video games are luxury entertainment. Ethical consumption under capitalism is tied to necessary goods like power or food.
just say you don't want to give up your toys, don't frame it as you're forced to consume video games
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Is it ethically wrong to buy a new console/upgrade PC knowing that there's a possibility of slave labour being used?
- Thread starter Rosenkrantz
- Start date
video games are luxury entertainment. Ethical consumption under capitalism is tied to necessary goods like power or food.
just say you don't want to give up your toys, don't frame it as you're forced to consume video games
I don't have the means to change anything on my own, and yes, at some point, I value my own well-being over others that are so far distant to me that I don't even know they exist. I'd rather not be driven to the point of suicide because I abstain from anything that will entertain me and make my life comfortable, making my life 100x harder than it already is just for the slight chance it might bring about a single ounce of change that needs to be replicated by the entire working and middle class.
Sure, I'm unethical for participating in capitalism. Sure, I could do better, it's not impossible. I'm privileged that I'm even able to be typing here right now. But I am going to be absolutely fucking miserable, and I don't think that the single modicum of change that my life might bring about is going to be worth it at all. My own morals are what matters to me, and they are shaped by my experiences and the people I know and care about. My morals aren't based on objective rights and wrongs, there based on what I view as right and wrong, and it's kidding ourselves to say that we're all saints that have been "forced" to participate. It's not bad to admit you understand the circumstances but still value your own well-being up to a point, it's being true to yourself and not hiding from it like it's some black mark on your self-image.
That's not to say that it's ok that this happens and to never care. Defeatist attitudes get us nowhere and will keep us here forever, if there's a solution we should absolutely continue working towards it.
Sure, I'm unethical for participating in capitalism. Sure, I could do better, it's not impossible. I'm privileged that I'm even able to be typing here right now. But I am going to be absolutely fucking miserable, and I don't think that the single modicum of change that my life might bring about is going to be worth it at all. My own morals are what matters to me, and they are shaped by my experiences and the people I know and care about. My morals aren't based on objective rights and wrongs, there based on what I view as right and wrong, and it's kidding ourselves to say that we're all saints that have been "forced" to participate. It's not bad to admit you understand the circumstances but still value your own well-being up to a point, it's being true to yourself and not hiding from it like it's some black mark on your self-image.
That's not to say that it's ok that this happens and to never care. Defeatist attitudes get us nowhere and will keep us here forever, if there's a solution we should absolutely continue working towards it.
Except that the whole economy today is built around luxury: Phones, movies, snickers, video games, sports...The capitalistic machine has swallowed the world whole and, should everyone decide to rely on strong morals to make informed decisions about what to buy and invest in, the entire structure would collapse. It is a bleak take, but it is an obviously realistic one. Almost everything that you consume is erected on the misery of somebody else. We have chose this path, collectively, by indulging in mass consumption for decades like med men and women. Now we are all running towards the cliff with a smile.
This thread is already full of folks pretending to be better people than their actions would imply. It be incredibly more honest to just say "these things are bad but my personal entertainment supersedes any stated commitment I have to XYZ causes". I don't deny it. But this whole "woe is me Uncle Capitalism made me preorder the PlayStation/Xbox/Latest gfx card" is weak. At least have the temerity to stand in your disregard. If you feel bad about that, then feel bad.
What does the economy running off of consumerism have to do with your own personal consumption
What does the economy running off of consumerism have to do with your own personal consumption
So are iPhones, TVs, most electronics sadly. I don't think we have people here saying "just say you don't want to give up your iPhone"
Phones are more essential to daily survival than a video game console. The thread is about video games I'm focusing on video games
clothes are a necessary good
I'd argue phones and any electronic device that can access the web is essential. ESPECIALLY in Covid, but in general, everything is moving online. Getting classes or a job right now is insanely difficulty if you're not using the internet.
Well, yes. No ethical consumption under capitalism and all that.
But it's up to on how much of a footprint you want to leave.
But it's up to on how much of a footprint you want to leave.
Oh something like a phone is absolutely essential, don't get me wrong.
But an iPhone, as great of a phone, is kinda of the epitome of "luxury item".
You can't tell me with a straight face that you NEED an iPhone even after all the slave labour shit that's been reported over the years.
the only difference between an iPhone and a budget android is you're paying the apple tax on one and not the other. The price of an iPhone is pretty irrelevant here. The raw materials in it and any other phone are the same, and you aren't mitigating any of the unethical labor used to produce it by purchasing a cheaper Phone.
Mine is actually quite fine: I do have a cheap PC, I do not buy consoles anymore, I acquire second hand phones, only get clothes when I really need them...But guess what? It does not matter one iota. People, by the hundreds of millions, will consume and continue to do so without any regard for the conditions their goods and services have been conceived and made under. There are strong forces/drives that transcend the aggregate will of the elements supposed to embody those same drives: Capitalism in its most exploitative nature -its true nature- is inescapable; It will only fade away once we hit a global catastrophe of epic proportions, which I believe we will relatively soon. It is, as a system, most malleable and flexible.
This is why I don't really do the entire "boycott" a game/movie thing. You on your own won't affect the change necessary unless there is a massive outcry. It's far better to bring this up with your government and let your friends know.
But shaming is BS because we all consume media or something which was created with slave labor/unethical means or by an unethical company.
But shaming is BS because we all consume media or something which was created with slave labor/unethical means or by an unethical company.
"There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and therefore I, a wealthy westerner, am off the hook" is the worst possible stance an anticapitalist can take.
Rhetorically, we need to stop coddling people who continue to feed the engines of oppression just because their power is limited. No, your non-participation won't free slaves, feed the poor, and solve climate changes. That doesn't give you carte blanche to act inconsiderately.
Rhetorically, we need to stop coddling people who continue to feed the engines of oppression just because their power is limited. No, your non-participation won't free slaves, feed the poor, and solve climate changes. That doesn't give you carte blanche to act inconsiderately.
Thanks. That is a start! I'll look more into it!
🙄
Fighting over semantics and assuming things about me. Sounds healthy.
Of course the saddest thing is the slavery. "Just buy used" only applies to PC, as you would still give stores money in some way at the end. And that (going to PC to stay out of it) is something I'm looking into.
So stop fighting useless fights with people who are on the same side.
this is a lot of sophistry to say capitalism didn't make me do it but it's making everyone else
Of course you are. While I'm pretty sure the majority of phone builders probably use slaver labour for some of its parts, it's ethically wrong to buy an iPhone instead of another brand that may use no(or less, at least) slave labour. Again, you can't tell me in good conscience that you NEED an IPHONE in particular.
"Why yes I could easily get this other phone that, as far as it's been reported doesn't use slave labour, but I'm gonna buy a phone from a company that's been widely reported to use slave labour for years because I like the apps and the OS!"
Nah mate
ah yes, LESS slave labor. And how do you quantify and verify that?
Use banned (2 weeks): Inflammatory point of comparison
I see enough of the ridiculous "no ethical consumption under capitalism" justifications from anti-vegans. Usually they shut up when I ask whether that means there's no ethical difference between paying for an Only Fans and buying child porn.
It is making everyone, including me. I am not better than the rest and, frankly, I curb my consuming habits less because of some moral imperative and more on account of my social phobias and disdain of the act of acquiring itself. But I see the world for what it is, and it is not pretty. You can chant about ethics all you want, but nothing will change, at all. It is almost akin to wishing for someone in free fall to reverse course, somehow. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
At the very least by what's been reported in the media?
If all the information all have is that company X uses slave labour while there hasn't been any such reports for company Y, ethically you're supposed to choose from company Y. That's not hard to understand
I think this is really what it comes down to unfortunately. Like others have also said, this isn't exclusive to PC gaming, but electronics in general, between Blu-Ray players, smartphones, smartwatches, game consoles, etc. It's not even exclusive to electronics.
I'm not really sure of an alternative option either. Sure for some instances there are, but not all, and going beyond that, are those alternative options feasible for the majority of people? I can't go spending 2, 3, or even 4 times the amount on stuff. I don't have the money.
It is pretty much impossible to avoid supporting unethical practices. Not that capitalism itself is unethical; rather, people and companies acting within this system maximise their gains at unfair costs of others. In theory, it doesn't have to be that way but in practice that is what happens because humans are generally selfish and there are loopholes in legal frameworks that allow for unethical shortcuts. As for consumers, most of us don't have the time to proactively research all goods and services that we purchase to determine whether they are produced or provided in a manner such that everyone and the environment is fairly compensated. We merely act in good faith that people/companies/states practice fair compensation. What we can do is to try to be less selfish everyday and raise awareness of the problems in our society and in others societies so that these problems can be solved.
I don't think this is the right online forum to discuss this issue , at all. Of course it isn't ethical and of course there is clear knowledge it's manufactured using slave labor. Is anyone here going to do anything about it? No, nyet, nein, nope, please stop wasting your breath/keystrokes.
Are you implying 4K and SSDs are unnecessary this holiday season?
iPhones only account for 20% of phones world wide. Do you really believe the remaining 80% are sourcing raw material goods or assembling products ethically? Slave labor or sweat shop? They all are built in the same handful of countries. To take this position is willfully ignoring what runs global south economies and how virtually all of our electronics are made.
Yes. Undoubtably. Which I think is an awkward spot to be in for this forum, which is full of calls to boycott developers and products, which I totally can get behind, but there's a lack of consistency when it comes to what we'll call out and what we'll ignore.
I edited my post to add more but in short, no one cares beyond empty words OR we'll go straight to saying there is no ethical consumption ever so whatever man, don't care to try.
Is it possible to hit someone in the face ethically? No. Therefore it doesn't matter how hard you hit them.
If only slave labor was anti-consumer or against the developer's intent, then we'd have a real gamers rise up moment!
since there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, there is no need to discuss or think about the ethical implications of products and services
and furthermore, since all human activity require some amount of consumption--at a bare minimum, people require food to power their activities--there is no need to consider the ethical implications of any human activity
OT, it is wrong. there is no need for me to buy a PS5, but I've decided to buy one anyway. This is a decision I made.
and furthermore, since all human activity require some amount of consumption--at a bare minimum, people require food to power their activities--there is no need to consider the ethical implications of any human activity
OT, it is wrong. there is no need for me to buy a PS5, but I've decided to buy one anyway. This is a decision I made.
Of course I don't believe that, did I say I did?
Saying that just because a company hasn't been reported as using slave labour it means it uses is as stupid as saying that every single company is using slave labour. It's all about what information we have.
I won't chastise someone that didn't know about Apples dealings for buying the new iPhone, but I'll call out the person that knows about it and willfully buys it anyway, when there are options that, AS FAR AS WE KNOW, are ethically better.
The same thing with clothes. Yes, clothes are a necessity. But there are OPTIONS for people. Instead of buying clothes made in China by probably child labour, why not buy locally sourced clothes?
Again, if you have the OPTION to go the "less morally reprehensible" route, not taking it is ethically wrong.
Yeah this. I often think about a company and the shit things it does and how badly I want to get away from them. The problem is this is true for most companies. You can't get everything you need from a mom and pop shop around the corner, at least in most places. I could stop buying things from amazon, but whats the point? I'd just have to go buy from another shit company. All you can really do is make some noise to bring awareness to these things and go vote in elections for less shit people. Most people get fatigue and just give up trying to fight it after a while, which is what most companies assume and count on. Everyone here right now are unlikely to ever see any significant change in our lifetimes, but we gotta start pushing and keep pushing for it or it will never happen for anyone.
So you take a fatalistic approach to something like this. I don't know if that's the right approach. I understand your cynicism but this thread is approached not to shame but more from curiosity. There are various lines of thinking when it comes to promoting change and that something like a boycott doesn't necessarily garner the results people want. What needs to happen is people need to be held accountable. And that goes not only for parts assembled in China, but the people apathetic to these people's suffering and suffering all over the world. China doesn't hold the exclusive rights to brainwashing and internment camps. The US has some. From what I've read, Australia treats immigrants pretty harshly too.
Anyway like I said I understand your cynicism because nothing will change simply by discussing it. But the more people know about it the more they can tell people. Up to a few years ago, there was literally nothing about the Uighurs at all. Informing people is a start. Holding leaders accountable to do something about it is going to be harder for sure.
And we're done here.
Your contribution towards the issue should be in voting and pursuing a political interest in parties who will make that illegal, not engage in a war amongst poors.
Well some things are easy to sit here and condemn while getting a pat on the back from your peers, doing that has no effect on their real life and costs them exactly nothing.
Giving up their toys because of slave labour when it's just folks 1000's of miles away and there is nothing anyone can really do anyway..... backtothePS5hypethread!!!
Several raw materials still involve modern day slavery. It's far more than consumer electronics that use them. Medical treatments, colored glass, guitar pickups, electric motors, etc.
If we want to slow the use of immoral labor, we have to strongly advocate politically on the level of the civil rights movement for an end to child labor. We would have to be culturally comfortable with significantly higher priced consumer goods and inflation.
If we want to slow the use of immoral labor, we have to strongly advocate politically on the level of the civil rights movement for an end to child labor. We would have to be culturally comfortable with significantly higher priced consumer goods and inflation.
But entertainement electronics aren't a necessity. So that raises the question of whenever when it's not a necessity, should it be an issue ?
As a whole, the industry decided that it's not.
Literally no journos care. You see a lot more articles about crunch than the latest consoles and hardware being built by slaves from working camps. It's not even something far away, it's literally about gaming.
People choose based on the cause and their favorite toys. You won't see journos, nor this website, blame big manufacturers or ban the latest shiny toys for that. And we know why. :)
"as far as we know" is just a convenient way of driving your weird anti iPhone agenda and positioning other phones as more ethical choices
https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/ar...-bad-lot-in-tech-brand-workers-rights-report/
Vast most majority of companies don't even know where the raw materials used to make their products are even coming from. And they don't care to know because they know it's covered in blood. I'm telling you right now that these materials are not sourced ethically and you're vaguely gesturing about only reading reports about apple and you can't do anything else about anyone else. Like give it up.
If this isn't satire then I gotta get off this fucking planet asap.
It is but we don't as a species care all that much. About 9 million people die of hunger each year and I threw out some food last night as I was eating too much. Hell, there are children in my own city, most likely in my own street, that have gone to bed hungry last night, and do I concern myself with them? No, I do not. I go about my day, not sparing one nanosecond for hungry people anywhere in the world. So it goes with everything. You get born in a bubble, if it's a comfortable bubble then you win the lottery, if not sucks to be you. So I was lamenting my inability to buy a PS5 the other day, fully aware of the awareness thread that was posted here about modern slavery. Did not cause me to pause for a single second. This thread still hasn't made me swear off buying a new console that may have used slave labour. Just like I'll keep wasting water and throwing out excess food and leaving the light on in rooms I am not in and a whole host of other things I can do because the bubble I was born in allows me to do so. Safe and warm and happily ignoring the ethical and moral wrongness of it all.
The point isn't that there isn't
The point is that a society cannot rely on public goodwill and publicly available information for enforcement of it's ethical norms.
Boycotts are the equivalent of vigilante justice - Sometimes useful, but mostly misguided and directed to groups people hated for other reasons anyway.
Do you go around in plain white rags? Because that's all that's really "necessary."
my wardrobe is mostly t shirts and shorts, but thanks for asking! Fuck outta here thinking this is a intelligible retort. The plain white rags are probably produced by kids too, are mother fuckers supposed to go naked? You act like the vast majority of the populace is out here buying $200 shirts and yeezys. Most Americans get their clothes from Walmart and Target, relax.
You do far more change by voting accordingly as well as continue to put pressure on politicians outside elections both locally and upwards the scale.
Rather than cancelling all consumptions and becoming a hermit.
Rather than cancelling all consumptions and becoming a hermit.