I knew was no ordinary FakeSteve (I will restore your sense of childlike wonder. There is nothing you can do to stop me) post when I came upon this striking triad of sentences.
Well, this is the world we are living in. These are the people we are dealing with. This is how we have to deal with them.
Suddenly Dan began to write, the post took off somewhere new, combining the virtual with the real in a manner that took my breath away, and that of any other reader with a grain of sense.
Talent, yes, but most important, a big fat flash of Integrity.
We can’t make these products in the United States. Nobody could afford to buy them if we did. And, frankly, the quality would be about half what we get out of China. But these guys play rough. They really do. They are not nice people. And, though we talk a good game about how we insist on workers being treated with dignity, blah blah blah, well, I mean, come on. Have you ever been to China? We have. We’ve been to China. We know what goes on there. We know how they open your mail, and listen to your phone calls, and let their factories pollute like crazy and exploit workers, all in the name of progress. And we turn a blind eye to it. We let them know when we’re coming to visit, and they give us a tour and put on a little show of how great things are, and how wonderful the dorm life is, and afterward we pretend to keep an eye on them — but it’s all theater. It is. We know it. What’s more, you know it. Everyone knows it.
We all know that there’s no fucking way in the world we should have microwave ovens and refrigerators and TV sets and everything else at the prices we’re paying for them. There’s no way we get all this stuff and everything is done fair and square and everyone gets treated right. No way. And don’t be confused — what we’re talking about here is our way of life. Our standard of living. You want to “fix things in China,” well, it’s gonna cost you. Because everything you own, it’s all done on the backs of millions of poor people whose lives are so awful you can’t even begin to imagine them …
This is what Integrity looks like, this is what it says. And then Dan pulled the post back in to FakeSteve land, but not before issuing this plea. It gave one pause, on the hamster-wheel of the web.
Let’s just be honest here. Just for a fucking minute, let’s all be honest.
Damn straight.
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It is one of the best blog posts I’ve read this year.
And what happened to that Chinese worker is one of the most horrifying things I’ve read in tech media this year as well.
I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if all of the tech punditry then change tack once ‘official’ reports declare that the worker wasn’t abused. They don’t see the situation over there for what it is, just focus on the drama of a single incident. :-/
Yes, I agree. Well said.
It’s brilliant writing from FSJ/Dan … and the consciousness-raising intention is very clear. Somehow he manages to express so much mock contempt and mad outrage, we laugh and agree, then afterwards think: ‘Gee that’s a pretty sharp observation, isn’t it? He’s got a point.’
I remember seeing a Whoopi Goldberg live show in the 1980′s where she would lead us (the audience) down a path that was funny and increasingly so, then pull a twist out of the bag that left us stunned, sitting in pathos and regret for the ‘character’ she was playing, and their awful life experience. VERY good work, and Dan Lyons has the same gift. – Peter
What a fabulous comment, thanks!
wow you really let them have it lol , good writing and way to expose the truth.
[...] it’s always a them By Brian Hayes Crackling veneer in a big fat flash of Integrity. Well, this is the world we are living in. These are the people we are dealing with. This is how we [...]