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> Does the public care about privacy? The answer is certainly “yes”. There’s a difference between caring and having any power to do anything about it. It’s ti

> Does the public care about privacy? The answer is certainly “yes”. There’s a difference between caring and having any power to do anything about it. It’s time to move on from Consumer activism. This nonsense of blaming people for their purchasing decisions is so rotten and useless. Judging others this way requires vain assumptions and we can do so much better.

sixstringtheory 8y ago
You had me until the second paragraph. Who instigates change in society, if not for the people in it? Sadly, parent’s last question > Does the public have an attention span long enough to ruin Google's reputation? is a resounding ‘no’ to me right now. It is as if these days many people have the same attitude you do, wanting someone else to do the legwork to bring societal change. That’s a good way to wind up with totalitarianism, and that’s how you end up with a president for life dictating what information citizens can and cannot consume.
- extralego 8y ago
  This sounds like a misunderstanding. ‘Consumer activism’ is, in so many words, not activism. It describes the effort of working towards greater change through purchasing decisions. It’s a liberal rationalization common in capitalist societies that fails to account for the systemic limitations of the consumer voice. The issues with it are many, but I’ll list a few: - It’s dependent on a person’s spending power, which is dependent on their capital wealth, which is dependent on their endorsement of the system as a whole. - It shames those in poverty who cannot afford to participate and generates greater class divide. - It relies on the transparency of the business entities to definite itself. If Google doesn’t tell us how evil it is, we cannot know the importance of avoiding their services. - It relies on the media to expose misgivings, but the media relies on the misgivers to pay their bills. You get the point. - It places a burden on the well-meaning by insisting they deny opportunities available to their competitors. - It pits individuals against one another, undermining the solidarity needed for lasting change.
- BeetleB 8y ago
  >You had me until the second paragraph. Who instigates change in society, if not for the people in it? Sadly, parent’s last question I think GP was downvoted because he criticized consumer activism and not just what he meant to criticize: Making change by purchasing decisions. I've generally switched to his perspective. For about a decade I felt (and acted) more like you. That experience taught me how poor a strategy it is. The success stories via boycotts are a fairly small minority. Most attempts at change via boycotts fail. It's incredibly hard even to start one. A lot of shaming is involved, and it rarely works. People don't like to feel ashamed. As he said in his response to you, it does quickly degrade to infighting amongst consumers and a lot of energy is wasted there that could be used in alternative strategies. It requires people to be very knowledgeable, and I saw mostly failures even amongst highly educated folks. To understand an issue, connect all the dots, etc takes a lot of effort. Most people want someone else (government agency, consumer watchdog, etc) to do all the work. That's not to say broad media campaigns are a bad idea - I think they are necessary. But much more often than not, companies will win on the purchasing decisions battle.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Plus it's not necessarily clear who you can buy from -- for instance, if you want to buy ethically produced computers with no unfree labor anywhere in the supply chain... well, you'll eventually find this is quite difficult to do, if it's even possible.
    - extralego 8y ago
      Ugh. Yeah that might even be the worst part. It’s far from obvious because it’s so far out of eyesight.
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        Even companies like Patagonia that have really made a commitment to sourcing things ethically have had a very hard time with it.

sixstringtheory 8y ago

You had me until the second paragraph. Who instigates change in society, if not for the people in it? Sadly, parent’s last question > Does the public have an attention span long enough to ruin Google's reputation? is a resounding ‘no’ to me right now. It is as if these days many people have the same attitude you do, wanting someone else to do the legwork to bring societal change. That’s a good way to wind up with totalitarianism, and that’s how you end up with a president for life dictating what information citizens can and cannot consume.

extralego 8y ago
This sounds like a misunderstanding. ‘Consumer activism’ is, in so many words, not activism. It describes the effort of working towards greater change through purchasing decisions. It’s a liberal rationalization common in capitalist societies that fails to account for the systemic limitations of the consumer voice. The issues with it are many, but I’ll list a few: - It’s dependent on a person’s spending power, which is dependent on their capital wealth, which is dependent on their endorsement of the system as a whole. - It shames those in poverty who cannot afford to participate and generates greater class divide. - It relies on the transparency of the business entities to definite itself. If Google doesn’t tell us how evil it is, we cannot know the importance of avoiding their services. - It relies on the media to expose misgivings, but the media relies on the misgivers to pay their bills. You get the point. - It places a burden on the well-meaning by insisting they deny opportunities available to their competitors. - It pits individuals against one another, undermining the solidarity needed for lasting change.
BeetleB 8y ago
>You had me until the second paragraph. Who instigates change in society, if not for the people in it? Sadly, parent’s last question I think GP was downvoted because he criticized consumer activism and not just what he meant to criticize: Making change by purchasing decisions. I've generally switched to his perspective. For about a decade I felt (and acted) more like you. That experience taught me how poor a strategy it is. The success stories via boycotts are a fairly small minority. Most attempts at change via boycotts fail. It's incredibly hard even to start one. A lot of shaming is involved, and it rarely works. People don't like to feel ashamed. As he said in his response to you, it does quickly degrade to infighting amongst consumers and a lot of energy is wasted there that could be used in alternative strategies. It requires people to be very knowledgeable, and I saw mostly failures even amongst highly educated folks. To understand an issue, connect all the dots, etc takes a lot of effort. Most people want someone else (government agency, consumer watchdog, etc) to do all the work. That's not to say broad media campaigns are a bad idea - I think they are necessary. But much more often than not, companies will win on the purchasing decisions battle.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  Plus it's not necessarily clear who you can buy from -- for instance, if you want to buy ethically produced computers with no unfree labor anywhere in the supply chain... well, you'll eventually find this is quite difficult to do, if it's even possible.
  - extralego 8y ago
    Ugh. Yeah that might even be the worst part. It’s far from obvious because it’s so far out of eyesight.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      Even companies like Patagonia that have really made a commitment to sourcing things ethically have had a very hard time with it.