Yes, I consider the ethics of everything I buy.
There’s more politics in 1€ than in one vote.
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These types of conversations really don’t make much sense from my point of view, and it’s something I see more and more often. To begin with, we should ask ourselves if we are ethical, and what type of ethics we apply (as ethics are quite a bit subjective matter). If my country makes conflicting decisions and I benefit from it (even if I don’t agree), am I ethical? If I decide to have children knowing that there are children waiting for adoptions and that their lives are probably hell of not doing it, am I ethical? If I travel abroad several times a year by plane for tourism, am I ethical? And so on …
And then there are the others… Do I have to judge the rest based on my principles, and if they don’t comply with them, do I erase them from the list? Well, in that case, let’s think about emigrating to another planet. And if my Western country has grown to where it is now by exploiting other countries, how can I judge that emerging countries do not want to play the same game?
I think this type of issue is a wasteland. The truth is not absolute and there is always a double side. In general these types of questions are a problem of rich people … 
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The world is imperfect. That’s no excuse to not try to do better.
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If anyone has any gear they need to unload in order to ease their conscience and be on the right side of history, PM me for my address.
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I’d love to shop based off of my ethics but I can’t afford to.
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Most gear we buy contains plastics that are known to cause “cancer and reproductive harm” and is in part or in whole manufactured in factories in China…the kind that have to install nets outside of their windows that have extremely poor views on sustainability where workers have very little if any rights.
I agree the world is imperfect, if I could afford to shop exclusively products that are sourced and manufactured ethically that were not harmful to the environment or to living things I would be more than happy to…but I can’t, the vast majority of the world can’t.
Rampant and wildly unchecked capitalism has made its mark in the world and in all of society, it would have to be fixed from the top down. Companies and cooperations would have to begin to value human existence over profit until or unless that happens the only goods you can buy that don’t contain blood, sweat and tears will be wildly expensive compared to everything else.
What we’re talking about is a complex and multifaceted issue that involves several governments and cooperations/companies all extremely self-interest and 100% profit-minded with nearly zero capacity for foresight. And it impacts nearly every single product you purchase and consume from paper and pencils to cars to phones and computers and yes even synthesizers and drum machines.
To put the blame or guilt or responsibility on the consumer is dumb and completely backwards. What in the absolute fuck are we supposed to do? We could spend a little more here and there on things that claim to be ethically sourced, that claim to offset their carbon foot print that claim to be organic and then what? We sleep a little better at night knowing that we’ve done a microscopic infinitesimal bit to help.
I’m not saying it’s pointless…I’m just saying there’s no point.
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It is usually for free not to buy
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I bought 2 Behringers and it does make me feel sick knowing this isn’t right.
Maybe I need to push harder and get more to fully not care anymore.
Yes, this is called harm reduction. You can also buy used (which is always cheaper for those who “can’t afford”), and buy less.
You can also do less harm when presented with an opportunity. To take an example from upthread, I’d say if you support Ukraine right now, it’s a good time to not buy Soma products new. That does not solve the microplastics problem or the labour problem you mention and it doesn’t stop the Russian invasion, but at least you’re not helping to contribute to it. It’s also not about you having world-changing power as an individual or feeling good or impressing your friends, it’s about doing less harm rather than more.
I agree that the responsibility for the mess the world is in lies with specifically the very rich. But even if I can’t personally fix all of that, I can tread a little more lightly in the world, care for those around me, and participate in collective action that can and does change things.
Giving up is also a privilege,
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Hey folks,
To follow up on my earlier post about my MA research, I’m looking into how we as a community interact with our equipment, think about sustainability, and value it.
If you have 15-20 minutes, I’d appreciate it if you could fill out this anonymous survey. It explores our relationship with music tech in today’s environmentally conscious world.
Your responses will help shed light on how the music tech landscape is changing. Here’s the link:
The sooner I can gather responses, the sooner I can begin writing my dissertation, so I’d really appreciate any help you can offer.
Thanks for considering it.
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Hi again, everyone. I need 43 more respondents to answer all three parts of the survey and demographics section before I can begin analysing the results and writing.
If you see this message and have not answered the survey yet, please do so. It would mean a great deal as I have limited time to write my dissertation. Thank you!
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I tried to fill it out but stopped at question #6 because two groups couldn’t share the same level of “responsibility,” and every level of responsibility had to be included, so that I was unable to leave the “no responsibility” option blank, even though I feel strongly that none of the parties you name have no or minimal responsibiltiy.
That meant the question wouldn’t let me accurately represent my beliefs so I couldn’t complete it.
Also in question #6, I’m not sure what you mean by the word “promote”… In US English usage, to “promote” something generally means to help make an idea more popular through advocacy, marketing, PR, etc., but, not to actually take part in making that idea a reality.
But it was unclear if that’s how you were using the word in the question, and it’s a key distinction that changes my answer depending on which one you mean.
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Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate your understanding that this is my first research project, and I acknowledge the limitations of using ‘forced row’ answers in the matrix questions. My intention was to gather comprehensive data in an understudied field of music technology education, albeit with an oversight in survey design.
I completely understand your frustration. Rest assured, I am taking all feedback seriously and will integrate these insights into future survey designs.
Thank you for attempting the survey, but I would be extremely grateful if you could give it another try
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I stumbled upon the same illogical question format. The way it is implemented forces more of a ranking of items than an item-by-item evaluation.
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A serious oversight on my part. I put so much focus on what I was asking in relation to established models and theories that I overlooked exactly how I was asking them within the survey framework. I assure you I have done my absolute best, and I will not make the same mistakes a second time.
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@polyethanol - Let us know about the results of your study!
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I have another thread on Elektronauts and I have promised to let everyone know of the results once i’ve got my final mark back for my MA. Thank you for your kindness!
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I’ve just finished the survey. While the aforementioned weird questionnaire behaviour had me scratching my head for a bit, I wasn’t too bothered about it. I just took it as a ranking of sorts, albeit a strange one.
Happy to have taken part.
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I wish I could change those settings as they have elicited much criticism. I just can’t at this point, as it would harm the data. Never again will I make that mistake. I thought I was doing the right thing.
Thank you for taking part!!
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From 2003-2015 I was living in Santa Monica, CA. I was a devout yoga practitioner, a whole foods plant based vegan, didn’t own a TV, and eventually commuted everywhere using a bicycle and public transportation, even cross town to my law firm’s offices in Korea Town. Looking back, I was risking life twice a day for over an hour a day. At one point, riding home along Venice, some gang looking dudes scared the sheet out of me by screaming at me from their car at a stop light. Dude asked me if I was crazy for riding through that neighborhood.
At some point during that time, I decided to stop buying any new clothes, easy to do in LA and Santa Monica because thrift and second hand stores were filled the latest trends. Buying shoes was weird. I bought my underwear from an army surplus store in Silverlake, cheeky branding, with a bull on the thigh and MEN embraced on the waste band. Still own them to this day! Whereas Uniqlo and MUJI underwear falls apart.
Anyway, at some point I decide to take it to the next level - eliminating petroleum products from my life as much as possible. Incredibly expensive. Incredibly difficult.
But what really burnt me out and made me relax everything was the dent that it made on my social life. It killed it - completely. Especially my social life. Ride sharing somewhat eased that but the ethics of the attention/gig/social media economy were not immediately apparent back then.
Was I living ethically? I thought so and so did everyone I met. What was the social response? Ostracism and isolation. I was simply no fun. Women admired but balked at my lifestyle. This was during my 30s, my prime years. My job, earnings, physical fitness, spiritual attitudes were simply insufficient to outweigh my attempt to create the most minimally harmful lifestyle.
Now, I am much more relaxed. I eat mostly whole plant based foods, but I’m not a vegan. I’m living in the Midwest now, and the suburb I live in is relatively far from my work; cycling there and back would take most of the day, and goes through sketchy areas, and frankly I don’t want to wake up so early and go through that stress to make it happen. I have still retained my consumption habits mostly. I focus on trying to be a positive figure and force in my family and friends, doing what I can to help, and cultivating an attitude of simply wanting what’s best for another person. That’s not as easy as it sounds.
With regards to gear, I was there when Behringer was making the crappiest of crap (as well as people trying to offload those BCR/BCF for ridiculous prices). I was a staunch anti-behringer. I was there laughing at Arturia’s True Analog Emulation claims, which I believe are still in genuine (their Buchla, my fave of theirs, stills aliases badly). My Machinedrum arrived new with knobs bent at weird angles. I could go on, but my experience has been that the electronic musical instrument industry has been far from ethical most of my life. I don’t see boutique brands necessarily being inherently ethical, and I certainly don’t think the consumption culture that encapsulates everything can be ethical.
Frankly, we live in an age where everything we do is complicit in a complex system that interacts with players around the world. Since Plato, we have been dealing with a population problem caused by an insufficient supply of resources. And at the top, thugs control, and I’m not just talking about Donald Trump and alleged authoritarian fascists. The difference now is that instead of exerting disciplinary force to keep us under control, they’ve figured out how to leverage humanities obsession with status to cause individuals to do that job themselves now.
Life is short. If you want to buy an expensive, boutique machine, go for it if you can. If you want to buy a Behringer clone go for it if you want. Life is complex. It’s not easy to judge the ethics. Yeah, Behringer has done some questionable things. But, they give you a 909 and 808 for $300. They give you an 8 voice analog synth for $400. Instead of paying 5X for a Nava, one could get the Behringer and donate that money to a charity. For a poor person, that $1200 goes an extremely long way, especially in a developing county. For example, one could buy the RD9 and give the difference to the factory workers in China. Not that I have done that - but that is a trivial and (likely flawed because I don’t have perfect information) example of how complex the ethical analysis can get, because how can we evaluate harms / benefits? It’s not as black and white, zero sum, as we would like it to be.
No one is getting out of this alive. Most people are trying to be good people and doing their best. A few bad people take advantage of this and we call them thugs.
Let’s do our best to minimize harm while still enjoying our precious, finite life, updating our opinions as new information comes in, forgiving others as much as we can, and thanking God/the universe/ourselves for having another chance to do so everyday. I’m sure almost everyone would prefer a real 909 or Nava any day over an RD9, but only Behringer is offering an option affordable option for the affluent - most people on the planet still couldn’t afford even that.
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