4 ms·

Boycotting all unethical companies is simply not possible, by design

el_oni 5y ago
It's not, you are completely correct. But I try to buy from companies that align with my values, I run my tech and things into the ground before I buy new. But it doesn't take a few people being perfect, it takes all of us to imperfectly do our best.
- spencerflem 5y ago
  That definitely helps and I don't want to imply otherwise or say that you shouldn't buy green products. But it is nowhere near enough. For products with no green alternative, what do you expect people to do? How to do you compare the supply chains of products given they are intentionally as opaque as possible. Everything is shipped over polluting airplanes stored in polluting plastic containers and manufactured with polluting nonrenewable power. Not to mention there are other ethical concerns to care about. I don't want to support companies with bad labor practices either. But once you filter out the companies doing obviously horrible things the remaining list is terribly short. And I shouldn't have to worry about this! It's not my job to audit every company. If you can't make a product without shoving externalities on everyone else you shouldn't be making a product, period. The normal solution people have been hoping for is regulations: a carbon tax makes so much sense, as does outright banning particularly harmful practices like we have with old refrigerants. But this hasn't worked yet, and a wishy washy consumer-driven market solution hasn't worked either
OldManAndTheCpp 5y ago
How is it designed and by whom?
- assbuttbuttass 5y ago
  For years the fossil fuel industry has been promoting "individual solutions" like recycling and carbon footprint to make us feel like we are doing something, and to direct anger away from these oil companies https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...
ben_w 5y ago
We don’t need to all boycott all of them for this to be effective; creating a (sufficiently strong) gradient where their profits go up if businesses act better (for whatever value) is likely to work.
- spencerflem 5y ago
  Auditing companies is far too much work when you just want to buy something, especially since companies have an incentive to hide as much as possible
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Conveniently, there’s an app for which products to avoid if you’re boycotting to support various causes. I have no idea if this is good or not, either technically or morally: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/buycott-barcode-scanner-qr-bar-code-scanner/id585933440?l=en https://apps.apple.com/de/app/buycott-barcode-scanner-qr-bar...
jhanschoo 5y ago
You don't have to do a complete boycott, just like if you want to change your diet for environmental reasons, you don't have to go full meatless.

It's not, you are completely correct. But I try to buy from companies that align with my values, I run my tech and things into the ground before I buy new. But it doesn't take a few people being perfect, it takes all of us to imperfectly do our best.

spencerflem 5y ago
That definitely helps and I don't want to imply otherwise or say that you shouldn't buy green products. But it is nowhere near enough. For products with no green alternative, what do you expect people to do? How to do you compare the supply chains of products given they are intentionally as opaque as possible. Everything is shipped over polluting airplanes stored in polluting plastic containers and manufactured with polluting nonrenewable power. Not to mention there are other ethical concerns to care about. I don't want to support companies with bad labor practices either. But once you filter out the companies doing obviously horrible things the remaining list is terribly short. And I shouldn't have to worry about this! It's not my job to audit every company. If you can't make a product without shoving externalities on everyone else you shouldn't be making a product, period. The normal solution people have been hoping for is regulations: a carbon tax makes so much sense, as does outright banning particularly harmful practices like we have with old refrigerants. But this hasn't worked yet, and a wishy washy consumer-driven market solution hasn't worked either

OldManAndTheCpp 5y ago

How is it designed and by whom?

assbuttbuttass 5y ago
For years the fossil fuel industry has been promoting "individual solutions" like recycling and carbon footprint to make us feel like we are doing something, and to direct anger away from these oil companies https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...

ben_w 5y ago

We don’t need to all boycott all of them for this to be effective; creating a (sufficiently strong) gradient where their profits go up if businesses act better (for whatever value) is likely to work.

spencerflem 5y ago
Auditing companies is far too much work when you just want to buy something, especially since companies have an incentive to hide as much as possible
- ben_w 5y ago
  Conveniently, there’s an app for which products to avoid if you’re boycotting to support various causes. I have no idea if this is good or not, either technically or morally: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/buycott-barcode-scanner-qr-bar-code-scanner/id585933440?l=en https://apps.apple.com/de/app/buycott-barcode-scanner-qr-bar...

jhanschoo 5y ago

You don't have to do a complete boycott, just like if you want to change your diet for environmental reasons, you don't have to go full meatless.