[Mz]

And lots of people decry that. It also is an upper class first world problem. I don't imagine too many poor people have smart phones, and I don't imagine all clothing will have tech interwoven. That may become common among the wealthier classes in developed countries, it is unlikely to be the norm for all people on the planet.

Your comment fails as a rebuttal.

[shimon]

Many poor people have smartphones. They're a big force in getting more people access to the internet and other technology, which is probably overall positive even though it has some significant negative repercussions.

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/01/for-more-poor-americans-smar...

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/

[Mz]

From what I have read, cell phones are really common in Africa. I recently read that in Malawi, one of the poorest countries on the planet, a village may only have one cell phone, but everyone has their own sim card. But, they don't appear to have smart phones.

Poor Americans are not the poorest people on the planet. And talking like they are casually dismisses the existence of billions of people.

I am pretty darn poor for an American. I was homeless until recently. I am well aware that even homeless Americans frequently have cell phones. My latest Tracphone is a smart phone because the Walmart didn't have a dumb phone when I went to get a new phone.

Still, the fact that some Americans are poor and also have a cheap smart phone does not negate the existence of poor Americans who don't have a smart phone, who may not have a phone at all.

The comment I replied to suggested that ALL clothing will someday have this tech. I think that is unlikely. Perhaps "all" (aka most) clothing of fairly well off Americans, but certainly not all clothes on the entire planet.

That may be "pedantic," but the essence of classism, racism, etc is that people glibly say "all people" when they really mean some subset of people. That subset winds up being the only subset that counts. The needs and realities of other people outside that subset are utterly ignored and if you try to bring them into the conversation, you get shouted down, downvoted, etc.

[shimon]

I agree with most of this, but I'm confused about something. Are you saying that it's not OK to prioritize the needs/realities of certain groups of people?

I think there are situations where it's clearly not OK - for example, it's wrong for a government to limit access to voting based on race. But if you're, say, developing a new technology, then almost always it will be initially expensive and limited to wealthy users. Still, if we hadn't had an iPhone for rich folks in 2007, it's hard to imagine we'd be living in a world with decent $40 android smartphones in 2017.

Would you agree with that logic?

[Mz]

I said nothing about the tech. I only suggested that a specific comment on this forum was a classist framing due to its sweeping claim that this would be for "all" clothing. That's it, and my comment that it was classist got several replies. I have done my best to engage those replies in good faith. That's it.

You seem to be reading in intent which is not there.