Would you stay in a luxury hotel in the poorest country in the world?

[Let's Get Free]

Let's say you worked for a business, and went on a business trip to the poorest country in the world and you were invited to a conference at a luxury hotel.
You see people starving everywhere, poor children playing in mud and civil unrest in a corrupt government. Would you still have the heart to stay in the BEST luxury hotel there?
Your hotel has running water, electricity (rare), elevators (which is a novelty in this country), TV, fridge, warm king sized bed and all the other shit many people in the rich nations often take for granted. But through the window of your comfortable hotel, you see dirty slums and people dying from diseases and bloody conflicts and clashes.

[hetz]

Would you still have the heart to stay in the BEST luxury hotel there?
Yes, because nothing would change even if I stayed in a shithole bungalow.
I'm not a bleeding-heart liberal.

And yes, I've been to very poor countries. Not the poorest ones in the world, but still.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Yeah, I don't think it would be a huge deal.

[helot]

Somehow the possibility of me working for a company that sends me on business trips to luxury hotels seems nil but supposing otherwise what exactly could i do? Invite a few random people to stay in my room with me? Give them some food from the fridge?

[Ostrinski]

Just don't go against your conscience.

I'd probably stay in the hotel though.

[l'Enfermé]

One rarely sees slums and people dying from disease outside of a 5 star hotel window.

[Let's Get Free]

One rarely sees slums and people dying from disease outside of a 5 star hotel window.


True, but this is a completely theoretical situation.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Let's say you worked for a business, and went on a business trip to the poorest country in the world and you were invited to a conference at a luxury hotel.
You see people starving everywhere, poor children playing in mud and civil unrest in a corrupt government. Would you still have the heart to stay in the BEST luxury hotel there?
Your hotel has running water, electricity (rare), elevators (which is a novelty in this country), TV, fridge, warm king sized bed and all the other shit many people in the rich nations often take for granted. But through the window of your comfortable hotel, you see dirty slums and people dying from diseases and bloody conflicts and clashes.

I close the curtains and turn up the TV. That place has problems that one scrub like me (on a business trip, no less!) can do little to effect in the brief time I would be staying there. Depending on my clout with the company I might ask that a different venue be chosen next time, one that doesn't have a chance of directly funding some local thugs (presumably there is some kind of security arrangement preventing the hotel from being overrun, and it's being managed by or with the blessing of the local authorities, who suck).

The idea that in such a situation I should leap in and start interfering in a place with which I have no cultural familiarity, whiffs mightily of that old White Man's Burden.

[Igor]

It's really really unlikely that I'd ever work a job where I have to do that, but I'd probably stay anyways. Not staying would change absolutely nothing.

[hetz]

One rarely sees slums and people dying from disease outside of a 5 star hotel window.
True but there are cases, like this one from Brazil...

http://womennewsnetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/023-BRAZIL-SlumNextoLuxury-SaoPauloImageDavidFenng.jpg

[maskerade]

of course. i've never stayed in a five star hotel, but i'm imagining it's pretty sweet.

also how is this different from me staying in my shitty yet warm student flat while 100m away there's a homeless man asking for spare change?

[Raúl Duke]

yeah I would...
even throw a rockstar party with lots of booze in it like I'm famous.

I'm not sure I've been to a strictly speaking 5-star hotel, although I've stayed and/or been inside upscale ones before.
I'm certain I've been inside one, I might have stayed in one a long time ago as a promotional thing in a family vacation. (For these 2, I'm thinking of 2 hotels in Puerto Rico)

When I visited Japan, I stayed in an Akasaka Prince hotel in Tokyo back in 2005...

These days recently though, my family hasn't been able to afford classy hotels as much as before.

[Prometeo liberado]

Is there a pool bar? The kind where you have to go under the waterfall to get to? If not then I'll stay wherever I guess. I'm not whining it's just that I had my heart set on that and now it ain't gonna happen.....again. Ya you guys pick the hotel again and don't worry about me I'm always willing to take one for the team I guess.
The Sheraton has one of those pools. Just sayin.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I would collectivise the tramps and raid the fucking neoliberal tumor! VIVE LA REVOLUCION!!!!11!1!!!

[Omsk]

Communism is not a life style, if the Bolsheviks knew how to "live", and yet they destroyed the bourgeois, i don't see why it would somehow "poison" me. As long as a person is working for a proletarian revolution, things like this are not too important actually - because currently, only the middle level can actually learn enough about our ideas, and than bring them closer to the workers.These people are the honest intellectuals. Later, the workers, the poorest layers will be the most important ones, which wll lead the revolution and win political power, trough their organized state, the DOTP. Right now, those communists with no serious material problems have a job to do.

[Robespierres Neck]

True but there are cases, like this one from Brazil...

http://womennewsnetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/023-BRAZIL-SlumNextoLuxury-SaoPauloImageDavidFenng.jpg

That picture is such a real representation of class - it's chilling.

I might be visiting Sao Paulo sometime too. I have family there.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Why wouldn't I? Am I gonna somehow foil the revolution if I did? In order to prove my merit as a communist I have to go sleep in a mud hut in the jungle? Nobody in the country would give two shits if I slept here or there. I'd sleep in the most expensive, luxurious suite if i had the option. Why not? I like nice things too. Hell, while I'm at it I may even throw a party because I don't really ever get a chance to stay at nice places like that.

[Prometeo liberado]

True but there are cases, like this one from Brazil...

http://womennewsnetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/023-BRAZIL-SlumNextoLuxury-SaoPauloImageDavidFenng.jpg

If I lived in that neighborhood I would talk to the zoning people about this. Pretty sure that big building blocks views and will effect traffic. It's all about the zoning ordinances people. Maybe speak up at a city council meeting, run for councilperson, get the soccer moms involved, a few strategic pickets and a boycott or two. If all else fails I would write my Congressman! Goddamnit.

[the last donut of the night]

Let's say you worked for a business, and went on a business trip to the poorest country in the world and you were invited to a conference at a luxury hotel.
You see people starving everywhere, poor children playing in mud and civil unrest in a corrupt government. Would you still have the heart to stay in the BEST luxury hotel there?
Your hotel has running water, electricity (rare), elevators (which is a novelty in this country), TV, fridge, warm king sized bed and all the other shit many people in the rich nations often take for granted. But through the window of your comfortable hotel, you see dirty slums and people dying from diseases and bloody conflicts and clashes.

my life aint some feed the children commercial, i gotta keep it fresh. also:

0Gyq80z9B2I

[the last donut of the night]

True but there are cases, like this one from Brazil...

http://womennewsnetwork.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/023-BRAZIL-SlumNextoLuxury-SaoPauloImageDavidFenng.jpg

you can very easily see the vidigal slums from the copacabana palace in rio de janeiro. the whole world is becoming one giant slum

[Prometeo liberado]

All mod cons baby! Running up the room service bill, shitting in the shower, snow on the mirrors and evidence flying out the balcony looking like a white christmas. Thats what the posh hotels are for, nothing more and nothing(well sometimes) less.

[hetz]

shitting in the shower
Well, congratulations for behaving like an idiot and making the poor cleaner's day even worse.

[zoot_allures]

I wouldn't go to another country in the first place - any other country, let alone one with the problems you describe. I don't want to travel anywhere.

Really, there's not a whole lot of difference between your hypothetical scenario and the actual situation for many people in richer countries. I have a life of unimaginable opulence compared to many millions, probably billions, of people in the world. Although I don't directly see their suffering, I'm well aware of it. Obviously, I've chosen the luxury hotel.

[Prometeo liberado]

Well, congratulations for behaving like an idiot and making the poor cleaner's day even worse.

What in the hell is the tiger that I stole from mike tyson's house going to eat when I lock him in there then? Didn't think about that now did you?