Haha… fair enough, living in a war-torn country I’ve gotten to the point where I can usually “just tell” or already have a lot of information anyways
Exactly! this is my point, small victories.
DHH is a bigot, that is true, but also, he’s an open-source developer, and giving money to him is not unethical in the slightest, he’s your run-of-the-mill conservative and he’s making libre software free for all that doesn’t benefit him in the slightest.
Now, let’s go look at HP, Microsoft & Dell. I won’t sugarcoat it, they enable killing children for profit, this is the honest truth and there’s no way around it.
Buying Framework is absolutely the right thing to do for those who can afford it, not just for the e-waste aspect but for many other reasons. I’d like to do the same with my photography, buying any camera might be giving money to Sony, but if I buy a camera that stands to make them the least amount of profit as possible, from a more “local” company like Aizu’s SIGMA that designs and produces in-house, I believe it would be better.
Well, you’re not wrong, but I just don’t consider DHH to account to much of anything in the grand scheme of capital. If one open-source developer with bad opinions is worth thinking over a financial decision about, then I can’t imagine what that would mean for the alternatives which end up actually hurting people.
When I grappled with this issue a while ago, I concluded that the most ethical thing to do, is using equipment as long as possible, and buying used equipment wherever possible.
I have since drifted away from that notion a bit. I need to choose battles that maximize my impact for the limited effort budget that I have. The societal impact of my camera gear is simply not worth the trouble (to me!).
We don’t own a car, we home-cook, we eat very little meat, and almost no beef. I maintain Open Source software, and try to be a helpful person in general. We (hopefully) raise well-behaved children. These are angles that I hope have a bigger impact, and are where my effort is best spent.
On the flip side, I maintain my sanity with nice tech gear and regular vacations.
But that’s just me. No judgement here. I applaud you for your efforts towards a saner, less-suffering world. Do you apply the same rigor to the rest of your life?
Perhaps these companies were unlucky enough not to be selected in the tenders to supply death machines? Perhaps the bribes paid were insufficient? Perhaps they are in the process of being bought out by a bigger shark?
I generally assume that those companies without obvious ethical issues just have a very good PR department or are small enough to fly under the radar of investigative reporters who prefer to target the big fish.
Capitalism is, at best, amoral. Most companies will do whatever they can within the law to improve their profitability. While I’d like to expect better ethical standards, it’s probably unrealistic of me to expect companies to do more than make ethical noises and respect the law.
You want better? Ask your government to make it a legal requirement.
I did just a short research on Pentax. Owned by Ricoh Imaging Company, Ltd, owned by Ricoh Company, Ltd., which sells office equipment to the US military. Is this “ethical”? But at least they claim to prohibit their products from being used for developing WMDs.
I just want to underline this. While this thread is bound to ruffle a few feathers and provoke a few heated discussions, I do think there’s a worthy goal behind it.
Personally, I consider it one of my failings that I don’t actually do much when it comes to my ethical ideals. I do a lot of griping and wishing things were different, but I find it so emotionally draining, exhausting and ultimately fruitless. I hate many aspects of capitalism and modern governance, but I feel rather helpless. So, to keep my sanity and enjoyment of life, I just try to do a little where I can.
I try to buy from companies that seem to want a better world, like Patagonia (cue someone telling me that they’re not great after all!), and I vote for candidates whose ideals align best with mine. But the rabbit hole is so deep, and the problems so huge, that I don’t have the energy to take it much further than some token efforts here and there.
I do not want to promote giving up, however. We do what we can, and I always strive to do better.
The system is designed to grind and wear you down. If you read any good information about fighting fascism it always says: work locally, take care of yourself and those around you. Do the little things. Big sweeping changes just don’t come, but they’re the accumulated motion of many many small actions.
Obvious tip from an American: don’t let them take universal healthcare from you.
Yes! I usually buy less-than-excellent used goods, like my laptop with a cracked screen that would have been otherwise thrown out - we home-cook, I maintain open-source software through being an alpha tester (I currently run a pre-release Linux distribution and am in touch with its developers) and evangelize it to my loved ones when possible
Well, I don’t see why ethical hardware can’t be nice, the Sigma fp L is among my dream cameras and I’ve always thought of the K-1 Mark II as one of the nicest full-frames ever made
All very much reasonable speculations, but during my (admittedly not the most thorough) research, it doesn’t seem like any of this is happening or has happened
the worst offender out of the three could possibly be OMS, because they are owned by JIP, and private equities tend to be the worst of humanity, but JIP doesn’t seem to be up to nonsense
“ethical” enough, as of the Japanese penetration of the US domestic market circa the 1960s it is near impossible to stop their US-based suppliers to go after lucrative deals with the federal government, I’d say Canon probably does too - the US has no equivalent companies
as far as I’m concerned, Pentax doesn’t do shady stuff with their money like Fujifilm, or outright using sensors made illegally on “blood-soil”