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Uhh. I think its intellectually dishonest. He wants Google to not play in China because he thinks its morally wrong. Yet, he uses Google even though he views t

Uhh. I think its intellectually dishonest. He wants Google to not play in China because he thinks its morally wrong. Yet, he uses Google even though he views their policies as morally wrong. Do you see what I mean?

electromagnetic 18y ago
I think what ars meant was that you can dislike something, a la Microsoft, yet still use their product. I dislike Microsoft, but there is no alternative for me. I have no interest in Linux as it just bores the crap out of me, it's not even an alternative as there's just too many hoops to jump through to get it working and then I'll still have XP on my computer so there's no reason to switch. I would switch to Apple as an alternative, but as you have to have an apple computer to run OS X I don't even consider it. I'm not going to throw out over $1000 on a macbook, and god forbid I want extra ram installed at apple they'll take another $600 for sticking two little chips in two little slots. The guy who does it must be making $550 an hour cause I can install two ram chips for little over $50 tops! (that includes buying them, I know this because I did it just last weekend for someone, $38.99 for 2x1gb) So even though I detest microsoft, I hate them less than the rest.
- elai 18y ago
  Whats wrong with putting in the extra ram yourself, it's really easy to do. The manual even comes with instructions (with pictures!), on how to do it.
  - ars 18y ago
    Read again what he wrote. He can do it himself, he was just complaining that apple charges so much for such a simple task.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
mattmaroon 18y ago
You don't have to totally like or hate a company. You can like Google's products, but hate the idea of them having too much control over the internet. You can like the way they run most of their company (for instance, how much they contribute to open source projects) but disagree with their choices in China, etc. There's no intellectual dishonesty there, it's simply having a more complex thought process than a three year old. If you're Cory Doctorow, and you only use products from companies whose policies and actions you 100% agree with, you'd starve to death.
- litewulf 18y ago
  Now apparently I have the thought process of a three year old, but I think when you actively disagree with a particular product, so much as to post online and change images to remind you of how they are actively evil... yet continue to use it its almost masturbatory behavior. Look, I'm glad there are things people care about, but the correct way to care about things are not passive-aggressive image swaps but speaking with your dollars and eyeballs (at a minimum). I feel the same way about things like Darfur, it seems to be more fashionable to be outraged than to enact meaningful action.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    He doesn't disagree with the product, he disagrees with one decision that the company that makes that product has made. When you're a political extremist, it's very hard to find a company that doesn't fit that bill. Yahoo does the same thing in China that Google does, and Microsoft is, well, Microsoft. Should he just not use any search engine? Instead he continues to use and support a company that does many good things while speaking out about the bad ones. That seems entirely reasonable to me. Maybe when you turn four, you'll understand :)
    - cstejerean 18y ago
      What good does speaking out against a company do? Unless there is some impact on the bottom line why would a company ever change? If one is going to complain he/she should be willing to create a financial incentive for that company to do the right thing. In the case of Google one could start by not clicking on advertising, not using Google to advertise or not using AdSense (assuming of course that one is currently generating some sort of revenue for Google).

electromagnetic 18y ago

I think what ars meant was that you can dislike something, a la Microsoft, yet still use their product. I dislike Microsoft, but there is no alternative for me. I have no interest in Linux as it just bores the crap out of me, it's not even an alternative as there's just too many hoops to jump through to get it working and then I'll still have XP on my computer so there's no reason to switch. I would switch to Apple as an alternative, but as you have to have an apple computer to run OS X I don't even consider it. I'm not going to throw out over $1000 on a macbook, and god forbid I want extra ram installed at apple they'll take another $600 for sticking two little chips in two little slots. The guy who does it must be making $550 an hour cause I can install two ram chips for little over $50 tops! (that includes buying them, I know this because I did it just last weekend for someone, $38.99 for 2x1gb) So even though I detest microsoft, I hate them less than the rest.

elai 18y ago
Whats wrong with putting in the extra ram yourself, it's really easy to do. The manual even comes with instructions (with pictures!), on how to do it.
- ars 18y ago
  Read again what he wrote. He can do it himself, he was just complaining that apple charges so much for such a simple task.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

mattmaroon 18y ago

You don't have to totally like or hate a company. You can like Google's products, but hate the idea of them having too much control over the internet. You can like the way they run most of their company (for instance, how much they contribute to open source projects) but disagree with their choices in China, etc. There's no intellectual dishonesty there, it's simply having a more complex thought process than a three year old. If you're Cory Doctorow, and you only use products from companies whose policies and actions you 100% agree with, you'd starve to death.

litewulf 18y ago
Now apparently I have the thought process of a three year old, but I think when you actively disagree with a particular product, so much as to post online and change images to remind you of how they are actively evil... yet continue to use it its almost masturbatory behavior. Look, I'm glad there are things people care about, but the correct way to care about things are not passive-aggressive image swaps but speaking with your dollars and eyeballs (at a minimum). I feel the same way about things like Darfur, it seems to be more fashionable to be outraged than to enact meaningful action.
- mattmaroon 18y ago
  He doesn't disagree with the product, he disagrees with one decision that the company that makes that product has made. When you're a political extremist, it's very hard to find a company that doesn't fit that bill. Yahoo does the same thing in China that Google does, and Microsoft is, well, Microsoft. Should he just not use any search engine? Instead he continues to use and support a company that does many good things while speaking out about the bad ones. That seems entirely reasonable to me. Maybe when you turn four, you'll understand :)
  - cstejerean 18y ago
    What good does speaking out against a company do? Unless there is some impact on the bottom line why would a company ever change? If one is going to complain he/she should be willing to create a financial incentive for that company to do the right thing. In the case of Google one could start by not clicking on advertising, not using Google to advertise or not using AdSense (assuming of course that one is currently generating some sort of revenue for Google).