#yes there is no ethical consumption under capitalism but some choices are less ethical than others

[ruelpsen]

It's disappointing seeing people continue to choose to get food for stuffings from places on BDS boycott lists (McD's being the most common one I've seen) but man, despite my disappointment I'm not surprised I keep seeing it. Some of y'all still can't boycott Chik-Fil-A and we've known about their shady homophobic shit for YEARS.

[shadowmaat]

Ethics vs. needs

I'm sure I've talked about this before but tumblr search is a shitshow and I can't find it. SO.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. We know it. We say it. We understand it. So while I appreciate the folks making lists of "ethical" companies and "sustainable" businesses, it would also be nice if they could recognize the fact that the majority of people shopping at places like A.mazon, W.almart and T.emu aren't doing so because they aren't aware of better alternatives, they're doing it because they have no choice.

If I could afford to buy $60 tank tops and be comforted in the knowledge that the workers who made that tank top were appropriately compensated for their labor and the materials are all-natural and not killing the environment, I would. Since I can't, I buy $5 tanks of dubious quality from ethically ambiguous sources.

I understand WHY small businesses charge more and I agree that those things are worth it... IF one can afford them. But if you're going to make a list of alternatives to the Big Bads, you need to think about pricing, too. And I'm just not sure it's possible to find ethical businesses that are also affordable. The two don't seem to go together. There's a similar issue with "healthy" food vs. "junk." Saying that "you just have to shop smart and look around for deals" is, hmm... less than helpful. Not everyone has the time/energy/resources to "shop smart" and not everyone has a choice of where they can shop.

I'm not saying the small business lists are bad because they're very helpful to some people and can do a lot of good for those businesses in terms of advertising/getting the word out. I just wish folks would stop acting as if it's a matter of choice. 99% of the time, it's a matter of price and convenience. So yes, while it's possible to decide that a single $60 tank is "worth it," that same $60 could buy an entire outfit- or more- at one of the cheap scummy places. Stop shaming people for being poor. Remember what Vimes said about boots.

[fadewalking]

I would prefer to stay on anon since I feel I will be attacked if not. But honestly JK was never going to be hurt by a boycott, only everyone else that's worked on the game. She's a billionaire that's going to be set up for life. I don't like JK any more than the next person but I'm also sick and tired of being miserable and I fully intend to play the game because the HP universe is something I enjoy in this miserable negative existence that has become the human race, and yes even as a queer person. I'm sure I'll be called the enemy by people here but I'm too freaking old and tired to care about if things make me uncomfortable anymore. I like HP and I will continue to love the world even if I don't like the writer. in fact there's plenty of medias I love without having to agree with or liking the artist, so yes I do intend to play it. Everything I've seen on it has been extremely positive outside of the fact that JK is a bitch which we all know already.

The only thing I will push back on here even a little here is the boycott point. because while you're absolutely right- as I said in response to someone else, even if the game sold 0 copies, she'd still be rich. But that's not the say that I think the boycott was inherently useless at it's conception. It's important to speak up about things and people who are blatantly problematic, as she is. Issues within the game aside, if people want to boycott the game solely because of their feelings about her, I think that is extremely valid. We should absolutely be discussing and thinking about ethical consumerism, but it's the trying to force people into the boycott where all hell has broken loose.

I think you and many other people like you (queer HP fan) are perfectly exemplary of the consequences of what's happening. We are in-fighting, we are fatigued, and eventually that will make people callous to even thinking about the issues altogether. Life is short, enjoy the game, or don't. Ultimately, even though there are issues with it, playing the game is not the end of the world. It's just not. There are other ways to show support, and there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

Unless you (not you, anon) can confidently say that you do or own nothing that supports a corrupt entity (shopping at Walmart if you don't need to, owning a smart phone, buying/playing/owning any other blizzard/activision games, shopping at hobby lobby, or amazon, eating at chickfila, or starbucks, the list goes on and those are only some of the most popular ones), and you are also attacking people who choose to play the game, I think you need to really evaluate what makes the issues behind all of those things less important to you than this one. We all have to decide for ourselves what choices we're going to make. Some will be out of necessity, some will be out of convenience, or whatever other reasons you may have. But we should only be making those decisions for ourselves, not forcing others to make the same ones.

[lotronprimesucks]

It's just such a culturally conservative and dishonest position to afford leniency to old things because they already exist and vitriol to new things because the circumstamces of their creation are insufficiently socialist. It's the attitude of my literature teacher who didn't talk about anything created after 1960 because it couldn't compare with the classics. Again, you're entitled to your opinion, it'a just that your opinion is based in some really sketchy assumptions. Like... do you think most artists and screenwriters can get work outside the studio or streaming system? Do you think there exists ethical consumption under capital? When Amazon and Disney are the biggest employers on the market, serving their own interest with their products, should we avoid all those products because they're not made ethically? Nothing is made ethically. Should we just stop enjoying all art until the revolution comes? (Before you say it - yes it can be art even if it's made for profit by a megacorporation). Your position here feels like cultural veganism. And much like veganism, it reeks of naivety, privilege, a patronizing attitude and a first-world-online-leftie approach to politics.

You know what, anon, sure, I'll bite. I've got nothing better to do this Thursday.

more or less in the order you brought them up:

I stated in my previous answer that I don't afford leniency to the Jackson films. Stating the truth - that they exist, that they're undeniably good works of cinema, that they exist because someone pitched them rather than because a studio commissioned them, and that they fail both as adaptations and as modern appraisals of Tolkien's racism - is not leniency, neither is saying that if they were being made right here and now I would be among the naysayers. At what point is it lenient to acknowledge that I was a child when these films were being made and had no ability to comment on their production or the ethics of blockbuster films?

There is not ethical consumption under capital(ism) and what that means is not "you can do whatever you want because it doesn't matter! yay! nihilism!" - everything you do has harm and moral weight, and it's your choice to decide for yourself how to engage with that. In my case, yes, that does mean avoiding everything Disney and Amazon does, both because reports from these specific companies about working conditions and corporate politics and exploitative unionbusting and anti-union filmmaking tactics are worth paying attention to and because if they aren't going to pay their workers what they're worth they don't deserve to exist. Again, at what point is it controversial to say "large corporations are the enemy and anyone calling themself a leftist has a moral imperative to oppose them"?

Trying to argue with me that the only possible paths we can take are "no art until the revolution comes" and "embrace our corporate-oligarchical overlords" is relying on a strawman representation of what I'm saying. Indie film and indie projects exist. Independent creators and novelists and artists and podcasters exist. Millions of artists without a marketing budget are out there trying to make their dreams happen; money I might otherwise spend on a streaming service is spent on Patreon and Gumroad and Ko-fi. The people breaking their backs for the sake of corporate greed deserve better, and the idea that the only way these people could ever make good art is through employment by Amazon and Disney is both stifling long-term creativity (think of how many projects Disney shelved when they acquired Fox) and insisting that artists now should just accept that they're stuck in a system that sees them as interchangeable cogs in a machine.

On that note, yes, the idea of a Revolution coming and changing everything with no effort is shortsighted and immature. That's why you have to actually do things to start the revolution! Small steps and small outcries are how we get bigger steps and bigger outcries. Yes, ultimately I want both Amazon and Disney to go down, because I don't think that the art they commission as propaganda to advance their corporate goals is something they deserve to be able to keep making. I don't like seeing them manipulate innocent people who can't see what their ad campaigns are doing, and I don't like seeing them churn out lesser and lesser quality work because they know they don't have to compete to rise to the top. (Before you argue otherwise, this is definitely happening with both companies' output, Disney in particular, and not only in media but in experiences and physical products and park experiences. I will happily provide sources upon request, for this or any other point I make.)

In conclusion, I might be a cultural vegan but at least I'm not a bootlicker.

[ms-demeanor]

You know what’s funny is whenever I make a tech post I get people going “this is blatantly untrue” and I get people going “this is really good information and everyone needs to know it” and the dividing line is how much time you spend with people who are tech literate.

Yep, I would tell my computer savvy friends where they could get keycaps and fix their keyboards; I don’t even have to bother telling my computer savvy friends how to run a fifteen year old laptop because we’re all pretty good at it.

But GODDAMN I just read a response to my “cheap computer season” post that claimed that it was totally reasonable to run a macbook from 2010 and

Look.

That’s not a reasonable thing to tell a student who needs a functional computer to do research and write papers. (have fun trying to find installation discs from when the OS was still named after cats and have fun trying to get a browser to get along with that OS)

You know why most people bring me laptops with missing keys? Because the key got ripped off by their two-year-old and damaged the soldering in the keyboard and I have no idea it’s going to be “oh, yeah, that’s a ten dollar fix” or “sorry, that’s going to be an hour and a half to disassemble and reassemble and we’ll have to order you a new keyboard specific to that model out of new old stock” and the thing is the second one is much, much, much more common in my experience than the first.

Do I think you need to replace a laptop when the bezel is cracked? No. I also don’t carry my laptop powered on in the bag with a flashdrive sticking out of the USB port. Customers do weird things that I don’t understand and when a customer tells me they want me to fix the bezel they think it’s a twenty-dollar snap-on repair because they have no idea how this works and then they get mad at me when I explain “no, you’ve gotta have this specific piece of plastic, these haven’t been made in five years, and you might be better off buying a used model online than trying to track down a new bezel.”

So here’s the thing: Can Macs get viruses?

There are three answers here.

“No, of course not, Macs are made to be virus-proof”

“Macs need antivirus protection because, while it is less common than infections for PCs, there are types of malware that can infect macs and it’s worthwhile to guard against that”

“tEcHnIcAlLy a virus has to be self-replicating and IOS’s file management system [or some other bullshit] prevents that so TECHNICALLY Macs can’t get viruses and what you need is anti-malware software if you need anything because you’re fairly likely to have security through obscurity”

I’m aware of the third position and voicing the second position to people who believe the first position.

YES TECHNICALLY YOU CAN KEEP A COMPUTER RUNNING INDEFINITELY AND YES IT’S TOTALLY POSSIBLE YOUR LAPTOP WILL LAST TEN YEARS.

“Well if you treat it right and run it well it’ll be in great shape for a long time”

YES THAT IS CORRECT DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY PEOPLE WHO DON’T WORK ON THEIR OWN CARS DRIVE AROUND WITH THE OIL CHANGE LIGHT ON FOR MONTHS?!?

Tons of people in the world today use computers. They use computers every day, they use computers at home and at school and at work.

Tons of people drive every day. They use cars for fun and for commuting and for their jobs.

That doesn’t mean that all (or even most, or even half) of the people using these things is any good at keeping them running, or even has the barest idea of how to start tracking down a problem.

Someone in the notes of that post described a green line on their screen and thought that was a symptom of hard drive problems. I don’t have the hours in the day to catch this person up to speed on why a display issue on a laptop isn’t indicative of hard drive issues.

Do you know how much people think it’s going to cost to get data off of a broken drive? Not “won’t power up” not “won’t spin” but “I dropped this and part fell off and now it won’t power up or spin and also the platter is chipped”? I’m going to have to send that shit to a clean room and the customer is *staggered* that it might cost more than a hundred dollars to get their data. “Outrageous, what kind of blackmail operation are you trying to run here, just plug it in and get my pictures.”

A year or so ago I was at Jiffy Lube (ew). I’d been shooting the shit with the mechanic when a parent and child rolled in in a panic. And they should have been panicking! They’d thrown a fucking rod because they’d been driving with no oil in the car for god knows how long because neither of them had had the oil changed in the two years they’d owned the vehicle.

*I* can keep a 30-year-old car running. I can put a belt back on an engine in a dark parking lot with a wrench and a headlamp. I can drop a gas tank and replace my fuel filter and thumb my nose at the mechanics who tried to upsell me on ���replacing your old, worn-out air filter” the day after I’d popped a new one into my truck.

These folks couldn’t keep a new car running with three alarms telling them what was wrong.

*I* can power up my 2005 macbook running Leopard and use garage band to record a song or do some design work on my copy of Adobe CS3; I can kludge its FF3.5 browser into playing nice with the internet and accept that it’s going to be a slow piece of shit.

The lady who called me confused by the fact that the password to her email was different than the login information for her grocery store rewards account will not be able to function if she gets a pop-up that says she’s using an outdated browser and will think it’s a virus if her bank won’t let her log in on that browser.

And you know what, I’m kind of sick of this attitude.

I would *fucking adore it* if computers were actually easy to repair; I’d love it if you could run new OSs on old hardware (especially on macs because I think apple are kind of shitheads about planned obsolescence).

But you know what, no, most people *CAN’T* reasonably expect to use a ten-year-old computer and have pleasant experience of it. It’s going to run slow. It’s going to shut down when they don’t want it to. The battery is going to swell slightly with the heat and your touchpad is going to go nuts. Your USB ports will stop working. Standard wear and tear that most people don’t know how to protect against and don’t know how to repair is going to make it harder to use AND software requirements will outstrip the hardware capabilities of the computer.

If your old computer sucks it’s not your fault. If you can’t happily use a 10-year-old laptop to do your homework that’s okay, it wasn’t designed for you to use it that way and YOU SHOULDN’T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT.

Because that’s kind of what a lot of these “well anybody should realistically be able to run a laptop from 2010″ responses comes down to: if you need new hardware you’re just not doing it right. If you have to replace your computer you didn’t make good choices when you bought it. If your battery dies it’s because you didn’t take care of it.

No. No. No. No.

This shit is A) designed to fail and B) actually really hard to keep running (hey how many blown capacitors do you think someone has to have on their motherboard before you say it’s not their fault for wanting to replace the laptop)

ALSO SOMEONE IN THE RESPONSES OF THAT POST LITERALLY SAID THAT IF YOUR BATTERY DIED AT THREE YEARS IT WAS BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T DOING THE DRAIN CHARGE CYCLE RIGHT AND FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. It’s discharge cycles and heat, motherfucker; they are going to fail at some point and people shouldn’t feel bad if their batteries stop working after a couple years.

UGH.

You shouldn’t have to be a mechanic. You shouldn’t have to be a computer technician. Yeah, your shit will last longer if you know how to take care of it but, fuck. Imagine you were still using internet speeds from 2010. Imagine all your devices still had USB 2.0. Imagine you couldn’t log onto your online bank because your hardware won’t run he software that your bank recognizes because the hardware manufacturer decided it won’t support the older hardware.

What I was trying to get across in that initial post was “computers fail, and they fail pretty frequently; your life will be better and you will save money if you plan on replacing them at a regular interval and have reasonable expectations in terms of cost and failure. So buy a cheap computer now because you’re probably going to need one at some point”

And now I’ve got to Do A Yell about how there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism and it’s unreasonable to expect tired, overworked, broke people to become experts in computer repair in order to do their homework or play the goose game.

FUCK THAT.

IT’S CHEAP COMPUTER SEASON MOTHERFUCKERS. LAPTOP FAILURE RATES INCREASE AT THREE TO FIVE YEARS AND DESKTOP FAILURE RATES INCREASE AT FIVE TO SEVEN YEARS. RIGHT NOW THERE ARE DISCOUNTS ON NEW COMPUTERS AND IT’S CHEAP TO GET AN EXTENDED WARRANTY.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER AND WORK ON COMPUTERS IF YOU WANNA AND PLAN TO REPLACE REGULARLY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO WORK ON COMPUTERS.

ALSO CHANGE YOUR FUCKING OIL YOU’RE PROBABLY DUE.

[citrineghost]

Humans Are Historically Known for Being Terrible

Hi I’m here with an opinion today. Let’s see how many words it will take for me to adequately get it across on this very fine 15th of January

I personally believe canceling things from the past* is fruitless, pointless, and accomplishes about as much as censorship does

*We aren’t talking about shit like nazi Germany, let me elaborate further

So, as I occasionally do, I have seen a post on my dash today criticizing something historical that people are ‘problematically partaking in.’ That thing today was the wellerman sea shanty due to its ties with colonialism, slavery, and so forth. 

I’m not going to dive into this specific example, because I don’t know enough of the details and am not interested in going to find them out because I’m not planning to defend it or its history, so there’s no point. I learned what I needed to know from said callout post and it’s enough to work with.

To me, it is important that we remember that people, in general, have been historically pretty terrible.

There’s colonialism, there’s slavery (of all kinds, including chattel), there’s thievery, murder, genocide, sexism, the murdering of queers. There’s lying, manipulation, propaganda, and so many more things that I couldn’t possibly list them all. I’m not saying that everyone was equally shitty. I am aware that, especially in the most recent couple hundred years, white people, especially Western Europeans and Americans, have been pretty Shite.

Am I excusing them for their actions? Absolutely not. I think it is always important to bear in mind the way they played a part in cultures’ growth, death, and, ultimately, development from one year to the next.

The reason I’m pointing this out is because the result of people being historically shitty is that most, if not all, of our historical content, our history, is steeped in horse manure. 

There is not one thing you can enjoy from centuries - even decades - passed that is not here because of something inhumane, unjust, or otherwise terrible.

The only thing keeping us from canceling every other historical thing that we enjoy is our lack of awareness of how each thing ties into the whole mess.

So, we’ve learned that wellerman was sung by slavers and thieves and colonialists. What about that nice little folk song from uh, idk, Ireland or something? Let’s take this metaphorical song and ask the question, “who wrote it?” The truth is, for many folk songs, we just don’t know. There is a very very good chance that 90+ percent of nice, soft folk songs about lying in the grass or feeding chickens or baking bread for your spouse were written by racists, sexists, abusers, homophobes, and so forth.

Does that make it wrong to enjoy that song about lying in the grass and looking at the stars? I don’t think so. No one is profiting off of you listening to it, regardless of who wrote it. It’s hundreds of years old. Do you even know the name of who wrote it?

Remembering that times were different may not absolve something of its wrongdoing, but it does provide us context.

We have to allow ourselves to admit that most, if not all, historical things, came from or benefitted from atrocities or injustices that we would not stand for today. That’s just how human progression works. Frankly, if people 200 years from now don’t look at US, CURRENTLY, and think we’re terrible assholes, I am actually very concerned by that. 

The nature of humanity is to get better and better over time and to build a world and a society where we don’t feel the need to be controlled by greed or to consume unethically. The problem is, it takes time. It takes lots and lots of time. Would it take less time if certain people weren’t terrible, terrible people? Yes it would. But they are, and so it doesn’t.

The fact is, human progression and improvement will never reach its end because, as things improve, our perception of our past actions will change as well and we will begin to realize that what we were doing wasn’t acceptable and is no longer necessary nor excusable. 

Hate Jeff Bezos? Look around and see that 90% of people still buy from Amazon, because it provides the only affordable source of many products for people who don’t make enough money under capitalism to buy from a small business.

Hate Bill Gates? How many of us are willing to switch to Linux to quit using Microsoft? Speaking of Microsoft, they own Minecraft. Do we stop playing Minecraft?

Think Steve Jobs is a terrible person? Why are people still buying iphones, ipads, and macs? Why don’t we stop buying those so that he and current CEO, Tim Cook, quit making billions of dollars?

These are just a tiny amount of examples, using big names. We also must consider, if you have 100 books on your bookshelf, how many of the writers of those books are racists, homophobes, sexists, or abusers? I guarantee you it’s a non-zero answer. The thing is, an author who’s relatively nobody is not someone who gets canceled. No one knows anything about them but that they wrote a neat work of fiction and it’s a good book.

The question is, should we be expected to quit buying, consuming, and enjoying things made by problematic people?

In some cases, the answer should be yes. If someone is currently profiting massively from people consuming their media or products and people are ignoring their atrocities, that person could end u making millions or billions of dollars despite being terrible, which is something that undoubtedly affects all of us, economically.

In the other cases, the answer should be, do you want to? If you’re not comfortable with something, you should, of course, stop consuming it. If you can ignore the thing, you might not need to bother. And, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re excusing it.

If we look at all of humanity, even in the present day, mathematically speaking, 50% of people are more bigoted and terrible than the rest. There’s no other way for it to be. Less than 50% would be a mathematical fallacy. Does that mean we only consume content from the better 50%? Does that mean we rigorously research producers and creators and their personal lives only to decide it’s not worth the risk of ‘contributing’ because they have no trace online except for a private Facebook account? Is them having a Facebook account enough of a ‘sin’ that it’s not worth it to buy their book?

This brings us to the censorship point

If you know your history, you know that censorship is a nasty thing. When one person decides who or what is unethical to consume from, they sometimes seek to get rid of that thing so that no one has a choice - so that no one is Allowed to consume that thing.

This has led to book burning, the destroying of decades and centuries of research about sexuality and gender. It’s destroyed religious texts. It’s destroyed content created by women that painted any single man in a bad light. It’s destroyed progression.

“But I only want to get rid of the bad thing that everyone agrees is bad!”

It doesn’t matter. If you open the door to censorship for yourself, those who wish to use it for worse reasons will become just as justified, in their own eyes, to do the same. You’ll have Christians saying it’s okay to get rid of gay content because it’s objectively wrong according to the bible. You’ll have conservative parents burning books with complicated topics like abuse and assault because they don’t want their children to have access to anything controversial or complex like that.

You cannot open the door to censorship for one group without opening that door for everyone. And that is why we do not censor things.

The question then becomes, but what of the people consuming that media? Even if it’s not censored, consuming it still makes someone bad, right? 

Not necessarily. People consume problematic stuff all the time - things considered objectively bad. However, people don’t always consume said media because they support it being normalized in the real world. For example, fanfiction or books with rape in them may be something a victim reads to cope with their own past or present. A book with abuse depicted may actually make a young teen aware that what they’re going through is abuse. Content largely seen as ‘problematic’ can often play a part in solving the problem it portrays.

Then there’s historical, problematic media. Now, this is an area where I feel things have actually been OVER complicated.

Because everything historical has some tie to injustice, there is no ethical way to consume it. 

There is no ethical consumption under passed time.

So, how do we judge whether something should or shouldn’t be consumed? It is my opinion that something historical should stop being consumed and become shunned when its meaning is well-known enough and its message is still pervasive enough that it is actively causing problems.

For example, we generally try not to consume content when it is made by someone who is a known nazi. This is because nazis are still a problem in our society, presently. We have antisemitism all over the place. Therefore, we cannot let the message become that it is okay to be a nazi by way of us treating nazis like normal people and allowing them to succeed in society without consequence.

However, there are certain problems that are no longer particularly prevalent or which are agreed to be terrible on a large enough scale that consuming the content does not necessarily imply you believe it is okay. For example, if you look at literally any media from the 1800s or which is placed in the 1800s, you will see a lot of casual sexism and gender roles. Should we despise that time period because sexism was readily available at every turn? Should we refuse to enjoy 19th century fashion or culture because it had problems? I think not. I think it would be pointless to refuse to consume, read about, or otherwise engage with the 19th century. It wouldn’t change the past and it isn’t going to somehow undo the progress we’ve made on women’s rights. 

As a matter of fact, if someone merely suggested that perhaps the people of the 19th century were right for forcing women to wear long dresses and darn socks all day, they would be laughed into oblivion and called a shitty, sexist incel (which would be correct).

Does enjoying media from or placed in the 19th century mean you support sexism? I certainly hope not, since I enjoy it very much and know a lot of progressive people, women especially, who do enjoy that kind of thing. It is common sense enough, at this point in time, that people don’t generally believe that the sexism of the 1800s was acceptable. I am not going to see someone watching a period drama and assume they desire for our present-day social laws to be like what’s portrayed. That would be a ridiculous assumption. However, I could not assume the same about someone I saw watching openly antisemitic content. I would quickly wonder if they’re an antisemite/nazi/white supremacist.

So, what about that one thing I heard had a sordid past?

Listen, if we’re being honest here, most things from history have a sordid past. Sea shanties? You bet. But then when we talk of sea shanties being steeped in colonialism, we have to look at the bigger picture. What about pirates? Pirates were, by and large, a huge contributor to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder. Does that mean enjoying media with pirates is glorifying or contributing to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder?

(I’m about to talk a lot about pirates but this can be applied to anything that was historically bad but is no longer prevalent)

Pirates of the Caribbean is only a movie, but pirates did once exist and they did kill people. They did raid ships of merchants and tradesmen and they killed them and stole their goods. They took many good men from their families and even killed working children aboard the ships. Does that make enjoying pirates in media a contributor to these things? No. It doesn’t. We are looking at a dramatised, cleaned up version of the original piracy. I think most people are aware that pirates, in the real world, are bad and harmful and should not be supported. That doesn’t make pirate media any less fun in theory, and under our own terms.

Then we arrive at our perception - because most of this does come down to perception. When you watch pirate media, should you enjoy that, are you able to divorce yourself from their actual history enough to enjoy the media? If you can, you might enjoy it a lot. If you can’t watch a movie about pirates without thinking the entire time about how terrible they were and how much damage they did, then pirate media just isn’t right for you. But, it doesn’t mean you should attempt to take it away from others. Your opinion and perception of pirate media is not the global perception.

I have to ask, do you think others view it the same way you do?

When you read that question, you may be wondering what exactly I mean. What I’m asking is, do you believe others view that media with the same “clarity” that you do? Do you believe they understand the atrocity of real pirates and Feel that the entire time they watch the media and still enjoy it anyway?

Perhaps that’s why your response to someone enjoying something you feel guilty partaking in is, “these people all must not care about the real-world damage pirates did. The fact that they can watch this (despite sitting here and feeling the same things I do) makes me sick.”

However, if that is the case, you must remember that for a lot of people, the awareness of real world consequence is suspended during dramatised depictions of it. It doesn’t mean they have forgotten about the real-world consequences of piracy or that they don’t know it at all. It just means they are choosing not to think about it in that light while consuming media.

There is also the assumption that people must not know about something when partaking in it. You may think, “How can they enjoy this media? They wouldn’t be able to stomach it if they realized what really happened with pirates.”

In many instances, you would be correct. A lot of people are ignorant to what pirates have done in the real world. If you told every ignorant person the truth, maybe 5% of them would then become turned off by pirate media, and the other 95% would keep the truth in mind and then divorce themselves from it to continue enjoying said media.

There are realities that it is safe to divorce yourself from, and there are those that are not.

Is allowing yourself to enjoy dramatizations of pirates making you ignorant to present day conditions? Not largely. There are still pirates today, but not nearly enough for the average Joe to need to take them seriously. Those who need to know about them and do something to stop them are aware.

However, it is not safe to divorce yourself from, for instance, the holocaust. Divorcing yourself from the holocaust and seeing it as merely a dramatic setting with dramatic events and not a present-day real-world problem is exactly the kind of thing that leads to young teens being sucked in by white supremacy and naziism as well as what leads to many average conservatives believing the rise in white supremacy isn’t actually real or is not a big deal. They have distanced themselves so far from the real-world atrocity of the holocaust that they have forgotten it was real and that real people, like them, were contributors. They don’t want to believe that everyday people had any power in it and that it was tiny acts of willful ignorance that made concentration camps so successful. 

All in all, there is a different answer for everything we consume.

Want to know if something you’re consuming is okay to consume? Ask yourself: is this produced by someone who is contributing to present-day conditions? If the answer is yes, quit consuming it. If the answer is no, ask yourself, does this media make me uncomfortable because I’m aware of its roots? If the answer is yes, stop consuming it. If the answer is no, it’s probably fine. You are most likely not doing any damage, so long as you are aware of what is wrong with the content and are not using it as grounds to perpetuate harm. 

If, when thinking about something problematic in an old piece of media, you cringe? You’re on the right track. If you feel inclined to make excuses for it or justify the wrong in it, it’s time to step away and reevaluate why you feel the need to do so. If you’re doing so because you feel guilty for consuming it, you need to realize that it is actually more harmful to make excuses for the wrong in order to justify your consumption than it is to admit, “Yeah, this media is problematic and contains a lot of sexism, but I still enjoy it for its other qualities.” It is better to admit that you enjoy something problematic than to spread the message that what is happening in it is okay.

Some of you may be thinking, “Or, just stop consuming problematic media.”

I think in many cases, especially recent media, where your consumption has an effect on production, this is true. However, for media that is no longer being produced, I will remind you that most things have something wrong with them - yes, even pretty recent stuff.

Supernatural kills off women constantly, queerbaited the fuck out of its viewers, and sent a huge character to fucking mega hell for confessing his love.

Scrubs has no end to its sexism, transphobic and homophobic slur usage, and other problematic content.

V for Vendetta glorifies and shines a heroic light on a character who kidnaps and tortures a woman for what appeared to have been weeks or months so that she would be forced to understand his trauma and “no longer be afraid.”

Star Wars has incest, the producers/directors abused Carrie Fisher and sexualized her as a young teen, and probably a lot more that I’m not aware of because I haven’t seen the movies nor read the books.

I don’t even need to start on shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Community, That 70s Show, and so many more. Almost every popular piece of media has something worth canceling in it. There is no point trying to curate your media consumption to only unproblematic content, because it simply can’t be done.

Curate where it makes a difference. Sigh heavily the rest of the time. Make yourself aware what and how things are problematic. Put critical thought into how your consumption is capable of supporting or perpetuating a problem and how it is not. Make informed decisions.

Do not feel guilty if you are unable to flawlessly live up to the standards of purity culture. None of us can - not really.

[alone-in-a-cafe]

You made an inflammatory post demonizing those who don't live the way you do, and tried to take some moral superiority over them simply because you're more comfortable with slave labor over quinoa than you are people hunting deer, or better yet being smart enough to have a symbiotic relationship with cattle. I'm not surprised in the least you're plugging your ears like a child, and I'd be less surprised if you never reply to this.

Why are you so personally attacked by that post?

I never "demonized" anybody. Consuming animal products has a victim - the animal. It is an inherently violent action, sometimes necessary, sometimes unnecessary. If it's unnecessary, how do we justify that violence when we can choose to be kind?

When did I say I was morally superior than anybody? You said that, not me. Any kind of activism for the vulnerable requires questioning of preexisting beliefs. I can assure you vegans gain nothing out of vegan activism, except mental stress from being so aware of the unnecessary violence around you and people dismissing it like it's nothing.

Oh and slave labour quinoa is not a popular food with vegans, it's actually more popular with the upper class non vegans in the West. Read on quinoa here.

And if you're so bothered by unethical worker practices then why do you still continue to eat meat? Slaughterhouse workers have horrible working conditions, read here.

Also you seem to have this idea that the only people who eat meat in this world are those who hunt for it for survival. I never said a word about people hunting for sustenance, because if you had taken ten seconds to read the definition of veganism, you would know that it calls for avoiding animal products "as far as possible and practicable". So people hunting for sustenance is very much in line with veganism.

The relationship with animals we have right now is not at all symbiotic, as it destroys land and the environment. You're talking about slave labour quinoa? You know that 80% of the Amazon rainforest has been cleared out for cattle farming right? Displacing indigenous communities and destroying indigenous flora and fauna just so you can have a burger?

So no, I'm not comfortable with slave labour quinoa but you seem to be very comfortable with contributing to a violent industry which is destroying the planet, according to UN.

I stopped reading those replies because of your strawman arguments, something I've dealt with multiple times in the past.

I'll repeat, vegans don't gain anything out of activism for animal rights, but the animal agriculture industry gains money by spreading misinformation about veganism.

What you consume stops being a personal choice when someone else suffers from your choice. Yes there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but if we can choose to avoid harm somewhere then why don't we? Are our personal pleasure and convenience more important than animal lives?

You have no idea about the nuances of veganism as a movement and how it's so deeply interconnected with the environment and with human rights. Please at least read up on it a bit before saying anything about the topic.

If you were so worked up about that post and knew you are right in your choices you could've just ignored it. But sure there's some part of it that stuck with you which made you reply to it and then send this.

Read @acti-veg 's blog and website for more sources on these basic arguments.

[pass-the-bechdel]

The Good Place season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

91.66% (eleven of twelve).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

46.26%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Ten of the twelve, with seven of those hitting 50%+.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-two. Seven who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirty-one. Twelve who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Same-same. The female characters are still great, bi rep exists, the racial diversity remains strong (though I have my doubts about the writers’ capacity to portray cultural diversity). It’s not gonna blow anyone’s mind, but it’s all there, and that’s a good thing (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

A hot mess. Not hard to watch in any way, not infuriating, but frustrating, yes, and at times wasteful. It doesn’t have a strong sense of the creative team having known what they wanted to make, and this is not the format for just winging it and seeing what comes out.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

So. I referenced LOST at one point during this season, and the advice Mike Schur was given about avoiding narrative stagnation, and I mentioned that I don’t actually think that was ever a problem for LOST. The reason for that is that LOST made its charactersation so thoroughly integral to the plot that even when it seemed that nothing particularly important was happening, plot-wise, something was always happening character-wise, and that was by association, vital plot. It’s also part of the reason I am die-hard for that show, because character is my be-all and end-all, without which, a story hardly has a point in my eyes.This is the lesson I wish Mike Schur had taken from LOST, because the characters in this show? They’re all wonderful in their own distinct ways, but they also haven’t really developed since the first season (or the humans haven’t, anyway). The reason for that - touched on already, variously - is that those bastards keep on being reset, their memories wiped, everything new again so that they can repeat the same character development, but offscreen where it doesn’t take up any of that important plot space. And because their characterisation isn’t moving anywhere (it’s...stagnating), they essentially function as placeholders in the plot, not necessary or meaningful pieces.

This reminds me of another show that I ended up having big problems with, Orphan Black, which suffered from (among many issues) a lack of character agency. The characters in The Good Place do have at least some agency, they are allowed some decision-making power, but not a lot of it, especially in this season where they’re mostly just buffeted around by plot machinations they can’t control and often, don’t even understand, and it doesn’t make for very interesting viewing (this is why Michael and Janet get all the best fodder: they have more agency than the human characters, they comprehend their situation in order to make informed choices on behalf of the others, and they’ve been shouldering all of the character development responsibilities since the beginning of season two). When plot drives characters too much instead of the other way around, the characters start to feel inconsequential, because their personalities aren’t going to impact their (after)lives, so they might as well not have any.

The thing about the characters not developing is that the centrepiece of the plot - the question of whether or not they can improve - is itself based on the idea of the characters developing, but since they already answered that question in the first season, the show now just keeps on repeating it in different scenarios with everyone ‘learning ethics’ from Chidi, which is nebulous and largely glossed over anyway. The changes of scenario don’t matter, firstly because the result is always the same (but not in a profound way, just in a lazy ‘we didn’t want it to get confusing by having people or events contradict something that happened before in some version they don’t remember’ kind of way), and secondly because we never see any real substance of the scenario changes, we just get clips and time skips. This leaves us with a narrative which rarely seems to have intent, just the occasional glimmer of insight or direction (i.e. when Jason highlights the impact of poverty (though the show has failed to translate that into a large-scale critique of systemic inequality), or the whole ‘no ethical consumption under capitalism’ thing), and the characters act as pawns but not, often, as conduits. The lack of real plot substance, as explored by the characters within it, kinda ironically leads to the very same stagnation that Schur was supposedly trying to avoid: the plot sometimes makes wild leaps from one thing to another, avoiding developing in any way for fear of spending too long on an idea and consequently not stopping on anything long enough to let it matter, and then at other times it stalls completely and wallows for the sake of just talking about some philosophical concept, even though just talking about something without both connecting it to the characters and watching it unfold meaningfully is exactly how you get a stagnant story (and a badly paced one, too). If it doesn’t matter, it’s not plot, it’s just window dressing. Anyway. I’m having deja vu and I think I’m in danger of just reiterating everything I complained about before (if I haven’t already), so I’m gonna let this one go and see how they pull it together (if they pull it together) in season four, which I have not seen yet so I am hoping for a pleasant, cohesive surprise. It could still happen.

[bitchcraftmagic]

So I’ve been doing the sustainable fashion thing for about five years now and there is always been something about the critique of sustainable fashion that has irked me but I couldn’t pin point what it was, exactly. So many folks talk about how expensive it is and how there aren’t a lot of options for fat people.

And yet, here I am, poor and fat with an ethically sourced wardrobe.

How did I do it, you ask? Well I stopped over consuming and paying that much attention to trends. It was that easy. Do I still look cute? You bet. It’s not hard. There isn’t a big barrier to access except the willingness to change your relationship with fashion and clothing consumption.

I also want to point out, when it comes to the over-consumption of fast fashion it is not the poor and the fat that over consume. We fat people are not buying clothes at the same rate as straight sized people and are not to blame for the larger environmental impact. That’s on the skinny folk. Not us. So stop using my body as a way to avoid accountability for your over consumption of things made with slave labor.

And I realize the irony of typing this out on my iPhone, a product made with exploitive labor. It is something I think about often and in the case of technology that has become vital in these times I have little control. Android isn’t any better. The system we have created is built off of exploitation and sometimes we cannot get out from under that reality. But the refrain of “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” is both nihilistic and dismissive of those trying their best under this system. Of course collective action is the best way forward but that doesn’t mean we cannot make conscious choices to remove ourselves from the more heinously unethical practices.

Fast fashion is truly one of the most exploitive and unethical aspects of modern day capitalism. And to not look to more ethical means of acquiring clothing is to bend to a wildly cruel industry. And the clothes look like shit! At least on fat folks. I can’t tell you how many hauls I have seen where half of the clothes don’t fit at all. How is that accessible? How is that inclusive? Who does it serve?

Folks working in sustainable and ethical fashion do seem to care deeply about making clothes that work for real human bodies, fat or otherwise. Shops like Tuesday of California, Altar PDX, Nettle Studios, Lovefool and Big Bud Press try very hard to make clothes that fit many types of bodies with comfort in the limitations of standardized sizing. And they do this all while remaining ethical and sustainable. And yes, they are expensive but…that’s the point?

Why is Shein cheap? Why is Target? It’s through massive exploitation. It is cheap because someone is being forced to work for less than a dollar a week. It is cheap because someone is in a building where they lock the doors, where there are no bathrooms, no safety regulations, no breaks. That is the price you don’t see in the dollar amount. Ethical fashion is expensive because they don’t exploit the workers. That’s the reason. It isn’t to lock you, the consumer, out of access. It is to make sure all involved are compensated fairly.

At the end of the day it isn’t all black and white. You are not a bad person for buying clothes from Shein. You are not a good person if you only shop ethically. We are all just people making decisions on a daily basis for our own health and happiness. But I beg you to consider the implications of what you say. To understand that the excuses are not very good ones and if you desire a just world it may take some rethinking and sacrifice on your part.

[loveyaahl]

On Living Ethically in the Age of Consumerism

“THERE IS NO ETHICAL CONSUMPTION UNDER CAPITALISM.”

A sweeping statement that we on the far left have all heard when expressing concern over the impact of our purchases. In essence, it means that most every item that you purchase is in some way tied to the exploitation of workers or the planet—the metal used to produce your phone or laptop was probably mined by children being paid less than a dollar per day, the gas you buy to drive to the store was likely extracted from the earth by corporations who have more power over policy than most governments, there’s a good chance that your graphic tee was sewn by callused, malnourished hands.

Many people see this truth and focus on the futility of shifting blame to consumers. After all, it’s the corporations and greedy government officials at the core of the debacle. What can one person do? Not much, of course. Therefore, why bother limiting the intake of “unethically” produced items? I’d argue, though, that continuing to heedlessly contribute your money to businesses with unethical practices is not morally sound, not when you have a choice.

I know that my efforts to live to my moral standard are not impactful, but they put my mind at ease. When I choose not to pick up a box of plastic snack bags from a shelf, I know that those bags won’t unmake themselves. They will end up in the landfill or in the ocean nonetheless. Still, I skew the demand curve by a person-sized amount and maybe someday no more bags will be made.

GREENWASHING

What is greenwashing? To my knowledge, this refers to a marketing technique where brands use green packaging or claim to be environmentally conscious without actually taking steps to do so. There are probably plenty of more salient articles to tell you all about it, but mostly I’m here to avoid greenwashing and refuse to sacrifice the workers’ livelihoods in the process. Fair trade products are usually more expensive, which is part of contributing to companies that pay their workers a living wage. This means that only higher-class individuals can afford to buy new things from fair trade businesses.

In the end, it is always better to continue reusing unethically-produced items than to throw them away and purchase new, “green” things. At the same time, it’s better to buy new things from small, fair-trade businesses than it is to buy from most chains. If you already have silverware, don’t go buy a travel bamboo cutlery set from Amazon; either pack up some of your own silverware or invest in a set from well-paid artisans. Jeff Bezos can huff my farts, by the way. I’m certain this phrase will come in handy as I continue to blog.

In the event that you’re moving into an apartment and need to stock your home with the necessities, don’t fall into the pitfall of thinking you need all new things. Reusing a plastic garbage bin you’ve had for three years is better than buying a brand new one that isn’t plastic. Yes, plastic is a huge pollutant and there is far too much of it in the world. In general, we should not support its continued production, but we should also do our parts to make use of its endurance and keep it out of landfills longer. By all means, though, invest in items from small local businesses when you can.

You don’t need to feel guilty about being unable to afford all new stuff from ethical places. That’s what “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism” should convey. The three ideas can coexist that 1) your purchase or lack thereof from “unethical” companies does very little to offset the ginormous system we live in, 2) we should all do what we can to keep our money out of the pockets of companies who don’t value their workers or the planet, and 3) you can’t possibly be expected to “live ethically” 100% of the time. Just commit as much of your time, research, and money into purchases as you can with the resources you have. When your contributions to the market are so diluted by everyone else’s, it’s really about easing your own conscience at this point. I’m starting a blog here to do some of the research for you because I find it fun and want to relieve some of that burden for you—stay awhile, learn something.