Apple: Promoting slave labour in China

[Lonestar]

Shit. I meant Ryan Thunder.

Well, we were talking about Shep so I thought you were dropping RL names...

[Ryan Thunder]

I don't agee with my old position so I'm not sure what your point is.

[Simon_Jester]

That there are probably other people who still do? I mean, I get his point about industrial hypocrisy, I'm sure there are a large number of people who buy into that and it's obnoxious. I just don't want to be tarred with the same brush, because I never said I wanted to keep China poor and low-pollution while accepting that the West would be rich and high-pollution.

Friendly, who the hell is this "we?" "We assume China won't clean up its act," "we ignore their plans to put out a carbon tax," "bitching when our carbon emission per capita is much higher than theirs..." who's "we?"

Ryan Thunder in a post which got him his village idiot title.
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3081281

Do I have a right to exclude myself from this "we" on the grounds that I am not Ryan Thunder, and that Ryan is prone to sudden bursts of idiotic shooting-off of the mouth? He says dumb things, and maybe he actually believes them even after the hangover fades, I don't know, but I don't think I should be responsible for his opinions of nearly three years ago.

"We" implies "all of us, you and me included;" I'd appreciate it if you'd be a bit more precise about defining "we" before you start making statements like "we're hypocrites who don't want china to industrialize." It matters whether you mean "a minority in the developed world," or a majority. Or how big the minority is. "30% of people are hypocrites" isn't really a surprise, after all, even if 70% would be.

Also a lot of the Australian right wing electorate bitch about China's pollution but ignores our own, even in recent times when we finally got off our arses and instituted a carbon tax. I trust you agree that the climate change deniers in your country bitch about China but ignore their own carbon use.

I haven't heard them do it, so I won't say one way or the other.

The Chinese are run by an unelected clique of technocrats; the only justification they have for holding power is being farsighted enough to plan things ahead of time. That I want them to avoid massive carbon emissions while industrializing... how is that hypocritical, or unreasonable, or "we ignore blah blah blah?" I can't push a button and make the climate change deniers in my own country go away, does that somehow mean I should stop expressing an opinion on the subject at all?

a) You already answered the hypocritical part
b) its not unreasonable IN ITSELF, however its unreasonable if we apply a double standard
c) I don't have a problem with the right to express an opinion under most circumstances (this one included by the way), but I do object to double standards being applied, and I believe I criticise this standard rather than the right to express oneself per se.

Okay, but you seemed to be using the double standard as a basis for disagreement with me. That's the part that threw me.

[Ryan Thunder]

Do I have a right to exclude myself from this "we" on the grounds that I am not Ryan Thunder, and that Ryan is prone to sudden bursts of idiotic shooting-off of the mouth? He says dumb things, and maybe he actually believes them even after the hangover fades, I don't know, but I don't think I should be responsible for his opinions of nearly three years ago.

Fuck you. That post is three years old, and I do not support that position.

[MKSheppard]

....Shep has NEVER been a console fan. IIRC the last console he has owned was a N64.

Last one we actively went out and bought was PS2. I did get a used XBOX from my brother when he also got me daisenryaku. We had a Wii fobbed onto us as a unwilling x-mas gift.

But yes, I've pretty much sat out this entire console generation, as the prices remain pretty high even when they are getting near to their EOL as a mainstream system.

[Simon_Jester]

Do I have a right to exclude myself from this "we" on the grounds that I am not Ryan Thunder, and that Ryan is prone to sudden bursts of idiotic shooting-off of the mouth? He says dumb things, and maybe he actually believes them even after the hangover fades, I don't know, but I don't think I should be responsible for his opinions of nearly three years ago.

Fuck you. That post is three years old, and I do not support that position.

Ryan, I don't care whether you still believe it. My point is that, as I said, "I don't think I should be responsible for his opinions of nearly three years ago."

Whether you are responsible is a different question; you can certainly disavow those opinions and that's fine by me, go ahead. But even if you hadn't, I think I'd still be entitled to not be associated with those opinions. Because I'd never even heard of you back then.

[MKSheppard]

I'd much rather have a hundred million basically content Arabs eating subsidized food than a hundred million pissed off Arabs throwing bombs and blaming random people for increased grain prices.

We already had a hundred million basically content Arabs eating subsidized food and it got us to this present state of events.

The sooner their present societies collapse so they can begin to rebuild as non-insane societies, the better for humanity as a whole.

Right now, they're still on a whole "if we become islamic enough, all our problems will be solved!" kick.

Heh. I can't wait to see them try to feed themselves with Quranic verses.

Moving off onto that....

Link

For years, automakers viewed China as a market where they could sell cars designed for other locales without much trouble. Now, sales on the mainland have become such a dominant part of worldwide car demand that Chinese consumer preferences are influencing global auto design. General Motors (GM) will offer the extra-roomy Chevrolet Sail sedan in India this year. It conceived the car with extended Chinese families in mind at its Shanghai design group in 2009. The Sail is already available in China, Chile, Ecuador, and Algeria. BMW and Daimler’s (DAI:GR) Mercedes-Benz began exporting stretch versions of their made-in-China luxury sedans to the Mideast and South America last month. “In the future, what is made for the Chinese will also be made for the world,” says Burt Wong, chief production designer at the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center in Shanghai, the research and development joint venture between GM and China partner SAIC Motor.

The Chinese market’s sheer size explains why GM and other car companies are bolstering their design capabilities there. Global automakers sold a combined 18.5 million new four-wheeled vehicles in China last year, compared with 12.8 million light-duty vehicles (passenger cars and sport-utility vehicles) in the U.S., according to the Chinese auto association and researcher Autodata. Market tracker LMC Automotive projects that China’s share of the global market for light vehicles will hit 29 percent by 2016, up from 24 percent last year. That’s likely to keep growing, since China’s car ownership, at 60 vehicles per 1,000 people, is still less than half the world average, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. “Anyone with a clear mind would say China is the next place we should develop our next vehicles for,” says Michael Dunne, president of auto industry research firm Dunne & Co. “It’s inevitable. China is the biggest market in the world, it’s profitable and growing.” Another incentive to design cars in China and then ship abroad is to ease production overcapacity on the mainland, which will likely worsen through 2015, according to Mizuho Securities Asia. China exported 814,300 vehicles last year, up 49 percent from 2010, according to the country’s automakers’ association.

In the past, GM brought models designed for the North American market and adapted them to Chinese needs, Wong says. Today, designers in Shanghai collaborate with their colleagues in Michigan as many as four years in advance on new and refreshed car designs, he says. Chinese driving habits have inspired GM’s local design team. Drivers in China like to offer rides to friends and family, making second-row comfort essential, Wong says. So GM engineers in China decided to reposition the Chevrolet Sail’s fuel tank to ensure a roomier back seat. With 166,693 buyers, the Sail was Chevy’s second-best-selling model in China last year after the Cruze.

Detroit- and Shanghai-based engineers also worked together to design the 2010 Buick Lacrosse, with the Chinese center taking the lead in interior design. One reason: The automaker now sells more Buicks on the mainland than anywhere in the world. (GM is also the best-selling foreign automaker in China.) Sales of Buicks in China rose 17 percent last year, to 645,537 vehicles, more than three times the brand’s sales of 177,633 units in the U.S. The Shanghai center, which employs a staff of about 2,000, is developing an SUV for global introduction, Wong says.

Daimler’s Mercedes and its Chinese partner, Beijing Automotive Industry Holding, last month began exporting its long-wheelbase version of the E-Class sedan, says Arnd Minne, Daimler’s Beijing-based spokesman, declining to give more details. The China-made luxury sedan gives rear-seat passengers 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) more legroom than the standard version sold in the U.S. and caters to chauffeur-driven buyers.

BMW began exporting the long-wheelbase 5 Series sedans assembled at its factory in northeastern China last month, says Lisa Ng, senior vice-president at Brilliance China Automotive Holdings, BMW’s Chinese partner. The sedans will be sold in the Middle East (where chauffeured cars are popular) as part of a long-term strategy to show overseas consumers that made-in-China cars are reliable, Brilliance Chairman Wu Xiaoan said last August.

Still, some design touches are conceived with only Chinese customersin mind. Buyers of Volkswagen’s (VOW:GR) new Passat sedan in China get blue-and-orange LED front lights and Taoist yin-yang designs on speaker covers, features not available in the model sold in North America. And Ford Motor (F), which along with GM posted record 2011 sales in China, is adapting its in-car entertainment, navigation, and emergency systems to respond to Mandarin commands in a variety of local accents.

The bottom line: Automakers are now selling cars designed for Chinese customers worldwide. China exported 814,300 vehicles last year.

To put this in some context -- you know how in American cars, the emphasis is on heated front seats? In China, the emphasis is on heated rear seats for your family and friends.

In any case, it's only inevitable that the next 50 years from 2011 to 2061 will see an increasing amount of Chinese interventionism around the world -- they're already hip deep into developing African resources -- something nobody else is willing to do because the place is so unstable and dangerous -- to feed CHINAAA's increasing appetite for raw materials.

And in the vein of this old thread: Link

I ask you the question: What happens when China and the US have 25% of the world's population and use 80-90% of it's oil?

I foresee a future with RED CHINESE MILITARY OUTPOSTS DOTTING THE WORLD, next to AMERICAN MILITARY OUTPOSTS; to ensure a billion Chinese get gas for their 2.5 Buicks per family.

It will be GLERIOUS.

[Ryan Thunder]

Simon, I agree, but you seemed to be ignoring my prior post. "fuck you" was a bit much for that, so I apologize for that.

[mr friendly guy]

That there are probably other people who still do? I mean, I get his point about industrial hypocrisy, I'm sure there are a large number of people who buy into that and it's obnoxious. I just don't want to be tarred with the same brush, because I never said I wanted to keep China poor and low-pollution while accepting that the West would be rich and high-pollution.

Fair enough. Its just that people still do, and they have sufficient clout to cause problems. It looked like the carbon tax would not be passed in my country, but in the end the sane people won. The old trick of pointing to someone else to distract the crowd still can be quite effective.


The book was only published in october 2011. It wasn't quite as bad as the title sounds. However it does raise the scare that if China industrialises the American way of life will be affected, with worse case scenarios meaning America not having a first world nation standard of living. The authors advocate that the US should also be doing multiple business deals targeting certain resources like China is.

But its not surprising that with this type of fear, people simply adopt a lets blame China line instead of trying to compete. I mean we only seen the blame China attitude, with the solar industry, with tariffs and the yuan which is always perpetually 20% undervalued even though a decent google search will tell it has appreciated more than 20% since it floated in 2005. Its also not surprising that some people think instead of a) people trying to be more efficient b) find more resources c) "share" in the same way welfare redistributes resources and lowers your standard of living slightly; they take the easy way out, and blame the developing nations, namely China.

At least I have put my money (literally and figuratively) where my mouth is to reduce my pollution and to help those poorer improve their standard of living. Oh, and I don't buy Apple products either since this is an Apple bashing thread.

I foresee a future with RED CHINESE MILITARY OUTPOSTS DOTTING THE WORLD, next to AMERICAN MILITARY OUTPOSTS; to ensure a billion Chinese get gas for their 2.5 Buicks per family.

It will be GLERIOUS.

See guys what I mean about Shep and China.

[Ryan Thunder]

At least I have put my money (literally and figuratively) where my mouth is to reduce my pollution and to help those poorer improve their standard of living. Oh, and I don't buy Apple products either since this is an Apple bashing thread.

Since you mention it, while I may be typing this from my Acer laptop and own an iPod Touch, I did not know either was produced by Foxconn or the working conditions involved in their production when I purchased them. Since I became aware of these things I have resolved to go out of my way to avoid buying products produced unethically.

That said, I figure the damage is already done with respect to what I've bought in the past, so I may as well use it. Does that seem fair to you?

[mr friendly guy]

At least I have put my money (literally and figuratively) where my mouth is to reduce my pollution and to help those poorer improve their standard of living. Oh, and I don't buy Apple products either since this is an Apple bashing thread.

Since you mention it, while I may be typing this from my Acer laptop and own an iPod Touch, I did not know either was produced by Foxconn or the working conditions involved in their production when I purchased them. Since I became aware of these things I have resolved to go out of my way to avoid buying products produced unethically.

That said, I figure the damage is already done with respect to what I've bought in the past, so I may as well use it. Does that seem fair to you?

Mate, I freely accept you change your views, water under the bridge and all that. However Simon did ask who says what. So to back up my claim I have to show people have said what I claimed. That includes you, Vympel and the guys who wrote the book I provided the picture of.

[madd0ct0r]

hmmm. by way of perspecitive:

I'm a memeber of the vietnamses middle class (albeit a gringo), so is my wife's family.

I work something close to 60hrs a week. So does my wife
My mother in law doesn't but she's retiring in a few months (when she can bear to, in fact). Her husband took involuntary early retirement when his company chewed him up and spat him out.

We work ridiculously hard. We're going back to the UK in a bit, and I'll be doing a master's and working part time AND still have more free time then now.

we work less hard then other relatives still on the land. factory work sucks.
Small holding here sucks worse.
About the only compensation is a vague immunity to food price inflation, and even that's uncertain, given the need to buy seed and fertiliser to keep these tiny plots of land superproducing as they are now.