Transparency Metrics Make Moral Decisions Impossible

The other day, a colleague scolded me for being a hypocrite when I mentioned that his Claude Code subscription directly supports fascists in USA. He wasn’t wrong. The first thing he asked was: which laptop do you have? Which OS are you running? Apple? That is responsible for forced child labour in the East to mine precious metals and assimilate their mass-produced laptops? And you talk of fascists? Ha! I did want to mention that the laptop is nearly seven years old but didn’t get the chance. The conclusion? If you want to live by a moral code, you do not work in IT. The scolding happened in a casual way amongst colleagues, as colleagues often do—but again, I think he has a point. The same point as the ridiculousness of a Free Software Foundation sticker on the laptop, or the same point as trying to decide which laptop to buy after this one. How am I as a humble consumer supposed to decide which company is the “lesser evil”? Do I buy open hardware where I can put truly free and libre…