Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Moral Quandaries: Who can I buy a computer from without feeling like a soulless douche basket?

I feel gross about Apple computers in a lot of ways. I hate to think of the underage kids in China living in Orwellian dorms, standing for hours to build iPhones and using poisonous chemicals to clean iPad screens.

I also do not enjoy seeing kids over here constantly glued to their iPods/Pads/Paninis (coming in 2016). I worry for them. It's tough enough making friends as a kid. I worry that these increasingly slim pieces of technology will allow the shyer kids to wall themselves off from other people before they've even had the chance to try developing some social skills. 

All of that said; there's one thing I have to give to Apple: Apple products automatically lower the volume to non-deafening levels when you plug in headphones.

If this is possible, WHY DON'T PCS INCLUDE THIS? It can't be about respecting Apple's design—those computer dudes copy off each other all the time. I'm looking at you, Apple. You know you took Xerox's computer design way back in the day. 

This makes me think the guys at Microsoft hate people who frequently forget to turn the volume down when plugging in headphones, and have a secret plot to slowly deafen us all.

So when I buy my next computer, I have to buy it from a corporation who horribly treats its Chinese child employees, or one who gets off on gradually deafening the innocent masses (and probably is also no stranger to crappy treatment of Chinese employees). These are the moral quandaries we face as consumers, I guess. 

I'd buy a typewriter but I'm pretty sure Zooey Deschanel has them—literally all of them—stored in a warehouse painted with polka dots somewhere.

6 comments:

  1. Honestly all of the computer hardware manufacturers use the same base products and re-brand them. There is no way of escaping the guilt of buying electronics made with child labor. Apple is just higher-profile than a lot of other companies. That being said, Toshiba, Acer, and Lenovo make some decent laptops. None of them will ever have as nice of a track pad as Apple laptops.

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    1. Thanks for the honest opinion! Very helpful.

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  2. I'm a PC girl myself, but it's more for practical compatibility reasons. That, and PCs are way cheaper. And I still don't have an iPod. ...Does my lack of an iPod, twitter, facebook, blog, and cool techy phone make me super weird? I get the feeling it does, anymore.

    I will say technology is making it worse for shy kids, I think. They think they're better off because they can make internet friends! But later, they won't be able to make regular friends...

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    1. I have an old, shitty phone too! Verizon keeps sending me emails wondering why I haven't upgraded yet. I used to just have my Fictionpress account and a personal Facebook page I barely ever checked online. But having a web presence has become pretty important for writers, so I've had to move with the times.

      Exactly! My social skills are terrible as they are--I probably wouldn't even be able to speak coherent words if I'd had a childhood of internet friends.

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  3. If you forget to lower the volume when plugging in headphones, consider that a character-building life lesson.

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    1. You made me laugh--thank you for that, mystery sir or madam.

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