Atheist Meditations

My PDA died a few months ago. Just now I decided that I will not be replacing it. I'll stick with the memo books and notepads that I've been compensating with. My Samsung cell phone, mangled with purposefully useless Verizon software, still serves some uses as a digital toy; I'm not going to completely embrace ludditism.

Yet I cannot help but hate the lousy things. I guess most people don't realize that every single little digital toy that that seems to define this hip new generation ( I can't think of anything else that defines them) contains some rare materials that are most commonly extracted from Africa by workers that are little more than soulless slaves.

I'm gonna opt out of that one. Just like Cindy and I are opting out of the whole 'diamond ring equals a lifetime of love' load of feces that a certain diamond cartel dreamed up a few generations ago to spike sales. It's a moral choice. Whether one be swayed by Leo de Cap's powerful performance in Blood Diamonds or you just read a bit about that industry and that side of the world, refusing to participate in a happy fantasy that fuels human suffering is a good thing.

Cindy loves her digital toys, so maybe this new moral edict will not apply to everybody. Still, at least we are trying, and that mean something. Most folks just seem incapable of taking the time to consider how systems like global trade work, and that some of these interactions are not morally justified.

I wish I could force them to contemplate the notion that all choices are moral choices. I'll never eat at Applebee's or permit positive things to be said about that chain in my presence, because I worked within that corporation long enough to know that it is not a good neighbor. They willingly operate under a business model that exploits labor and works hard to cycle through employees in under a few years - no benefits, no living wages, no real future. Their food is no better or worse than most of the trash that chains slop down in front of unsophisticated 'guests', but I think any rudimentarily conscious human being should aspire to more than predictable blandness and a scripted 'conversation' with every human being they encounter - from the host at the front door, to the server's 'personal favorites', to the managers visit.

I guess I'm still a bit cynical about the state of culture and social interaction in the our society.