This page is here for a few reasons:
- If you are a business interested in partnering with me on a project, this page will help you to find out whether I’m a good match for you
- To hold me accountable to some of the things written here
- To give an update on Folding with Dinosaurs
This is not a quick summary, but rather the opening of a discussion. If you fall in category 1., and you can’t be bothered to spend a few minutes checking my ethical position on a few key points, we probably aren’t a good match. Hopefully this will save me the time of rejecting you directly.
Some dangers
I can see two main dangers with a page like this:
Judgement
I don’t intend to be judgemental. This is a page about my own actions, and if I don’t mention you directly, any implications you take away are your own. I may risk offending you, depending on your perspectives, but over the course of my life, I’ve come to the general conclusion that silence is a much bigger risk.
Hypocrisy
I mean what I say here, so I hope I’m not merely virtue signalling. But, like all of us, I’m not perfect and I’m still in the process of making improvements. By all means, point out inconsistencies in my actions (kindly, if you can). I believe that in our western culture, we need people to point out errors much more than is currently socially acceptable. And of course, we need people to listen. I promise to listen to any concerns.
Alright, with that said, what’s this all about?
My values
I’ll quickly talk about what matters to me in my origami. I want to create original work, I want to I want to show my authentic self through my work, and I want to do this in an ethical way.
There are some projects I’ve been really proud to be a part of. These range from running workshops for young children to promoting educational research and public awareness of endangered species. I’ve always aimed to be part of meaningful projects that create positive experiences, promote education and learning, and bring me personal fulfilment.
But to be blunt, there are many companies that don’t care about anything besides making lots of money. In fact, I believe that not caring about the implications of our actions is one of the best first steps to making lots of money.
The world is complex, and our actions do matter even if we can’t see it. People suffer as a result of climate change, systemic wealth inequality, political regimes, poor healthcare, lack of education, and so on. So our food choices matter. Who we vote for matters. Whether we pay our taxes matters.
I’ve rejected several pieces of large work over the years from large banks, Big Oil, organisations associated with super-wealthy elites etc. I like to state clearly exactly why I refuse to work with any company I reject. This rejection is personally costly because these are far and away the biggest projects that come my way (and in case it needs spelling out in detail, origami-artists are not high earners even if they take these large projects). However, much of my work is specialised enough that if I don’t do the work, a company cannot easily just find a replacement. So in some way, I hope it costs the company as well, and therefore sends a message. On the other hand, it’s particularly disheartening to reject a large project only to see another person take up the work.
I tend to categorise companies into ‘actively positive’, ‘ethically neutral’, and ‘boycott’. These labels don’t leave any room to label a company negatively and then work with them.
But there are some ethical dilemmas with my boycott list, which is the really the heart of this post. I want to show my thoughts, await responses, and come back to this page with updates over time.
So let’s talk about the issues:
Meta
Rather than summarising here, here’s link to some of Meta’s issues: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/meta-platforms-inc-trading-meta (I highly recommend Ethical Consumer, but if anyone has any doubts about it’s reliability, please let me know).
It’s hard to switch from mainstream social media, because it relies on other people to do the same. Ethically, I don’t think it’s right to stop communicating with people I’m in close relationships with, and there are many people I care about who I don’t have any other way of contacting. I won’t pay money to Meta, but I acknowledge I am the product, and they benefit from me being on the platforms without taking my cash. Not least, because my being on their platforms disincentivises other people from leaving.
I’ve already announced on Instagram that I’ll be using it less over time, but I want to mark my intent here too, that at some point, I’ll stop using Meta products altogether. If you benefit in any way by my presence on any Meta products, I hope this also gives you a small incentive to leave with me. But note again my intention; there will be a point when I leave, regardless of who else does it.
A few years back, I put Google in the neutral category. In the realm of Big Tech, they were an outlier for staff wellbeing, their free search engine provides a huge benefit for most people in the world, they had meaningful climate pledges, and they even had the motto ‘Don’t be Evil’. But it should ring alarm bells when a company chooses to drops that motto. Again, here’s what ethical Consumer has to say: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/google-llc
A few years ago, I did some work for Google, but I wouldn’t now. They’ve backtracked on all of the above points in some way, and so I find myself using a gmail address which I intend, at some point, to drop in favour of an alternative. I probably have less of an excuse for not doing this yet, but it’s time to declare the main direction of this page:
Youtube
Google owns Youtube, which is easier to stop using than many other tech products. I have some exceptions for videos I’m required to use by other organisations, but in my personal life and for origami work in my control, I don’t use YouTube any more.
Folding with Dinosaurs
When I started working on an origami dinosaurs book, I wanted to explore video creation, so I thought I was being very generous by making a free ebook with accompanying video tutorials. But shortly after starting on it several things in my life changed.
Due to timings out of our control, my wife and I got our first flat last year, and mortgage companies don’t really like origami work. They much prefer normal, stable jobs. So I went back into classroom teaching. For many reasons this was the right decision, but right now I’ve ended up with two part-time teaching roles and working towards a teaching qualification, all while trying to maintain PBS Origami and my many volunteering commitments. Needless to say, I have far fewer hours to spend on projects that won’t clearly help to pay the mortgage. Plus, I don’t have a dedicated origami room, so setting up equipment to get ready for filming just eats into the limited time I do have for this sort of thing.
But humans are very good at making time for things they care about, and I would have found a way if it weren’t for my decision to stop using YouTube.
Currently, I’m making a compromise, and I haven’t taken any videos down from YouTube. Right now, I don’t want to do that until I have found a viable alternative platform to replace them.
Researching this is on my to-do list (again, when I have time), but if this is something you also care about, feel free to speed up my research by posting below about alternatives. I’m aware though, that there might simply be no ethical video hosting websites.
Your response
Please do respond to this, I would like your feedback. But note that I’m going to preempt any comments along the lines of ‘but it’s stupid to stop using X what about Y?” with the obvious counterargument that we tell to young children: “Two wrongs don’t make a right”. Plus I addressed that earlier. But for the sake of preempting some big ones: I don’t use Spotify, Amazon, generative AI, or aeroplanes. I cycle to work, I eat plant-based (except food going to waste, happy to discuss the details if anyone cares), I get my clothes second-hand, I clean my recycling before putting it in the bin, and I once helped an old lady cross the road. And although I’ve got a long way to go yet, I’m trying to change for the better. I suppose that if you really wanted an ethical statement, that’ll do.
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