Archinect
anchor

boycott china

mdler

it seems like the right thing to do

 
Oct 31, 07 2:58 pm
Smoke Porterhouse

i couldn't be more on board.

Oct 31, 07 3:00 pm  · 
 · 
xtbl

yep.

Oct 31, 07 3:01 pm  · 
 · 
mdler

basically we should stop buying crap that is going to kill us from china

Oct 31, 07 3:03 pm  · 
 · 
StudioWookie

transformers are manufactured in china.........dont think i can submit.

Oct 31, 07 3:06 pm  · 
 · 
ether

i'm there especiall since we have a new addition to the family on the way. it proven to be difficult when trying to buy non chinese made goods, especially toys but with a little effort and research it can be done.

how about the small town in florida trying to ban the local government from buying china made goods?

Oct 31, 07 3:06 pm  · 
 · 
sunsetsam

boycott china...LOL...your joking right?

Oct 31, 07 3:08 pm  · 
 · 
mdler

they (citizens Pasadena) were trying to boycott china for the Rose Bowl Parade...apparently it didnt work

I heard, however, that the chineese float is going to be covered in plastic flowers, run on leaded gas, and driven really poorly

Oct 31, 07 3:10 pm  · 
 · 
WonderK

Ok, fine, but can I still go there in May?

Oct 31, 07 3:12 pm  · 
 · 
comb

great idea ... i'm going to start using paper plates for all of my meals ... it will save tons of time washing dishes.

Oct 31, 07 3:17 pm  · 
 · 
lletdownl

(im in a bad mood)

what a stupid post. i cant be the only one who finds all the idiotic, reactionary rhetoric against china painfully transparent... get over yourself and realize other nations have the right to follow the same path western nations did.

i would hope that the rose bowl people are boycotting china... how dare they send us toys of sub-standard condition. My son Preston could have ingested trace amounts of iron when i wasnt watching him... my lexus suv is just so big, i couldnt see him! its not like their economic viability, and possibly their future development, rests in the hands of greedy western business man who hold manufacturers hostage ;enforcing the lowest possible standards to save money. Gee i wonder how much iron was in that tube of lipstick he just chewed on? or that handful of flinstones vitamins he just ate?

Oct 31, 07 3:19 pm  · 
 · 
dml955i

yeah good luck with that...(boycotting chinese products that is)

This thread reminds me of that "Zinc Oxide and You" film in Kentucky Fried Movie...Just replace Zinc Oxide with Chinese product...hilarity ensues...

Oct 31, 07 3:20 pm  · 
 · 
mdler

this is a someone sarcastic post

Oct 31, 07 3:23 pm  · 
 · 

Do Not Free Tibet!
Here in WestSide, it is all the asbestos you can eat!

http://www.atomfilms.com/film/haha_america.jsp

Oct 31, 07 3:27 pm  · 
 · 
le bossman

i think we should all move to bhutan, and start a paramilitary there, which will eventually be based all along the border with china, especially in the lawless regions of pakistan and afghanistand. this is where we will wage our guerilla war with the chinese, sowing lawlessness in the region, and eventually liberating tibet.

Oct 31, 07 3:54 pm  · 
 · 
liberty bell
...and driven really poorly.

This shouldn't make me laugh so hard, but it did!

Oct 31, 07 4:04 pm  · 
 · 
Apurimac

boycott america

Oct 31, 07 4:08 pm  · 
 · 
Smoke Porterhouse
boycott china
Oct 31, 07 4:30 pm  · 
 · 
Smoke Porterhouse

or at least the olympics

Oct 31, 07 4:32 pm  · 
 · 
Philarch

Nothing better than some xenophobia on a Wednesday afternoon.

Oct 31, 07 4:48 pm  · 
 · 
Apurimac

seriously, support freedom and liberty and peace and love and fair trade and all that fun liberal shit: boycott America.

Oct 31, 07 5:04 pm  · 
 · 
sameolddoctor

mdler, if we boycott china, we should buy all american products right? There are a few problems to that approach:
1. Ethical - China is not going around starting wars around the world. Your country IS.
2. Practical - There is not enough hardworking americans left to take those jobs anyways, the last i checked most american kids were into massage therapy and yoga.

Oct 31, 07 5:36 pm  · 
 · 
ether

I disagree, sameolddoctor. The screwy shit ass government is waging war not the assembly line worker making $8.50 an hr.

If you spend a little bit of time and do the research there are alternatives. There are companies who support fair wages, take care of their employees and their family, create environmentally conscious products, locally made and/or managed, well thought out designs, etc. I don't see it as a decision to try and keep China from financially prospering. Rather, I see it as simply being a better, conscious and more knowlegable consumer.

Just look at what has happened with the Gap recently. How many of you own Gap clothing? I know I do. But when I need a new shirt or pair of pants, will I skip down the the local Gap store? Probably not.

Oct 31, 07 6:01 pm  · 
 · 
mdler

we start wars to bring $$$ into our economy due to the fact that are manufacturing sector has gone to shit because of china

Oct 31, 07 6:12 pm  · 
 · 
Urbanist

why are we boycotting China now? their outsourced design services shops tryin' to underprice us again? that ship's sailed, I'm afraid.

Oct 31, 07 6:22 pm  · 
 · 
Urbanist

MDLER, our manufacturing sector went to shite 'cause we let productivity growth stagnate, stopped innovating, failed to increase the proportion of our population with a tertiary education literally for generations, and let our infrastructure collapse around us. If China didn't step in to pick up our slack, somebody else would have... or should have. Put the blame where it belongs. Republicans.

Oct 31, 07 6:25 pm  · 
 · 
trace™

can't everyone just get along?














ah haha

Oct 31, 07 6:36 pm  · 
 · 
mdler

*we can still eat Chineese food

Oct 31, 07 6:43 pm  · 
 · 
Urbanist

China, 'errorists, Iran, Russia, Mexicans, foreigners in general.. always good to have somebody around our politicians can blame to divert attention away from the monumental scale of their failures on our behalf... meanwhile, they're robbing the treasury dry, with their earmarks and sweetheart contracts. The only problem is, 'bout half the country will believe them at any given time.

Oct 31, 07 6:54 pm  · 
 · 
snooker

I think the Architetural world would be a heck of alot better off it
we boycotted AUTODESK.....Until they can bring a product to market
which isn't F***ED UP! They rank right their with the Oil Companies in my Book!


Oct 31, 07 9:10 pm  · 
 · 

i'll bite.

Boycott all those that choose to further any country's economic decline by seeking collective bias through boycott and embargos. Your choices cause people's lives and well being. Think about the effect beyond the government...its not just your children that could die.

Also how comes no one is seeking to boycott Switzerland or Belgium who make much of the world's crystal which is made from...wait for it....lead. Sigh I don't understand media controlled hysteria

Oct 31, 07 9:36 pm  · 
 · 
Apurimac

architechno, excellent points.

You still wanna switch places? C'mon you know you want to live in NYC.

Oct 31, 07 10:58 pm  · 
 · 

China is helping to normalize the idea that economic development and prosperity is possible without humanism, and they censor the internet.

Oct 31, 07 11:07 pm  · 
 · 
Urbanist

I like Snooker's idea better. Let's boycott autocad.. and if we can figure out who that really arrogant French guy at acad customer service who once actually told me that I was "stupid" because I thought autodesk shoud make an effort to ensure that its products actually work on all of the PC configurations which its sales teams say that they'll work on, perhaps we can subject him to special sanctions or something.

Oct 31, 07 11:15 pm  · 
 · 
rfuller

I'm boycotting China, but it has more to do with that whole "crimes against humanity" thing. I don't know. Anyone who kills Buddhist monks for having a religion isn't someone I want to buy lead poisoned toys from. Just my two cents.

Oct 31, 07 11:28 pm  · 
 · 
Urbanist

umm... you mean Myanmar. I'm not aware of any recent Buddhist monks actually killed by China. Yoga afficionados maybe. But no monks.

Nov 1, 07 12:02 am  · 
 · 
rfuller

No, I mean china. I'm not talking about last month's news. I'm referring to Tibet. It may not have happened within the past month, but I haven't seen a lot in the way of a real change in policy as far as the PRC is concerned.

Nov 1, 07 1:07 am  · 
 · 
a-f

Haven't you seen "China Blue"?

Boycot (or try to influence) european and american companies that press down the prizes of chinese manufacturers in order to make enormous profits. It's not so difficult for importers to demand better working conditions in chinese factories, but it needs to be initiated by the consumers or the media.

Nov 1, 07 7:35 am  · 
 · 
aquapura

What people fail to see is that China is a very unstable country. It's an extrememly polluted country, which is now showing up as birth defects, respitory disease, etc. They have the highest concentrations of AIDS virus outside Africa. Their population is well over carrying capacity of the land area and difficult to feed. A hiccup in the global food supply could cause widespread famine in China. They are on a path to overtake the USA as the worlds largest car market any time now with more global pollution consequences.

Nov 1, 07 9:07 am  · 
 · 
Apurimac

You know, you cats keep talkin' about how bad China is, but do you have any idea how bad America has been over the last 2 centuries? The American system of capitalism during the ind. revolution was even worse than China's current system. The western nations pioneered labor and wage exploitation, economic advancement at the cost of environmental health and have waged numerous wars for profit. We in the west can act so high and mighty but be aware China is going through the same processes now that we went through 100 years ago.

By the way, before you judge China when I lived over there my boss paid me a decent wage, helped find me a place to live and kept me in food, shelter, and spending cash while I worked there. I come back to America and I get paid 1.50 an hr working for a crappy boutique firm in NYC. So please point fingers at this countrie's Bullshit before pointing fingers at China.

We got alot of work to do over here folks. If you want to try and play the history card and say, "well we've never had a genocidal government", go ask the countless millions of American indians that lost their lives fighting for their homes against greedy White Americans. At least The Great Leap Forward was a mistake. Tibet is a fucking misdimeanor compared to the capitol felonies we did to the American Indian.

This country has historically and still continues to support genocidal governments around the world so we in America can live so fucking good.

Stop the hating and point fingers at yourself before others.

Nov 1, 07 9:29 am  · 
 · 
aquapura

Apurimac - I was simply stating some issues that China has today, right now, that aren't problems, or not nearly as pressing for western nations. By no means was I saying China = Bad, USA = good.

I would never argue that the United States, or other western nations are flawless in their history. I think the general discussion is that today, right now, China is repeating many of the ills from the past of the western countries. Given the sheer population of China the scale is obviously compounded.

Nov 1, 07 11:12 am  · 
 · 
sameolddoctor

I bet most of the people here criticizing China on this post have never worked on a large scale architectural project.
Why? Because most of those projects in the past 5 years have been based in China.
I think architects from the US have benefited a whole lot from the chinese economy.

So what do you suggest guys, we dont work on Chinese projects and everyone should do remodels?

Nov 1, 07 11:21 am  · 
 · 
lletdownl

the last 2 projects our office won that i have worked on were "landmark" towers in south china.

Nov 1, 07 11:26 am  · 
 · 
aquapura

Don't forget Dubai for large scale projects.

What's a large project? $100M + proj cost. $200?? $1b??

Large high rise projects, yes, China has been 90% of the global market. Overall, there still are plenty large projects in N. America and Europe.

Nov 1, 07 11:35 am  · 
 · 
WtfWtfWtf™

Workers on the Dubai Projects are paid 169 dollars a month.

Nov 1, 07 11:37 am  · 
 · 
ether

currently working on a 4.5 billion $ project in Doha, Qatar with an estimated 7-8 billion by the time it is finished.

Nov 1, 07 11:41 am  · 
 · 
evilplatypus

God - could you imagine if we had Pakastani's and Indonesians living trailers at the job site, paid $8 a day, avg. life loss of 1:800, and cement plants in Egypt spewing particulate matter so fine it gets through most air filters and deposits silica in the lungs of residents - I bet we would be able to build the tallest building in world too!!

Nothing says "weve arrived" as a culture as half empty, gaudy towers built by slave labor.

Nov 1, 07 12:44 pm  · 
 · 

... and anyway, just because the US is bad (and getting worse) doesn't mean there's no sense in pointing out what's wrong with China.

I really think that the fact that these emerging psuedo-democracies 'work' from an economic point of view, and they work without any recognition of universal human rights, provides a really fucked up precedent.

Governments like ours look at China, and they see a hugely expanding economy, and no free speech, and they rub their hands together greedily, this cannot be tolerated.

It's contributing to the erosion of the idea of basic rights everywhere, especially in the United States. That's why they should be called out.

Nov 1, 07 12:54 pm  · 
 · 

amen, evilplatypus.

Nov 1, 07 12:54 pm  · 
 · 

i'm going to switch to the boycott America thread

Nov 1, 07 3:07 pm  · 
 · 
obelix

Choose an easier country to boycott, like Denmark. No Legos, canned herring, or butter cookies.

Nov 1, 07 5:33 pm  · 
 · 

Block this user


Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?

Archinect


This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.

  • ×Search in: