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Comment by random5634 | Hacker News Reader

Definitely a pretty new concept.

I worked a paper route growing up, did lawns and opened a store in the morning before school. My first paycheck (was printed on a dot matrix printer and paid in cash) I framed and put on the wall.

Making great money now - and I loved those jobs.

The news here is that apple cut off a subcontractor. It does take time to shift supply chains. I wish these folks trashing apple spent even 10% of their effort on the cheapo android phone companies. Environment, device longevity, privacy, supply chain issues etc - I'm convinced some of these activists are getting funding from these crap companies because they turn such a blind eye to what is rampant and truly terrible behavior in other supply chains.

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> I'm convinced some of these activists are getting funding from these crap companies

Apple is the world's most powerful company. What makes you say that you believe those responding with outrage at the use of child labor at this company means they are 'funded' activists?

> I wish these folks trashing apple spent even 10% of their effort on the cheapo android phone companies.

And here we're back to that magic word, whataboutism.

The Android Market is largely dominated by Samsung and a bunch of Chinese players (Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, One Plus, etc.). I haven't seen people use a Google phone since forever. Samsung has already left China, and is only involving the Chinese supply chain at an arms' length. The other firms will continue their abhorrent practices anyways.

The point of the article is that Apple, being an American company, constantly extolling about virtuous they are, took a bit too long to shift. Sure, it's justifiable and even inevitable to take that long. But people tend to hold trillion dollar American companies to a much higher standard than they do a bunch of Chinese copycats. Yes, they should hold Google to the same standards too if it happened, but it would be impossible to do anything against the Chinese firms but fart in the wind since they practically don't care enough to change.

The number one way to reduce child labor is to empower (economically) poor, rural families. A lot of child labor is coming from families without resources / reduced education coming from rural to more urban areas.

You are pretty clueless about supply chains. A ton of companies pay lip service to supply chain ethics, but do nothing in reality. To actually drop a significant supply chain supplier is pretty major in this space, even if it takes 3 years to spin up a new supplier with capital build out (necessary at Apple's scale), QC, integration etc.

I'm not saying whataboutism. I am saying this story shows that if you care about ethics, Apple is probably one of the few firms out there willing to make these kind of major decisions.

Apparel - it's all a lie in terms of the ethics pledges. Kimberly process for diamonds - badly manipulated - so again a lie in large measure. The list goes on. I could go on. There's a reason I bought a mad made diamond for my wife.

I am saying that you and these other western whiners seem to have no clue about the rest of the world. And if this is the reason you are going to dump apple - I feel bad for you, and everyone who will be abused to give you the cheap crap you end up buying. Because this story is not a bad story for apple in the global supply chain game. And it's super frustrating to see these endless stories that have become almost a joke.

This reminds me of something I read in college that's similar to this essay: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/151544657.pdf

First of all there's no need to call us names "Western Whiners", "clueless" and all. Second, I'm not Western either. Third, I'm not an Apple user.

With that out of the way, the number one way to empower children is not to send them to factories but to give them an education. Make them part of a system where their basic needs are taken care of (free Healthcare, education, school meals). Your basis of "empower economically" is pointless if their monetary gains come at the cost of social development.

This is a very western mindset - if a family is starving, they will put children to work EVEN IF you are demanding they be educated. Even if that's the law. They in some cases sell their children to even worse outcomes. This has been shown to happen over and over again.

A ton of drug eradication programs have had this fight as well. Their message, don't cultivate - starve. And they wonder why normal people fight them.

But go ahead and keep on parachuting in with your demands on people barely scraping by.

If a family is starving, it's the responsibility of the state to ensure that they do not starve. If the state forces the families to send their kids to factories, then that's a failure of the state. China being China, there's no surprise there.

Nobody is asking for the people themselves to starve, or blaming those forced to work in factories. Every one here is calling out the Chinese government for enabling such an environment where it's either starvation or bust, or Apple for effectively funding that environment. Seems like that's a difference you simply can't grasp, or you disingenuously don't want to.

It's not a Western mindset btw, it's the policy that has been working in a number of countries including most recently Bangladesh and Indonesia.

You really are making clear you have NEVER worked in poverty relief issues or traveled internationally.

It's kind of horrifying. Do you realize that 20%+ of children are so badly nourished they are stunted? The impacts this will have on their entire life and development?

Not everyone country is your well developed western country where the state provides food to everyone.

This is kind of scary to see on HN - programmers should really travel more (I'm a dual citizen with pretty extensive travel AND WORK in much much poorer areas).

"Apple for effectively funding that [starvation or bust] environment".

Heads up. Apple is one of the FEW western companies to actually cut off chinese suppliers for violating supply chain codes ($ lost, not just lipservice). I have no idea what you are talking about in terms of apple funding child exploitation. You are probably buying chinese made goods including those made with essentially forced labor. Do you not understand the situation in these countries? That US and European countries CONTINUE to sign new trade deals despite horrific labor and other abuses?

In all likelihood Apple factories, and even the factories of third party suppliers working for them, are probably one the least likely (not most) factories in china to be employing child labor as a result of apples efforts.

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