Externalization Fallacy: Total Eclipse of the Truth 2002-2020

I recently met someone quite interested in Ethical E-Waste Blog who was 10 years old in 2002. 

Then I met someone who was 5 years old when CBS 60 Minutes broadcast "Wasteland" in 2008.

Both flattered me by saying this blog was "inspirational".  So I guess I gotta keep it up.

I also recently ran across a lot of film camera photos from my first visit to Guangzhou, China, in 2003. That was 21 years ago. It was a Shark Tank worthy experience.  Even if 5-6 blog visitors will find this to be a repeat, there are some new recruits whose minds have yet to be blown. And maybe some readers will be glad for the reminder.

Simon Lin. (Acer, Wistron)

Terry Gou. (Foxconn, Han Hoi Precision Inst.)

Rowell Yang. (Proview, "iPad")

These three men were the head of "contract manufacturing" when IBM, Dell, HP etc. declared that "display devices" were "commodities", not core manufacturing. Sony had, well, "colonized" Taiwan in the contract manufacturing of  CRT displays and now Guangdong Province had been "free=market" friendly thanks to Deng Xiaoping ... Who was famous for being patiently waiting for Mao to die while watching Taiwan and Hong Kong blow the gasket on free market manufacturing.

Used Ford Model As created the critical mass of users in the Ozarks and Appalachia who would vote to pave the roads.

Used VCRs and CRT televisions paved the roads for thousands of TV stations and satellites broadcasting to the "Global South".

Used CRT monitors paved the roads for internet cable investors.

Used Flip Phones paved the roads for 170,000 cell phone towers (2017 estimate) on the Africa continent.

Used Solar Voltaic Panels will pave the way for Africans to reduce diesel-electricity generation.

Despite the obvious facts about electricity access and consumption, the truth about the information and mass communications infrastructure, paved by progress from reuse and value-added repair, by the Tech Sector Auteurs, aka Geeks of Color like Simon Lin, Terry Gou, and Rowell Yang, the West (at least Europe and USA) press coverage of their bright past present and future has been eclipsed by an "externalization hypothesis" - that any capitalist trade between someone rich and someone poor is suspect. 

Imagine the Moon refusing to leave... a persistent, stubborn eclips of the truth...

Thanks to my Carleton College Faculty Advisor, and China Expert, Roy Grow, I was alerted to how big the Deng freeing of markets in Guangdong Province - the next "Taiwan" manufacturing center, would be.

Anyway, I saw that CRTs cost new $110 and Dell and HP were paying for new ones, and that Dell and HP were having them assembled by contract manufacturers from Taiwan - Terry Gou and Simon Lin and Rowell Yang - and that those 3 men realised that CRTs cost new could, at 3-5 years old, be purchased for $3-10 and still last 15-20 more years.  

Helen Su and EPA's Clare Lindsay had dinner with me at RECCON05 conference, when Jim Puckett and BAN were hiding the ingenuity of these future billionaires with a theory of externalization which defined all trade as "dumping" and described the paving of future infrastructure as pollution. It was anti-globalist, and essentially racist.

Anyway, Simon Lin went from contract manufacturer under Dell and HP to competitor Acer. Terry Gou's Foxconn is an even greater achievement.  And Nollywood.  Anyway folks, you can take it from here.