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Dude.. people don’t think about who’s making their Nikes or Apple products or tshirts. They buy these incidental products with zero concern for the people produ

by aksss 6y ago

Dude.. people don’t think about who’s making their Nikes or Apple products or tshirts. They buy these incidental products with zero concern for the people producing them. How noble are we, talking about refusing to buy blood diamonds when the very MEMS mic in a household device probably vibrated to the scream of people watching a friend jumping out a factory window. Getting people to care about who’s winning and losing in a production lifecycle seems like something that doesn’t get fixed initially with the diamond-buying crowd when the shoe-buying consumers don’t even care. I think what I’m struggling to get at is that the diamond-buying population at least have these earnest “noble ideals” of love, unity, etc represented by this product for which at some low level the sacrifice and blood may _add_ value (god knows what unconscious calculus is at work in the mind of a grown princess). Compare this to a pair of crap tennis shoes that you’re going to throw away, where they are completely utilitarian, replaceable, and you have zero emotional investment in what they represent. The suffering represented by the product offers nothing other than the blatant profit of the consumer. And we can’t wrest the shoes from the consumer’s hands no matter what is said about the abysmal conditions that produced them. All of these conditions in the production of these products are known. Nobody can claim ignorance in the first world. If the population at large hasn’t had a moment of moral clarity by now, I’m not sure I’d hold my breath any longer. Either systemically the culture needs to be more open to moral awakenings (a hard sell in a world defined by deconstructionism) or a new and acceptable critique of globalism at a policy level needs radical change. Just my .02 but I’ve been hearing the same convo about diamonds since I was a kid and it’s as sad as hearing the rationalizing of any addict.

Dylan16807 6y ago
> How noble are we, talking about refusing to buy blood diamonds when the very MEMS mic in a household device probably vibrated to the scream of people watching a friend jumping out a factory window. The suicide rate in those factories is greater than zero but is not high at all. You picked the wrong analogy.
- aksss 6y ago
  It (as an example) is sufficient to remind you that the production environments for many goods _more accessible than diamonds_ are highly, highly exploitive. We don’t need to argue about specific frequency of people jumping out of windows (btw, enough for one building to install nets), to understand the broader point. We could talk about child labor. We could talk about labor camps. Again, nobody in the first world can claim to be surprised by these things. For people to walk around on sneakers cushioned by children’s tears and fret about the provenance of their diamonds seems a bit of a joke.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    I understand the broader point, but you don't want to use incorrect information as part of making it. "forced labor, child labor, unreasonable overtime, people dying in mines, and a factory with a well-below-average suicide rate that got a lot of media attention for a cluster over a decade ago" One of these things is not like the others, and detracts from the actual point. It's a distraction from the real problems.

by aksss 6y ago

Dylan16807 6y ago

> How noble are we, talking about refusing to buy blood diamonds when the very MEMS mic in a household device probably vibrated to the scream of people watching a friend jumping out a factory window. The suicide rate in those factories is greater than zero but is not high at all. You picked the wrong analogy.

aksss 6y ago
It (as an example) is sufficient to remind you that the production environments for many goods _more accessible than diamonds_ are highly, highly exploitive. We don’t need to argue about specific frequency of people jumping out of windows (btw, enough for one building to install nets), to understand the broader point. We could talk about child labor. We could talk about labor camps. Again, nobody in the first world can claim to be surprised by these things. For people to walk around on sneakers cushioned by children’s tears and fret about the provenance of their diamonds seems a bit of a joke.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  I understand the broader point, but you don't want to use incorrect information as part of making it. "forced labor, child labor, unreasonable overtime, people dying in mines, and a factory with a well-below-average suicide rate that got a lot of media attention for a cluster over a decade ago" One of these things is not like the others, and detracts from the actual point. It's a distraction from the real problems.