What are your forgivable sins?
The user @trim posted an interesting question in ~Tech and it made me wonder: what are my forgivable sins? What kinds of misdeeds on the part of companies that are suppliers of goods or services do I tacitly concience or to which I will turn a blind eye?
Whenever there is a scandal, the easy answer is, "I don't know, but definitely not that." This, however, is just an ad hoc definition that can be applied to any unsavory revelation on the part of a service or product provider. What would I be left with? I couldn't retreat from society if I wanted to and the cost of commercial puritanism would be prohibitively high.
What I realized in that topic was that (1) I will not sanction providers merely for doing business with others to whom I am opposed and (2) I will not sanction providers merely for issuing words or statements that I disagree with.
That said, I'm curious about others. What are your criteria for bad behavior in a service or product provider that you would judge to be nonetheless admissible?
The TV show The Good Place examines this question as one of the biggest themes of the show, so you might appreciate it. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.
For my answer, I know I have very limited emotional bandwith, so I have to be very careful about what crusades I take on. Even people who can do more will eventually hit a limit. I'm reminded of a John Green video I saw recently - - he spoke that his way of coping with a world with so many problems is to choose a few to dive deeply into, and then trust that there are other people diving deeply into whatever else needs to be done.
So given that minimal bandwith, it's less well thought out and more of a vibe. Some issues are more important to me. Some are less important, but "cheaper". Right to repair is important to me, and I can afford to pay a little extra, so I bought a Framework laptop instead of something cheaper. Climate change is huge, so much that I can't make the space to really engage with it, because the scale of things you could change to be better is basically everything, so I don't push at it so much, other than making the right choice when it's doable. I use Firefox instead of Chrome even when it's inconvenient, because I think preventing Google from owning all web standards is important. It's important to me that my job not be actively making the world worse, so I prioritized that when I applied for places, and it's a "push" factor keeping me at my current job.
I just started a Good Place rewatch last night. Perfect timing. For anyone else reading this who hasn't watched The Good Place yet, go in blind, don't look at any spoilers, and enjoy the ride. It is fantastic.
I didn't watch the John Green video, but I like the idea of focusing on aspects you want to dive into. I also think, as with everything, it is important to have moderation. Getting dehydrated because the only water available is Dasani bottled water (a Nestle company) doesn't help anyone. Drink the Dasani water and bring a reusable bottle next time. The goal should not be perfection, it should be learning and getting better over time.
I have unfortunately gotten to the point where, for software, my user experience is more important than many issues. I can't say I am proud of this fact. That has driven me to Apple devices. I try to applaud the good and decry the bad. For example, Apple is selling a subset of its devices that are fully carbon neutral. Not just carbon neutral for the manufacturing, carbon neutral for the entire life of the device. (They use carbon offsets, and I won't get into the problems with those.) That is unequivocally a good thing. Their devices also used to be very unrepairable, and they went out of their way to make them less repairable. (That has changed somewhat in recent years primarily due to the threat of legislation.) This is absolutely a bad thing, but they are trending slowly in the right direction.
In my opinion, the takeaway from recent capitalism is that boycotting companies does almost nothing. How long has the internet been boycotting Nestle? What has it affected? Instead I vote in a way that will improve the world, and attempt to support companies doing good things. My laptop is a MacBook, but I successfully convinced my sister, who did not want to learn macOS, to consider a framework. She now has a Framework 16 and absolutely loves it. I still use Kagi because it makes internet search good, like it used to be years ago with Google. Yes, it uses some problematic sources, but it is the only thing I have found to make the internet usable. And they do support small websites.
I am also actively trying to move to a place in the world where good public transit exists. I own a car back in the US, but my hope is to never drive it again and sell it to a family member or local shop. The entire process of immigration takes a lot of brainpower and focus, so that is my primary focus for now. Even still, I try to be slightly better every day.
This turned into quite the ramble. It's a complicated issue. The Good Place is an entire multi-season TV show that barely scratches the surface, so I have no hope of doing it justice in a short post.
There is absolutely nothing we can do on a personal level that will make a difference in this.