Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

"Especially galling is how many are gleefully eager to dance on my grave expressly so they can return to ignoring everything about the circumstances under which their devices are made. Given the tone, you would think I had fabulated an elaborate hoax, filled with astonishing horrors that no one had ever seen before."

I think that's a really important, fair point. Whatever this guy lied about with regard to his personal experiences in China, those things are minor compared to the truth of the situation. I really wish he hadn't done that. He didn't need to lie -- the story is so fundamentally awful that it stands without the minor things he fabricated. But now people are dismissing the whole message.

The dramatic indignation in the other comments in this thread is predictable, unenlightening, and unhelpful -- far more heat than light. The most dangerous thing about this controversy is that people will take knee-jerk reactions to Daisey as an indication that nothing is wrong with the world of electronics. And that's a tragedy, in the most traditional sense of the word.

Therein lies the great irony. By partaking in intellectual dishonesty, Mike Daisey has created an unnecessary sideshow that is stealing away the spotlight from the real issue.

I'm bothered, in part, by the fact that Apple is the target in all these attacks. There are some very large questions on the table here, and Apple is but one player. Arguably, they're putting the most effort in to trying to improve. Where's the outrage for Samsung? For HTC? For Dell?

How about western consumers? Even those of us who are aware of the issues, yet somehow find a way to resolve spending $499 on our latest 9.7 inches of retina exploitation? Even further, what happens to the world economy without $300/month labor by the millions?

I guess a narrative needs a villain. I just hope that everyone maintains some sense of perspective. We're not talking about the practices of one corporation here. We're talking about a major component of consumerist culture. That's the conversation, and it's being ignored at every turn.

Absolutely agreed. Daisey lied about some relatively minor stuff (in the big picture), so the attack is against Mike Daisey.

The straw man is dead. Long live the straw man.

The most dangerous thing about this controversy is that people will take knee-jerk reactions to Daisey as an indication that nothing is wrong with the world of electronics.

What's more dangerous is what this suggests the proper reaction is to be. You're right, it is a tragedy that the message people take away from this might be that things aren't as bad over there as we hear. And it's a tragedy of his own doing because he directly contributed to that message by telling us things that weren't true.

I guess nobody told him the story of the boy who cried wolf when he was little.

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