4 ms·

we need to boycott companies which cannot prove that they don't use forced labour

by hunglee2 4y ago

azinman2 4y ago
How do you prove a negative?
- Karunamon 4y ago
  In this case, auditor certification of the supply chain.
- msbarnett 4y ago
  The phrase "you can't prove a negative" is really short-hand for "you can't prove a negative existential claim within an effectively infinite scope", ie. I can't prove that Bigfoot doesn't exist anywhere in the universe simply because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But I can easily prove that Bigfoot does not exist within my coffee mug, or that a particular box I have which contains 5 pennies contains no silver dollars, or that the list of suppliers with whom I directly do business does not include "Missouri Correctional Services LLC" (and I think the spirit of GP's suggestion is boycotting companies that directly do business with prison labour, not people who transitively do business with it at a 25 company remove, or something)
mywittyname 4y ago
Kind of hard to do when state governments use slave labor to produce things we are essentially compelled to buy, like license plates.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  wow that I did not know - what other products are typically made with prison labour?
  - twiddling 4y ago
    https://www.thrillist.com/gear/products-made-by-prisoners-clothing-furniture-electronics https://www.thrillist.com/gear/products-made-by-prisoners-cl... I also remember a documentary when TWA ( way back ) used prisoners for call centers.
ejb999 4y ago
like apple?
krapp 4y ago
Do you work in tech in any capacity? Then you work for a company that uses, or at least benefits from, forced labor on many levels, all the way down to child slaves being forced to mine rare earth minerals by militant juntas. If you don't, you probably purchase and use technology, feeding one of the many economic sectors that depend on forced or coerced labor. Clothing? Slavery. Agriculture? Slavery. Manufacturing? Slavery. When people say there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, this is what they mean. No one's hands are clean here. It's a problem something as simple as boycotting won't fix, because you would have to boycott everything - the entire system runs on blood and violence, top to bottom.

we need to boycott companies which cannot prove that they don't use forced labour

azinman2 4y ago

How do you prove a negative?

Karunamon 4y ago
In this case, auditor certification of the supply chain.
msbarnett 4y ago
The phrase "you can't prove a negative" is really short-hand for "you can't prove a negative existential claim within an effectively infinite scope", ie. I can't prove that Bigfoot doesn't exist anywhere in the universe simply because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But I can easily prove that Bigfoot does not exist within my coffee mug, or that a particular box I have which contains 5 pennies contains no silver dollars, or that the list of suppliers with whom I directly do business does not include "Missouri Correctional Services LLC" (and I think the spirit of GP's suggestion is boycotting companies that directly do business with prison labour, not people who transitively do business with it at a 25 company remove, or something)

mywittyname 4y ago

Kind of hard to do when state governments use slave labor to produce things we are essentially compelled to buy, like license plates.

hunglee2 4y ago
wow that I did not know - what other products are typically made with prison labour?
- twiddling 4y ago
  https://www.thrillist.com/gear/products-made-by-prisoners-clothing-furniture-electronics https://www.thrillist.com/gear/products-made-by-prisoners-cl... I also remember a documentary when TWA ( way back ) used prisoners for call centers.

ejb999 4y ago

like apple?

krapp 4y ago

Do you work in tech in any capacity? Then you work for a company that uses, or at least benefits from, forced labor on many levels, all the way down to child slaves being forced to mine rare earth minerals by militant juntas. If you don't, you probably purchase and use technology, feeding one of the many economic sectors that depend on forced or coerced labor. Clothing? Slavery. Agriculture? Slavery. Manufacturing? Slavery. When people say there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, this is what they mean. No one's hands are clean here. It's a problem something as simple as boycotting won't fix, because you would have to boycott everything - the entire system runs on blood and violence, top to bottom.