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How Socially Responsible Are Computer Companies?
mlc asks: "I'm involved in some projects for social justice, et al., and I'm also a geek. But I've never really given much thought to reconciling the two. How ethical are computer companies, especially hardware companies? Do semiconductor factories in Taiwan treat their workers better than any other factories in Taiwan? Does Dell donate any of its profits to charity? Are there any other tips for the socially responsible computer buyer?"
However, he's certainly a generous devil. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has repeatedly received donations from Gates (and other benefactors), towards advancement in many medicinal and health fields - including hunger, cancer, and others.
Recently, Gates has donated:
I could go further back, but you can look it all up for yourself at New.C om
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Keep the money local to your area, and out of the pockets of the big corporation CEOs, whenever possible. There are a few local people I buy parts from, and I've assembled all my machines from their available supplies. It costs a little more if you build something from scratch, but for upgrading it's usually a good deal. Their prices are pretty low, and if something breaks, I can yell at someone's face if I need to. Never underestimate the power of face-to-face contact when dealing with product returns.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
afford not to. However, some of the less popular hardware companies (AOPen, and the other really small and unheard of ones
that you can't find at Best Buy) probably aren't as benevolent.
What are you smoking, and where do I get some? Really, have you already forgotten the efforts of Microsoft to abolish time and a half overtime for their hourly contract employees? When they tried to get the state of Washington to exclude "information tech" workers wholesale from that particular benefit?
Please read a little from http://www.vcnet.com/bms/ before attempting to pass this off again.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
And, of course, Windows 2000 will include real-time disk defragging purchased from Diskeeper, which is one of the many Scientologist "front" organizations that contribute their earnings directly back to the mother cult.
Novell is heavily, though only quasi-officially, involved with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - but the Mormons, unlike the Scientologists, are not considered to be dangerous criminal organizations by several nations.
Do a search at your favorite engine for "dianetics+scientology+criminal". On Alta Vista, you'll get 114 web pages devoted to slamming Scientology and their practices. Look for German language sites and you'll probably find even more!
"Social Responsibility" implies not supporting terrorists or exclusionist religions, in my book.
--Charlie
"I think I should GAIN karma for baiting Xians"
It's old (1996) but still worth reading the response of outspoken Cypress Semi CEO T.J. Rodgers to The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia after they criticized the company for lack of minority representation on its board. Here is the link.
If these are the things you think of when making your normal buying decisions, we are in perfect agreement. However, that isn't what the person I responded to said. What I quoted was :
Make the best deal you can, for the best price that you can, and donate your 'extra' money to the charity or cause of your choice. Using the company as a social proxy is in-efficient compared to making a normal buying decision and having your personal causes a separate and distinct thing.
This was after focusing on the job of companies being to make money and nothing else. "A normal buying decision" here is defined as paying attention only to the product and the price.
Now in a shopping moment, I look at where something is made and if its a company I actually know something about already. I agree you can't be an expert on every company. If I was buying stock in a company, or planning to open a business that would be buying 100 computers, I would look more in depth.
Nutshell, I agree with you pretty much, but I don't think the person I was responding to did.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Okay: we don't know, but surely SOMEONE does. Doesn't anyone have links to related info? Does the United Way have any information about computer company donations? I don't, unfortunately, have time to do the legwork today. :(
Despite the protestations of the A/C above, claiming that any such thinking is a threat to freedom, etc. etc, this stuff matters . Much of the code you write will be thrown away -- the environmental damage you do while writing it will last forever.
One thing we're realizing, in our search of the cosmos with the Hubble, is that planets like Earth may be impossibly rare; there might not be five planets like this in the whole Galaxy. We are probably sitting atop a treasure trove of literally Galactic proportions and using it as a toilet... in fact, we're actively painting the treasure room with feces.
So, again, this stuff matters a lot. Pay attention. Pick this out over the background noise; most other concerns are less important, even if they are more urgent.
Tell me, how much good does having the epitome of PC power do you when you're dying of cancer caused by the toxins released during fabrication of your CPU?
I like powerful CPUs. I also like being able to breathe the atmosphere. So if manufacturer A is doing a better job of keeping his toxins to himself than manufacturer B, it's in my selfish best interest to purchase from A.
If you don't like to think of it as "social responsibility", think of it as "long term global thinking".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
A follow up on Apple:
Apple also makes its iMac line of computers with polycarbonate plastic. This plastic contains bisphenol A.
Apple acknologies the plastic outgasses enough for people to notice the smell.
A list of links from 'it causes testicles to shrink' to 'everything is ok'
http://www.wwfcanada.org/red uce-risk/questionable.html
http://www.sciencedai ly.com/releases/1999/10/991021075812.htm
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/oc/news/seala nt.htm
http://www.doh.gov.uk/hef/bisphena.htm
The Pro BPA page telling you everything is Ok, nothign to see here...http://www.bisphenol-a.org/
Now the question:
Is it socially responsible to
1) be making this kind of machine covering
2) have these computers in schools, where endocrine disruption has more of an effect.
Keep in mind that the Good Design (tm) award given out in Japan was NOT given to the iMac. Why? Because of the use of bisphenol-A. (this is how I found out in fact....)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Depends on the metrics you use.
/., Micro$oft is disliked for the quality of the code they sell. (think if the stuff worked.)
Apple has had issues in the past WRT the number of african americans in management
Here on
Digital (now part of Compaq) is rarely given credit for their creation and then NOT getting patents on the citrus replacement for freon solvents.
And Ray Norda gets no credit for his settling the BSD/AT&T lawsuit. (a social issue of importance to the BSD community/OpenSource software)
The simplest metric would be to get the finationals from the companies and see what they list as charties, then do a %age. But what is important to you, say a greenpeace donation, is not important to others (say replacing freon)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Hey, that gives me a great idea! If I started working as a pimp for underage crack whores, I would make a lot more money and could finally have enough disposable cash to donate to the Home for Little Wanderers!
Ehem. To talk about keeping your personal causes (what we sometimes call "ethics") a "seperate and distinct thing" indicates that you may not understand why the poster was asking the question. As a person who also cares about social justice, i can tell you that part of it is personally making an impact, and another just as important part is living your life in an ethical fashion. Part of that, for me, is trying not to participate in injustice.
To put it in simple terms, if a businessman was murdered right in front of you, then the murderer turned to you and said "hey, I don't really want to fence this rolex, You wanna buy it for 10 bucks?" Would you feel ethically comfortable about getting a deal under those circumstances? If not, why should someone who cares about human rights feel comfortable buying a less expensive keyboard that is cheap because of the use of slave labor?
So no, you can't always just buy whatever's cheap then use the money you save to be nice, anymore than I could run a slave brothel and give the money to charity. Everything you do is a choice, and some of us try to make ethical choices part of our daily life, not just a once a year check.
PS I consider part of the job of every human being to be acting decently. Corporate officers who can't do that part of their job won't get my money for the rest of it.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
As software programmers go, they have to be nice or they'll all leave, due to the fact that the demand for software programmers is higher than the supply.
The point being, overseas labor allows you to disregard your employees more than if the labor was here. Also, the jobs that require a computer are also going to require an employer to be more benevolent. Oddly enough, there are probably more problems with Asian physical labor than American programming jobs. How would you like to spend all day lining up the same two pins on a resistor to the same two holes on your board. How would you like to spend all week at it? Aren't you glad you get to use a computer at work/school?
"Assume the worst about people, and you'll generally be correct"