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.
I disagree, but mostly on a technicality.
I live in the English-speaking world, so I could conceivably muster up all my resources to a) learn how to be effective and convincing, and b) abandon my current life and career to become a lobbyist to push those in power to favour greener choices.
But in principle, yeah there are not enough minor choices in my existing life trajectory available to me that could have a substantial impact on the world overall.
You don't even need to go that far, I think we often look at it too much from an ego centric point of view. With a heavy focus on "I", which makes sense given the individual societies we have going in the western world. But "we" as in a group, be it votes, consumers, etc. can actually make a difference. Before I repeat myself to much I replied here in more detail.
This, to me, is overly defeatist. Yes, on a practical level and only considering things that have an acute measurable impact, you are right. At the same time, if everyone throws their hands in the air and goes "Welp, nothing we can do" we can be sure nothing will change. Yes, there are many factors we don't have control over, certainly as individuals. But, as a group there is much more that can be done and also has been done. I realize that this isn't applicable for everyone in the world, but if you are living in a democracy (even one that has issues) voting is something you can actually do and should do.
In the same sense, all those companies that are bigger polluters than we as consumers ever will be, are still companies. They spend a lot of money on marketing and pushing products, that doesn't mean I have to go along in it all. I can still choose to get products that are longer lasting where possible, choose products that I know have a lower impact when being produced, etc. We are already seeing companies change here to adjust for consumers demanding things with a lower environmental impact. Yes, a lot of that is just greenwashing, marketing and not always change. But there is also actual change happening due to consumer pressure.
So, I don't buy the "we can't do a single thing that makes a difference", there always is.
Very much related, a thread posted yesterday links to an article titled "Underrated ways to change the world" which goes into this in much more detail than I ever could.
Voting will never change climate crisis either.
I said there is nothing we can do on a personal level. On a bigger scale, yes. You can join a political party and start trying to do something, but if this something is maintaining capitalism and try to put some rules on it, it won't work. It might postpone for a year or two, but it won't change.
This is a system built around infinite accumulation of wealth in a finite world. The wealth makes the rules. You can have as many laws as you want, but those rich enough will work around it.
Some people bring up Norway as an example of a greener and better country. What they don't say is that Norway exports it's pollution and exploitation here in Brazil.
As long as capitalism and neoliberalism keeps happening, nothing will change.
We can change things, but collectively and only by force.