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Feb 16, 2012 02:35

I got an iiiiiPhone, I got an iiiiiiPhone... do do do dooooo do... do do do iiiiiPhone ( Read more... )

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teefers February 16 2012, 15:16:32 UTC
yet they'd still rather work at the Apple plants than anywhere else, because from what i've heard, the apple plant has stuff like a movie theatre, swimming pool and gym. what an outrage.

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brent_sienna February 16 2012, 17:02:09 UTC
Well, I'm not sure how to react to the suicide rate among the workers or the crazy hours they put in but I'm sure there's also an element of white American guilt at play in the reporting. It's our last great export.

All that matters to me is: dude, my fucking phone knows where I am at all times! I can find a restaurant like a BOSS!

(P.S. Answer yer texts, rudegirl.)

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teefers February 16 2012, 18:16:17 UTC
They work long hours, only get one day off a week, don't get paid enough, sometimes aren't trained properly and incurred injuries as a result... all of these things suck terribly but imho there are still worse evils happening in the world. Foxconn has like a million employees at their factories in China, of which there have been 15 suicides. One guy lost an iPhone 4 prototype, so he probably offed himself out of fear/shame and the others were unhappy with working conditions so they jumped from the roof. If your job was so horrible, wouldn't you just.. like... quit and get another job? IMHO if you're employing that many people, you're bound to have a handful of unstable ones in the bunch. So yeah, working conditions should definitely be improved but are the factories to be blamed for people actually offing themselves? I'm not entirely convinced.

I was in the car and I tried to read your texts but I almost barfed so I put away my phone -__-

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brent_sienna February 16 2012, 20:22:23 UTC
So talking to me almost made you barf? Always good to hear. :P Honestly, I don't feel any guilt over owning an iPhone. You're right about there being bigger evils in the world and if you want to brutally honest, the world runs on cheap, exploited labor. If you want to cry out over Apple then you should be screaming about the incredibly poor in countries all over the world being worked to death and paid pennies for it. As far as just quitting, that's much hazier. It's not like there's a lot of options available. I doubt we're talking about university grads, this is poor, manual labor. If you have the options of either working yourself to death or not working at all, most will probably go for the job, if only because they have family to support. I think it's a fair point to compare suicide rates in China vs. the rates of the people working for Foxconn. In short, yeah, it sucks but it's a symptom of modern life.

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teefers February 17 2012, 00:21:06 UTC
I live on top of a hill and the road to my house is pretty steep and windy. Reading isn't a good idea but I always forget and try to do it anyway.

The economy in China is booming. Whether or not someone is trained to land those jobs is another question, but that's really no different from any country and any specialized job. There are ALWAYS other options when it comes to suicide unless you're trapped in some bizarre Saw-like (the movie) scenario.

If you have the options of either working yourself to death or not working at all, most will probably go for the job, if only because they have family to support.

And how is this different from anywhere else in the world?

Personally I think the child slave labor used to produce all that chocolate we love to eat is 10x worse than what's happening at Foxconn but I'm disappointed to report that it hasn't changed any of my shopping habits as a consumer. I'm more concerned with things that I might actually have the power to change.

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