Is Your City Getting Invaded? Boycott! Divest! Sanction! Boycotting these companies may take a few hours. Time well spent. We cannot afford to continue to fund them.
You can devote a few hours to just divest from Google for example. I'm still working on it.
Or devote a few hours to switch banks. You can knock one of these out a day. One every 2-3 days. Post and share your cancellations, struggles, discoveries.
Here's a quick list of companies to dump -- or limit as much as possible:
Android - Google has taken it over. Install CalyxOS for now. For your next phone try switching to Fairphone 5 or Librem 5.
Apple - stop buying new iphones. Switch to Fairphone 5 or Librem 5.
Amazon (support local businesses, use Amazon as a search engine but don't buy from them)
Amazon Web Services
AT&T - they're all bad. ATT is the worst.
Dell
Google Cloud / Drive (use Proton, OnlyOffice, LibreOffice + Nextcloud, Zoho WorkDrive)
Google Search (use Ecosia, or Duck Duck Go)
Google Email (use Proton)
Google Maps (use Organic Maps + Magic Earth)
LinkedIN - owned by Microsoft
Microsoft Office (LibreOffice)
Microsoft Azure (OpenStack, Eco‑Cloud (e.g., Green Cloud Solutions), Vultr (Carbon‑Neutral option)
Motorola
Nestle - horrific
Whole Foods (owned by Amazon) - farmers markets are best. Do what you can in food deserts.
Stocks?
Divest any stock portfolio from weapons / surveillance. Ask your provider for “ESG,” “socially responsible.”
Demand divestment from BlackRock, Vanguard, Morgan Stanley, and ARK Invest.
Encourage your employer, friends, relatives to do the same.
Banks?
Don't use a big bank -- like Chase, Wells or BofA. Barclay's UBS, etc. Or limit their use to the bare minimum.
Ethical alternatives include select credit unions or the following:
Banks: Amalgamated, Beneficial State, Aspiration for daily money and savings. Triodos Bank UK is amazing.
Investment managers: Green Century, Parnassus, Domini, Calvert, Adasina, Nia, for retirement or brokerage investing. These firms are supposed to explicitly avoid military, surveillance, and prison-industry investments.
AI: Tough one. Still researching alternatives. Be aware that ChatGPT's main investor is Microsoft.
Going to try Ollama. It's a local model runner, a desktop or server app that lets you download and run open-source LLMs (like Llama 3, Mistral, Gemma, Phi-3, etc.) directly on your computer or your own GPU server.
Share YOUR list and process. This is a community effort.
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