babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
iPods made by iKids
February 28, 2010 - 2:06pm
That's just the beginning, there's also safety problems, extremely long working hours and low pay even by Chinese standards.
I remember Rabble giving ipods away as gifts.
Blackberries, not picked by children!
Do we know that, though? It's not like they're assembled in Waterloo.
It's good that Apple is reporting and acting on this, however, it would be nice if they examined this before they chose subcontractors as well as after.
Michelle, you've fallen into the "oh well everybody does it" trap. Just because "every" piece of electronics has child labor in it doesn't mean it's ok for a progressive organization like Rabble to give it away as a prize. Did you consider perhaps, instead of a blood Ipod giving away a piece of FN art. That would have helped to support a native artist and it would have no child labor inputs.
Michelle, assuming that you're refering to me with your statement above, I don't use any products that I know have child labor in them. You should take back your vicious claim that I do!
It"s not a vicious claim is a debating tactic. And applying your logic, Rabble at the time they gave away the iPods was not aware of the issues associated with them. Do you think they should express retroactive guilt?
I'm not a computer whiz, but it says Cicero, Intel PIII, running windows Xp. Made in Burnaby BC.
I can assure you, with a PIII, most components are from China with the memory probably from Taiwan. It was assembled in BC.
There is no way, due to economies of scale, that a Canadian computer would be competitive.
It would be very, very, very expensive. Canada doesn't exactly have the infrastructure to start building all the parts that are necessary for any one component of a computer to be mass produced in the quantities that would make it a viable business. It is really expensive to build a facility to produce a lot of those parts. Plus, you'd have to source your stuff throughout the world to make sure that good labour practises were followed in the raw production and shipment of materials. And with a mark up like that, a company would be hardpressed to find investors...or customers. I need my own computer, but there is no way in hell that I could ever afford one
With the way the world works, you have to understand what goes into every single tiny, itsy bitsy component of your computer or blissfully wish away what goes into allowing our pampered asses to write out each of these posts. Every time your fingers push down a key, you're pressing a blood key, sending an electric signal through a blood connecting cord to a blood CPU, GPU, RAM, hard drive, and having that be worked over by tons of blood capacitors and resistors, etc. There is no sense pulling a 'holier than thou' stance and being critical of others unless you've never, ever owned or operated a computer.
Or pretty much anything else.
I'm sure some of the electricity being used to make rabble.ca available is generated with non-renewable power, too.
I guess we'll have to shut rabble.ca down.
BTW E. Tamaran if you want to be on the side of the angels, you shouldn't be running Windows XP or any Microsoft or Apple operating system. You should be using a GNU/Linux operating system...one that is "free as in freedom". That's something that you DO have control of.
radiorahim: preacher of the open source
Let's all just kill ourselves so we can be absolutely certain we aren't aiding and abetting evil any further.
There are more than 1.3 billion people in China, and you say there are 25 children working "somewhere" there in iPod factories? Does the government in Beijing know about this? Have Apple execs notified anyone in China?
Sure. You go first.
Thread drift...slightly...preacher of free software
Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software
yeah sorry, open source just sounded more evangelical.
That's somewhat unavoidable, isn't it? Like it was said, a computer manufactured to Canadian standards is not competitive. That doesn't mean progressive consumers can do nothing though. I think its the role of the progressive consumer to try to aim for purchasing the product manufactured to the "least worst" standard. Its the role of the progressive NGO (and arguably, government) to inform the consumer which product is manufactured to the "least worst" standard. Then pressure is felt by corporations to clean up a little. Consumer boycotts don't always work, but they don't exactly always fail either.
Is it ethical to purchase an Ipod? Well, see if there's an alternative.
How many more years will it be before countries like China start shipping their obsolete widgets, computer components and toxic waste to the west for recycling and "processing"?
When money arrives, all is green, bustle and abundance. And when it leaves, all is trampled down, barren and bare - old Chinese proverb
Where the military is, prices are high - even older Chinese proverb
It's pretty difficult to be ethical with regard to electronic hardware...it's pretty much all made in sweatshops.
It is possible to be ethical about the software. Apple tries its best to make sure that iPods only talk to its proprietary "iTunes" software which is only available for non-free operating systems like MacOSX and Microsoft Windows.
A number of audio players make use of Microsoft's "MTP" protocol to transfer files between your computer and your audio device. I've run into this with some players made by Creative. This means you can only "talk" to these devices with a Microsoft Windows operating system.
Other players make use of MTP, but allow you to turn it off so that your computer sees it as a "mass storage device".
I would avoid any portable players that force you to make use of either iTunes or the MTP protocol.
I would also try to purchase media players that allow you to play media in non-patented free media formats like ogg vorbis and FLAC.
I have one Samsung player that plays ogg vorbis files and a player made by Cowon that plays both ogg vorbis and FLAC files. FLAC by the way is the "free lossless audio codec"...you get full CD quality audio in a compressed file format...mind you the files are rather large!
A prior thread on the topic...