Edit: Jesus Christ, people. If you buy a $150 Thinkpad made by slave labor instead of a $1,200 MacBook made by slave labor, you’re still supporting a capitalist economy based on slave labor. We all do. We have no choice. The number of smug liberals in the comments saying “well I buy a cheap used laptop” or “well I buy coffee beans and make my own coffee” are completely missing the fucking point.
Don’t tell yourself your consumption is moral. All of us make unethical choices every day because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Accept your shame and guilt and let it drive you to do better.
I’ve only ever seen the last panel of this, delightful.
This is really daft.
It’s possible to participate in society in such a way as to uphold our beliefs about how society ought to be.
If you want to complain about Apple’s abuse of employees, don’t buy their stuff.
If you want to abolish slavery, don’t own any slaves.
If you want to smash capitalism, buy a used thinkpad.
Sure, there are some instances where this just isn’t possible in a complete and absolute sense. For example, I despise google, have invested a lot of effort in degoogling, but there remain some google components I rely on.
However, the existence of these instances does not mean we don’t need to invest any effort in supporting the changes we want to see.
I agree, that comic is bullshit. Acknowledging that the world we live in isn’t the one we want but that we can make a garbage system less garbage is absolutely valid. There are initiatives like Right to Repair that bring us closer to our goals while also actively making the existing system suck less, so why not take the money you would have spent on Apple products and put it towards the cause instead?
Nope sorry, there are many much less capitalistically aggressive alternatives to starbucks and apple. Slaves on the other hand literally (and not figuratively as in here) needed to keep slaving to stay alive. I would seriously feel cramps in my stomach if I walked into a starbucks with that sticker.
Yep used thinkpad and some kind of Linux sounds more like it.
Buying a used Thinkpad doesn’t change the fact that it was made by slave labor. It might make you feel better to buy one, but it changes absolutely nothing. You still bought an item made in part by slaves or near-slaves. And you’re keeping the market alive for that to continue.
If you buy used, the manufacturer makes zero profit. It’s a pretty substantial difference ethically.
You are of course giving money to someone who likely has already purchased another laptop, indirectly supporting their consumerism, but I mean it’s still one less new laptop and one less landfill item, it’s definitely among the lesser evils.
apple and Starbucks are capitalists. Using their products and services is not “capitalism” but “consumerism”
spending a wage you earned is the opposite of capitalism
Sure, but it’s the fact that out of any other choice to pick, she chose to still give her money to the most aggressively capitalist companies. You can say it’s consumerism, but what point is she even making then? She sat down at a Starbucks to get her overpriced coffee, on a $1200 Macbook with a sticker on it that says “SMASH CAPITALISM”, it’s blatantly hyprocritcal.
I mean not exactly. I am not sayin the person in the photo is but excessive consumerism is what capitalism needs to stand on.
All your options are “capitalistically aggressive”. It’s a sign of immaturity to me that people think they’re above it all while still being totally and utterly dependent on capitalist economics. Acting like buying a fair phone makes you better than others is just laughable. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to all your other unavoidable contributions to capitalists.
Not to mention that many of these “better” options are only available to people with money, which makes the entire claim even more ironic. Many of us going this “alternate” less aggressive route can only do so because we benefit from inequality in the first place.
Your argument in no way refutes the point the comic makes.
nope, there is for instance a ton of difference between someone who buys a used phone and uses it for 5 years vs someone who buys a new phone each time a new model comes out. Similarly there is a difference to how much you enable or enhance this system when you make conscious choices about which brands to use (ones that are a part of it or ones that actively redefine and make things worse).
I would agree however that it really makes no sense to of course try to infer all of these from a single photo, maybe this person is super anti consumerism in all other aspects, maybe she is repairing someone else’s computer etc. Nevertheless apple is the last brand you should be using if you want to put a smash capitalism sticker on your laptop, you can at least show the will to have your os open source. Otherwise it is like going to a steak house to eat steak with a “stop animal slaughter” shirt. It is the exact definition for me of acting like you are above it all without showing the effort to be.
How’s Lenovo’s sustainability versus Apple’s?
if it has linux installed, then much better at least from a software standpoint
Im not judging her because of any hypocrisy. Im judging her because she’s a mac user.
maybe its got linux ?
Then they would be a femboy with striped socks, and drinking a home made coffee in their basement
Damn you capitalism for forcing me to buy a mac!
I’m no Apple fan but I’m scratching my head at this comment. Would any other brand of laptop be “less capitalist” somehow ? Just because they are less overpriced than macs ?
Apple is by far the most monopolistic tech company you can choose from.
But… While capitalism naturally leads to monopolies, capitalism can’t function under monopolies, so I guess supporting the most monopolistic company is going against capitalism…
Oh, I didn’t know you needed apple products, the most monopolistic tech company to exist, to survive. That explains why their fans are so rabbid. I better switch from Linux otherwise I’ll die.
It’s not all that uncommon for workplaces to require a specific OS
That’s a good point
“we live in a society”.
People are pressured to align with social norms, so the word “survival” in this case is used very expansively. It means not only to continue to exist, but to continue to exist in the social strata you have managed to achieve. ANY such strata comes with standards of quality, and pressures to make choices that align with the group. There are always outliers who cross strata and reject certain things, but that does not mean all of us don’t abide in certain cases.
So no, you don’t need a Mac, but you may receive pressure from your social group, and may value conformity as a part of your “social survival”
Maybe she prefers the Apple ecosystem and her social group pressured her to add the stickers
… or maybe she thought it’s an edgy sticker and fits her style?
Idk. But if you really were serious about smashing capitalism, it’s kinda irrelevant how much stuff you buy, there’s a lot of groundwork to be done, organizing and educating. For all we know, that may be what she’s doing in that photo.
If she dressed in rags, owned nothing and was homeless, I fail to see how that would accomplish anything more.
Although I prefer to support local businesses, not a fan of massive corporate chains. My city has dozens of local coffee shops that serve fair trade products. I can walk to a half dozen of them, whether or not I bring my ancient 2011 laptop. But I do love my principles being questioned by smug internet randos so 🖕
spoiler
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Imagine owning a laptop that you can’t replace ram or the ssd of.
Imagine owning a laptop that’s too bulky to be comfortable anywhere but a desk
It’s because they aren’t using a used ThinkPad
Asus > Lenovo
They’re very similar, but you get to support Taiwan with Asus. You don’t have a pointing stick, though; if that’s something you care about. The hardware is also similar, but Lenovo generally has better cases/ outershells, but Asus also outperforms them on price point and internal hardware and software.
Not really supporting either business by buying a used laptop tho?
When people make memes about you using it, you’re supporting the company with good exposure. They should be grateful.
Paying $7 for very shitty coffee is still a strange decision to me, but I understand
But Apple is one of the good embodiment of capitalism. It is a symbol of excessive consumption, surveillance for profit, and consumer-right abuse.
That being said, is not like most popular alternatives are any better. If people don’t have time to switch to or even heard about better alternatives (upgradeable open hardware running an open community-driven OS), I guess it is not their fault.
Starbucks, however, has many alternatives (at least in the U.S.) that doesn’t involve as much union busting and harmful labor practices.
Yeah, BS. If you choose to buy an apple product, new or used, you are still supporting capitalism even if in name only. The product is almost synonymous with pursuing a social cache rather than just useful and mundane functionality.
If you buy any product, you are supporting Capitalism. There’s very few ways to not support Capitalism at all, especially with regards to tech.
Yes you truly need Starbucks and labtops to live
Generally most people need a computer these days, yes.
As for the Starbucks not my thing, but people also need sources of enjoyment and sometimes that can be from a sweet drink.
Life isn’t about only food and water.
Also a product isn’t a bad product, just because it is produced under capitalism. A computers ability to compute does not depend on its mode of production.
“It’s okay to resist capitalism on an iPhone. The feudal lord who owned the pitchforks the peasants killed him with probably observed the irony too.” -Ben Stiller
Like fighting against the fur trade in a Canada Goose jacket.
In response to your edit, there’s a difference between being forced to buy products that employ slave labor and choosing to buy something that is extremely overpriced because of capitalism. Yes you need to live within the system, but that doesn’t mean you buy the most expensive and wasteful version and then claim “well I had no choice!”. You have choices. You’re just being willfully ignorant of them and shifting the blame to someone else. Heaven forbid you become part of the solution and not just another addition to the problem.
