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.
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?