161–170 of 174 posts
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A doctor can kill a person by an honest mistake or by using a person as lab mouse in a concentration camp. The person dies either way. My morality sensor says that these two deaths are not equal even though they are both dead.
You're on to something there.
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I wonder if there are any organizations that can certify products and brands. From inhumane conditions to poor quality to scammy marketing and outright fraud (especially on Amazon), I want to avoid Chinese products as much as possible. It’s difficult to avoid completely, but there’s certainly a lot of low hanging fruit.
In fact, any organization can do this. In the vegan/vegetarian/organic/non-GMO food space there are multiple competing certification programs. The LSD Avengers used to fulfill this role on the old Silk Road. It seems there is at least one NGO that specifically certifies goods as made in the USA, though I have no idea how legit they are: https://madeinusacertified.wordpress.com/
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In fact, any organization can do this. In the vegan/vegetarian/organic/non-GMO food space there are multiple competing certification programs. The LSD Avengers used to fulfill this role on the old Silk Road. It seems there is at least one NGO that specifically certifies goods as made in the USA, though I have no idea how legit they are: https://madeinusacertified.wordpress.com/
I agree that any organization can, but I don't know of any. I'm vaguely aware of orgs that certify organic/non-GMO/etc and presumably someone certifies kosher food and conflict free diamonds and the like, but I'm not sure of any that certify labor conditions or that a given company operates with some baseline of ethics and is subject to accountability.
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I agree that any organization can, but I don't know of any. I'm vaguely aware of orgs that certify organic/non-GMO/etc and presumably someone certifies kosher food and conflict free diamonds and the like, but I'm not sure of any that certify labor conditions or that a given company operates with some baseline of ethics and is subject to accountability.
Aaah, I thought you were going for a made-in-America production certification, not a generally-good-people production certification. The term you're looking for is "fair trade." Here's one example of such an organization: https://www.fairtradecertified.org/
1. If (or to what degree) the product was made via exploitative labor conditions
2. How harmful is the product to the environment (manufacturing through disposal)
3. Does the product benefit from subsidies? (e.g., is a foreign product cheaper only because shipping is heavily subsidized relative to a local alternative)
4. Is the product I'm buying reasonably advertised. If the product is fraudulent, can I trust that the company (including investors and leadership) will be held to account or will they simply rebrand and continue their scheme? This concern spans the gamut from Walmart selling name-brand merchandise from low-quality OEMs to companies paying for fraudulent Amazon reviews.
There are probably other concerns as well. In my experience, these concerns seem to be highly bimodal. On average, products which are not Chinese (i.e., not sold/manufactured/etc by Chinese companies) score very highly while Chinese products score very poorly. So while it would be great to have some certification provided for each of those concerns, I would settle for some certification with respect to whether the product is Chinese or not (of course, if that certification took off, there would be all sorts of issues with enforcing it--Chinese companies could operate shell companies and so on).
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Aaah, I thought you were going for a made-in-America production certification, not a generally-good-people production certification. The term you're looking for is "fair trade." Here's one example of such an organization: https://www.fairtradecertified.org/
Thanks for pointing me to fair trade; I'll have a look. There are a lot of things I'm interested in, but mostly they fall into one of a few groups. For any given product, I want to know: 1. If (or to what degree) the product was made via exploitative labor conditions 2. How harmful is the product to the environment (manufacturing through disposal) 3. Does the product benefit from subsidies? (e.g., is a foreign produc…
> How harmful is the product to the environment (manufacturing through disposal)
This one is more in line with Cradle 2 Cradle: https://www.c2ccertified.org/
> Is the product I'm buying reasonably advertised.
I'm unfamiliar with this organization, but a search popped up the Trustworthy Accountability Group: https://www.tagtoday.net/certified-against-fraud-program/
I didn't find anything on my first page of results for certificates of non-subsidisation.
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Thanks for pointing me to fair trade; I'll have a look. There are a lot of things I'm interested in, but mostly they fall into one of a few groups. For any given product, I want to know: 1. If (or to what degree) the product was made via exploitative labor conditions 2. How harmful is the product to the environment (manufacturing through disposal) 3. Does the product benefit from subsidies? (e.g., is a foreign produc…
Labor conditions and pay are theoretically covered under fair trade. > How harmful is the product to the environment (manufacturing through disposal) This one is more in line with Cradle 2 Cradle: https://www.c2ccertified.org/ > Is the product I'm buying reasonably advertised. I'm unfamiliar with this organization, but a search popped up the Trustworthy Accountability Group: https://www.tagtoday.net/certified-against…
EDIT: TAG seems to focus on eliminating fraudulent Internet advertising; it's a much narrower scope than I had in mind.
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You’re drawing a false equivalence both between the people detained and the condition of their detention. > Any modern society should be able to say that concentration camps are bad, or that rounding up or punishing children, families people in the basis of race, familial connections, etc is an affront to human dignity that should be condemned. Of course. And modern nations should condemn China on that basis. But wha…
Many of these families are people seeking asylum status in the United States. Detaining then like criminals and treating them like animals — there are documented cases of infants without identification being cared for by unrelated minors is grotesque. That treatment is against the law, as is many aspects of how others apprehended crossing the border illegally are. If some regulation of asylum process justifies the di…
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> The students should have a fixed bed position, fixed queue position, fixed classroom seat, and fixed station during skills work, and it is strictly forbidden for this to be changed My school was like that when I was growing up. I'm not justifying what China is doing, and I didn't like it myself. But I find it weird to find it quoted here like that.
The difference is that you got to go home every day. Take a look at the full leaked document for details, the BBC quotes make it sound like a smaller deal than it really is.
What I find chilling is that Uigher children are being kidnapped from their families and sent to barbed wire enclosed camps as well[1]. There, they are subjected to CCP brainwashing[2]. [1] https://youtu.be/v7AYyUqrMuQ?t=1791 [2] https://youtu.be/v7AYyUqrMuQ?t=1826