means. The author decided that simply saying “product labels must be written in all official languages of the country in which the product is sold” was too simplistic and delved into more detail about one or more countries and all languages of all those countries and so forth. Then, proponents of the resolution do not agree on whether it means that a selling entity has to have multiple products to get around the all languages issue or whether it means that it is ok to use the same product because only the official languages of the country it is sold in matters. Also being technical, when I read the proposal, I did not realize Article I only applied to food, as it simply says “a product”. I am assuming it only applies to food based on comments in the forum [which renders its impact less severe than if it applied to all products].
The main problem with Article II is that it tries to be too specific, so it ends up being virtually useless. If the spirit of defining and regulating food terms is voted a good thing, then there are many terms that would need definitions. That is why Lazy days has already implemented much stronger legislation for any product sold within our borders, and it is why we believe that other nations should also feel free to decide for themselves how stringent they would like their food labeling laws to be, including not stringent at all.
The main problem with Article III is that it claims this right to know what is in the food people eat. The people of Lazy days clamor loudly to know precisely that. But in the UN we welcome a wide variety of government styles and consumer preferences. I do not see why this is such a universal right that we should enact legislation forcing countries to recognize that right. I have asked for this right to be explained, but I have not seen a defense of it. After all, this is not a resolution to regulate international trade; it is a resolution to increase human rights. If this really is a human right, the resolution should arguably be much stronger.
More technically, the author makes a good faith effort to be specific about the kinds of information that must be included on the labels. But this is obviously something that people will disagree on and, more importantly, will change over time. The UN bureaucracy as it is extended in this resolution simply cannot respond as well to these needs as individual countries can.
This is the first resolution that has come before the UN since Lazy days has been selected to serve as a delegate to this great body. If we do not make a principled stand now, when can we? We thank you for your attention to this matter.
I have just a few notes.
First, food is a rather static market. There is not much of a market force on food products. People always need food. If a product that is not labelled properly is cheap, then it becomes more accessible to poorer sectors of society. And thus no loss of income is suffered by the producer.
I agree that domestic legislation should negate the usefulness of this proposal but am not sure that it does. I can find product in the US, that are foreign made, the do not feature all the information that is required on domestic food products. Granted, here, foreign food products are a specialty market. The problem is how to enforce domestic legislation on foreign producers. That, I believe, is the import of a UN resolution.
I am always intrigued when an argument erupts over the existence of any given right. Rights are an esoteric concept, so one could correctly ascertain that no rights actually exist. Does the existence of a document produced by a nationalist body determine the existence of rights? Can a philosopher's suggestion determine such? If these are the rules, then allow me to apply transitivity in the same manner as the Supreme Court does in creating rights (e.g. the right to privacy).
Can I fairly say that people have a right to life? This seems to be a basic tenet of human society. How about a right to live unencumbered, provided that one does not impose on the same right of others? These are both fairly basic ideas, I think (feel free to tell me that I am wrong). This should mean that if I have allergies, or a particulr diet, chosen for health or other reasons, then I should be perfectly able to know what I am getting when I procure my sustenance. For a diabetic or a person with food allergies, the right to know what is in a food product is akin to the right to life (and I am not talking about abortion here). It is a right to information that bears on the health of that individual. And considering the second right I suggest is innate, those whose health is not involved, but rather prefer a particular diet, should also possess the right to information that bears on their life decision.
If you would like a fuller discussion of this I can try later, but I have to go prepare for a talk that I am giving later on today.
Thank you for the lively discussion.
i spelled my name wrong.
*sigh*
lol, I didn't notice until you corrected your name...
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At any rate, the nation of Lazy days is extremely concerned about human rights, and with our recent selection as a regional delegate, the people pressured me greatly to comment in detail. Our intent is two-fold:
1) to further debate about an interesting topic, even if the people of Lazy days do not see labeling as a critical issue of our time, and
2) to see how much welcome there is for ignoring national sovereignty in the name of protecting human rights.
Regarding food markets, we clearly have a different level of "faith", you might say, in the ability and strength of using the private sector combined with democratic governance (through RL agencies such as the FDA) to guarantee a safe and plentiful food supply. That's ok, but it is also why I serve my country and you serve yours.
As I stated in the forum, given the complete disregard for the sovereignty of nations as illustrated by this vote, human rights activists are pushing me to introduce legislation regarding even more important issues. If we cannot convince people of the principle of allowing leaders to govern their countries as they see fit, then perhaps we can convince people to govern their countries as we see fit!
Also, I thought I would respond as me (you know, the Creator of the glorious nation of Lazy days) to the teenager comment.
You say teenager like it's somehow bad. Am I misreading the tone of that comment?
I love teenagers. I think when you challenge them to high standards, they are some of the most successful and motivated people on the planet. They're old enough that they have full command of their physical and mental faculties, but they are young enough to not be stuck in the murky waters of comfort, tradition, and conflicts of interest. They are self-absorbed in the sense of not being responsible (generally speaking, but of course there are numerous exceptions) for other people, yet they are capable of tremendous devotion and self-sacrifice to a "worthy" cause, whatever that might be. They are much more willing to rock the boat or cause a commotion or call something for what it really is than older age groups.
Just because they also have their own dialect of American English (especially online) doesn't mean it's not valuable to encourage more proper English, as well. After all, it is the official language of proposals submitted to the NSUN :)
I mean no disparagement to teenagers. I think that my point was that to hold them to particular standards of locution and legal semantics may be a bit overzealous. I was introduced to this game by my fiancee's little brother (14 years old) and we often talk to him about the UN issues. He is very serious about politics, and thus probably takes the game a little more seriously than others. However, I find that emotional appeals can easily sway him. And I would say that the same could be said of me when I was a teen. So, while I agree that they may be "young enough to not be stuck in the murky waters of comfort, tradition, and conflicts of interest", they are also young enough to not have full access to their debate or reasoning faculties. I know that I did and said some really dumb things when I was a teenager that I would deliberate over, now that I am older. Basically, teens are more likely to jump to conclusions or act on base emotion. This is how the "Promotion of Solar Panels" legislation passed. Any sane person knows that we need to find new energy sources, but when people saw "solar panels" in the title they just voted without considering the actual inmpact of that document (which in that case was not an issue of wording).
I am now bound by my professional pride to dispute an aspecct of what you said in your final paragraph. I am a linguist (i.e. I examine structural and epistemic aspects of language on a scientific and mathematical plane). Dialects are associated with geography and immediate community exposure. Though televeision, the internet, and travel have made these borders less obivous, unless one spends all of their time communicating online, watching television or travelling, there will not be dialects associated with these things. The vernacular known as "l33t" is not a dialect. It is an emphasis on written form that is particularly prominent because the written form is (for the most part) the only way we communicate online. However, other than a smattering of slang terms, those who use this vernacular are subject to the impact of their local dialectical structures.
Furthermore, the idea of "proper English" makes my head hurt. Language is an innate faculty. Any baby, anywhere in the world, can learn any language with equal ease. Thus, we have to assume that the language produced by any native speaker of any language is correct. What we call "proper English" is a set of artificial rules imposed on lanugage users. It is actually the remnants of a classist practice. English speakers of high social stature sought to put themselves above the hoi polloi by imposing the grammatical rules of Latin on English. A preposition is a fine thing to end a sentence with. It is unnatural for one to choose to not break up an infinitve. I don't actually believe in "proper English." There is certainly a style of writing that is used in academia, but you will never meet anyone who speaks like that.
Sorry for the lecture, but I get excited about language issues. In fact, that was the reason I started debating with you in the first place.
Good day.
Cool. I really don't disagree with much of the language stuff. I was using dialect more casually there; I suppose slang is a better word? I don't know. Anyway, I suppose "proper" is probably a buzzword that sets off linguists. I was speaking more from a communication perspective than a linguistic perspective. Proper in the sense of clear meaning rather than unsplit infinitives and what sentences end in.
If you're interested in making connections with people who love to talk about language and really know more than is good for any one person to know, you should leave a comment for Satyadasa about your professional interests.
I guess we will disagree a little on how much you can get out of teenagers, particularly ones that care to spend their free time chatting about fake resolutions, especially those that did high school debate in the US (as evidenced by the one about ballast water...I didn't care for that case at all.)
As for my professional biases, that's a good explanatory variable for why I feel the need to rush to the defense of trade and markets.
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