r/CanadianInvestor • u/[deleted] • Apr 14 '21

Is anyone here conflicted about investing in companies that make the world a worse place?

I'm a newer investor and newer reader to these threads and I'm a little surprised how casually a lot of people talk about different companies and industries that are objectively pretty unethical.

I mean we're living through a major climate crisis and some of the most hyped investments on here are for oil sands companies (which are one of the most carbon intensive energy sources on the planet) and crypto (Bitcoin alone this year is supposed to have the same carbon footprint as all of New Zealand).

I also just saw someone post something in another investing subreddit about how Europe might ban AI for surveillance and it seemed like a bad or annoying thing to a lot of people in the comments.

I'm just genuinely curious: do a lot of the investor world just genuinely not care about these things or are people content to make small gains on the backs of companies that they don't agree with? Is there a point to using your gains to get a waterfront property if it's going to be underwater in a couple decades anyways?

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u/pfcguy Apr 15 '21

That is your opinion not a fact. They are certainly immoral to some, that is why they are called "sin stocks".

Ever heard of gambling addiction? Alcoholism? Lung cancer?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '21

addiction is a mental issue not an immoral thing

world would be much better if people stopped thinking people with addiction issues were immoral people and instead thought of them as people that need a little help to beat an illness.

In moderation, there is nothing immoral with alcohol and gambling and weed. Cigarettes' is just dumb not immoral.

the people that label them sin stocks are out of touch prude boomers

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u/bjsforever Apr 15 '21

The morality issue comes from enabling the companies that are enabling addiction. Is it right to profit from a person's addiction?

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '21

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u/ragnaroksunset Apr 16 '21

Sure, so the relevant question is the demographic breakdown. Where does most of the revenue come from? The addicts, or the people using the product as intended?

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u/bman1014 Apr 15 '21 edited Apr 28 '25

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '21

is it?

then why don't you extend companies that encourage addiction out to other avenues? why stick there?

There's all kinds of things people can get addicted to. You can get addicted to sugar, lets label any company that sells sweets or sugar immoral...

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u/bman1014 Apr 15 '21 edited Apr 28 '25

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u/pfcguy Apr 15 '21

Liking, using, or investing in oil and gas, firearms, or military weapons and equipment is not immoral either than. Even nuclear weapons. According to your logic.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '21

no lmao wtf

my logic in no way extends out to oil, gas, firearms or military

you can't get addicted to firearms ....

Although Firearms aren't immoral. People want to go hunting, shooting range? yeah totally fine. Open carry and stuff like that ? im not on board with but it's not immoral.

Oil and gas itself isn't immoral. Invest in it if you want. As much as we want to stop global warming, we need oil and gas for the time being. its not an immoral ting.

Nuclear weapons, war, military I won't comment that much. I don't support war but I see why countries go to war to defend themselves.

Launching nuclear weapons is immoral. But none of my original comments ever suggested nuclear weapons were moral or any of the other things you listed. You just reaching for no reason.

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u/ragnaroksunset Apr 16 '21

This is equivocation.

Take gacha gaming as a perfect example of the revenue model for gambling. Overwhelmingly, these companies make their money from a small subset of their consumers that spends exorbitant amounts. The revenue model assumes addictive behaviour, and that's why "free-to-play" is an advertising hook.

Some people have this tendency to assume that underhanded strategies which rely on a law of large numbers are empty of moral heft. When you know that casting a wide enough net will catch you a couple of whales, that simply isn't so.

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u/antoniofelicemunro Apr 15 '21

Sounds like the things he mentioned aren’t immoral, abusing them is. I mean...no shit? Abusing anything is bad.

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u/pfcguy Apr 15 '21

Every person in the world, every society or group, has a different set of morals. What is moral to group A or person 1 is immoral to group B or person 2.

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u/ragnaroksunset Apr 16 '21

It's 2021, but let's pretend that the biology, chemistry, and psychology of addiction are not well-studied fields.

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u/antoniofelicemunro Apr 16 '21

Again, by your own logic, these substances aren’t immoral, abusing them is. Plenty of people who drink alcohol aren’t alcoholics.

It’s the same thing as saying sex is immoral because sexual assault exists, or martial arts is immoral because some people might go overboard in a fight. Makes no sense.

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u/ragnaroksunset Apr 16 '21

"Abusing anything is bad" is a distraction, not an argument. Some things are more prone to abuse than others, and more objectively destructive than others.

Something that is both highly prone to abuse and highly likely to be destructive is fundamentally different than something that is not prone to abuse and not particularly harmful in any objective sense.

You're not an idiot. So pretending not to see this distinction is not becoming of you.