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Your iPhone Was Built with Child Labor

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Re: Your iPhone Was Built with Child Labor

#51

Post by danaris »

Retric wrote: post #50
danaris wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While your first statement is true, I'm not sure it follows that there's a reverse correlation. In fact, I think (having actually changed my response a couple of times while thinking it through) that unless you go back far enough that you're talking about genuine subsistence agriculture, the reasons for child labor are very similar in both cases: The wealthy and powerful take so much of the output of the laborers tha…

There’s still a massive carveout in US child labor law for farming. In 2023 Families making well into six figures are using young teens not because they can’t afford to pay someone, but for more practical reason and the view it’s useful training. For related reasons family businesses also have more flexibility. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/child-labor What has changed is not just the levels of automation involved…

The proximate reason can be "because we've always done it this way," or "because it's easy", but I'm not sure that changes the root cause.

Ultimately, it comes down to "this is something that could be done better by a trained adult, but we don't have the same access to trained adults that we do to children, in part because of the massive economic inequalities our society experiences today."

Re: Your iPhone Was Built with Child Labor

#53

Post by Retric »

danaris wrote: post #51
Retric wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s still a massive carveout in US child labor law for farming. In 2023 Families making well into six figures are using young teens not because they can’t afford to pay someone, but for more practical reason and the view it’s useful training. For related reasons family businesses also have more flexibility. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/child-labor What has changed is not just the levels of automation involved…

The proximate reason can be "because we've always done it this way," or "because it's easy", but I'm not sure that changes the root cause. Ultimately, it comes down to "this is something that could be done better by a trained adult, but we don't have the same access to trained adults that we do to children, in part because of the massive economic inequalities our society experiences today."

No, the proximate cause is earths rotation and thus plants are vastly less flexible than factories.

I need someone for to do a seasonal jobs for a few weeks and then nothing until next year is fine if it’s a niche job like say selling Christmas trees. However, when every farm for thousands of miles all needs that same labor for those same short window you get a massive labor shortage. Worse modern farming is mechanized so you can simply put people picked off the streets behind the wheels of 100’s of thousands of dollar pieces of equipment.

There’s a similar exception in US immigration for migrant foreign workers to pick fruits and vegetables, but again the minimum threshold for competence in other types of farm labor is higher.

Re: Your iPhone Was Built with Child Labor

#54

Post by seanmcdirmid »

1letterunixname wrote: post #34

It's good to raise awareness but it's not recent news. - Foxconn ships poor people from rural areas to mega factories, take their identity documents, and essentially holds them hostage. - Up the supply chain, small-scale miners of rare earth minerals risk their lives and die everyday. - Consumer cognitive dissonance allows billions of people to eat hamburgers without considering the impact of their choices. https://w…

> Foxconn ships poor people from rural areas to mega factories

They don't have to ship them, the poor people from rural areas come looking for better jobs in the mega factories. Nothing wrong with that.

> take their identity documents, and essentially holds them hostage.

This is a huge deal which many Chinese companies used to practice even just 10 years ago. I don't think it is very common now, the government did crack down on it, to stop making it a norm business practice.

That was 2014. Things aren't perfect now, but better than back then.

Re: Your iPhone Was Built with Child Labor

#55

Post by 1letterunixname »

charcircuit wrote: post #41
1letterunixname wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So child labor laws are unnecessary if they benefit you?

If everyone is benefiting from something and no one is being harmed then yes I do believe the laws are unnecessary.

[flagged]

Re: Your iPhone Was Built with Child Labor

#56

Post by 1letterunixname »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #54
1letterunixname wrote: post #34

It's good to raise awareness but it's not recent news. - Foxconn ships poor people from rural areas to mega factories, take their identity documents, and essentially holds them hostage. - Up the supply chain, small-scale miners of rare earth minerals risk their lives and die everyday. - Consumer cognitive dissonance allows billions of people to eat hamburgers without considering the impact of their choices. https://w…

> Foxconn ships poor people from rural areas to mega factories They don't have to ship them, the poor people from rural areas come looking for better jobs in the mega factories. Nothing wrong with that. > take their identity documents, and essentially holds them hostage. This is a huge deal which many Chinese companies used to practice even just 10 years ago. I don't think it is very common now, the government did cr…

[flagged]

Re: Your iPhone Was Built with Child Labor

#57

Post by moritzwarhier »

> It's good to raise awareness but it's not recent news. [...]

> Child labor in the… [...]

Have you read the article?

To me –pardon my subjectivity and don't take this as a personal attack please – this sounds like it can can be paraphrased with "I don't care".

The article paints a pretty strong picture not only of child labor and slavery but also of the environmental devastation and violence around the harvesting of raw materials in all these countries.

It also mentions electric vehicles, which have batteries that make iPhone batteries seem like a drop in the ocean in size comparison, and are celebrated as green progress.

> How should the typical westerner deal with these facts?

Maybe not buy unneeded batteries and advocate for honest regulation and a stop to reckless growth based on slave labour and environmental destruction?

Maybe stop pretending that capitalism would represent liberty and freedom, when it is built on destruction, unsustainability and slave labor?

For some reason, people can read such an article and claim that they know anything about reasonable environmental policy a couple of hours later, minutes even.

Sorry for the rant, but it makes me sick to follow debate about these topics.

Writing this from a device containing the same minerals that the article is about, duh.

> Hold the corps to account, vote with your wallet, demand that they reinvest profits in education and betterment and development of these geographic areas.

This is a poltical issue on a global scale. As long as it is allowed to reap profit from exploitation, outsource slave labor and environmental destruction and call this "free market", nothing will change.

I welcome everyone who reduces his/her participation in the global exploitation of poverty and the environment, but without political action it is all smoke and mirrors.

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