Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

99% chance the people complaining about labor conditions are doing so on a made in China phone.

Let’s be honest, people complaining about labor conditions have a pretty weak understanding of economics and what is actually going on with regards to these factories. China isn’t stupid. They weaken their currency specifically to bring in the cheap labor jobs to lift the poorest to a slightly less poor tier. Unless you realize how poor they started out with it’s hard to appreciate the gains in wealth even if it still looks dirt poor to an armchair labor rights activist.

View on HN

>99% chance the people complaining about labor conditions are doing so on a made in China phone.

Is there any other option?

Don't stop people from complaining about lead in the water supply, just because they have nothing else to drink.

I'd be willing to bet that many who complain about "labor conditions" being too poor would still rather preserve a $200 discount on their phone instead. But having come from poverty, most people complaining about labor conditions on behalf of poor people have never experienced poverty themselves. It's possible for a capitalist society to have actors that willfully exploit people, but it is not the default that simply employing the poorest people equates to exploitation. People are just whiny that jobs are being lost to someone poorer.

I think you can get a Fairphone in some parts of the world (Europe). But it's not a particularly viable option in the USA.

This kind of reminds me of the plot of The Good Place [spoiler warning] -- in the show it's essentially impossible to get to Heaven because every decision you make has transitive dependencies on awful labor practices, abusive behaviors, and other unseemly things. So everyone ends up in Hell.

I don't think using a smartphone built with evil labor practices is inherently evil. But buying one every year when you could use one for 5 years is probably a bit evil.

> have a weak understanding of economics

Economists hardly understand the economy, so I’d say they’re in good company…

Jokes aside, demanding better treatment of workers and onshoring of jobs doesn’t seem as insane as people here are making it seem? This whole thread feels kind of irrelevant.

> 99% chance the people complaining about labor conditions are doing so on a made in China phone.

99% of everyone has a phone made in China, does this mean it's not possible to complain about the state of the world we live in?

Not while you are literally voting with your dollars to preserve that status quo.

Especially when said iPhone assemblers aren't even complaining about their work conditions as much as some clueless American... if one is going to complain, complain about one's own conditions, or something one actually knows about...

It's not a vote if there is practically only one option.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com