I'm confused by the people who are confused whether this is satire, but (like most good satire) it raises valid points.
Being "moral" in how we live our day-to-day lives is complicated, and it would be great if we could somehow offload some of that complexity. We already do this to an extent with organizations that track the effectiveness of various kinds of charitable giving- CharityWatch, for instance. Along the lines of the article, something that monitors your purchases and lets you know things like "that brand uses child labor, this alternative is okay" or "this meat was obtained with an estimated ecological impact of $1.0245/kg" would really be useful (if only in a "now I don't have to google everything to feel safe" sense.) There's a real-live potential blockbuster app in that (if only because, aside from everything else, it would have lots of interesting info about your purchasing habits...)
Being "moral" in how we live our day-to-day lives is complicated, and it would be great if we could somehow offload some of that complexity. We already do this to an extent with organizations that track the effectiveness of various kinds of charitable giving- CharityWatch, for instance. Along the lines of the article, something that monitors your purchases and lets you know things like "that brand uses child labor, this alternative is okay" or "this meat was obtained with an estimated ecological impact of $1.0245/kg" would really be useful (if only in a "now I don't have to google everything to feel safe" sense.) There's a real-live potential blockbuster app in that (if only because, aside from everything else, it would have lots of interesting info about your purchasing habits...)