Glorious People’s Digital Army Unite! Defend the snerk proletariat from the imperialists!
Don’t upgrade. Buy a good enough device and keep it for a long time. Consume less.
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I’m pretty well attuned to the work of paid state trollies from comment threads on Russia and have called out more than a few. The comment you’re responding to doesn’t seem like the work of the 50-Cent Army but rather a matter-of-fact and neutral-toned presentation of life as it is in China.
A more thoughtful American might also view it as a prediction/warning. If we continue down our path toward extreme inequality and cronyism, this is the kind of grim and constrained life that future Americans can expect to live if they want/need a job in the service, manufacturing or paraprofessional sectors.
Someone whose family has lived in the Chinese political-economic culture for the past 40 years may be used to putting up with a craptastic existence to make a living, but it’s been at least four generations since Americans were stuck living and working in real company towns.
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Am I allowed to say that about US workers who don’t even get health care, and only get a week of leave every year?
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Not since 2008. Time to catch up on your current events?
Well, yeah. I mean, it’s a piece about the worker’s lives. It works because it’s not just “look at these poor people,” but actually shows us what it’s like to be them.
I’m still trying to figure out where that line is with mobile tech. Right now I’m using an iPhone 4 (loaned from a friend until I get a new phone, dumb or smart) and the combination of tiny screen size, input latency, 3G connection, browser instability, and Apple’s periodic insistence that I enter my AppleID makes me want to throw it out the window–which I probably already would have if it did belong to me.
And then I reflect on all of the human anguish involved in bringing this technological marvel to market and I feel like an awful person for having such thoughts.
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Dude, I agree with you it’s a crap job. Let’s get them better jobs. You don’t need to convince me. My only defense of it is that its better than their rural alternative, which sucks way more.
Ok, we’re now at the next step: “Discussion often leads to solutions” → let’s find a solution. But, you aren’t sharing your better solutions… because “they’re not going to be heard or adopted?” … didn’t I just explicitly ask to hear them? Why don’t you think they’re not going to be adopted – if you don’t tell anyone, that’s a sure thing they’re not going to be adopted. Do you think we’ve got more to discuss before we can progress to the next step? Come on, man…
As to your first part, your leap doesn’t make sense. But apparently, I’m a bad person if I do that thing you think I do. You seem to think that suicide rates are the only thing I think makes a better job, which is silly. I guess I’m not supposed to focus on the shock-value portion of your statement; sorry I was shocked.
Absolutely.
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Its concern trolls all the way down.
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How much extra to build a phone without misery?
$50/unit?
Roughly 1/8 Apple’s margin?
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This is the most recent analysis I found:
http://www.itimanufacturing.com/news/us-manufactured-iphone-costs-much/
Bear in mind, Tim Cook has discussed or mentioned Stateside manufacturing of the iPhone at least as far back as 2013. Supply chains of this scale have deep roots.
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That’s what Marx said 150 years ago, in a nutshell…
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Except tech skill-bias doesn’t amount to much in the way of reducing income inequality. So education is not the answer. This isn’t to say that education isn’t something everyone should have access to, just that it’s not a magic bullet. Peter Galbraith nails skill-bias to the wall in Created Unequal, I highly suggest giving it a read. Here’s the first chapter, laying out the thesis of the book quite nicely.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/g/galbraith-unequal.html
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Shanghai is an expensive city so not a whole lot.
Yeah, without the US government taking over international rare earth markets the way China did the components cannot be manifactured here - though to my knowledge most of those are not manufactured in China either as China has become more expensive. However, the cost increase to have the final assembly in the US along with the actual mechanical materials manufactured here would be shockingly small. Like 5% of the retail price small.
The problem is the “free market” in the US is based entirely on how much return on investment the largest pools of money on the world feel they could conceivably get, and those investors care so little about anything but the bottom line that companies removed any sort of giving a shit they may have once had. That hit on the retail price would probably cut directly into Apple’s revenue since the price is relatively fixed and asking customers to pay an extra $50 or to have their deals with carriers to be cut makes a big difference. That said, we will never ever know what the difference is because the specter of that risk prevents any large company from doing anything but maximizing revenue as a ratio to investment.
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I realizing moving phone production out of China is a huge thing.
I mean how much extra $/unit to make the manufacturing process decent.
Fairly recently LG was making (maybe still does) their premium phones in Korea where the standard of living is higher, but they don’t pocket Apple margins.
If we paid an extra $50/unit that went entirely into compensation and working conditions, I think it would have a real impact.
I didn’t say it was. I view it was one solution to one problem. The problems are several, and so must be the solutions. Sorry if I wasn’t clear on that.
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They offer jobs to people who need them because the global prices of food are manipulated to the point that it’s impossible to make money in the agricultural sector.
This “they want the jobs” sleight of hand only works if you ignore the reasons they want the jobs.
Also, the whole narrative only plays if you assume you’re somehow morally better than the Chinese factory workers such that you deserve your plush, cushy western lifestyle and they deserve a tiny dorm room and 12 hour days 6 days a week.
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