Sometimes we can learn the most important things about our world by attending to the smallest things, things that seem absolutely trivial and inconsequential such as mardi gras beads.  Pick 5 of the bullet points to address for your blog and be sure to reference the documentary Mardi Gras Made in China and our first readings in Goldstein’s Low Wage Capitalism:

• What are your personal assumptions about “Made in China”?
  

When I hear “made in china”, I think “cheap”, “possibly contains high amounts of lead” “too expensive to make in the US” and “not worth making well”

• What is globalization, and how does it impact product manufacture and sales?
  

As stated in the Goldstein readings, globalization means that companies are always searching for the cheapest place to outsource their labor to. This creates a never-ending wild goose chase to find who will work for the smallest amount.

• Why do more and more U.S. companies manufacture and source products overseas, and why do U.S. consumers purchase these products?
    It is cheaper to manufacture goods overseas than it is to manufacture them in the US. The cost of living, taxes, and other employment restrictions (minimum wage) are constantly going up in the US, so hiring US employees gets too expensive. By outsourcing the work, many of those costs are eliminated. US consumers continue to purchase these products because they either don't want to pay the high prices for Made-In-USA goods, or there is no Made-In-USA equivalent of the product they want to buy.
  
  
• What are the working conditions at foreign factories producing goods for the U.S. market?
   Usually very poor. The conditions of foreign factories often reflect those of “Company Towns” in the US in the 20th Century, but quality of life is much, much lower.
  
  
• Why do factory workers in foreign factories work under the current conditions? 
  There is often no other choice. The workers have families they need to take care of, and this work, though dangerous and dull, provides the most consistent income. As shown in the Mardi Gras: Made in China video, the workers there have a very consistent work schedule.
  
  
• How are artifacts/products embedded with social and cultural meaning? How and why does a product become disposable?
  A product is seen as disposable if it is cheaply made (thus cheap to buy) and would be too redundant to keep to re-use. These are usually utilitarian objects that are considered “useless” after being used.
  
   http://www.businessinsider.com/better-think-twice-before-throwing-away-these-products-2012-3
  

Barricadin' Buses. Why?

This week we began our section on 'Race, Technology and Everyday Life' to broaden our understanding of technology beyond those who work in the 'information industry' and investigate how technology comes into contact with peoples' everyday experiences.  Specifically we do not merely want to understand how a technology is used but uncover the contests around technology that are always linked to larger struggles for economic mobility, political maneuvering and community building. 

For this week's blog I want you to read about the controversy between Google Bus and San Francisco residents and discuss how it is connected to issues of gentrification, theorizing work in the information society, activism, the ways in which activism is reported (how is race reported).  How does this fit into our discussions about technology, race and everyday life?  Please remember to use class readings to ground your analysis.  You may start here and here and here for resources. 

I had not heard of the Google bus blockade before, and it was definitely an interesting story to read, though quite sad as well. From what I understand, Google wanted to get its employees to work faster, so it started using buses to get their employees to work faster. Why have each employee drive a separate car when you can bus them all to work? This means fewer cars on the road for other commuters, and Google gets its employees to work more efficiently. Was Google illegally using Muni's bus stops? It appears so. Should Google be paying to use those stops? I think so. It sounds to me like that problem got ironed out pretty quickly. Problem solved, right?

Well, not quite, because the protesters are still blocking the bus from moving? Why are they doing that? Oh I see their signs now, they say something about “no more gentrification”. What exactly is “gentrification”? It is the process where neighborhoods become wealthier, housing prices go up, and the poor are often displaced. That's what these bus protesters are complaining about. They want to maintain a status quo. They don't want local road conditions improved for fear of their dwellings becoming more desirable, and therefore more expensive. . In other words, they are so concerned with their own comfort, that they think it's right to go out and stop other people from getting work so the road conditions don't improve. After all, if the Google employees can't get to work, the housing prices won't go up, right? If other people are remedying the congestion problem, then, by golly, stop traffic and create a problem yourself. Oh, wait. If you have to create the problem yourself, you probably are the problem already.

Artificially maintaining the status quo doesn't work this way. You argue as that the only reason housing prices are going up is because Google is making roads emptier. It's as though you want smog and clogged roads simply so you don't have to move. When your landlord wants to charge higher rates because people are willing to pay to live somewhere where its easier to get to work, that's perfectly fine. It's called the free market. Things change. Cities change, and its about time people learned that. If anything, stagnancy, not change, should be avoided.

Are there solutions to this gentrification? I believe so, but stopping a bus isn't one of them. Creating affordable housing is. Creating a city that is easier to move around in is another option. City governments have a duty to make their cities easier and better to live in, and one way of doing that is by adding mass transportation. Google has actually helped resolve that problem, and the “residents” aren't helping. That's not a very good term though, “residents”. It creates an artificial divide, as though Google employees are some evil master race while the underdog “residents” are the oppressed minority. At least one protester painted the picture that way in this article. As far as I'm concerned, those “Google-etes” are residents too. They just happen to work at Google. The protesters are the ones who say that the Google employees don't have a right to live where they do. The protesters are creating the divide, not Google and its employees.

 P.S. Having to impersonate the "enemy" to make people hate them is pretty low (and lame), if you ask me: 

Fallen for a Sales Pitch: Blog Post 6/7, DTC 475.

In “How the Internet Enables Intimacy”, Stefana Broadbent argues that, while some researchers are dismayed by the fact that we are not using social media to connect with a wider range of people, she, rather, is intrigued by the discovery that users of social media tend to use it to strengthen relationships with usually no more than five people. What makes social media great, Broadbent argues, is that these relationship interactions are no longer restricted by time or space, as social media allows for instant communication, no matter where the two people are located.

Broadbent also brings to our attention that those in power are trying to limit us from communicating freely with others. Businesses try to keep their employees focused on their work, schools try to keep students focused on their studies, etc. Our lives are dictated more and more by those in power. Now, in some situations, I believe the rule to not use a cellphone or other communication device is important and, in fact common sense. If you're being paid to complete certain tasks at a desk job, and you are efficiently and competently completing those tasks, I believe that it is perfectly acceptable to field the occasional call from home or answer a text once in a while, just so long as it doesn't interfere with the work you contracted to do. Some jobs are simply not conducive to this. If you are are “board-opping” at a radio station, you know when you have a time to answer a text, and when you shouldn't because you need to focus making sure the upcoming commercial break gets played. You are on company time and company money, so make sure you do your job well. If you can answer a couple texts as well, great! If not, then don't complain as if you are an oppressed minority suffering a social injustice, because you are not. There are some jobs where no cell phone use while working is mandatory. I've worked two of these types of jobs, one paid, and one volunteer. One such position is where appearance and attentiveness are part of the job requirements. If you're working as an usher at a football game, you don't pull out your phone and start texting. You are paid to stand their, answer questions, be courteous, and look professional. Part of looking professional in such a setting is being alert, smiling, welcoming guests, and being concerned that they have a good time at the game that they paid money to buy tickets for. The company is not paying you to send texts to your buddy about what you want to do that weekend. If that kind of job sounds impossible to you, then don't apply for it.

The other kind of job that may wisely restrict social media use is a dangerous job where alertness is required at all times. Railroad work is one such example. There was a train collision several years ago where the engineer of a passenger train was texting on his cell phone, missed a red signal, and plowed his train into the rear of a freight train a few minutes later. Since then, the Federal Railroad Administration banned the use of cell phones and other hand-held electronic devices not issued to employees by the railroad. This rule is one that I have to follow, even on the 5 mile long heritage railway where I volunteer as train crew. When I am on train crew, my phone is stowed away in my grip, only to be turned on and used in case of emergency. For everyone on and off the train to remain safe, I need to be fully alert and ready to act, and a cell phone would only prove to be a distraction.

We must remember, however, that getting to use our devices at work at all is quite a privilege, for there are many people who work in other countries where they spend most of their lives doing nothing but making the devices we long to use. In Sophia Cheng's article The Deadly Labor Behind Our Phones, Laptops and Consumer Gadgets, we are told of a factory where people work long hours, standing the entire time, making less than a dollar each day, sleeping when their shift is done, only to do it over again when they wake up. Of course, in such a brutal environment, the only phones or other gadgets allowed at work are those that they are building; the same gadgets that we buy and then complain about not being allowed to use while we are at work.

I don't want the moral of this talk to be “life is never so bad that it can never get get worse”, but I do think we should realize that by demanding to have uninterrupted contact with our friends and family, no matter where we are or who is paying us for our time, other people on these other countries are suffering because of it, because of the few in power who see the need to make money as paramount. I do not want to demonize technology. Burning cell phones is not going to do anyone (or anyone's lungs) any good. However, I do want to suggest that we start looking critically at how we use our technology. Why do we, both as individuals and as a people, buy into the lie that we always need newer, faster machines. Why do we we need to use these machines 24/7? Why is their little to no demand that companies build more dependable, longer lasting machines with legacy support programs? What really makes these new gadgets “better”?

We have fallen for a sales pitch, and people on other countries are paying for it.