[Blazing Questions] Inferior Imitations (Part 2)

The first post can be found here.

I left off with four possible scenarios concerning two criteria.
Having an understanding that something is an imitation and having an understanding that the thing is inferior to the original, with either of those criteria possibly not being understood. The first of the scenario is posted below.

"1. The consumer is ignorant of the thing's being an imitation and therefore does not see, or possibly does not even look for, a difference in quality between the imitation and original. (See: Fake Drugs)"

As the article I posted shows, this situation is inherently dangerous. We can all imagine what it would be like be thinking we are receiving penicillin or Lipitor, but unknowingly only be receiving half the dose we are supposed to be getting. Mis-diagnosis or some other flaw, not a fault of the drug, easily explains the resulting loss in efficacy. We (for the most part Americans) as consumers assume that what something is labeled is what it is, and rightly so as we have thinks like the Food and Drug Administration (Link, Wiki) whose overarching mandate, according to Wikipedia.org, is "to regulate the multitude of medicinal products in a manner that ensures the safety of the American public and the efficacy claims (label) of marketed drugs."

So the question becomes is our confidence misplaced?
Most people at most places at most times would agree that the purpose of government (in the contemporary Western sense) is to serve and protect the people through administrations like the FDA and as such a certain amount of trust from the people must be placed in such constructs. So what does this have to do with imitations and their inferiority? While the FDA requires a certain amount of trust in people, such protections of the people are not all covering. Not everyone has the consumers best interests at heart. What results is complacency among consumers with regards to the quality of their products. This complacency is most apparent when normal systems of protection (read: FDA) are circumvented by alternate methods of appropriation (in the context of the above article, the Internet). Consumers seem to be forgetting the ageless Latin phrase, "Caveat emptor" or "let the buyer beware."

Ok, but this isn't just about pills and products right?
I would extrapolate this Latin phrase through the entire discussion of imitations, but am attempting to lay the ground work that many people have take the legitimacy of their things be it ideas, feelings and products, for granted. The pills is only a microcosm but one that can be magnified to show the state of the entire paradigm. The ultimate responsibility for what one buys, does or believes does not fall to the FDA, ones parents or ones church (though these are very helpful institutions providing resources that the individual doe not have), but rather, it is the responsibility of the individual.

Why is this responsibility important?
Ultimately, it is the individual who deals with the consequences, such as the woman who bought hot McDonald’s Coffee and spilt it, the juvenile delinquent who’s offences dictate trial as an adult, or the individual sinner who must answer to the Almighty for their life in this world. It is our responsibility as consumers to use the resources available to us to ensure that the status and quality of the things we consume is genuine and good because it is we who must answer for that.

Where does that take us?
Having laid down now why the issue is important and why we must be responsible consumers of genuine things, the other three scenarios remain to be examined as well as to categorize some common decisions or examples of situations to see where what we usually consume falls in these categories.

If anyone has any questions comments or interjections, please speak out in the comments or email me (address at the bottom of the blog) as I wish to make this series of thoughts as accurate and correct as possible.