If you want your nice smart phones you'll just have to accept the environmental destruction that goes along with it. Corporations like Siemens will live through wars and famines and the heat death of the universe, probably. this, and vibrating trees, here .
How many huge companies that still exist made weapons or vehicles for Nazi Germany, BAE systems, Volkswagon, BASF, BMW, Siemens, and Hugo Boss come to mind.
Fanta was first popularized in Nazi Germany.
Kodak used concentration camp labor.
I've recently read about the idea that civilization advances because of war. My mind isn't made up on that one, but human nature being what it is I suspect that war isn't going away any time soon. The fact that corporations are human creations that can survive war is just something to throw into the mix- yes, they profit, and undoubtedly encourage war thinking, which are bad things. But a corporation, as a thing, an idea, just might be an improvement over the nation-state?
I’ve recently read about the idea that civilization advances because of war.
Civilization has advanced because of war, but it could easily achieve more by using a fraction of the resources wasted on warfare on peaceful research. It's just that war is one of the very few things that make imperialist nation states care enough to fund research. That's not an advantage of war, it is an indictment of these nation states.
The r&d budgets for various things increases massively during the war. The same was true for space race as well. I would say it's more of a correlation then a causation. In peaceful times sciences just get shit on.
Fanta wasn't just first popularized in Nazi Germany, IIRC its creation in the first place was a ploy by Coca Cola to continue selling soda to them
It wasn't Coca Cola. It was the German importer and distributor of Coca Cola and he had to do it because the US prohibited American companies from trading with Germany during the war and the distributor needed to find an alternative because he couldn't import the sirup anymore. And because of rationing he couldn't get fresh fruit so he had to use orange peels or something like that.
Kinda crazy that a company that used slave labor in the 30s is now one of the largest medical medical equipment manufacturers in the world.
They're also huge in industrial equipment and transportation. Amtrak's new locomotives are coming from Siemens.
They've also made the centrifuges for the Iranian nuclear program afaik.
Well, they reap huge profits from that, don't they? My major gripe with corporations is the happy face they paste onto what is basically a pirate ship.
Really looks hard to use with that cord hanging off of it too. I suppose it had oscillating blades in it, similar to other electrics, but was designed to be used "wet", with shaving creme, possibly as an attempt to widen the market. They missed the Don Draper shave at your desk in the morning market with this one, for sure.