Setting aside for a moment that Chinese workers may or may not be getting mistreated and overworked so that you can have your iPads and iPhones, we bring you this heart-warming tale of a seventeen-year-old student in the city of Chenzhou, China, who decided to sell one of his kidneys in exchange for $3,500, with which he bought an iPhone and iPad. "Where'd you get the money for that?" his mother asked, noticing one of his shiny new Apple products. "Oh, I sold a kidney," the kid apparently told her.
It's unclear whether it was the mother's rage that led to the prosecution of this case, in which five individuals were indicted for the kidney-transplant scheme, which involved the renting of an operating room, hiring of medical staff, and seeking out organ donors in online chat rooms.
A spate of stories like this in the Chinese news has caused a public outcry of sorts. Recently, a Communist newspaper published an editorial that proclaimed the following:
Without facing complete hardship, these young people born after the 1990s made rash decisions. In the choice between their bodies and materialism, they resolutely chose the latter. In today's society where desires are infinite and demands are boundless ... blindly competing with others in the pursuit of high-end 'technology' will gradually ruin lives.
Things might not be quite so extreme here in the U.S. just yet, but be warned: Buying an iPad you can't afford just might ruin your life.
