Iphone 5 To Be Announced Sept 12!
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scotttswan
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Thereandbackagain
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anjuna11 said:
I am happy that you enjoy your Apple Products. Nevertheless it frightens me how low moral values are these days. Satisfied customers justify human rights abuse? You can`t be serious on this, are you? And off course its always the others who are to blame, never the own behaviour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jOgRpO5i94
I'm that mythical person who converted to Apple, hated it and went back to Windows.
2½ years I had my iMac and never was I so glad to get rid of a computer. It was rubbish - forever crashing or slowing down to almost a halt. Intuitive? Absolute bollox - I've been a computer user (win, linux, various mainframes) for 30 years and found OSX to be a complete pain in the arris.
I'm currently using a 5 year old Win PC with a pentium processor and 2GB of RAM and it blows the iMac into the weeds.
2½ years I had my iMac and never was I so glad to get rid of a computer. It was rubbish - forever crashing or slowing down to almost a halt. Intuitive? Absolute bollox - I've been a computer user (win, linux, various mainframes) for 30 years and found OSX to be a complete pain in the arris.
I'm currently using a 5 year old Win PC with a pentium processor and 2GB of RAM and it blows the iMac into the weeds.
scotttswan
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Thereandbackagain said:
I can't talk my dells are made in the same factory
nicoenarg
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Wow. This is new. Pro/against Apple argument on BAExpats.
Thereandbackagain, I agree with your arguments about how low our moral standards can be sometimes. But don't we all take part in Chinese slave labor, in one way or another, by buying clothes made in China, toys, furniture, kitchen appliances, etc etc. Sometimes all that is available as an option for one to buy is a product assembled or completely designed from scratch in China.
Why should only Apple users be ashamed or embarassed? Why not all of us? Afterall, we created the market for Chinese goods in the first place, Apple and its fanboys didn't do it "single-handedly".
Secondly, and this might be a sore issue for many, but is it not a possibility that the Chinese workers knew what conditions they were going to be working under? Why is it our responsibility to make their lot "better" when they (if that is how it actually is) themselves chose this for themselves? I believe one is responsible for whatever consequences follow once one signs on the dotted line after making an informed decision. It is possible that the Chinese workers have the brain capacity to read a contract and KNOW what they are getting themselves into, is it not?
Again, like I said, I don't know if they were given a choice, but if they were then they chose their lot. I don't know whether they even have contracts or if they are just abducted from the provinces of China and thrown into factories. Looking forward to be enlightened on that.
Now as for whether iOS, Android or Windows Phone is better. Out of the three, my personal opinion is that Windows Phone is way better. However, currently I use an iPhone which does what its supposed to do very well too.
I am writing this post on a Windows 7 PC and I have a MacBook Pro sitting next to me. I used to have ArchBang (Linux) on one of the partitions of my PC (don't have it anymore). What I have noticed is that Apple tries to control everything and you have to basically use what is given to you. Not a lot of freedom right off the bat. There is a learning curve if you use OSX after using Windows for a long time but if you can get used to it and learn to give up all control, then OSX is a very good system.
Linux requires you to know it all or at least most of it right off the bat (except Ubuntu is changing that now). There is a huge learning curve but there is enough help available out there to be able to figure things out. There is a lot of freedom. Personally, I am not impressed with Linux (PC, not talking about corporate and server editions) because it is basically run and developed by fanboys and lacks in terms of simple things that the general computer user demands (again, Ubuntu, and even Linux Mint, are on the right track, if only they can make up their minds on what desktop to use).
Windows is somewhere in the middle. Windows gives you control and it also does a lot of things for you. People complain about viruses. Well if your computer keeps getting infected with viruses all the freakin time, then that's your fault, not Windows'. I prefer Windows over any other system basically because of the software support but also because of familiarity.
EDIT: I don't care, for the most part, where things are made. A war with China is not on my things-to-do list.
Thereandbackagain, I agree with your arguments about how low our moral standards can be sometimes. But don't we all take part in Chinese slave labor, in one way or another, by buying clothes made in China, toys, furniture, kitchen appliances, etc etc. Sometimes all that is available as an option for one to buy is a product assembled or completely designed from scratch in China.
Why should only Apple users be ashamed or embarassed? Why not all of us? Afterall, we created the market for Chinese goods in the first place, Apple and its fanboys didn't do it "single-handedly".
Secondly, and this might be a sore issue for many, but is it not a possibility that the Chinese workers knew what conditions they were going to be working under? Why is it our responsibility to make their lot "better" when they (if that is how it actually is) themselves chose this for themselves? I believe one is responsible for whatever consequences follow once one signs on the dotted line after making an informed decision. It is possible that the Chinese workers have the brain capacity to read a contract and KNOW what they are getting themselves into, is it not?
Again, like I said, I don't know if they were given a choice, but if they were then they chose their lot. I don't know whether they even have contracts or if they are just abducted from the provinces of China and thrown into factories. Looking forward to be enlightened on that.
Now as for whether iOS, Android or Windows Phone is better. Out of the three, my personal opinion is that Windows Phone is way better. However, currently I use an iPhone which does what its supposed to do very well too.
I am writing this post on a Windows 7 PC and I have a MacBook Pro sitting next to me. I used to have ArchBang (Linux) on one of the partitions of my PC (don't have it anymore). What I have noticed is that Apple tries to control everything and you have to basically use what is given to you. Not a lot of freedom right off the bat. There is a learning curve if you use OSX after using Windows for a long time but if you can get used to it and learn to give up all control, then OSX is a very good system.
Linux requires you to know it all or at least most of it right off the bat (except Ubuntu is changing that now). There is a huge learning curve but there is enough help available out there to be able to figure things out. There is a lot of freedom. Personally, I am not impressed with Linux (PC, not talking about corporate and server editions) because it is basically run and developed by fanboys and lacks in terms of simple things that the general computer user demands (again, Ubuntu, and even Linux Mint, are on the right track, if only they can make up their minds on what desktop to use).
Windows is somewhere in the middle. Windows gives you control and it also does a lot of things for you. People complain about viruses. Well if your computer keeps getting infected with viruses all the freakin time, then that's your fault, not Windows'. I prefer Windows over any other system basically because of the software support but also because of familiarity.
EDIT: I don't care, for the most part, where things are made. A war with China is not on my things-to-do list.
I have to admit that I don't know conditions in China personally, but rather as is usually reported through the US press, which I find to be quite tainted and can't really trust their perspective.
But I had an interesting conversation with my lead programmer a few years ago about exploitation of workers and the sheer relativity of it.
He was telling me about some place in Asia (can't remember which country now, but a very poor country) that he had read where people were working in factories for foreign companies. The companies gave the workers a place to sleep and something like 10 dollars a day as a salary. He called the place they were living in a cage. He showed me the story on the internet - it was in reality a bunch of dorm rooms where there were bunk beds. It was little crowded, but fairly clean and orderly.
He was raving on about how companies exploit people internationally, that it's a grave sin, that everyone should live a decent standard of life, etc. He's not wrong about that per se, however...
I thought a moment and then I asked him - "Do you think I'm exploiting you?"
He looked surprised that I would ask him that. From my viewpoint, I was the owner of a company who specifically came to Buenos Aires because I could hire programmers that were reasonably well educated for 1/3 to 1/4 of the price I could find the same programmers with comparable skills in the US.
I told him - "You know how much programmers get in the US at your level. Of course, it depends on the city, but there is a range in which your salary would probably be considered to be so underpaid that it would be exploiting you - there."
I was paying him $18 USD per hour at the time. Not only was it a higher salary than he was making, but dollars would help combat any inflation he might feel (in those days it really was around 10% I think). In Houston, I'd be very lucky to find someone of his expertise and experience for $50. When I hired him away from the respectable Argentine development company for which he worked before working for me, he was making the equivalent of $12/hour (in pesos) for a 40 hour work week (he was salaried) and he was being asked to work longer hours to meet the demand they were encountering.
He lived in a small one bedroom apartment at the time, with his girlfriend. The building was ancient. The apartment had 38 sm. No air conditioners at all - the only complaint he had working for me was that we didn't have an office, he worked out of his apartment (in the den) and literally sweat over his keyboard in the summer.
He was paying 1200 pesos a month for his place at the time. The exchange rate was around 3.50 to the dollar, which means he was paying about $340 USD a month for his tiny little apartment.
In 1982, in Austin, I was paying $350 a month as a college student for a two bedroom apartment in a complex with a swimming pool. Our apartment was around to 700 sq. ft. It had central air and heating and a decent kitchen with relatively modern appliances.
I told him that to me, he was living in a cage and underpaid. I overpaid him quite a bit for the market here at the time, and I did it because I want everyone to be happy - I'm not greedy, I can share some of what I make. He was still convinced that I was not exploiting him - which is good, because I'm not, at least in the "evil" sense of the word.
Even people who live here and are part of the middle class don't really understand what it means to live in true poverty. At least in Buenos Aires, to me people who live middle class lives, live close to what I consider poverty in the US. I used to live in the 5th ward in Houston, one of the poorest neighborhoods. I know at least a little what I'm talking about.
Going back to those dorm rooms and the $10 USD a day for the workers working in the factory:
What do you think their life would be like if the company who employed them felt bad about their "exploitation" and picked up and left, or never even came to begin with? First, would they even have a job? Second, what kind of job would that be? Subsistence farming if they're lucky? Working for some rich person as a servant and being mistreated all the time? Third, would they make even near $10 USD a day? Fourth, is a bed in a dorm room better or worse than they would have had without the place to stay?
Having seen poverty up close many times in my life, and lived in it for short periods of time with my Paraguayan "married into" family, I think I know the answer to these questions, personally.
I am willing to bet that the very jobs my programmer thought were exploitation, in reality had a long line of people waiting to get in. I can guarantee you that no one was being forced into slavery to work those jobs.
I'm willing to bet that those companies who go to other countries and invest in infrastructure and jobs in countries where the government does everything it can to exploit its own people are giving them opportunities that they aren't even close to having under other less favorable conditions.
I'm betting that sleeping in a bunk bed in a housing building is way better than sleeping under a thatch roof, with dirt floors and probably no solid walls to speak of, crowded with an extended family from infants to ancients, on beds made of straw laid on top of the dirt or uncomfortable wood.
I don't agree with a lot of what my country has done in the Middle East - I'm a Libertarian who has come to see that the only way to free people and give them opportunities is to educate them and try to get them to understand that governments do NOT in reality give a rat's ass about their constituency, but rather people have to take responsibility for themselves and their condition and do something about it. You can't force a culture to change, you have to educate the people and let them decide how they want to change.
You can't do that by refusing to have anything to do with them, withdrawing your money and making it illegal for companies to go take advantage of the vast difference in wealth and what it costs to do business there. In fact, allowing the companies to do exactly that, as long as they are not forcing the people to work, does WAY MORE to liberate people and give them opportunities, over time, than trying to beat sense into them at gunpoint.
Do I feel guilty because I'm wearing clothes or using electronics that were manufactured in China or other places? Hell no.
Do I feel bad that people are so oppressed in some places that living in a dorm room with many others and getting paid $10 USD a day is an opportunity for them? Absolutely.
Do I want to quit buying Chinese (and other countries') products because of this? Do I think that will do anything other than affect the very people who I would save from their horrible life? Hell no.
Look at the world over the last 2000 years. Tell me it hasn't improved for a majority of the people. Even the poor in many (most?) countries have access to things the rich even 200 hundred years ago couldn't have conceived of. They have more acknowledged rights in many places than people ever thought was possible, much less correct, everywhere in the world 500 years ago and most places even as recent as 150 years ago.
You want to raise the people of the world from poverty, do it economically and mentally, not politically. Do it with education, not bitching and withholding your money from them because you object to how they live. Either way you do it, it will never happen overnight and because YOU want it.
That's my opinion, anyway.
In my book, those who are awaiting eagerly the iPhone 5 (and other new items) should do so with clear consciences, unless they are the ones who are physically keeping the people who made them in the Dark Ages.
But I had an interesting conversation with my lead programmer a few years ago about exploitation of workers and the sheer relativity of it.
He was telling me about some place in Asia (can't remember which country now, but a very poor country) that he had read where people were working in factories for foreign companies. The companies gave the workers a place to sleep and something like 10 dollars a day as a salary. He called the place they were living in a cage. He showed me the story on the internet - it was in reality a bunch of dorm rooms where there were bunk beds. It was little crowded, but fairly clean and orderly.
He was raving on about how companies exploit people internationally, that it's a grave sin, that everyone should live a decent standard of life, etc. He's not wrong about that per se, however...
I thought a moment and then I asked him - "Do you think I'm exploiting you?"
He looked surprised that I would ask him that. From my viewpoint, I was the owner of a company who specifically came to Buenos Aires because I could hire programmers that were reasonably well educated for 1/3 to 1/4 of the price I could find the same programmers with comparable skills in the US.
I told him - "You know how much programmers get in the US at your level. Of course, it depends on the city, but there is a range in which your salary would probably be considered to be so underpaid that it would be exploiting you - there."
I was paying him $18 USD per hour at the time. Not only was it a higher salary than he was making, but dollars would help combat any inflation he might feel (in those days it really was around 10% I think). In Houston, I'd be very lucky to find someone of his expertise and experience for $50. When I hired him away from the respectable Argentine development company for which he worked before working for me, he was making the equivalent of $12/hour (in pesos) for a 40 hour work week (he was salaried) and he was being asked to work longer hours to meet the demand they were encountering.
He lived in a small one bedroom apartment at the time, with his girlfriend. The building was ancient. The apartment had 38 sm. No air conditioners at all - the only complaint he had working for me was that we didn't have an office, he worked out of his apartment (in the den) and literally sweat over his keyboard in the summer.
He was paying 1200 pesos a month for his place at the time. The exchange rate was around 3.50 to the dollar, which means he was paying about $340 USD a month for his tiny little apartment.
In 1982, in Austin, I was paying $350 a month as a college student for a two bedroom apartment in a complex with a swimming pool. Our apartment was around to 700 sq. ft. It had central air and heating and a decent kitchen with relatively modern appliances.
I told him that to me, he was living in a cage and underpaid. I overpaid him quite a bit for the market here at the time, and I did it because I want everyone to be happy - I'm not greedy, I can share some of what I make. He was still convinced that I was not exploiting him - which is good, because I'm not, at least in the "evil" sense of the word.
Even people who live here and are part of the middle class don't really understand what it means to live in true poverty. At least in Buenos Aires, to me people who live middle class lives, live close to what I consider poverty in the US. I used to live in the 5th ward in Houston, one of the poorest neighborhoods. I know at least a little what I'm talking about.
Going back to those dorm rooms and the $10 USD a day for the workers working in the factory:
What do you think their life would be like if the company who employed them felt bad about their "exploitation" and picked up and left, or never even came to begin with? First, would they even have a job? Second, what kind of job would that be? Subsistence farming if they're lucky? Working for some rich person as a servant and being mistreated all the time? Third, would they make even near $10 USD a day? Fourth, is a bed in a dorm room better or worse than they would have had without the place to stay?
Having seen poverty up close many times in my life, and lived in it for short periods of time with my Paraguayan "married into" family, I think I know the answer to these questions, personally.
I am willing to bet that the very jobs my programmer thought were exploitation, in reality had a long line of people waiting to get in. I can guarantee you that no one was being forced into slavery to work those jobs.
I'm willing to bet that those companies who go to other countries and invest in infrastructure and jobs in countries where the government does everything it can to exploit its own people are giving them opportunities that they aren't even close to having under other less favorable conditions.
I'm betting that sleeping in a bunk bed in a housing building is way better than sleeping under a thatch roof, with dirt floors and probably no solid walls to speak of, crowded with an extended family from infants to ancients, on beds made of straw laid on top of the dirt or uncomfortable wood.
I don't agree with a lot of what my country has done in the Middle East - I'm a Libertarian who has come to see that the only way to free people and give them opportunities is to educate them and try to get them to understand that governments do NOT in reality give a rat's ass about their constituency, but rather people have to take responsibility for themselves and their condition and do something about it. You can't force a culture to change, you have to educate the people and let them decide how they want to change.
You can't do that by refusing to have anything to do with them, withdrawing your money and making it illegal for companies to go take advantage of the vast difference in wealth and what it costs to do business there. In fact, allowing the companies to do exactly that, as long as they are not forcing the people to work, does WAY MORE to liberate people and give them opportunities, over time, than trying to beat sense into them at gunpoint.
Do I feel guilty because I'm wearing clothes or using electronics that were manufactured in China or other places? Hell no.
Do I feel bad that people are so oppressed in some places that living in a dorm room with many others and getting paid $10 USD a day is an opportunity for them? Absolutely.
Do I want to quit buying Chinese (and other countries') products because of this? Do I think that will do anything other than affect the very people who I would save from their horrible life? Hell no.
Look at the world over the last 2000 years. Tell me it hasn't improved for a majority of the people. Even the poor in many (most?) countries have access to things the rich even 200 hundred years ago couldn't have conceived of. They have more acknowledged rights in many places than people ever thought was possible, much less correct, everywhere in the world 500 years ago and most places even as recent as 150 years ago.
You want to raise the people of the world from poverty, do it economically and mentally, not politically. Do it with education, not bitching and withholding your money from them because you object to how they live. Either way you do it, it will never happen overnight and because YOU want it.
That's my opinion, anyway.
In my book, those who are awaiting eagerly the iPhone 5 (and other new items) should do so with clear consciences, unless they are the ones who are physically keeping the people who made them in the Dark Ages.
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