The other two examples – not so much.
1. The validity of the argument isn't affected by whether one is a hypocrite. If Apple is indeed behaving unethically, it's still behaving unethically even if I own an iPhone. If Apple isn't behaving unethically, then you should be able to argue that on grounds other than "you bought an iPhone." The poster in this case made specific, refutable claims - that Apple dodges taxes and can't pay decent wages to their Chinese factory workers. A legitimate counterargument is that they don't in fact dodge taxes or do in fact pay decent wages (or perhaps that their current behavior is okay), not an attack on the person making the argument.
2. Apple products are not a necessity, but in the current era, a smartphone is very close to a necessity (yes, there are people who steadfastly avoid them, and there are also people who live in the forest, that's not what "necessity" means). And there are relatively few options for good smartphones, none of which come from morally blameless companies. (Personally, I find security valuable, and Apple has the best track record of producing phones with long-term security support, which means you can buy fewer Apple products than anything else.) It might be hypocritical to buy a product from company X while steadfastly believing that company X is behaving unethically, but it's hardly a sign that you don't in fact believe that company X behaves unethically. You might simply have weight the alternatives and decided that buying from company X is the best of several bad options.
2. If I truly believed Apple and every other smartphone manufacturer was causing human suffering to produce their smartphones, my own morality would dictate that my "need" for a smartphone still does not justify the purchase of one. It's a null point to me though, because A. I don't actually believe that Apple's manufacturing practices are "wrong", and B. I know plenty of successful people that get by without smartphones in the current era.
The alternative to a smart phone is a feature phone made in a similar factory, and the alternative to that is a landline, also made in a similar factory, and the alternative to all that is maybe a laptop with VoIP, also made in a similar factory... It's exploitation all the way down.
When the markets only way to offer prosperity to some is to exploit and shaft others, while maintaining the position of elite classes, there is a problem.
Just because the alternative is potential death, it does not excuse exploitative practices.
That doesn't mean anyone doing them is being "exploited". And if that is your definition of exploitation, you've reduced the word to be effectively meaningless.
Examples and why would you prefer not to do them? Are they legally allowed in your country anymore? Is there a reason for that? Perhaps because they are now considered exploitative?
> That doesn't mean anyone doing them is being "exploited". And if that is your definition of exploitation, you've reduced the word to be effectively meaningless.
It sounds to me like you don't even have "exploitation" in your vocabulary, as your bar is so low, you wouldn't consider anything exploitative.
Literally multi-nationals exploit labor law differences to extract cost savings, and obfuscated supply chains to launder the blood off the raw materials they put into products. This is exploitative. Perhaps you should just come to terms with the fact that you are OK with it.
It's not relevant when the problem is collective.
Your opinion (2) doesn't make any sense to me, because if you did grant that the manufacture of all smartphones involves massive human suffering, how could manufacturing of everything else not?
(But to the actual point - it's hard to infer whether someone "cares enough" about their beliefs. I personally care about Apple's labor practices; I also care a lot about Google's security practices, which are also contributing to serious human rights violations in China. I'm allowed to care about more than one thing at once.)
I think I mixed up things in my head, sorry - I don't think there's a claim of that exploit being used in China in particular. (I was probably confusing it with https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-very-deep-d... / https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/31/china-google-iphone-uyghur... , which is about iOS, in fact - but IMO there's a big difference between new bugs being discovered and "CVE-2019-2215 permits attackers to fully compromise a device with only untrusted app access or a browser renderer exploit and despite the patch being available in the upstream Linux kernel, it was left unpatched in Android devices for almost 2 years." I don't think either Apple or Google is doing an adequate job here at all, but Apple still seems to be a bit better, between the options.)
His point is the first part ... i don't believe the reservoir of oil is the issue, but the lack of progress towards a greener future. We have no other choice, and little control over government, beyond peaceful criticisms.
So let it be.
Don't pick and choose, own up. Im sure there’s a latin phrase to what you do, too, but were not here to squabble! Not during these times ..
Apple products are not a necessity but cell phones pretty much are today. And nearly all phones are made in countries with looser labor and environmental laws than we'd accept in Western nations.
A minority of rich can extract the planets resources.
The species does not have to abide that minorities ideological demands literally.
Avoiding figurative harm of the self righteous is walking the path authoritarianism.
A big number in a bank DB is not irrefutable proof of value to the species.
Westerners and the monied are outnumbered. Environmental collapse from chewing up resources for disposable shit that rots, doesn’t last for the next generation, does not have to be tolerated.
Maybe if we just focused on making sure our biological similarities are cared for as a society, we’d have more time to wank our customized imaginings of our individual importance in private, but otherwise be unable to achieve political leverage to drive us off a cliff, leaving others to stably consider their ideas.
But no... we have to bend over to pleasure the grifter class.