Hmm - thanks for thew explanation, that makes it clearer.

But such "realism" sounds a lot like "the ends justify the means".

Would you buy some exciting piece of technology at 10% of the retail price if the vendor was a known criminal? (assuming you didn't have to worry about the legalities off your purchase)

I think that ethical considerations should be given a lot more weight than is currently the case.

The topic of sacrifice has been discussed before, in relation to the "war on terror" - what about everyone cutting their gas consumption by 10 or 15 percent? Most people could accomplish this without suffering too much and it would have a lot of benfits, not the least of which would be a reduced cash flow to Saudi Arabie.