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Comment by darau1 | Hacker News Reader

I know a guy that bought every new Samsung flagship device as soon as they hit stores. He said he just has to upgrade.

I wonder sometimes how can people reconcile buying a new X every Y and still be concerned about human rights and the environment, etc.

Human rights?

That's kind of a tenuous link at best. You could make the case that buying more increases the opportunities for those at the bottom.

I'm not even necessarily making a factual statement here, but personally I don't feel that there's anything to reconcile.

A lot of raw materials that go into modern electronics are produced using slave labor, and the “recycled” devices tend to end up poisoning the environments of people in similarly disadvantaged communities.

I don’t know enough about these things to know whether buying more or less of these devices directly helps enslaved people, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to observe that rampant consumerism does fuel the postcolonial economic machine that perpetrates that kind of exploitation. And I think that those of us who stand to benefit the most from this system would do well to be extremely cautious about how we are incentivized toward motivated reasoning.

It's also important to recognize consumerism has driven a lot of innovation which has benefited humanity. I venture to say one of the most impactful advancements in human history is providing access to the internet in almost every spot on the globe. That was influenced at least in part by so many people owning smart phones.

A sufficiently technologically advanced human species might be the only thing capable of stopping the next extinction event. Something that will almost certainly occur naturally without any intervention.

Hmm. A sufficiently technologically advanced human species may greatly accelerate the arrival of the next extinction event.

Sure, but another extinction event without humans is more or less inevitable - with humans it may be preventable.

So our choices appear to be wait for the bad thing to happen or continue to drive each other to improve and learn, which consumerism does in fact provide great motive and drive for humans to improve (although not the only mechanism, I'm sure, just a large one we understand today). Hopefully we strike the right balance and solve these problems.

I always worry a little when something is both the purported solution to and the primary cause of a problem.

> A lot of raw materials that go into modern electronics are produced using slave labor,

Can you confirm this for Apple products? I couldn't find anything recent.

Ok. Well there's 2 elements here, the factual and emotional.

Factually you could argue either way. I suppose broadly you could say that industrialisation is bad for those at the bottom in the short term. But after the hump things get better. Is that pain reasonable? Is it avoidable? Are we morally obligated to avoid it? Are all somewhat open questions.

The GP used the word 'reconcile' which to me is a more emotional metric. Personally I don't make the link (rightly or wrongly) between me buying X and person Y suffering. So personally I don't have anything to reconcile. That is a correct answer. It isn't the answer, but as an answer to the GP, it is legitimate.

I can also see it being a reasonable answer to say that in buying Congolese cobalt you are helping the country industrialise, which in the long term is a good thing. Again you may disagree with the reasoning or morality but it seems to me a legitimate way of reconciliation.

You tell yourself you're allowing someone else to enjoy (nth-)last years X and Y at a lower price point, being subsidised by your use first.

Everyone can reconcile almost anything, practically humanity's superpower. It's rare the person that fails to - on any issue. I think we all do it all the time for most issues.

"So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do."

-Benjamin Franklin

Both is to raise your social status among your “friends”.

I wonder sometimes how can people reconcile buying a new X ever and still be concerned about human rights and the environment, etc.

I expect that most people buy what they want and human rights and the environment are just something they discuss online.

Probably true, though to different degrees for different folks. I've always taken joy in holding out for the right component upgrades for my PC and related gear to get the best bang for the buck and biggest leaps in performance. It's a lineage that's been going since 2000 or so, where at least one part always gets carried forward, and the rest is gifted or sold at steep discount. It started as me trying to get the most from my limited money, but decades later it's more about minimizing the guilt of frivolous e-waste. My last phone of 5 years sadly got the boot from my carrier, forcing an upgrade. I know I've seen other people take pride in their slow/picky upgrades, too.

Sometime this also happens in person.

Also being shamed for everything you do as bad for the environment or bad for human right does not work.

How do you know any of them even are actually concerned about those issues and don't just give lip service (if even that)?

So by only buying a new X every zY you’re somehow showing more concern about human rights?

Because it's not an individuals buying decisions harming those things? Those are the result of governments and corporations.

I'm not going to buy a new phone today and it sounds like you probably won't either, I'll check back in tomorrow and see how the environment is doing!

I would hate it if everyone (or even many people) did this, but it's nice to know someone outside of Samsung has tried them all, but then again, I guess you wouldn't ncessarily get very neutral reviews from such a person.

Well, I doubt he's had a bad experience because I don't think he ever has one long enough for it to start showing signs of age.

I know a guy who does this with Apple products. Half monthly salary for a phone for a year sounds extreme to me. Plus all the gimmicks that come with the phone - pad, phones and watch.

Admittedly there are tradeins. I know someone who does a fair bit of reviewing of camera gear including smartphone cameras. His approach seems to generally be to effectively rent a phone for a year.

With that said, I generally go for 3 years and use the older phone to drive my stereo, sometimes act as a travel spare, etc.

Wouldn’t be my choice for sure. But he presumably sells the old one.

At least Apple products hold their value pretty well. I'm only just now starting to think about upgrading my 2015 Macbook Pro and it looks like I could still get $400 for it. A year old Apple device probably gets at least 60% of its MSRP back when sold.

I wouldn't do it personally (see me still using a >7 year old Macbook), but they're likely not dropping anywhere near the full MSRP every year, after they sell the old one.

Meanwhile, I've had three gaming Windows laptops during that same time, and two of them literally fell apart (one I kept using until enough of the plastic frame around the monitor cracked that I could no longer keep it in place with binder clips). The most recent one (ASUS ROG Strix G15) is still doing well, but I've only had it for about two years at this point.

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