Published 2026-10-09
tag(s): #politics #random-thoughts
Over an email exchange with a friend, he brought up a conversation he had with a colleague (what follows is an edited quote):
A colleague scolded me after I confronted him for paying Anthropic.
He proceeded to lecture me on Apple's child labour abuse and the proprietary OS.
His conclusion was that if you care about these things you shouldn't be in IT.
Getting into those conversations is an interesting exercise in frustration. The colleague's
reply strikes me of the "yet you participate in
society" comic panel.
Does he have a point? Maybe. But he is still giving money to Anthropic, and it doesn't address
the point my friend brought up to him.
In theory, Anthropic are "the good guys". Or, they paint themselves that way. I honestly didn't look into their claims, as I believe all AI consumption to be unethical and all the companies in the space to be full of shit. Yet I do have a subscription, and feel "I have no choice" but to participate in the AI circus.
How do I reconcile these things? I don't. If you look around, most of the things we consume
present these problems. I vote for candidates aligned with my views (global warming, nowadays
IA, healthcare, etc.) and do what I consider is my best by not being wasteful and buying
things I don't need. Trying to buy from small stores. Etc.
But as an example of something that I think is not ideal: do I own all my music? No, I have a
streaming subscription.
Do I have a smartphone? Yes. Do I literally need a smartphone? NEED? Not
really. A lot of things would be inconvenient without one. It sometimes seems like a
necessity, but if you try hard enough, it is still a choice. And I choose to have one.
Do I have an Amazon Prime subscription? Yes. My wife uses her a lot and setup a household
thingy. Would I prefer we don't have it? Yes. So I never use it? I try to avoid ordering from
Amazon, yet when I do I always get next day delivery. I don't even know if you can't opt out
of it, I didn't try :) it's there and I take advantage of it.
Do I always "buy local", only groceries that grow within X kilometers from my house,
and from small farms? No. Actually, Maria does more in this department that me.
Someone will see me as a hypocritical fraud for giving $20 a month to Anthropic, or buying
from Amazon, etc. Honestly, I don't completely disagree.
Yet if I were confronted on any of these, I would like think I would engage in a useful
conversation to understand their point of view, and share mine. For this, I would have to feel
they are interested in understanding how do I reconcile the contradictions, and that they have
something to share more than finger pointing.
And also, where do we draw a line between valid compromise and enabling the worst things ever?
I am aware that once you allow some unethical things, the flood gates are open to
justify anything. There has to be a limit. And the limit is, I believe, fuzzy.
I said this in my long, disjointed rant
about separating art
from artists:
[...] This constant need to put rules and fences and caveats to everything is annoying. Embrace the fact that all "rules" are imperfect.
Instead of blindly imposing your made up rules, have a conversation.
Having a conversation doesn't mean that you then need to agree later. And disagreeing also doesn't mean the conversation needs to stop. Unless you want it to stop - use that power wisely, or you will never leave your echo chamber.
I think starting the conversation with a black/white point of view will make us all live in echo chambers. We can't have meaningful, long term changes (in how we view consumption as a society, in rules and regulations, in the constitution of congress, etc.) unless we can have a dialogue.