5 ms·

We should also avoid using Amazon due to absurd employee treatment, Google for privacy violations, any oil company because of everything they stand for, etc. I

We should also avoid using Amazon due to absurd employee treatment, Google for privacy violations, any oil company because of everything they stand for, etc. It's a little rich to look through fingers with all other companies because it would be inconvenient otherwise, and then boycott VW that saw its punishment.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
VW is too big to be punished, but the folks who discovered the fraud were punished; they should be given millions by governments for the healthcare savings of having less pollution in cities because of their work. Instead they were blackballed. I will only trust VW when they start fighting for the whistleblowers.
- AwaAwa 5y ago
  VW's supervisory board has co-determination, which means that Union of German workers has half the voting rights. The Supervisory board monitors and approves corporate statutes, and is appoints the members of the board of management. Even with such a democratic (closer to atleast) approach if whistleblowers are salted, I don't have much hope that quasi-secretive exec cabals are going to be more open. Outside a few niche startups, that eventually ditch any 'don't be evil' anchors.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I don't buy the too big to be punished. If regulation agenencies can approve/deny a corporate merger/sale/etc, I think they should have the power to force change. Rarely, is it the rank and file employees causing the mischief. As the C-suite employees and possibly the board of directors, it is the job responibilities to be responsible. In these situations, why not have the regulators come in and force a leadership change? If one particular individual is more responsible than others, why not ban them from holding leadership positions in the future? Other industries have similar punishments. Allow the company to stay alive under new management. Too big to punish is quite frankly just laughable.
imglorp 5y ago
I'm wondering how to be an ethical consumer in general and have a hard time identifying products to support.
- krapp 5y ago
  There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    That's just BS. There are plenty of businesses that choose to do the ethically/moral/decent thing, but they tend to be the smaller ones. The giant fucking evilCorps in the world suck all the oxygen from every conversation, so it feels like they are the only examples available. I'd also suggest private companies vs publicly traded companies where their obligation is to the stock holders rather than being decent.
    - cebert 5y ago
      Can you provide an example company?
      - fsflover 5y ago
        https://puri.sm https://puri.sm
      - dylan604 5y ago
        patagonia
    - toomanyducks 5y ago
      I'd go one step further in that analysis. Why does it feel that large companies are the most representative to the people (like me) claiming that consumption under capitalism is unethical? Well, I'm a bit of an anarchist, so I'm going to go down the 'distribution of power' line here. It doesn't matter that purism or system76 is ethical when Google controls my every waking moment. When the mega evil Corps have all the power and the influence. When they control not just my life but also the ecological and political environment around me. Denying the power of Google is akin to climate change denial. So yes, I'm not going to point to a small company built off of open source and pretend that my life is okay. Or I could go a bit further down the Marxist line, and say it's because capitalism requires large scale exploitation at a large scale. Ignoring that exploitation is supporting that exploitation, and is immoral. I'll not get into the theory to support this in this comment, but when Amazon warehouse workers literally work themselves to death for my shitty orders, we've got a problem. And it is immoral to point to the existence of Purism and say that everything is fine. This is coming off more intense than I intended. I'm sorry. I swear this isn't personal criticism, just an attempt at productive engagement with ideology, but the world is breaking. It's really fucking hard to be kind.
acomjean 5y ago
As a society we should have rules that prevent these problem from our capitalistic company creations. It would be much easier than researching every business you want to interact with. But because the rules vary by country and fewer rules generally mean less expenses, companies that behave badly and don't get caught or are overseas seem to have a competitive advantage.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  > our capitalistic company creations Grammar question for anyone: is it capitalistic or just capitalist? I keep seeing "-istic" tacked on to words these days, feel it is incorrect.
  - Anthony-G 5y ago
    Like you, I thought the “-istic” suffix was superfluous but when I checked it out, it forms ‘adjectives from nouns or from other adjectives, with the meaning "of or pertaining to" the preceding component’¹. In this case, “capitalist” could be either a noun or an adjective while “capitalistic” is unambiguously an adjective. I tend to use “capitalist” as an adjective (pertaining to “capitalism”) as it’s usually clear from the context that the word is an adjective. However, it’s not wrong to use “capitalistic” and I’d say it’s a matter of personal style rather than grammar. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-istic#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-istic#English
javajosh 5y ago
A good example of whataboutism.
- arghwhat 5y ago
  Which as always is a perfectly valid counter when presented with ignorance towards all but one hand-picked data point.
  - bigbob2 5y ago
    No, because the original post never said anything about Amazon, Google, or the oil companies being any different from VW. You are accusing the post as presenting with ignorance towards those data points simply because they don't mention them, but there was no prior context to mention them.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

VW is too big to be punished, but the folks who discovered the fraud were punished; they should be given millions by governments for the healthcare savings of having less pollution in cities because of their work. Instead they were blackballed. I will only trust VW when they start fighting for the whistleblowers.

AwaAwa 5y ago
VW's supervisory board has co-determination, which means that Union of German workers has half the voting rights. The Supervisory board monitors and approves corporate statutes, and is appoints the members of the board of management. Even with such a democratic (closer to atleast) approach if whistleblowers are salted, I don't have much hope that quasi-secretive exec cabals are going to be more open. Outside a few niche startups, that eventually ditch any 'don't be evil' anchors.
dylan604 5y ago
I don't buy the too big to be punished. If regulation agenencies can approve/deny a corporate merger/sale/etc, I think they should have the power to force change. Rarely, is it the rank and file employees causing the mischief. As the C-suite employees and possibly the board of directors, it is the job responibilities to be responsible. In these situations, why not have the regulators come in and force a leadership change? If one particular individual is more responsible than others, why not ban them from holding leadership positions in the future? Other industries have similar punishments. Allow the company to stay alive under new management. Too big to punish is quite frankly just laughable.

imglorp 5y ago

I'm wondering how to be an ethical consumer in general and have a hard time identifying products to support.

krapp 5y ago
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
- dylan604 5y ago
  That's just BS. There are plenty of businesses that choose to do the ethically/moral/decent thing, but they tend to be the smaller ones. The giant fucking evilCorps in the world suck all the oxygen from every conversation, so it feels like they are the only examples available. I'd also suggest private companies vs publicly traded companies where their obligation is to the stock holders rather than being decent.
  - cebert 5y ago
    Can you provide an example company?
    - fsflover 5y ago
      https://puri.sm https://puri.sm
    - dylan604 5y ago
      patagonia
  - toomanyducks 5y ago
    I'd go one step further in that analysis. Why does it feel that large companies are the most representative to the people (like me) claiming that consumption under capitalism is unethical? Well, I'm a bit of an anarchist, so I'm going to go down the 'distribution of power' line here. It doesn't matter that purism or system76 is ethical when Google controls my every waking moment. When the mega evil Corps have all the power and the influence. When they control not just my life but also the ecological and political environment around me. Denying the power of Google is akin to climate change denial. So yes, I'm not going to point to a small company built off of open source and pretend that my life is okay. Or I could go a bit further down the Marxist line, and say it's because capitalism requires large scale exploitation at a large scale. Ignoring that exploitation is supporting that exploitation, and is immoral. I'll not get into the theory to support this in this comment, but when Amazon warehouse workers literally work themselves to death for my shitty orders, we've got a problem. And it is immoral to point to the existence of Purism and say that everything is fine. This is coming off more intense than I intended. I'm sorry. I swear this isn't personal criticism, just an attempt at productive engagement with ideology, but the world is breaking. It's really fucking hard to be kind.

acomjean 5y ago

As a society we should have rules that prevent these problem from our capitalistic company creations. It would be much easier than researching every business you want to interact with. But because the rules vary by country and fewer rules generally mean less expenses, companies that behave badly and don't get caught or are overseas seem to have a competitive advantage.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
> our capitalistic company creations Grammar question for anyone: is it capitalistic or just capitalist? I keep seeing "-istic" tacked on to words these days, feel it is incorrect.
- Anthony-G 5y ago
  Like you, I thought the “-istic” suffix was superfluous but when I checked it out, it forms ‘adjectives from nouns or from other adjectives, with the meaning "of or pertaining to" the preceding component’¹. In this case, “capitalist” could be either a noun or an adjective while “capitalistic” is unambiguously an adjective. I tend to use “capitalist” as an adjective (pertaining to “capitalism”) as it’s usually clear from the context that the word is an adjective. However, it’s not wrong to use “capitalistic” and I’d say it’s a matter of personal style rather than grammar. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-istic#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-istic#English

javajosh 5y ago

A good example of whataboutism.

arghwhat 5y ago
Which as always is a perfectly valid counter when presented with ignorance towards all but one hand-picked data point.
- bigbob2 5y ago
  No, because the original post never said anything about Amazon, Google, or the oil companies being any different from VW. You are accusing the post as presenting with ignorance towards those data points simply because they don't mention them, but there was no prior context to mention them.