281–290 of 300 posts
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> You see, two-thirds of the global supply of cobalt comes from the Congo. So already, right there, you cannot avoid Congolese cobalt.
You could ban/sanction Congolese cobalt; this would increase prices in the short run, while other producing countries adjust supply.
Regarding the legal merits of the case, I notice that don't see any coverage of a proposed theory of liability in the article. The lawsuit text is more informative, pointing at a bunch of sections of US Code about forced labor, trafficking, and sale into voluntary servitude — for instance, 18 U.S. Code § 1589 which notes, "(b) Whoever knowingly benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participati…
Just for the sake of completeness, "knowingly" is a specific legalese term. It means you know the goods are coming from the prohibited source, but still decide to buy it. The total spectrum looks like this: - purposefully: you won't buy cobalt, unless it says "mined by slave children" on the tin - knowingly: you buy cobalt even if it says "mined by slave children" on the tin - recklessly: you know that 90% of world c…
- accidentally: you know there's a risk of buying cobalt mined by slave children. So, you took the actions of a reasonable person to avoid that risk, but you failed.
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Congo has been independent for 60 years. How long do you expect to hold Belgium responsible for whatever happens there?
It would be absurd to write-off Belgium's responsibility so quickly. The current Prime Minister was a teenager when Belgium left. His upbringing and primary schooling were all under Belgian rule. The same is true of most people involved in governing the country.
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No, I can't. Just like sorting my trash won't save any fish/birds/whatever and riding my bike won't slow down the melting of the ice caps. The carbon footprint of my entire country is almost exactly 1/100th of the last company on the "top 100 polluters" list[1]. 10 million people are just as powerless as one, if all they do is buy a different phone or whatever. But 10 million people voting for the politicians that wi…
Hopefully that didn't come across as aggressive against Fairphone or your comment. I like Fairphone and might actually buy their phone next cycle. This is just a topic that really matters to me, as I've witnessed what happens when someone goes down the environmental responsibility rabbit hole to the point of not being able to properly function because of feeling guilty about basically every part of modern society. Ma…
Just giving up and taking deaths for granted is cynical.
For example I went vegan and I feel much better now.
I'm saving the planet while at it without "making sacrifices".
Also handing over responsibility to politicians does not work.
As long as people keep on trashing the planet politicians don't care.
Political parties are only catering to mainstream choices.
Thus you need to start a trend that one day will force politicians to act.
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Justice as in peace is brought to the local population and they are kept from murdering and stealing from each other. Whether they get to keep their local resources or not I think is a secondary concern to whether they have a peaceful society.
Very Hobbesian. I think you'll find actual implementations of the systems you propose don't really discourage murder or theft; those don't concern the bottom line. I'll point to the Belgian Congo as a relevant example in this space
In more ancient history, while the Spaniards did many horrible things to natives, they also put a stop to even greater horrors, such as the mass human sacrifice at that time.
Even further back, Roman colonization was exploitative, but did also bring peace to the different regions they colonized.
So, colonization can bring about a better social structure. Given that people are often driven by selfish gain, getting something out of enacting a just social structure seems to be the best way forward.
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Then perhaps the big tech and battery makers are even more culpable for this child exploitation...if its as easy as just digging a hole and chipping out rocks, they could be a little more selective in their suppliers.
I think you're misunderstanding the challenge. Big tech and battery makers don't buy ore straight out of the mine; as you say, they buy from suppliers, who are typically always willing to certify they don't use child labor. Of course that's often a lie. The question is how you, as a purchaser for Google or whatever, can actually catch the lie.
Again that points towards not just culpability (knowledge they are facilitating child exploitation and labor), but willing to go so far as to have their suppliers provide certifications they know are "often" fake.
>The question is how you, as a purchaser for Google or whatever, can actually catch the lie.
Plenty of other similar mining industries that exploited child labor have managed to put systems in place to minimize and weed out such practices. If De Beers diamond company can improve...certainly the big data tech companies can do better than requiring certs they know are often fake.
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>Do you know how hard it would be for Apple to check out a mining operation? A plane trip and a few days of a couple people's time. No. Not at all. It takes more than that to vet suppliers in a place as developed as China. If you think that's all it takes in an ACTIVE WAR ZONE you're delusional.
His point is that, if it's too hard to vet, then you shouldn't be buying at all. No proof of no exploitation should be treated as proof of exploitation. I agree. Err on the side of caution. If it "can't be done", it'll be figured out soon enough when trade is completely cut off.
No. It took thousands of years of civilizational development to even create the state capacity to do this sort of regulation in the developed world. It doesn't just magically happen through some invisible hand nonsense. Governance requires concerted effort by a sovereign government. The only way it gets done is by forcing stability and creating a government, which is a responsibility I don't think you want to put in the hands of FAANG and Samsung.
Cobalt and tantalum are truly the Achilles heel of industrial economies. No cobalt - no lithium batteries, and no mobile gadgets No tantalum - no high spec capacitors omnipresent in compact power supplies, thus again no high value electronics as such unless you want to put huge electrolytic caps into your smartphone.
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I think you're misunderstanding the challenge. Big tech and battery makers don't buy ore straight out of the mine; as you say, they buy from suppliers, who are typically always willing to certify they don't use child labor. Of course that's often a lie. The question is how you, as a purchaser for Google or whatever, can actually catch the lie.
>Big tech and battery makers don't buy ore straight out of the mine; as you say, they buy from suppliers, who are typically always willing to certify they don't use child labor. Again that points towards not just culpability (knowledge they are facilitating child exploitation and labor), but willing to go so far as to have their suppliers provide certifications they know are "often" fake. >The question is how you, as…