if we’re talking branding, AMD, EVGA, asus, and a handful of other similar companies. You could argue they’re unethical if you wanted, but again, i’m literally not an ethical consumer. And also, there are no alternatives.
Buying things used/second hand subverts the ethical consumption problem from the get go. So.
What social media do you use?
lemmy and discord, i was an early adopter, and have given them 0 dollars.
What are your 5 major pieces of software?
90% of it is fully open source software. Very little is closed source, none is paid.
who are these amazing ethical retailers with a wide selection of available products that can be delivered virtually anywhere in the US in less than a week at a reasonable price?
> why does this large conglomerate mega corp not have any ethical small business competition
you need to reality check yourself, and either pay more for shipping, or just accept that sometimes things arrive a little bit slower than convenient. If you have amazon prime you already know about this.
IDK why people expect services that are entirely separate and different to be the exact same, it’s like they’ve never gone outside before.
As for your ethical reflection into my purchases, i do not care, as i am anti humanist. I simply do not have a leg in the race, whether i die or not is irrelevant. As for my phone, i didn’t pay any money for it, it was free. And my computer, or computers, are built by me, from hardware that i bought, with my own money.
With the exception of my thinkpad collection (entirely secondhand) most of that hardware has been purchased new, as that is generally how people buy computer hardware.
Also to be fully transparent, i don’t believe i ever stated that i am an ethical consumer (i am in some aspects, i just don’t buy very many things, especially useless things, i’m a utilitarian) but for the things i do buy, i don’t spend much time thinking about it for the aforementioned reasons.
yeah, if you’re buying from a single retailer. There are a lot of places that sell products online, and they’re all very accessible. The only thing stopping you from using them is literally your own laziness.
Physical retailers is more of a limit, since there are only ever so many. But that’s part of the utility of something like the postal system.
thats the thing though, at that point the USPS is already going to be a problem, in literally every form of online order you make.
Amazon even uses USPS in some places from what i can remember, they mostly use their in house shit when it’s financially competitive.
And yes, the USPS is fundamental infrastructure, it is critically important to the functionality of the US as a whole. It’s the sole reason mail based communication even works. Without the USPS the federal government and most state governments lose a lot of power.
I’m trying to limit myself to watching for actual threats to my family. Basically a couple of things. Watching for the same stuff that tipped us off on COVID and watching for camps actually being setup on US soil.
the best thing you can do is to keep the people around you safe, healthy, and happy. Aside from that staying politically informed on the macro level is going to be beneficial as it will guide you through the landscape more clearly. But unfortunately, that’s the harder part these days.
Heads down and try to only pay attention to the important stuff.
This is pretty much the meta for now. You can’t fight if you aren’t physically or mentally capable.
there are a lot of companies that sell things direct to consumer, using the exact same shipping infrastructure that amazon would otherwise be using, if it doesnt already.
If you live rurally, go campaign for funding the USPS more, trump fucked that one, you can thank him for that.
the answer heavily depends.
Do you want to be politically informed and able to make accurate statements about things that are actively happening? Great, better cut some hours at your job and take up a research position for politics in your spare time.
Do you want to be politically uninformed and yet still say shit about things you aren’t familiar with, haven’t researched and do not understand? Great, take more hours at your job, make shit up, listen to what weird internet people who are totally trust worthy and not running a grift at all (trust me bro) are saying online because it makes you feel better about yourself.
Do you want neither of these? Being uninformed is perfectly ok and reasonable, if you approach it with the correct attitude, you cannot hold an opinion on something you are not familiar with, it’s as simple as that. Refer to science and the establishment for most things, because, after all, they haven’t fucking exploded and killed everyone yet, so they must be doing something right.
TL;DR this is my personal opinion, informed by years of consuming political content, and my general interest in sociology and psychology so take this with the correct amount of concern. I would ignore pretty much anything and everything coming from the political right, it’s either bullshit, a lie, or AI generated these days. Very, very rarely do they actually manage to tell the whole truth.
I would also advise distantly observing the far left, as they tend to do nothing more than yelling, screaming, and bemoaning inconveniences. The general left is a bit better about this. But they also have the “we dont really do anything” problem also
Otherwise, be very careful, be extremely critical of the content/media you consume, and be sure to establish your own independent worldview and political beliefs, you don’t have to have identical beliefs to me, or anybody else here, and that’s the beauty of modern western politics. Or maybe find some organizations around you that you can get directly involved in, to make a difference in the lives of people around you.
Yelling at people about things on the internet is one of the least effective ways of doing anything. It’s a great platform for satire, since that’s what satire thrives on, but otherwise, do something else, it’s more productive that way. You need a truly incredible reach to be able to make a difference online.
im not judging you for being incapable of using websites that dont start with amazon, and end in .com, you can do whatever you want, im just pointing out that you have a very silly opinion of how online retailing works.
yeah but then i miss interactions like this one.