We get letters (updated)

[pecunium]

Ryan, the founder of Concientious Traveller, discovered the first piece I wrote.

He takes exceptions, and saw fit to send them to me. (you really ought to go and see the responses he's sent me)

He's offended that I said this was a scam, and asks what my problem is with his enterprise.

Ok, here are my specific problems: it's an insane idea which can never work; a mad enterprise which will, if actually undertaken, be lucky to end no more badly than a bunch of people in prison in someplace unpleasant.

That's the short version.

The long version.

What he is proposing is illegal. It's kidnapping people. To make it worse it's then taking them to some other place and making them prisoners of a different sort. They won't be refugees. They won't legally be allowed to go anyplace (except, pehaps, the place from whence they were stolen away). They will be at the mercy of those who stole them. It may be with the best of intentions, but that's what he proposes.

He claims to want to turn these girls into some sort of political players, people who will go home and reform the places from whence they came.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

When asked about getting passports for them (so they may attend university) the it goes like this:

Q: "But just because they are accepted to a university in Europe or the US doesn't mean that they'll be allowed to take up permanent residence. (How do you even propose to establish these children's identities, get birth certificates, passports etc., that will allow them to travel?)"

A: I never said they would. Now your asking very detailed information and it's not going to be answered, one as I don't deal with this part and secondly as this is not for public forums.

Not inspiring.

If he manages to kidnap some girls, they will be, at best (if all the madcap schemes work), like Ahmad Chalabi, seen as puppets for someone else's interest. At worst, they will go home, preach his brand of world reformation, and be locked up/killed, for being a threat to the gov't/society.

I'd love to see places like Burma become better places. Does anyone think I know enough about the situation to collect a bunch of "sex slaves" from Burma, take them to an island, where I've brought some others from Thailand, Laos, the Dominican Republic, etc, train them all; in, I assume, the same philosophical underpinnings of how the word ought to be (that's why I chose Plato's "Philosopher King" analogy, and they will be able to go home, to a society they were never fully a part of, and take over? All the while running a nature preserve and breeding up endangered animals to repopulate in the wild (I really like that touch, it gets the warm-fuzzie sorts of the "save the planet" sorts to buy into this).

No.

His responses elsewhere (this has become so my father tells me, a huge discussion at CouchSurfing because he's trying to recruit people to help him market Concientious Traveller, by selling them on the "altruistic" works of the subsidaries which will change the world by kidnapping children in the sex trade and brainwashing them into political missionaries for his utopic vision of a future world) don't make me feel any better about this.

Which was the other stuff, packed in there, which disturbing me.

What about the white girls in the same boat. There are women in, Japan Israel, Korea, and, I am sure, a few more places, who were lured with offers of jobs, and then forced into being prostitutes. I don't see mention of this.

I think it's because they are adults. Because they aren't likely to be pliable enough to be brainwashed into thinking they are going to be the salvation of the world.

I don't think it's concious version of the "White Man's Burden" and going out to help the poor, backwards Orientals join the civilised world, but that does seem to be part of the driving mindset.

I don't like the sex trade. I think the commodification of people is horrid. Going off on a vigilante raid to kidnap them, and then, "rehabilitate" them, much less training them to be advocates of his agenda, well... No.

That's at least as bad.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I also have to say, in a vague way, I just get a bad vibe from all of this. In the sense that even if (and I say if for a reason) these girls are kidnapped, or whatever, such that they no longer have to be sex slaves, the fact that they were/are sex slaves seems to be the entire cachet of this thing. There's some sort of fetishization in here. Aside from the plan being unworkable, it doesn't smell like safety.

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

dude, this guy sounds like a classic schizophrenic. why is anyone taking him seriously?

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Gah, what a creep. Every "sexual predator" alarm in my brain is clanging at full volume. After all, what better combination cloak and shield against his victims' accusations is there than, "But I RESCUED them!"?

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

This all seems like High Weirdness to me. I can't say I expect the Founder & CEO of a large business to be more literate than this person, necessarily, but I would expect one to be better able to convince me of the sensibleness of such a Grandiose Project. This guy just doesn't seem to know what he's talking about, in any practical sense. (Cf. the people who spout politico-economic Theories in an s-f convention consuite at 3 in the morning -- though some of them sound reasonably plausible compared with this.)

I have to wonder if anyone has done a thorough "Who Is...", and checked out his track record, background, references, and connections.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

He's offended that I said this was a scam, and asks what my problem is with his enterprise.

He needs to get over himself. If he's running a serious business, he can't flinch at what random people on the internet say, to he's wasting time. If it's a real venture, and he gets into slap-fights in random livejournals, he looses. Always.

Every well run company I know of has this policy. DO NOT ENGAGE DETRACTORS IN PUBLIC FORUMS.

Period. Only idiots do that. It fails to look professional. Email them privately. Do not go into a public forum and debate them.

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

I just looked over the earlier entries... While the sex trade is, in my opinion, an abuse and a disgrace, and ought to be fought, this suggestion does nothing to see the people involved (men or women, girls or boys) as subjects. They can be objects in the sex trade or on the little island, but no one seems concerned with what they want.
I also particularly noted this: Political change will support those Ladies it feels are “Ladies” and do not turn into men, within the political system, however they desire.
So I can run the world provided I remain a lady, according to someone else's definition? That may be a lot of things, but power it's not.

I'm inclined to agree with Terry

[karl-lembke.livejournal.com]

It's one thing to want to "do something", but people need to pick a "something" that at least won't make things worse.

One possible problem I see is, what effect will the removal of some number of girls from the sex trade actually have? I can imagine it increasing the number of girls who are kidnapped into the sex trade as "replacements". The numbers of girls in the sex trade would stay the same, and a few rescued girls would (if all goes well) receive a splendid education. But the net effect might be better if you simply went to the parents and recruited girls before they were kidnapped.

If, on the other hand, enough girls were "rescued" to seriously deplete the availble population (very low probability, but let's go with it), you drive up the cost of acquiring new sex workers. It would be nice to think the "owners" would take better care of their girls, but I suspect they'd simply equip them with tighter chains, both real and metaphorical. Tighten security enough, and you increase the chances both would-be rescuer and rescued wind up being killed.

Also, if you drive up the cost of sex workers, it might become cheaper to simply offer the parents enough money to induce them to sell off any "excess" daughters. (In cultures which prize male children, and hold female children in rather less regard.) At this point, you can't return a girl to her family, because they'll simply forward her on to her "rightful owner".

In sum, unless this project is capable of affecting the underlying value systems of the girls' home cultures, it's not going to change anything.

My opinion, void where prohibited, not valid with any other offer.

[de-jennah.livejournal.com]

http://pecunium.livejournal.com/248200.html?thread=2422152#t2422152