And in truth its hard to live today without participating in some atrocity, and is that very idea not worth discussing? The gasoline in your car came at great costs both past and future, the cops keep killing innocent people, the US has more slaves now than it did at the peak of the slave trade, we don't own our data and governments are in the collection game, and on and on.
There's plenty worth speaking out against.
i find that highly implausible. Unless you're equating "wage" slavery to chattel slavery.
Slavery is still legally allowed in the United States as punishment for a crime, and business is booming.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prison...
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/9/20/from_convict_labor_to...
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/14/florida-prison-strike-un...
This is a nuanced opinion that I will have to think about for quite sometime. I was about to tweet a pithy comment, but now I’m aware that complexities exist that 140 characters won’t summarize.
IRS makes it very difficult and expensive to do so. After all US citizenship obligates you to file and pay taxes on your worldwide income and IRS is not really happy to let entrepreneurs off the hook that easy.
That observation means the opposite of what it seems on the tin: since it's a given that any consumption under Capitalism is unethical, it's pointless to just continuously beat yourself up about how unethical it is. But since we live under the system for now, do the best you can given what you have. That isn't, however, an open invitation to ignore the consequences of your purchases. It doesn't mean buy Chik-Fil-A sandwiches guilt-free when there are less exploitative options available.
The converse is also true -- there is no ethical business under capitalism. No matter what business you work for or run, it's going to be to some extent exploitative by definition. Do the best you can. If you have to work at one of the big corps to move your career forward, that doesn't make you a hypocrit. But when you have the choice to support a less exploitative corporation, to support a more moral small business instead of an immoral large one, take it. If you have to work in an exploitative company, and you have avenues to change them for the better, take them. And while the tech industry is full of exploitative large corporations, and small startups who would happily exploit whoever they need to make their VC funders happy, make the best choices you can. Sure, there's no way to be ethical and work for those big tech companies. But it makes no sense to chastise their employees as hypocrites for making the best choices they can and push for progress.