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I don't buy it completely.

It's like when I read arguments such as "Aramco most polluting company in the planet by CO2" or "eating a burger pollutes more than driving an SUV for 100 miles"...

Apple, Aramco, your local butcher are merely serving your needs. Aramco ain't forcing you to buy 5L V8 trucks, and you're butcher ain't forcing you to eat beef rather than poultry or vegetables.

Apple releasing new products is just a normal tech company serving the need of users to have the latests shiny gadget, shareholders to see equity and employees and contractors having jobs.

What do I mean? While in principal I agree that many companies should do a lot more to limit their pollution, at the end of the day this pollution is a direct consequence of us average Joes neverending consumerism.

If average Joe doesn't give a damn about using public transport or using a used hybrid or to adapt his lifestyle to be less polluting, legislators and companies are gonna adapt to people not giving a damn besides whining on Twitter.



> at the end of the day this pollution is a direct consequence of us average Joes neverending consumerism.

However the subliminal advertising of big companies causing manipulation of weak human minds is what drives the never ending consumerism. Take away the ads, and the buying of crap will drop significantly.


> Apple, Aramco, your local butcher are merely serving your needs. Aramco ain't forcing you to buy 5L V8 trucks, and you're butcher ain't forcing you to eat beef rather than poultry or vegetables.

Marlboro wasn't forcing you to smoke either, yet too many people did against their own health and own best judgement, so we had to get government regulators to rule them in to protect people form damaging themselves and others with their own desires.

Just because consumers want something, doesn't mean it's what's best for them and that the capitalist free market should just be free to unregulatedly deliver whatever consumers want, at the expense of societal health or the environment, because then that's just "privatizing profits while socializing losses" with extra steps.

We also had governments regulate car emissions to save our air quality which meant engines had to be much more efficient and less environmentally damaging. All for the greater good, and few people complained about the cleaner smog- and tobacco- free air despite loosing a few HP on their engines and Marlboro selling fewer fags.

What makes you think e-waste should be exempt from such regulations?




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