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Ask Slashdot: Is It Ethical To Purchase Electronics Products Made In China?
dryriver writes: A lot of people seem to think it's O.K. to buy electronics made in China. We get to buy products considerably cheaper than we otherwise would, and China by all accounts is growing, developing, and modernizing as a nation due to all the cool stuff they now make for the world. There is only one problem with that reasoning. 21st Century China has an atrocious human rights record, and almost all human rights watchdogs report that China is becoming more and more repressive each year. Freedom House put it this way in 2018: "It's worth noting that, in its attitude toward political dissent, the Chinese Communist Party has proven much harsher than the old Soviet regime of the Brezhnev era. Modern Chinese sentences are longer, the prospects for early release are far worse, and the Chinese authorities are generally unmoved by pleas for leniency from foreign diplomats." Basically, consumer dollars from around the world are not gradually creating a gentler, freer, more prosperous and more modern China at all. They are making the Chinese Communist Party richer, stronger, bolder and more aggressive and repressive in every respect. To the question: knowing what the human rights situation is in China, and that consumer dollars and euros flowing into the country from abroad is making things worse, not better, is it at all ethical to buy electronics or IT products manufactured in China?
I think the poster should take the log out their eye, because the US is no better! Massive amounts of homelessness, 50% of bankruptcies due to healthcare costs, something that is considered a basic human right in the rest of the western world. MUCH higher prison population per capita than any other country. The government is literally stealing social security. Gerrymandering making elections all but a foregone conclusion. Voter suppression that isn't very different than ballot box stuffing that happens in Russia. I think this is the single stupidest post ever on slashdot.
Everyone is living in a personal delusion, just some are more delusional than others.
i do but its not always available even at a higher cost. and cost is part of the real equation.
This is something I often run into. For example, take the ubiquitous smart RGB LEDs like the WS2812 or APA102. They're great little devices that cost 15 cents or so and very useful for a lot of applications, but no one in the U.S. makes a comparable product at even 10 times the price, so you kinda *have* to get them from China if you want addressable RGB blinkenlights that fit in a 5050 form factor. TI makes some RGB controller chips, but they're not nearly as flexible or capable and don't have the controller and LEDs in a single package.
It may be because the Chinese companies have patents on them in the U.S., but that brings up another problem - in the U.S., intellectual property on such things is usually respected because the courts will smack you down if you don't. In China, it's a free-for-all (despite their government saying otherwise), with outright counterfeits (complete with counterfeit branding) being allowed to be imported into the U.S. You can't compete with that kind of tilted playing field.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
So you're fine with Israel's oppression and human rights abuses but not China's? Where do you draw the line exactly?
If a country has worse abuses than China can we start buying chinese goods again?
Given USA is the worlds top jailer and starter of elective never ending wars costing hundreds of thousands of lives I'm down with BDS China so long as the rest of the world does the same to the United States.
So as the USA pays minimal wage that is below an actual living wage, the rest of the world should put on a tariffs on goods from the USA.
is that what your telling us?
So as the USA pays minimal wage that is below an actual living wage, the rest of the world should put on a tariffs on goods from the USA.
is that what your telling us?
Yep. If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. I'm not proud of American wages or employment.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nothing will happen any time soon because for most Chinese people things are improving rapidly, and they are are happy about it. I've seen the house where my wife grew up - it's made of stone, no windows, no plumbing... And now her mother lives in a seven story mansion, as do most of her old neighbours.
The Communist Party knows that things will have to keep changing though, if they want to avoid the firing squad forever. It will be interesting to see which direction they go with it. In some ways Hong Kong is an experiment for them, to see what the mainland's future could be like.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC