I find the suggestion that the audience of this site is uniquely unreceptive to the article because of the cognitive dissonance of buying things from Apple et al implausible, and I think it's patronizing in the sense that it basically says that the only reason you might not like the article is psychological bias or deficiency. The guilt angle would seem to throw in outright blaming readers who didn't like it. I think the unfocused, screed-like nature of the article, as originally proposed, is a more compelling rationale.
I am not sure I read the same comment as you. I read it as a general observation that people compromise ideals for convenience. For example, I buy things from Amazon, but I also think their continued growth is likely harmful. This functional hypocrisy is common and human. Overcoming a particular case of it is a significant challenge, and I wouldn’t know where to start.
Two things - First, this article isn't what I'd call "a casual discussion". It's fairly harsh in general. Second, if anything the issue is that many of us aren't ignorant at all. We're deeply aware of the moral and ethical tradeoffs of this industry, and the internet, and modern internal commerce, and energy consumption...
It's not "promoting ignorance" to just be tired and sad and not want every article to make you feel like crap just for living in a capitalist society. I already think about it enough on my own.
Nobody here is hanging you out to dry, it sounds like you're doing exactly what these corporations want you to do, though: embody a persecution complex whenever someone levels a perfectly legitimate complaint about their product. Companies like Tesla and Apple have this down to a science, whenever someone tries to talk about how their business practices are kinda scummy iPhone users and Tesla owners feel the immediate urge to take the bullet. That's not what this is about. The end goal is to undo the damage capitalism did to our minds. It should feel natural to criticize the companies that impact our daily lives, since we interact with them the most. Anything else is a reality distortion field that's gone too far, and I won't criticize anyone for being vulnerable to marketing: that's the whole point of modern advertising anyways.
I get what you're saying, but as someone who spends probably too much time, money, and mental stress avoiding buying from Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Nestle, Walmart, etc. I feel like someone who's second job is just trying to do the bare minimum to feel moral in the modern economy and is still getting hit by "surprise, the company you bought carrots from is literally enslaving people" every couple months.
I'm not really sure what exactly you mean to say in terms of me "taking the bullet". It's not like I think it's my fault that these companies do bad things, but so much of the modern discourse, this article included is about how you should feel bad for having purchased a Vizio TV, or ever consider buying one ever again. The problem is, the more you learn, the more you essentially can't buy anything from anyone you don't deeply personally know without finding out they're terrible.
I criticize corporations plenty. Probably too much in terms of the hours in my day. I pretty much live in a cycle of depression every time I look at my toothpaste or ship something with Fedex. What else am I supposed to do? I kinda need a cellphone to have any amount of social life, but every company that makes them seems implicated in moral crimes. So I own a phone and feel like a garbage human for buying it every single day. It's not really a persecution complex when there's no alternative that isn't reverting to some sort of hermit lifestyle where you consume no media, travel nowhere, and only eat what you can buy from local farmers (that you hope aren't bad people). It doesn't feel healthy for my psyche, but I guess I'm doing something good for the world at large, right? Right...?
Edit: Ultimately, glibness aside, my worry is we've gone too far and "undone the damage capitalism has done" to the point where people are being told they're bad for just trying to be mentally stable in an otherwise crappy world. Like, if you're taking medication to stave off depression, it's not a good time to point out the morality of the company that makes the meds that keep you from killing yourself.
Sure, there's some folks who do too much to take a bullet for a company that doesn't need it, but it's all too easy to extend that to a point where you're condemning people for choices they're making where there's not really a better option that is viable for them. I highly doubt there's a lot of rabid Vizio fans. It's mostly just a lot of people who aren't paid well that want to watch a nice movie to relax after a long day at work and don't have the money to buy something "better". Is it really morally right to make them feel terrible for having done that?
