Edit: Jesus Christ, people. If you buy a $150 Thinkpad made by slave labor instead of a $1,200 MacBook made by slave labor, you’re still supporting a capitalist economy based on slave labor. We all do. We have no choice. The number of smug liberals in the comments saying “well I buy a cheap used laptop” or “well I buy coffee beans and make my own coffee” are completely missing the fucking point.
Don’t tell yourself your consumption is moral. All of us make unethical choices every day because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Accept your shame and guilt and let it drive you to do better.
I’ve only ever seen the last panel of this, delightful.
This is really daft.
It’s possible to participate in society in such a way as to uphold our beliefs about how society ought to be.
If you want to complain about Apple’s abuse of employees, don’t buy their stuff.
If you want to abolish slavery, don’t own any slaves.
If you want to smash capitalism, buy a used thinkpad.
Sure, there are some instances where this just isn’t possible in a complete and absolute sense. For example, I despise google, have invested a lot of effort in degoogling, but there remain some google components I rely on.
However, the existence of these instances does not mean we don’t need to invest any effort in supporting the changes we want to see.
I agree, that comic is bullshit. Acknowledging that the world we live in isn’t the one we want but that we can make a garbage system less garbage is absolutely valid. There are initiatives like Right to Repair that bring us closer to our goals while also actively making the existing system suck less, so why not take the money you would have spent on Apple products and put it towards the cause instead?
Nope sorry, there are many much less capitalistically aggressive alternatives to starbucks and apple. Slaves on the other hand literally (and not figuratively as in here) needed to keep slaving to stay alive. I would seriously feel cramps in my stomach if I walked into a starbucks with that sticker.
apple and Starbucks are capitalists. Using their products and services is not “capitalism” but “consumerism”
spending a wage you earned is the opposite of capitalism
I mean not exactly. I am not sayin the person in the photo is but excessive consumerism is what capitalism needs to stand on.
Sure, but it’s the fact that out of any other choice to pick, she chose to still give her money to the most aggressively capitalist companies. You can say it’s consumerism, but what point is she even making then? She sat down at a Starbucks to get her overpriced coffee, on a $1200 Macbook with a sticker on it that says “SMASH CAPITALISM”, it’s blatantly hyprocritcal.
Buying anything in a capitalist country makes you a consumer.
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Who’s my local laptop manufacturer?
You just gotta go down to the local laptop breeder and pick out a baby
Find a local shop that refurbishes used machines and provides good warranty
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Yep used thinkpad and some kind of Linux sounds more like it.
All your options are “capitalistically aggressive”. It’s a sign of immaturity to me that people think they’re above it all while still being totally and utterly dependent on capitalist economics. Acting like buying a fair phone makes you better than others is just laughable. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to all your other unavoidable contributions to capitalists.
Not to mention that many of these “better” options are only available to people with money, which makes the entire claim even more ironic. Many of us going this “alternate” less aggressive route can only do so because we benefit from inequality in the first place.
Your argument in no way refutes the point the comic makes.
How’s Lenovo’s sustainability versus Apple’s?
Apple is a dumb choice always, but theres no fucking replacement for starbucks and you cannot convince me otherwise.
I would think the exact opposite. Apple’s monopoly practices (you notice they just got mega sued by the USG for antitrust violations, right?) mean if you want to effectively collaborate with people inside the Apple ecosystem you need to use Apple products.
On the other hand, Starbucks is easily replaceable, unless you’re in some sort of food desert urban wasteland, there are local coffee shops everywhere.
Where even is the Starbucks in the photo?
this is a very good point, I am now more angry with myself for not looking carefully and jumping to a conclusion and swallowed the story like a pill
I thought under her butt but maybe not. Is that their seating?
Fuck people in the apple ecosystem. Coffee in diners don’t replace the dessert frappuccinos.
Wow. So, you’re just openly admitting to being a selfish prick and that you have shit taste?
So brave.
Lol whats selfish about not wanting to support the Mac ecosystem? It has lots of effort for minimal return, it’s completely uneconomic for every use case. Plus, it adds incentive to keep using Apple products, which is harmful to its users.
No one’s talking about diners. We’re talking actual coffee shop or cafe.
Of course any place that just has a coffee machine alongside everything else they do is going to be shit compared to a place that specializes in coffee.
And any sugar bomb dessert drink is going to be “better” than a bog standard cuppa joe.
That’s like going to a sushi restaurant, getting the chicken tenders they have on the menu just so parents can placate picky children, and complaining that it doesn’t stack up to a wings that specializes in wings.
It’s apples and oranges man.
Look, my wife’s from a small town where the main employer pulled out almost 50 years ago. Then they spent a shit ton of tax money on trying to build some stuff to become a cargo transport hub, which failed as no companies bought in. 90% of their downtown is empty storefronts and boarded up windows.
They have two entirely local coffee shops that I can personally vouch to do equal to Starbucks. Personally I think the one blows the pants off Starbucks, but I’m willing to concede in the court of opinion. There’s at least two other coffee places within 10 minutes, two breakfast places, and two sandwich shops that have dessert coffee that stacks up as well, so I’m told.
You could buy the small mansion that sits on the hill overlooking a forested residential area there for the cost of a small townhouse anywhere else. Lovely town, lovely people in it. Impovershed as all hell. There’s still great options besides “Yeah I think Earl put a new pot on sometime today, let me check”.
Out on the highway, exits, and rest stops thereabouts, there’s even franchise alternatives to Starbucks. Dunkin Doughnuts are goddamn everywhere. Tim Hortons, at least up in the northern US. East coast from roughly New York down to Virginia (don’t quote me on the specific bounds) there’s Wawa gas stations, where if they have the sandwich counter they have dessert drinks. Pretty sure there’s other gas station chains that are stepping up too, I just don’t travel like I used to, especially since the pandemic. Dunkincs my go to “I don’t know the area and don’t have time” choice. Much more limited menu options, but I feel it holds up.
Look, you’re more than allowed to have your own fucking tastes and preferences, or maybe you’re literally addicted to Starbuck’s infamously pumped up caffeine levels. Just please don’t pretend like Starbucks is the only option for a good dessert coffee drink.
Oh no, you support a notably horrible corporation and like their products! Welcome to the party. The overwhelming amount of people, even the most socially and human rights concious, are far from perfect in that regard. Everyone has to make their own choices about the battles they fight and where they expend their effort.
Tim Horton’s coffee is total garbage though
I don’t care about the ecosystem but I care about having macOS. And I care about not having overpriced coffee abominations from starbucks, when I can make better coffee at home for less money.
I… do you really think Starbucks sells good… anything? I mean, serious question. Do you think their drinks taste good?
Sorry you’re being down voted for having an opinion :-( – even if it’s a horrible one.
Please tell me how I can build ios apps, test multiple browsers (including safari), and test on any iPhone without mac? I don’t want to use a mac but it’s not “always a dumb choice”. Sometimes (by design) there is no choice.
Here is an idea for you, don’t build iOS Apps. If iOS users want to use regular apps or browsers then they’ll have to jailbreak their devices or stop using devices that intentionally limit them. Enabling their poor decisions doesn’t help them.
As a bonus it removes your apple developer fees as well as cuts your development costs by maybe half or even more.
The vast majority of devs doing it for a career don’t get to choose what kind of apps they build.
I assure you everybody has a choice with every action they take, but purely for the sake of argument if you didn’t choose then your superiors did and in that case I’m criticizing your superiors stupid decisions, savvy?
It is so damn stupid if you’re developing a product and limiting yourself to a specific group because of some stupid moral that not everyone shares. Makes 0 sense in business context but sure go for it.
Lmao, the only limiting factor in this equation is Apple.
You’re deluded
Here I am being more judgey about Starbucks.
I’m no Apple fan but I’m no hater either. They’re overpriced but most people who have them are buying them for the style/aesthetic/image…and while that may indeed be shallow, if that’s what they want and the apple stuff delivers it for them and makes them happy, I suppose it’s money well spent (to them).
The coffee on the other hand, if they’re in any city or suburb of any decent size, there’s probably a small local option that’s at the very least as good as Starbucks coffee and likely significantly better.
Exactly, one of the main complaints about macs (being so proprietary and locked down is one of the main selling points. They’re the king of “just works” because they don’t allow a damn thing that might make it not.
I like to tinker so obv that’s garbo, but if you want to get your grandma something and not have to come around once a month to “fix,” Mac might be the answer. 🤷
In my experience locked down hardware just works until it doesn’t just work, and at that point it’s much harder to get working. When my auntie wants to know how to make sure she doesn’t delete her iphone contacts by accident, I need to have the device in my hands and figure out the answer. If she had an android like a normal person, then I could just tell her because I know the answer off the top of my head.
I tried to play Warframe with a friend whose only gaming device is a Switch last year, and it was a massive pain. We eventually got it working, but my friend came close to giving up many times. If she’d had a PC, it would have just worked.
Macs are not really locked down fyi. I can sudo to root and do literally anything I can do on Linux. iPhones sure, but not Macbooks.
Alright but if you’re driving 6 hours across the USA you can get consistently good starbucks in every other town you pass by, but yes I’m sure there might better tasting gourmet options for similar price range in the most populous cities in the nation.
Apple is still a detriment to the end users, though, so I don’t care if it gives them momentary happiness.
Starbucks along with McDonald’s has the most throat ripping base coffee of any chain in the UK.
If I have use a chain I’ll go to Costa but I’d rather use a local trader.
McCafe coffee is actually pretty decent in Aus, if i had to get something fast food it’d be maccas anytime, but we have so many thousands of cafes that i never have to go more tgan a street or two for a good one.
Yeah the coffee and most of the food items at Mickey D’s is garbo, but I’d fight a dude for a more ethical means of obtaining a big mac in less than 10 minutes.
Locally owned cafes???
oh wow what a novel concept, never have I heard of such a thing like eight times in this thread, thank you for sharing your incredibly useful opinion.
I wish there was a replacement for starbucks.
I wish it were possible for an ethical restaurant chain in general at the scale of what we have in the USA, I bet the good timeline has those.
Im not judging her because of any hypocrisy. Im judging her because she’s a mac user.
It’s because they aren’t using a used ThinkPad
I AM using an old thinkpad! Huzzah!
Asus > Lenovo
They’re very similar, but you get to support Taiwan with Asus. You don’t have a pointing stick, though; if that’s something you care about. The hardware is also similar, but Lenovo generally has better cases/ outershells, but Asus also outperforms them on price point and internal hardware and software.
Not really supporting either business by buying a used laptop tho?
When people make memes about you using it, you’re supporting the company with good exposure. They should be grateful.
I’m down with that, too. Depends on your needs, though.
Are there Asus laptops out there that support the same level of reparability/upgradability as ThinkPads?
Yes! Here’s one example: https://www.asus.com/us/laptops/for-students/br-series/asus-br1402c/
Like I said, they don’t offer as many external accessories, but they’re pretty close.
This is coming from someone who grew up using thinkpads. If I were to buy a used laptop for something personal, I’d go with a thinkpad. If I have to buy something new, it’s Asus.
That’s kind of neat. At that price point it seems kind of in between a ThinkPad and Framework laptop.
Cool but kinda slow. Would be okay as a Linux machine I imagine, but so would a used ThinkPad.
As Linux enthusiast I think I have to jump in and say if you’re not using a 10-year-old Thinkpad bought second hand running EndeavorOS you’re not a true socialist
(Obviously I’m not serious but Poe’s Law is a bitch)
Erm I run arch by the way
jump ininterject for a momentFTFY.
If you’re not running a Libreboot Thinkpad T500 with Hyperbola GNU/Linux installed, you’re not a true socialist.
that’s the thinkpad my grandparents had before getting a new one in 2020
Are there any Thinkpads with dedicated gpus? I did a bit of a search but could only find ones with integrated graphics which for me is a deal breaker
ThinkPad X1 Extreme. Good luck on getting it at a low price, though.
Yes several. Some have quadro graphics for professionals too.
Macs naturally can not be stolen or obtain second hand as a gift or in some other sort of deal.
Huh? You can absolutely change mac ownership if the current associated account holder is involved. It’s a very simple process.
Now, if you need to remove an activation lock without the involvement of the registered account holder, it’s a huge pain in the ass (had to go through this with a work laptop a year ago).
Whoosh
Sarcasm, friend
Oh shit, I wonder if that means the person in the original picture could have gotten that Mac secondhand for less than $1,200
I don’t know how fancy that one is but I’ve pulled at least five working MacBooks from corporate ewaste. All were out of their absurdly-short OS support but Linux Mint (and I’m assuming a bunch of other distros) run great on them. I’ve handed all of them off since reinstalling but I liked the hardware enough to use one as a writing computer until someone needed it.
Yup, my last 2 MBP laptops have been from a junk pile and came to me free/cheap from a buddy who was able to grab a bunch.
All in all, everything I do on a laptop is in a webui, a terminal or within a remote VM so I mostly dgaf about what it can natively run, but the hardware is great and it can load the nix (and brew) package managers, so I really haven’t found much that I want it to do that it can’t. Hell, even games I can just Steam Link to another machine and play if I want.
My last job was disposing of a 2021 model and I was dumb enough to ask if I could have it rather than just taking it and got told no … Sold for scrap by the pound! I could have left a 10$ bill in it’s place and theyd have gotten more profit, fucking ridiculous.
Ugh, corporate eWaste. I do tech work for a company, and outside of getting verbal approval from someone high enough up to take home two monitors when we acquired another company and we were doing an all hands on deck full replacement of their gear, there’s never been a way for me to recycle waste gear for personal use that wouldn’t put my employment at risk.
No process for letting employees recycle or reclaim gear. Chuck it in the dedicated bin, once a month a third party recycler comes around, takes it away. Supposedly they wipe or destroy the drives, but no word on what they do with the rest of it. Can’t find a damn thing on where/how they resell it, and I’ve spoken with the person in charge of purchasing and depreciating our hardware. Seen way too much hardware tossed that could go to great use, just not as a desktop anymore.
Like, my own collection of old hardware doesn’t have anything in it newer than a decade old, and it’s all budget stuff acquired from family.
Meanwhile there’s four year old business grade desktops being effectively thrown away that I’m seeing go for $300 used. Just let me build my home network without going broke dammit!
Damn you capitalism for forcing me to buy a mac!
I’m no Apple fan but I’m scratching my head at this comment. Would any other brand of laptop be “less capitalist” somehow ? Just because they are less overpriced than macs ?
Apple is by far the most monopolistic tech company you can choose from.
But… While capitalism naturally leads to monopolies, capitalism can’t function under monopolies, so I guess supporting the most monopolistic company is going against capitalism…
Also, having seen new macs, if I wasn’t into gaming the m chip macs seem better for the price than anything else on the market. 🤷♂️
Performance wise? No not any more. Price wise? Again no. Screen quality wise? Only on the Pro. Battery life wise? Yes, with very few exceptions. There are also the software compatibility issues that made me sell mine.
Really? I thought I saw multiple benchmarks with the m-chips blowing all the other Intel and AMD chips out of the water.
I think you have been looking at Apple Benchmarks. M-series isn’t the fastest in multi-core now or when it was released, though it might have been fastest when the first Max chip came out, hard to tell. They had a small lead in single core at one point though I think. It might be faster than the latest AMD by a small lead depending which benchmarks you look at.
https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i9-13900k-vs-apple-m3-max
https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/apple-m3-max-vs-amd-ryzen-9-7945hx
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-apple_m1-vs-amd_ryzen_7_4800h
Ah okay! Thank you for providing sources. It still seems like a competitive chip, but I see I was wrong about it being outright better.
I think the first two comparisons are a little unfair (unless I’m mistaken) since those are both desktop spec chips and apple doesn’t realllyyy do desktops anymore.
The second one is a laptop chip, you maybe need to brush up on CPU naming. I actually meant to have a laptop chip for the first as well but I made an error. M3 Max is used in both desktop and laptops. Stop thinking of M series in terms of desktop or laptop, it’s meant to be a multi purpose chip. Even with Intel and AMD you see chips and dies getting reused between desktops and laptops.
Anyway here is one with an Intel laptop chip: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i9-14900hx-vs-apple-m3-max
Although if we are comparing desktop only chips then AMD have Threadripper Pro and Apple has M3 Ultra. I am pretty sure I know who comes out on top (hint: it’s the one with up to 96 cores)
Apple definitely does desktops as M Ultra is only available in desktops and is too hot for Apple Laptops. Although to be fair I could see one of the gaming laptop companies maybe finding a way to make it work.
Framework perhaps
Could’ve been a gift
When I went through college I had to get a MacBook as part of my kit
Literally couldn’t use a different device if I wanted to because of forced app usage (when there were cross platform alternatives that would work just fine)
I’ve also worked somewhere that forced a MacBook onto me as a work device but also allowed us to sticker it up if we wanted cuz they weren’t gonna take it back until it was basically useless anyway
Many places one can get a mac, a couple of them are actually forced on you
Oh, I didn’t know you needed apple products, the most monopolistic tech company to exist, to survive. That explains why their fans are so rabbid. I better switch from Linux otherwise I’ll die.
It’s not all that uncommon for workplaces to require a specific OS
That’s a good point
“we live in a society”.
People are pressured to align with social norms, so the word “survival” in this case is used very expansively. It means not only to continue to exist, but to continue to exist in the social strata you have managed to achieve. ANY such strata comes with standards of quality, and pressures to make choices that align with the group. There are always outliers who cross strata and reject certain things, but that does not mean all of us don’t abide in certain cases.
So no, you don’t need a Mac, but you may receive pressure from your social group, and may value conformity as a part of your “social survival”
Maybe she prefers the Apple ecosystem and her social group pressured her to add the stickers
Or, she got the mac second hand and does indeed oppose capitalism. Wouldn’t explain the starbucks tho…
Now you’re cookin
While I accept your argument, you’re either a juvenile, or an extremely weak willed person to buy a particular brand because your “friends” pressured you to be more like them.
What a rude and uncivil comment.
I’m not discussing “friends” I’m discussing nearly every element of public adult life.
You are not free from social pressures the same way no one is immune from propaganda.
I was not referring to you personally. I was generalizing. My comment was not rude. You simply perceived it as rude.
I would ask you to speak for yourself. You do not speak for all of society. Perhaps one isn’t free from potentially being the recipient of attempted social pressure, but one is certainly free to ignore it. I’ve been doing it for most of my adult life. I do what I feel is logical. Not what others would have me do.
You’re missing the point. There’s so many pressures you don’t even perceive. Your whole perception of what’s appropriate is not free from influence.
This is an entirely subjective argument. I’ll accept this as your opinion, and perhaps your personal experience, and leave it at that.
This is a heavily studied topic in mental health, various humanities disciplines, career coaching, etc. I’m not inventing this concept.
Who said anything about friends? Young people are often pressured to buy a particular tech product by their school.
Monopolistic means there are no other options. That’s the definition of monopoly. She needs apple products because they’re a monopoly. The refutal is in the words you used.
Also a product isn’t a bad product, just because it is produced under capitalism. A computers ability to compute does not depend on its mode of production.
Paying $7 for very shitty coffee is still a strange decision to me, but I understand
You can pick up a refurbed MacBook for under $800. Or maybe it’s a hand-me down. Or maybe, like me, at the end of a contract their employer said “We ran out of money so consider your laptop payment.”
… or maybe she thought it’s an edgy sticker and fits her style?
Idk. But if you really were serious about smashing capitalism, it’s kinda irrelevant how much stuff you buy, there’s a lot of groundwork to be done, organizing and educating. For all we know, that may be what she’s doing in that photo.
If she dressed in rags, owned nothing and was homeless, I fail to see how that would accomplish anything more.
Although I prefer to support local businesses, not a fan of massive corporate chains. My city has dozens of local coffee shops that serve fair trade products. I can walk to a half dozen of them, whether or not I bring my ancient 2011 laptop. But I do love my principles being questioned by smug internet randos so 🖕
And additionally progress of society has always to be driven by immanent critique, wich is critique from inside the given historical social order.
Who would criticise human society if not its humans? How would any will to change it ever emerge?
But Apple is one of the good embodiment of capitalism. It is a symbol of excessive consumption, surveillance for profit, and consumer-right abuse.
That being said, is not like most popular alternatives are any better. If people don’t have time to switch to or even heard about better alternatives (upgradeable open hardware running an open community-driven OS), I guess it is not their fault.
Starbucks, however, has many alternatives (at least in the U.S.) that doesn’t involve as much union busting and harmful labor practices.
