If boycotting something comes at a personal cost to the boycotter (such as having to put up with a lesser product that fits their principles better), and they don't have the time or energy to boycott everything that challenges their principles, does that mean they should boycott nothing at all?
Additionally the values of one person varies to the next. To post a question of "do you also boycott X" as some kind of gotcha because of perceived shared values seems presumptuous at best.
"they don't have the time or energy to boycott everything that challenges their principles"
Or maybe they don't want to live in a cave.
If my principles are "carbon neutral, no spyware, workers were not exploited", I think there are zero washing machines, cars and TVs that meet those criteria.
You should set a standard you can live with. If you're boycotting one company for something that you tolerate dozens of other companies doing, you should probably reconsider.
the effect is that they, and hopefully their friends and family who come to them for advice, don't buy lenovo's products. that's independent of what else they happen to be boycotting.
Do you think there’s no value in a positive action unless the person doing it also did some other, unrelated positive action? Why? I think you’re just playing gotcha.
I think if Lenovo's CEO can tell the board "look, we can see x% of customers are anti-rootkitting and avoid companies that use rootkits, therefore we want to switch away from rootkits" that's going to be a lot more effective than "some guys are boycotting us; they say it's about the rootkits but really who knows".
You think that a Lenovo CEO will be completely unconcerned with a boycott of Lenovo products… because their competitors aren’t also being boycotted? Or just less concerned?
If you mean just “less concerned”, then even then, that means the boycott still has some value, right? So what is wrong with someone just boycotting one of two “bad” companies?
Just to transpose the logic to a different situation: say if someone gives $10 to a charity fundraiser, but they actually had $20 in their wallet, does that make their $10 donation less valuable? If this is not a fair comparison, please help me understand exactly what the relevant difference is.
> You think that a Lenovo CEO will be completely unconcerned with a boycott of Lenovo products… because their competitors aren’t also being boycotted? Or just less concerned?
I mean unlikely to take the actions you're trying to push for. If you're not consistent about when to boycott a company, how can they trust you to be consistent about when to stop boycotting a company?
> ...the difference between say 0.1% as likely and not at all likely.
Heh, to think that this sub-thread began with someone (you? Can't recall) complaining about "arbitrary" boycotting... That's a mighty arbitrary number you've got there. What's to say the difference isn't actually between 80% and 99%?
I'm definitely claiming an arbitrary boycott is less than 20% as effective as a clearly principled one. I'm agnostic about whether an arbitrary boycott is completely 100% ineffective or a teeny tiny smidgen effective and I don't think that's a meaningful distinction to draw.
How would most sellers even know whether people are boycotting them "arbitrarily" or not?!?
1) A boycott is a boycott; they only notice that people are boycotting them.
2) ALL boycotts are "arbitrary" in the sense that [almost no | few | some | many | most | almost all] people participate in them, for reasons of their own.
3) ALL boycotts are "clearly principled" in the sense that the people participating in them are doing it because of some principle that's important to them.
4) Seller A can't know -- and probably doesn't give a shit about -- whether each of the participants in the boycott is also boycotting sellers B, C, D, E, F, etc, which perhaps they ought to also boycott on the same grounds they're boycotting seller A.
5) As I already mentioned, some of the people boycotting seller A are probably also boycotting sellers B and C even though they can't be bothered to boycott D, E and F; some others boycott A, D and E although not B, C and F; some A, C, and F; etc etc. For every boycott, you'll find people who also for the same principled reasons boycott other sellers. Lots of arbitrary decisions make a random distribution; it all evens out.
And the numbers (or number-adjacent adjectives) you keep throwing around, apparently in an effort to lend your totally subjective opinion some air of scientific legitimacy, are still totally arbitrary, or to call them what they are: pulled straight out of your nether orifice. How do you KNOW that "an arbitrary boycott is less than 20% as effective as a clearly principled one"??? What data do you have to claim the question is "whether an arbitrary boycott is completely 100% ineffective or a teeny tiny smidgen effective", when it could just as well be whether it is -- to pull equally random numbers out of my own arse -- 90% effective or only 60%? Sure, that might not be "a meaningful distinction to draw", either: Both are pretty fucking bad for the seller.
So... Sorry, but to me your whole screed still feels just as arbitrary and unreasoned as you accuse those partial boycotters of being.
> 1) A boycott is a boycott; they only notice that people are boycotting them.
Well if that's all they can find out then the boycott is pointless. If a boycott is meant to change the company's behaviour then there has to be a way for them to find out what the boycott is about.
> 5) As I already mentioned, some of the people boycotting seller A are probably also boycotting sellers B and C even though they can't be bothered to boycott D, E and F; some others boycott A, D and E although not B, C and F; some A, C, and F; etc etc. For every boycott, you'll find people who also for the same principled reasons boycott other sellers. Lots of arbitrary decisions make a random distribution; it all evens out.
That's only true if everyone is making their decisions randomly though. It doesn't hold if there's a correlation in which companies people do and don't boycott, e.g. people think they're arbitrary boycotting some but not all of the companies that do X, but unconsciously they're boycotting Chinese companies but not American companies.
> And the numbers (or number-adjacent adjectives) you keep throwing around, apparently in an effort to lend your totally subjective opinion some air of scientific legitimacy, are still totally arbitrary, or to call them what they are: pulled straight out of your nether orifice. How do you KNOW that "an arbitrary boycott is less than 20% as effective as a clearly principled one"??? What data do you have to claim the question is "whether an arbitrary boycott is completely 100% ineffective or a teeny tiny smidgen effective", when it could just as well be whether it is -- to pull equally random numbers out of my own arse -- 90% effective or only 60%?
All I've been doing is clarifying what I'm saying. I'm putting numbers on it because you asked! First playpause had some strange fixation on whether I was claiming arbitrary boycotts were completely ineffective or only mostly ineffective, and then you jumped in with some strange fixation on the numbers I used to illustrate what I was saying. It's a bit much to ask for intense precision and then complain when I try to be precise.
> > 1) A boycott is a boycott; they only notice that people are boycotting them.
> Well if that's all they can find out then the boycott is pointless. If a boycott is meant to change the company's behaviour then there has to be a way for them to find out what the boycott is about.
Sigh... Yes, if some people "arbitrarily" choose to boycott company A for some reason that you think is somehow "invalid" if they don't also boycott companies B, C, and D that you think it should also apply to, they will of course let the company know that "We're boycotting you because of this principled reason!" What we were discussing was (your silly hangup on) their "arbitrariness" in not also boycotting other companies, and that company A neither knows or gives a shit about.
Are you genuinely this obtuse, or just pretending because you think you'll "win" a discussion with intentional "misunderstandings"?
> > Lots of arbitrary decisions make a random distribution; it all evens out.
> That's only true if everyone is making their decisions randomly though.
No, read it again: Arbitrarily. That's enough. Because everyone's "arbitrary" is different, the sum of them all will be indistinguishable from random. (In fact, there is an old adage that if you could measure all preconditions exactly, there is no such thing as "random". Even the movements of all the molecules in a gas wouldn't be "random" if you could know the initial position and velocity of each of them exactly... But you can't; that is, in a way, what "random" is.)
> I'm putting numbers on it because you asked! First playpause had some strange fixation on whether I was claiming arbitrary boycotts were completely ineffective or only mostly ineffective, and then you jumped in with some strange fixation on the numbers I used to illustrate what I was saying. It's a bit much to ask for intense precision and then complain when I try to be precise.
No. Either you're very bad at understanding what is being asked of you, or you are just plain lying when making this quoted claim. Absolutely nobody has been asking you for "intense precision" in numerical terms. We're asking for a qualitative motivation for the particular numbers you're making up: WHY should the effectiveness of "arbitrary" boycotts be as minuscule as you claim, and not on the hugely different scale I just as arbitrarily made up?
Please stop deflecting; either provide some sensible replies or just admit that you've been bullshitting without the least speck of support from the very beginning.
> Yes, if some people "arbitrarily" choose to boycott company A for some reason that you think is somehow "invalid" if they don't also boycott companies B, C, and D that you think it should also apply to, they will of course let the company know that "We're boycotting you because of this principled reason!"
But this claim will clearly be false, and so they will not be credible.
> No, read it again: Arbitrarily. That's enough. Because everyone's "arbitrary" is different, the sum of them all will be indistinguishable from random.
Call it capricious rather than arbitrary if you think that's important; the point is that people's decision to boycott company A and not company B might be not based on the issue that they claim the boycott is about, but also not random.
> Absolutely nobody has been asking you for "intense precision" in numerical terms. We're asking for a qualitative motivation for the particular numbers you're making up
The post that started this whole chain was, in full: "So, completely unconcerned, or just less concerned? Which?". That's not a request to explain my motivation, it is a request to give (IMO intense) precision.
>> they will of course let the company know that "We're boycotting you because of this principled reason!"
> But this claim will clearly be false, and so they will not be credible.
This is where you're wronger than a $3,50 bill, so glaringly not-even-wrong that it baffles the mind that you can't see it yourself.
To begin with the lesser reason: "clearly". Clear how, why, and to whom? For the umpteenth time: How would the boycottee know anything about this? Maybe you have participated in more boycotts than I (not a very high bar to cross), so please tell me: Is one usually required, before being allowed to tell Nike "I'm not buying any more of your shoes as long as you keep using third-world child labour!", to declare which other companies one is boycotting and on which grounds -- and above all, which ones one isn't boycotting? How does it work, in practice; is there a form to fill out? Does each company that gets boycotted make up their own form, or is there some central registry? Or is it just hired goons that nab any picketers outside the headquarters and give them the third degree? This is anything but "clearly" false.
Mainly, of course, because it isn't fucking "false" at all. Oh sure, when I was a kid I was also very "principled". But then I grew out of my teens -- or into them? -- and realised that that isn't how the world works. I'm sorry if this comes as news to you, but there is such a thing as differences of degree, and they matter. As somebody[1] is supposed to have said: "Quantity has a quality all of its own."
That is, things can be more bad or less bad, and since nobody has the time or energy to care -- or at least, to do something about -- all of them, people pick and choose which ones they care the most about, and do something only about those. This is perfectly normal, valid, logical and correct. Everyone does it: You too. Say you don't, and we'll know you're lying.
Kids, and perhaps people on the infamous "spectrum", can't distinguish between what's important and what's much less so. This leads to the fallacy of "If you don't do something about everything, you're not allowed to be against anything!" If you're a fully-functioning adult seeing it spelled out this starkly you'll realise how fucking wrong it is. If you're very young, you will when you grow up. If you tend towards autism, this was your lesson for this week on how we neurotypicals see the world[2].
I mean, we're all against Bad Things, right? We think people who do what's obviously wrong should be punished, or at least severely reprimanded. Have you ever uttered your displeasure with some, say, rapist, drunken hit-and-run driver, drug dealer, or genocidal war criminal? Even if you didn't even write a letter to your political representative; just being one more voice contributing to the general opinion in the break room at work, you might have put the last grain on the scale that made someone else write in, right?
But that's about Really Bad People. When did you last go out waving placards -- or even just go on a bit of a tirade over a cup of coffee -- about the evils of, say, occasional littering, jaywalking, or riding a bike without a helmet?
Naah, didn't think so.
Q. E. fucking D.
> Call it capricious rather than arbitrary if you think that's important;
The only one who does seems to be you.
> That's not a request to explain my motivation, it is a request to give (IMO intense) precision.
On the contrary, it is clearly (Hah!) a request to answer a binary, black-or-white, yes-or-no question: Do boycotts, irrespective of your imputed "arbitrariness" of their motivation, still concern the boycottee? The commenter was probably going to continue in the vein of "Even if it is a bit less, who gives a shit? They're still concerned, so they'll have to do something about it." But hey, congratulations, your Sheldonning seems to successfully have deflected that. Are you satisfied with this? Even proud, perhaps?
Don't be.
___
[1]: Often attributed to Stalin, IIRC.
[2]: I gather a rather typical strategy in order to "fit in" is to learn to either understand the reasoning or, if one simply can't, to just bloody fake it. Free tip, worth every penny you're paying for it.
> That is, things can be more bad or less bad, and since nobody has the time or energy to care -- or at least, to do something about -- all of them, people pick and choose which ones they care the most about, and do something only about those. This is perfectly normal, valid, logical and correct.
Sure. Boycotting company A because it does more or worse bad things than company B is perfectly reasonable and principled. But no-one's claimed that's what they were doing in this case.
> The only one who does seems to be you.
Then why are you still here, nitpicking a thread from over a week ago that didn't even involve you?
> On the contrary, it is clearly (Hah!) a request to answer a binary, black-or-white, yes-or-no question: Do boycotts, irrespective of your imputed "arbitrariness" of their motivation, still concern the boycottee?
The difference between 0% and 0.1% is exactly that kind of "binary, black-or-white, yes-or-no question", and I replied accordingly. How exactly does this support what you said a couple of posts back: "Absolutely nobody has been asking you for "intense precision" in numerical terms. We're asking for a qualitative motivation for the particular numbers you're making up"?
Even if nobody boycotts all companies that would be deserving of it, other people probably (just as arbitrarily) pick others from the same set, so it evens out and they all get boycotted by at least some people.
Ok. That’s a good argument. I’ve never been on the seller side of a boycott. I wonder if they consider things like this when they respond to a boycott.
For the spyware/DRM on CDs in the early 2000's? It helps that I mostly just listen to music on YouTube. It's a little easier to remember to not buy something when you're buying a company product like "Lenovo" I guess than something nebulous like Sony Music.
I haven't bought a Sony branded anything since 2000 or so. I almost forgot what it was about (yeah, the CD root kit and the battery-draining DRM shenanigans). I just put them out of consideration for any purchase.
(Yeah, I know, "not really the same company, etc". It is, and it's the brand. Live by it, die by it.)
Took them off my "don't buy" list when my smartphone broke and I immediately needed a replacement and the only reasonable one available at my local store was a Sony Xperia XZS. I still regret it to this day. Worst 499€ ever spent.
