Of course people know that most stuff is made in China, so what? Most people who hated Microsoft were still forced to be their customer, most people who dislike Facebook and Google don’t have much of a choice, and so on.
We can’t be expected to live in a cave and throw away what allows us to work and communicate/whatever for the sake of protesting that it’s bad, especially when it means you have no way to have a voice.
Seen many communists not buying stuff or not using bank accounts lately? Are anarchists being hipocritical for having YouTube channels?
It’s not our goddamn fault the very serious people ignore the bleeding obvious consequences of the last 30 years of “free” trade and deregulation, but I’m not going to be materially poor for the sake of being a paragon of virtue. I have enough shit to deal with that I can have an actual impact on.
It would also be trivial to circumvent. Just create a Corp in Luxembourg that licenses all your IP and use that to do business in China. Or, more likely, just move your business all together.
I know this wasn’t meant to actually be answered but I can’t resist: yes (though not for that specific cause), not completely but I did switch to Brave and DuckDuckGo, and yes.
We’re interconnected enough in the modern world that it’s pretty well impossible to completely avoid bad actors. Our governments do bad things, the companies we use range from morally questionable to completely evil, we ourselves are imperfect humans. My take on the situation is that we need to put pressure on decision makers where we can. Just because perfection isn’t a reasonable goal doesn’t mean we shouldn’t push for progress.
There’s a lot of ways that pressure can happen: political pressure for regulation, popular pressure via social media, economic pressure via boycotts, and I’m sure many more. No one can do them all, and it’s folly to even try as an individual, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t happen. Support the people who are making the effort, even if it’s nothing more than hitting a “like” or two.
So in cases like this Blizzard thing, for those who are cancelling accounts and similar boycott measures, good on you. Those calling them out on social media, good on you. Those who want to push for government regulation that would address these situations, good on you too. I see no profit in fighting over which approach is better, they all have merit to some degree. And every little bit helps, when you’re trying to interject some morality into the economics.
China is a huge market, but they’re also extremely corrupt and their economy is a house of cards built on the party’s bullshit “5 year plans”. The trade war could collapse it. This would be catastrophic for the whole world, as their supply chain is foundational to many industries, triggering worldwide recessions, cats n’ dogs living together, apocalyptic stuff, etc. That’s why it’s important to apply global pressure to play fair, stop their IP practices, cleanse the corruption, and ultimately become a democratic global citizen like Taiwan. Well, maybe 2021.
Even if they did a stance reversal, I wouldn’t forgive at this point. The level of severity and speed this happened showed to me where their true loyalties are from now on.
Uragh, this is so fucking vapid. “Most” who are anti “China”…yeah it only gets worse from there. If someone is anti “China” as you put it, it probably means they are more specifically against the CCP and would be informed enough to sink the rest of your silly stupid as hell post.
You’re grossly overestimating the importance of China, just because it’s where most stuff in the US was most recently. It is important, but not irreversibly entwined with US livelihood.
The reality is China exports are mostly assembly for your common white goods, with most components from elsewhere. A more accurate observation is that China is around 5-10% of the valued added of manufactured goods in many US homes, with the rest in east Asia allies and design in the US/EU. China does the easiest part to replace - jamming it all together before it goes in the box.
The real estate market comment is relevant if you are in a major city in the US, but unlikely a big factor for most other Americans.
In my lifetime, there were the Japanese, and then the Arabs, periods when they seem to be buying up the whole world and that the world cant do without what they produced.
That’ll give us some perspectives. But then again, the US of those days was not the self-loathing, post-modernist deconstructionist cultural rot I see with your youths today. And while US used to dwarf her foes, she’s now herself facing a giant in China.
Edit: I hope US can get out of the depressive self hate and be proud of her accomplishments. People need a strong liberal (classical definition) democracy to show them what is strength despite weakness, beauty among ugliness and unity among diverse views. the American system may be flawed, but it’s the best of the worst.
Edit2: For the pedantic, I know US is a Republic. But I’m using language as among pals. Not writing a political essay.
