(Note: This post was originally published on an blog about Apple technology, based on a few requests I’m making it available here. -MOR)

Apple has been hard at work the last few years building their reputation as a ‘socially responsible’ company.  Like other greenwashing corporations (Whole Foods for example), this reputation is 9/10ths marketing and 1/10th wishful thinking from the cult of Mac.  Yes, Apple did change components in their products to reduce toxicity and increase ease of recycling, and they do ‘check out’ the factories where their products are manufactured, and wasn’t Kermit the Frog in  one of their ad campaigns along with Gandhi and the Dalai Lama?  But does coming out with a ‘new and better’ product every few months and holding back features to encourage upgrade purchases really help reduce waste?  And what are the standards they use to ‘check out’ those factories? Standards you would accept if you worked there?

So, we need to be asking Apple why workers at the Foxconn plant in China where they’ve been making the new iPhones, are committing suicide.  Or we could just ask the workers:

continue reading "Cyberactivism, iPhone 4 and The Courage to Be"

The NYT writes about the decline of buddhism in Japan. Within the article is an aside about buddhist priests for hire via the internet:

It was partly to dispel this bad image that Kazuma Hayashi, 41, a Buddhist priest without a temple of his own, said he founded a company, Obohsan.com (obohsan means priest), three years ago in a Tokyo suburb. The company dispatches freelance Buddhist priests to funerals and other services, cutting out funeral homes and other middlemen.

Prices, which are at least a third lower than the average, are listed clearly on the company’s Web site. A 10 percent discount is available for members.

“We even give out receipts,” Mr. Hayashi said.

Mr. Hayashi argued that instead of divorcing Japanese Buddhism further from its spiritual roots, his business attracted more people with its lower prices. The highest-ranking posthumous name went for about $1,500, a rock-bottom price.

“I know that, originally, that’s not what Buddhism was about,” Mr. Hayashi said of the top name. “But it’s a brand that our customers choose. Some really want it, so that means there’s a strong desire there, and we have to respond to it.”

After apologizing for straying from Buddhism’s ideals, Mr. Hayashi said he offered his customers the highest-ranking name, albeit with a warning: “In short, that this is different from going to a shop in town and buying a handbag, you know, a Gucci bag.” Read more…

“U.S. Chief District Judge Mark Wolf ruled this week that the Department of Correction violated federal law protecting religious freedom and ordered the department to provide Daniel Yeboah-Sefah a diet in line with his Buddhist beliefs.”

Read more…

The NY Times has a silly article on Mindfulness Meditation, here’s the summary:

“Many researchers now worry that the enthusiasm for Buddhist practice will run so far ahead of the science that this promising psychological tool could turn into another fad.”

Yes, another 5,000 year old fad. Of course, western “psychotherapy” was around long before that… Whatever you want to believe. The article is particularly troubling for it’s use of the word Buddha and phrase Buddha-like as a synonym for about 5 completely unrelated concepts. The author even goes so far as to describe what “Buddhist meditation” is “useful” for, i.e. what it can treat. Yes, a prescription for meditation, but only until you feel better…

Dr. Mala Htun discusses the crucial role that electronic communication plays in the social justice movement for Burma.

In 2005, Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori issued a brief article, On Uncanny Valley, which proposes an amendment to his original graph of familiarity vs. appearance (human likeness). He adds “something more attractive and amiable than human beings in the further right-hand side of the valley.” I’ve created this figure as a sketch of this expanded notion of Mori’s valley.

May 6, 2007
Bhutan Lets the World In (but Leaves Fashion TV Out)
By SOMINI SENGUPTA

THIMPHU, Bhutan — “Explore the World,” promised the signboard outside.

Inside Norling Cyberworld, in a second-floor corner of a busy shopping arcade, Dorji Wangchuk rolled up the sleeve of his Puma sweatshirt and offered a glimpse of his worldly explorations. Inscribed in blue-black ink on the pale inside of his left forearm was the image of a dragon, a tattoo that he had drawn himself, with instructions from the Internet.

…

continue reading "The Body, The Internet, The Mind"