Ethics/integrity and freedoms

monkeypants wrote: »

Are you saying that Facebook is a right?

I think he's saying he wont use instagram again, because of something that facebook did which in no way affects him because he doesn't have a facebook account anyway.

I boycott boycotts.

DrumSteve wrote: »

Im sure their highly overpaid asian workforce would agree with you if they were allowed.

Is this crap still believed? Apple have no direct employees in Asia. They outsource assembly to Foxconn who, by and large, assemble all phones on the market. All pcs on the market. And most electronic goods.

Except the cheaper China based Android stuff which is assembled by small sweat shops. Foxconn pays above average wages in China.

DrumSteve wrote: »

So because they outsource they are not in any way responsible for the pay and conditions of the staff there?

Who said that?

They do in fact do plenty of reports on the conditions unlike the cheap android or Windows machine you no doubt use.

I was responding to false facts (Apple has employees in China) and to the pseudo concern by group thinkers about said employees, posted from their HTC.

The OP makes a good point, though maybe it's one that is a little hard to articulate well; my own take on it would be this:
It's definitely true that there is a general lack of interest or understanding of ethical issues when it comes to corporations, politics, economics, etc., and while there isn't anything wrong with this on an individual level (it's fair enough if someone just isn't interested in something), it is a problematic thing on a wider societal level, because, as the OP hints at, when such attitudes are dominant, people tend not to care a whole lot about others or events, outside of their main social circle.

A large part of that is, in my view, compounded by the fact that a lot of people, probably most I'd say, just don't have very good critical thinking abilities; they might be pretty smart people in general, but not everyone is able to see through fallacious/deceptive/garbage/bullshít arguments, when they hear them (and may be averse to calling them out, when they do recognize them, for fear of social repercussions), and that's a pretty big problem societally.


For instance, there are a whole raft of arguments/attitudes that exist for basically promoting apathy, which are prevalent in society:
"Shure we're not starving in Africa, so we have things pretty good, we don't need to change anything"
"Nothing we do will ever change anything, so there's no point trying"
"I'm fine, so things aren't really that bad"
"I don't know of any alternatives, therefore there are no alternatives and people should stop complaining"
"People who protest/complain are all dolescum/self-interested/hypocrites"
"Politics/economics are boring, and people who talk about them are being boring/rude"
"Corrupt/unethical practice 'x' happens all the time, therefore it is normal, or there is nothing wrong with it, or nothing can be done about it"
"Unethical practice 'x' is not illegal, therefore there is nothing wrong with it"

All of these arguments are pretty much bullshít, but some of them are pretty prevalent attitudes in society, which persist in part due to apathy, and in part due to lack of critical thinking abilities for many people (and for some, due to a "fúck everyone else, I only care about me" attitude).

In general, I think people would care more about ethical/integrity issues all throughout society (from politics/economics to business and more), if they learned and exercised a minimal amount of critical thinking, instead of falling back (consciously or not) to many of the above flimsy excuses/justifications for apathy.

So yea, if people weren't able to honestly hold on to such flawed arguments for justifying apathy, I think there'd be a lot less apathy.