After reading these articles and listening to the sound archive by Mr. Daisey I am a bit astounded by the revelation these articles present. I am astounded not by the statistics presented necessarily, but by how other-worldliness the description of places like Foxconn seem . It seems as if Foxconn has created a world like that described in George Orwell’s 1984. The workers go on working meticulously for hours on end with minimal rest or compensation. At first, I could not believe that one of the world’s most prestigious companies allows such unfairness to continue. I actually heard about the conditions of the makers of the popular iPhone about a week ago before reading this article. However, now that I have read about the specific conditions of the workers and heard hard statistics about the deaths of the employees, the distant story now takes on an uncomfortable proximity.
Now I agree that we should take on learning about the history of games and of other technology we use on a day to day basis because doing so makes us not only better informed consumers, but also better informed people. However, if we take on this mentality of gathering as much information as possible regarding the history of our games and technology why not take on the same mentality regarding our automobiles, our furniture, our stationery and our clothing? It is borderline impossible and may be even unreasonable to expect to educate oneself on all of one’s purchases even though doing so would probably result in more fair trade practices as well as better conditions for others. The more reasonable approach I believe is to educate those workers who are exploited and to make an example of companies engaged such practices by taking their business down through legislation and lawsuits.