Can Christians Use AMAZON?! w/ Dr. Alex Plato 

I'm 76 and can barely walk.. I live alone - no family or anyone to help me. I don't have a car. AMAZON is a Godsend. Books and vitamins - and some household cleaning products.Most of the books i get are out of print.I know what the 'cons' are, but all corporations and technologies have downsides.

A common discussion in Catholic circles. Here's my problem: pretty much everything except mom and pop shops are playing with fire now. Kroger, all big pharmacies, WalMart, Target, etc. and yes, Amazon. Don't assume that your nice ethical store is available everywhere in the country - it isn't. I have a family of 6 (maybe more one day because we take openness to life seriously). What am I left with to buy even basic items for my family that is actually affordable? Not to mention that the small stores these days have a tiny fraction of the inventory and at a higher price point. Stewardship is part of Christian living and I cannot justify spending $4 on a box of pasta when I can get it for $1 across the road. Oh and your "ethical" cell phone providers... use the same towers that Verizon and T-Mobile use. You are still funding the company you don't like. It makes ZERO sense. And health insurance companies are evil too (all of them)... so should I pay double for health cost sharing just to add a monumental more amount of work to simple illness just to get reimbursed? Because I have time for that as a mother of 4? This is an example of the reality that we must not be of this world, but we still need to live in it, within reason.

It's always fascinating hearing what people say they need, especially first world citizens in Western countries. "I need to buy stuff from Amazon/Walmart because it's cheaper," or "I wouldn't shop there if I made more money." In the meantime, most families have two cars, go out to eat multiple times a week, having multiple subscriptions to entertainment services, go on expensive vacations, etc... according scripture, we have what we need with clothes on our backs and food in our bellies. Everything else is a third donut. I'm not saying it's evil, but let's not fool ourselves.

I think I am one of the very few people in the Western World who has never purchased from Amazon. When Amazon started out selling books, my sister bought me an Amazon voucher. I was young and I didn't know how to use it, so it layed in a drawer for years. I found it a couple of years ago and was about to throw it out, when it occurred to me that it might be a collectors item. I smiled at the irony of me who never purchased from Amazon, selling an Amazon antique back to them.

Amazon does rural areas a service in providing access to goods and services that otherwise would have to come at great expense to a larger community with those goods and services.

Full interview: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CgAl_S6ddBA.html&ab_channel=PintsWithAquinas

Am from the Philippines. The only way I can get reasonable access to many books and other Western products is through Amazon's free shipping to the Philippines. Otherwise, we'd need to pay an exorbitant shipping fee worth multiple times the price of item. As a college theology teacher, most of my purchases are Catholic books.

Scrupulous. When you start looking at little things like these you can lose sight of whats important: chastity, charity, etc.

Just wait until they put all other options out of business then raise the prices. You're being controlled into thinking you need these services. With less option they will be able to charge what they want.

Not can, but SHOULD. Well, some of us find we have to. Certainly, at times.

I was looking for this interview. 7pm tonight >.

It seems that "can catholics use/watch etc" is the new couting how many angels can dance in the head of a pin.

The solution of Amazon for a distributist is to provide local first search engine algorithms on computers sold locally that favor local or regional ‘Amazons’ that do not allow capital to flow out of a community, encourages local retail, and discourages large corporations and large govt bureaucracies to flourish

Common potential downsides not mentioned in this video: 1. You potentially don't own the digital things you're buying 2. Amazon can discontinue access to that item at any time, for any reason; possible reasons being censorship pressures and/or Amazon losing the license to that item. This could mean even them removing it directly from devices you've downloaded the item on -> see the recent story regarding Ubisoft discontinuing the video game The Crew, and directly removing it from user's devices, or the Stellar Blade demo coming out early unintentionally and then Sony deleting it from user's devices to prevent them from playing it. I have never seen a case where they refund you the money you spent on the item they took away from you 3. Your items could end up being censored based on the latest social pressure de jour without you knowing about it. This could be in changing the words in the book, removing certain chapters, or even removing the book entirely from you 4. Your digital license is most likely not transferrable. While you can likely share content while you control the license with friends and family, if you ever lost control of that license (a very likely cause being that you die, or that you break the terms of service), Amazon can revoke access to that content and prevent your friends and family from accessing it 5. Actual ownership is a good championed by the Catholic Church; buying things digitally where they depend on a license in the aforementioned points above means you don't actually own anything 6. Without owning the actual content, you cannot resell the items (most companies prevent you from selling your digital license with their terms of service) 7. You have to be connected to access your digital content at first (after 1st time you can have it downloaded potentially). If you don't have access to the internet to access that new book, you would need to wait to access it rather than if you bought it physically and had it on your shelf instead. This one ends up being a major detriment for video and gaming content too; any digital content you've downloaded periodically checks on the internet to see if you still have access to the license or not. XBox I believe cuts your access to a digital game after 3 days if it can't get to the internet to check the license, even if you've downloaded it 8. Not specifically an issue for books, but particularly for videos, the streaming version of content is often not at the best possible quality (720p rather than higher) unless the highest quality is available (which not all videos have) 9. Streaming any sort of bought digital content (though books you don't have to generally) depends on a constant internet connection which may not always be available 10. The ease of access to digital means that most people don't want to champion physical media - larger stores like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart have all but removed their physical movies and shows (though I find it interesting Target has more Vinyl records than BluRays now) That's not to say that physical mediums don't have detriments; they definitely do, such as having a higher cost than digital, needing to store them somewhere in your home, and the fact that they will wear down faster than a digital medium (you can always redownload your digital item aside from the points above, but your personal devices that access that content do age and will wear out eventually too). They also lack from the ability to update them with things that may actually be pertinent rather than things that come from censhorship. A benefit of the physical though is that, when you die, no one is showing up to your house to reclaim the physical copy of Ghost you have on BluRay. While likely old and something your friends and family wouldn't want, they still have the option of doing something with it rather than flat out losing it.

It’s so easy to spot the people who comment before watching.

I feel this is largely dependent on where one lives. Amazon has given access to many goods and services to people who live in rural areas or foreign countries who couldn’t receive them before. For that reason, I support it.

I try to not use wall mart, Amazon, big box stores etc., as much as possible.

If you can’t shop at unethical companies, you can’t shop anywhere.

Buy a Light Phone, you can actually get off smartphones

This sounds overly scrupulous at times. Most items don't "need" to be purchased from Amazon.

Amazon provided food, medications and other products for me and family during the pandemic, I thanked God for thier services. A God send for us, we live outside city limits and the nearest store was always full of people and no good on the shelves. I don't believe God will object.

This is such a necessary kind of conversation and it's mindblowing the acid response from viewers. When I've tried to present these arguments, just for the sake of opening the debate, showing up new perspectives on the hyper-complex problems of modernity, you get a kick-back as if you're a sort of hypocrite radical, scrupulous... if more consequent Catholics would put their minds, hearts and hands to reshape their own working places, we could have options that aren't evil. At least, we would be found by the Lord working on alternatives, for His Glory, and for the authentic good to all our brethren...

I do most of my online shopping from eBay, is it bad?

For better or for worse, and sadly as I see it, we cannot ever go back to the way things were. I am old now and my eyesight is dimming and I have mobility issues so I do not drive. Amazon saved me during the pandemic. I don’t know what I would’ve done for groceries. Amazon keeps me supplied with my needs, books, and my recreation, and helps me maintain my independence and not have to rely on others. The world has become what it is today and there is no way we will never go back to the world as it was in simpler days

I guess a question I have is at what point should one become skeptical. Amazon was a money-losing online bookstore for almost 20 years. Where is the inflection point that should trigger skepticism. Same with Apple, Microsoft and every big company. They started small and it’s not until they get to a certain point that they become a concern. Perhaps a bigger question is about power. At what point does a company become too big to fail and too big to resist due to their outsize influence?

Prometheus versus Boethius

This is silly. I’m self-employed, but I still work for the people that pay me for my services. Also, forget distributism. You want an environment that allows for perfect competition so ownership goes to the individual or group who uses resources most efficiently. And you want transparency so there is free flow of information and consumers can make the best decisions possible.

Amazon DUMPS millions of packages at your local post office for pennies for “last miles served.” Ask the daily mail carrier to your home if they “ like” Amazon. 😁

If you want to walk down this path you’d have to give up all monetary exchange. You’d literally have to abandon your current way of life and live in the woods off the land. The extent of how much “unplugging “ you want to do is entirely dependent on how intelligent and capable you are of recognizing the absurd evil of the world and its reach. How stupid

Mostly I use Amazon to order my favourite soft drink or books

Technology, whether it's the wheel, Amazon, or the use of one's computer to work from home...all can be used rightly or wrongfully. Let's take working from home. Not since we were a primarily agrarian society has there been such a Godsend to families. Back when families worked a farm together, there was no issue with either parent being separated from the children very much. Industrialization came along and all of a sudden at least one parent had to leave the home for work every day. I now know families that are together all the time because both parents work from home...both parents are home when the kids get home from school. There is no struggle over gender roles, as to which parent ought to stay home with the kids. Also, if we're not using cars to commute, there is less pollution and fewer traffic accidents. Stress levels are lowered, as well, giving less occasion or temptation to certain sins. I think technology in itself is a gift, but like any gift we must be good stewards of it.

Sin is in the will. If it really is a necessity, how could it be a sin? That said, I appreciate the distinction that we should be skeptical of these massive conglomerates rather than uncritically accepting of them. As much as possible, reduce, and reuse, and also make! Obviously this isn't always possible. It was once possible, but now we don't have the same open world that we once did, we don't all own farmland owned by our family which we can rely on in a pinch to get by in life. We don't all have the commons to get the odd rabbit or fish during the winter or firewood or timber or what have you. We live in a perfect world of Mammon of perfect commerce and which is a fresh hell. This is not a world we created, but it is a world that man created. God created the world a garden capable of providing for every creature top to bottom. Man created scarcity and man created too many of the needs we take for granted.

Replace can with should

The question should not be can Christians do it but SHOULD Christians do it

Ffs i hope so

What a weird topic. I guess It's like asking if Christians can study the Kuran or the satanic Bible...We have to study something that's kind of related to The Holy Bible. Some of are called to fine the Truth about other religions.

I wonder what this guy's opinion in Instagram is. I don't have it, but I know it really detrimentally effects people's mental health and I think is really bad for society as a whole, I don't know if it is moral for me to use it.

This is the same problem the steel axe created; it has two sides, but the person with the handle had the moral responsibility. AI is a different problem; it may have a mind of its own, and then all the moral obligations are in the hands of a small group of individuals. This is more power concentrated in one place than in all of human history, and power is the real hore of Babylon. Forget all the other sins as they are the playthings of power, and this will not end well; history stands as my proof.

Idk. Usery is bad, but banks are some of the biggest institutions out there in today’s society. Shopping at Amazon is bad, but Amazon and Walmart are the biggest shopping centers in the world. Can capitalism exist without banks? Can local stores compete with the likes of Amazon and Walmart?

Aquinas' argument about usurers seems analogous to his argument about prostitutes helping to prevent sodomy. Seems like some pretty fucked up logic to me.

I work for amazon 😢

I use what I want thanks.

It's a tool. Tools don't have morality

what if we prioritized making sure that everyone had the resources not to go to Walmart?

People, stop making excuses and start getting results. Stop shopping at Amazon!

I HAVE NEVER ORDERED ANYTHING FROM THE DEVIL’s pawn AMAZON!

This guy babbles quite abit……and he is well funded…..two reasons to really avoid taking a great deal of credence….nice guy but……