Hacker News Reader

Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Apple are hypocrites.

It's obvious that traffickers use any means to ply their trade, be it in people, drugs and other illegal activities. They will use FB, IG and apple solutions.

But Apple talks the talk about exploitation but keeps seeking the China market and continues to leverage Chinese manufacturing knowing well that China engages in activities that were they done in any US state or Western country, Apple would have a fit and would threaten to pull offices, staff and cease doing business as well as contributing to local opposition voices because they want to be part of the change--but they do none of that in China and, in effect, add the the problem.

Anyway, are Apple going to now refuse to sell phones to traffickers or run of the mill felons too lest they enable these baddies?

View on HN

If by "activities" you mean slavery/forced labour. Then you should make a distinction between US and other western countries. The US constitution allows for forced labour as a punishment in prison, and is also readily used, with at least 18% of inmates "employed" by UNICOR. If you wish to morally object to forced labour in other countries, it falls flat on my ears if you imply that it is "as opposed to how US conducts itself".

That said, China is doing bad stuff, checks out. Apple is complicit in benefiting from it, sure. So this isn't an objection to that, just to the "that wouldn't fly in the US"-hypocrisy.

Agreed. But there is a very important difference. In China you don't have to be convicted of a crime to be sent to labor camps/re-education camps. I think that's an important difference.

You know that people in the US can spend a year in jail waiting for their trial, right? People keep making up arbitrary reasons why US=good and other country=bad just to justify their existing belief.

And what about forced education for children in the US? Nobody bats an eye at that, except the victims themselves.

Nowhere did I say anything about good or bad. That’s you making judgements.

All I’m saying is Apple says one thing in one context and another in a different one, but they are not dissimilar so in effect they are hypocrites and don’t mean what they say and their values are relative.

Oh bad bad exploitation! Oh, but in China… never mind, we’ll just mind our own business…

You said that being convicted before being imprisoned was an important difference. Maybe you didn't mean good vs bad but I'm claiming that difference is neither important nor even exists. It's just arbitrarily made up to put a dividing line between China and the US. No matter how similar two countries are, you can always find some difference and claim that it's important.

I agree that Apple and all the other big techs say contradictory moral nonsense. They're just trying to please the public but the public itself has internally contradictory standards even with the same individuals so it's impossible for Apple to really make any sense unless it's willing to alienate everyone.

From a philosophical point of view, the difference isn't as big as you might think. After all, "convicted of a crime" is arbitrarily defined by the ruling party. And the US is no champion of a morally correct implementation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com