FTFY: *10 reasons to avoid capitalism
If it’s not Amazon, it’s another shitty company which exploits everyone and everything to maximize profits without regard to the well-being of humanity and life itself.
We need fundamental, systemic changes which grab those malpractices by their roots and rip them out. Our life will not get better if we continue to allow corporations like Amazon to exist.
Purge them from the face of the earth. Life is too precious to be sacrificed for the sake of greed and corporate dominance. A new paradigm must emerge, one that values people over profits and prioritizes the health of our planet. We need to foster a society built on mutual respect, fairness, and sustainability, where every individual has the opportunity to thrive. Only then can we hope to create a future that benefits all of humanity instead of a few.
The problem is that users are reluctant to pay more for the same product.
In my country the difference in price for a dozen eggs laid by free vs caged chicken is 1 euro. The caged chicken live their entire life in an overpopulated cage and are never allowed to walk outside. People don’t care, they’d rather save 1 euro.
Companies like Fairphone seem to advocate for the values you describe but they can’t possibly provide the same price of those other “dirty” companies. While most people sees the benefit and appreciates the values of such a product, they just aren’t willing to pay more for an inferior product spec wise.
Pretty weak 10. Pick one or two and make a compelling article, I’m already trying to quit. We don’t have to make up stuff like “JFC nuclear power!?”
I agree with the message, but these two points following each other feels a little hypocritical:
“Amazon is supporting new nuclear plants” and “Amazon has a poor climate record”
Nuclear power is the most effective way to get out of climate change. Caring about climate change and being against nuclear power at the same time is a contradictory position to take, and needlessly puritanical.
If we could only rely on renewables, that would be very nice. That is not currently the case. We should strive to have more renewable energy, while keeping in mind nuclear power is here to stay and even be expanded as we eliminate carbon emitting sources of energy.
i disagree. nuclear power is expensive to build (usually exceeding the planned costs), is not resistant to high heat in summer (as shown by french summers), and a proper way of getting rid of nuclear waste is still not developed.
One Big Chart: how does the cost of nuclear power compare to renewables?
CSIRO confirms nuclear fantasy would cost twice as much as renewables https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/csiro-confirms-nuclear-fantasy-would-cost-twice-as-much-as-renewables/
Nuclear reactor in France shut down over drought Chooz Nuclear Plant on Belgian border turned off after dry summer evaporates water needed to cool reactors
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/nuclear-reactor-in-france-shut-down-over-drought/1952943
Genuinely, disposing of nuclear waste is not the slightest issue. Just dump it in one spot.
Nobody has ever died from nuclear waste.
Nuclear waste itself is a misnomer, there is no waste it’s just uneconomical to use at a certain point, it still has a ton of energy potential.
https://newrepublic.com/article/48426/sadly-there-such-thing-nuclear-waste
If people stopped being hysterical about a technology they don’t understand we could probably develop it.
The good thing about science is that it doesn’t care if you disagree, it just works the way it does
Building nuclear power plants is not a science problem, though, it’s an engineering problem. Just because we can harness energy by breaking up nuclear bonds does not mean that we can do so economically, given the constraints under which we have to operate power plants.
And OP never disputed the science anyways?
Also like solar wind and water power also involve science? As do coal plants? So like, really WTF are we even talking about with science “functioning”?
Edit: Seems like this is just the potato version of the “science is what’s true whether or not you believe it” quote applied to policy…which actually doesn’t work.
It doesn’t matter whether or not nuclear plants are possible if humans don’t build them. The science backing them existing is meaningless.
Ugh, here’s a new wrinkle (at least to me), that literally showed up in my inbox as I was reading this post.
I’m actively trying to avoid Amazon, researched and found the site of a small company making the product I’m looking for, and then find out that Amazon is handling their shipping.
No mention of this anywhere on their site.
This just happened to me. I purchased shoes and they shipped via Amazon even though I didn’t buy them there.
I think that’s part of what people don’t understand. Amazon isn’t a website that sells stuff, they are a dozen infrastructure based industries.
Shut down their website and they still have the logistics to fulfill for the sites you shop on and their servers are probably hosting them too.
The missing reason is that you should just buy less anyway and if you avoid Amazon it is slightly harder to just buy stuff.
That being said, if you need it cheap, quick, and you cannot source it locally, just buy it on Amazon. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. You are not guilty of a moral crime by using them when the need exists.
… when the need exists.
Like you already said, it’s much easier to separate needs from wants when you just don’t go to Amazon. It was a real eye opener for me, how I could just add a tiny bit of friction to my “customer journey” (just don’t automatically start my search on Amazon), and my desire for the object would usually just … evaporate.
Like a fey mood had overtaken me, but I managed to shake it.
I guess that’s consumerism.
Another good “trick” is waiting two weeks once you find the thing you “need” before actually buying it. If you forget or change your mind in these two weeks, you didn’t need it that much. Plus it gives more time to think and potentially find a better product
Definitely. Another similar trick I used to do was to write down the objects in my agenda under “things I wanted to buy.” Sometimes just the act of writing it down gave me the feeling of having fulfilled the desire in some weird way.
This is so so true. I cancelled prime ages ago so I don’t get fast shipping at all, and I only get free shipping if I spend over $35. Even in the cases where I decide it’s worth buying the thing on Amazon, I’ve got to wait to need more than $35 worth of stuff. Surprise surprise most of it just gets deleted out of the cart anyway.
That being said, I have only been able to find filters for my vacuum on Amazon (some no name brand I bought off there a few years ago) so they’ll still get some money out of me, but most stuff I can just ignore now. Next vacuum will be a big brand name so I can avoid that, but it will be a while before there’s a next vacuum, hopefully. Because in my mind it’s more ethical to keep using the old one as long as it works even if some more $ goes to Amazon vs buying a whole new item I don’t actually need yet.
I do not need reasons, I need ways.
Amazon is more than a shop. You can’t escape amazon web services.
Very true, but I assume you don’t mean “then why bother at all” right?
And if I’m correct in that assumption, then I figure we can agree that mitigating what you can is still a worthwhile endeavor?
For the user asking for ways, the user needs ways not just one way out of a single amazon service.
Sounds like your turn to step up to the plate then huh?
Look I didn’t mean my reply as: “you suck, you should post every way possible to get away from amazon” but as a “there are some things out of our control and we cannot escape from them unless we don’t use the internet at all”
Getting away from amazon as a shop is kinda easy, just don’t shop there, thanks for providing alternative shops though.
