This is almost certainly some dude in their basement playing out a stereotype to stoke fear.

The original article says women. Unless they are using women with small hands as code for children.

I would hope a social studies teacher would understand the pitfalls of Western orientalism and Western cultures obsession with describing other groups as ‘its’ rather than as whole persons.

But if we’re going to objectify people, why don’t we get real technical about it. Why not move manufacturing to other east Asian countries? Even outside of East Asia, you can find many countries with less labor protections and large populations where you can select for millions of people with small hands. Why China? Anyone who is being intellectually honest knows that hand size was not the central reason.

If this is widely accepted then Western culture has a long way to go when it comes to facing its history of racial objectification. Because this sounds less like a valid rationale and more like modern phrenology presenting itself as business and engineering acumen.

Young Chinese women have small fingers, and that has made them a valuable contributor to iPhone production because they are more nimble at installing screws and other miniature parts in the small device, supply chain experts said. In a recent analysis the company did to explore the feasibility of moving production to the United States, the company determined that it couldn’t find people with those skills in the United States, said two people familiar with the analysis who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/technology/apple-iphone-trump-india-china.html

They’re supposedly paraphrasing “supply chain experts” but they could definitely paraphrase better.

Western culture is built on a foundation of race based hierarchical brain rot and isn’t it remarkable how it always finds a way to remind us of that?

Making laws with the intent they will be broken is different from having an understanding they will be broken.

People break speed limits every day. There is no intent they will be broken but an understanding that it will happen. Overall though, people obey them and roads are safer as a result.

I feel that parental responsibility and carefully crafted regulation can coexist to protect children. Device makers can also make it easier to access such settings or a “kids mode”.

I think most parents know techbros have created an internet that is generally not safe for children and do their best to take measures to account for that. Any system that empowers parents to do that is welcome.

Kids today are not tech savvy. UIs are streamlined and bugs are much less common in popular apps so they have to do less self directee troubleshooting to learn from.

Regulation doesn’t always have to produce absolute prevention, even strong deterrence can be impactful.

We’ve seen how excessive porn consumption impacts the development (particularly of boys) so increased regulation is a thoughtful move.

Agreed. Reading and learning about Indigenous / precivilization world views can also help achieve this in a more holistic way. One thing that the Western / dominant world view only sparingly concerns itself with is sustainability. If we all thought about sustainable living as much as we did keeping up with the Joneses, I’d imagine many people would be happier, healthier and more fulfilled (compared to living a life serving capital).

I would recommend people opt out of consumerism as much as possible and focus on sustainable living.

Don’t chase the carrot needlessly.

It may seem old to you because your privilege allows you to forget. Ask indigenous peoples if they have forgotten. You may be suprised by what you hear, when you take the time to listen.

To be fair, its not like the West played by the rules during the colonial era so that’s understandable.

A number of US based companies have willingly given away IP in the past to access the market.

I mean if we’re going to discuss statements of fact we could also include Europe’s history of colonial exploitation. But I’m on board with just ribbing the US for now.

Don’t be afraid to just take US intellectual property.

It was acquired through exploitative neoliberal and neocolonial policy. “AI” is actually the peak manifestation of this.

Also, China does it (though in some cases consensually) and its gone fairly well for them.

If you think Canada is bad (and it sure is), you should see how the US treated its indiginous peoples.

Reddit was always like this.

Now they’ve made ads indistinguishable from posts.

The discourse is generally low quality, divisive and likely bot driven.

What is the difference functionally?

Every woman I know has felt pressured to look a certain way by our dominant capitalistic world view. With the emergence of social media and influencer culture, men are starting to feel this pressure affect them too.

Its very hard to make someone stop believing that something objectively apparent doesn’t matter. Its less about whether it matters to you and more about how she feels others perceive what she perceives to be a flaw.

Telling her that it doesn’t matter to you is totally fair. Telling her it doesn’t matter to anyone would not be entirely true - yes, our culture can be that superficial.

There are, after all, entire industries that count on us to impart such insecurity onto our daughters so that they spend on beauty products their whole lives and keep that revenue engine churning.

My suggestion would be to reassure her that it doesn’t matter to you but to also see if you can have a broader conversation on the social pressures she has experienced related to her appearance and how it has impacted her life. You may have had similar experiences to share. This will brinf you closer, remembering that true confidence comes from strong relationships built on a foundation of mutual trust.

I would take it a step further with indigineous teachings that those with great power use it for the greater good, do not dismiss the central role of women in communities and respects the sanctity of all that is living, human and non-human.

To me, that is a good person and I believe that every person has the potential to be good.

Couldn’t agree more and do not in any way intend to diminish the hard work of those that prevented a widespread systems failure.