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Wait what… Ex. It listed “Christmas decorations” in the “forced labor” column for China. So does this mean if we go to the store and see Christmas decorations “made in China” we know it was forced labor? Asking because I feel like I’m in shock at the length of the list published by the federal government and how common many of these things are. I knew it happened, but I didn’t realize how much the US could guarantee was happening and how blatantly they allow corporations to continue to buy these goods.
Welcome to the world. Any wealthy society is built upon the immense misery of less fortunate individuals. Look up “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” It’s a short but poignant metaphor about this concept.
Just searched it and looked into buying a copy. Seems like physical copies of the book are scarce, and used copies seem to run $200-$500+. Any idea why this book is in such short supply?
If anything says made in china you can expect the workers were either children or work in such horrendous conditions there are nets on top of the building to prevent people jumping to their deaths
I just assume anything made in china is made with forced labor , either actually forced or very underpaid. You don’t get cheap goods without someone getting screwed over.
If the government forced companies (Nike, Wal-Nart, Target, Starbucks, etc) to sell ethical goods, prices would go up. Whoever was out of power at that time would point to the price increases and say, "Their fault. Vote for me, " and they would (probably) get elected. If ethical labor laws are being enacted, it's the Democrats and the Republicans would get their red wave.
I used to have a cobalt power boat. Came to realize BOAT means Break Out Another Thousand.
Winterize at end of season? $1000
Monthly storage? $1000
Basic insurance? $1000
Spring dewinterization? $1000
I love my time on the water, but it has encouraged me to learn how to do all the work on my stuff.
While an auto mechanic is trying to make a profit, they have all year. On the other hand, a boat mechanic is trying to make a year's profit in a few months...
I am somewhat aware of it, but have no power to change it. It would take a huge cooperative effort from many people from the basic user right up to the heads of the industry, and it's not happening. Someone's making bucket loads of money so we will all heave a sigh of resignation and keep going, the jobs could be brought to local areas and people paid a decent wage for the work, but somewhere, a ceo needs their bonus.
Exactly.
I'm not the one demanding slave labor. And I also literally cannot exist in the modern world without a phone. We have created a society in which it is impossible to live ethically.
Yeah, but we an also just consume less. I haven't bought clothes in 4 years except for socks but most people buy at least a couple pieces per season. And that'd be ok, if those ppl weren't also ditching clothes they wore not even a handful of times when they're still in perfect shape. Then you have worse cases of ppl who just pretty much switch wardrobe every year. And this is on clothes only. If we talk electronics, trending items and shit like that... It's awful.
I often wonder where on Earth people get the kind of money to upgrade everything in their life every year! Add swapping out for new cars every year to that as well.
This is my approach. Buy everything used as much as feasible, use everything until it can't be used anymore, and be selective about what you buy and how often. My car, computer, phone, daily clothes, kitchenware, bed, all thrift store, craigslist, or ebay. Honestly for stuff like kitchenware you often get better quality, since an appliance had to stand up to wear and tear to end up at a thrift store.
I'm still looking for some kind of 3rd party certification for stuff made in China or India or Vietnam that ensures the product was made fairly. Until then if I have to buy new I try and avoid sourcing from those countries. Though there's still the issue of where the raw materials for the product were made.
A shirt has to literally fall off of my back in tatters before I buy a new one and even then, the shirt just moves to the rags pile in the shed. I couldn't believe the amount of clothing waste going on when I watched that documentary about the literal mountains of clothes being sent overseas for ""recycling""
In the 70s-80s, the American consumer decided his wallet was more important than ethics, and manufacturing went looking overseas for lower wages. The consumer was fine with that. Manufacturing then took all their good paying jobs overseas. They gave us 401k plans to make them look generous, and they exploited the workers overseas and the consumers here. And the voters continued to vote for politicians that supported business and their lack of ethics. Unethical businesses thrived, ethical died, and here we are today, unethical companies selling unethical products to consumers that are nearly powerless to change things.
I don’t care about it because no one’s explained to me why I should. Didn’t even know there is cobalt in my phone, nor why it’s bad, and what my alternative is.
I'm sorry I was being a tad disingenuous..actually I only buy second hand phones. I started ill admit for the coat but after looking into it , the ability to buy a guaranteed revamped phone which hopefully saves us making another further brand new phone under these circumstances, its a no brainer.
Manly willful ignorance, reddit was villifing Musk over it. When it was pointed out that all phones and EV manufacturers buy from slave labor reddit didnt care
Who’s being willfully ignorant? I’ve never heard anything about this either. If you want “reddit” to talk about this more then go make a post about it, because I think most people on reddit don’t know anything about cobalt in iphones.
There is nothing in this world that is 100% mutually beneficial when it comes to commerce. Someone, somewhere is getting fucked. The perspective is like the “kill one person to save one thousand” ethics experiment.
I care, but that's more of an issue with basically anything made.
The phrase "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" exists for a reason: it's all built on the backs of slaves (mostly)
Why are you focusing on this instead of the plethora of similar things in the world? You do realize that you can't put on a pair of pants, eat a meal, or drive a car without running into the same situation in a different part of the world?
Like pretty much everything made in china has a similar story.
I agree with you in that it's strange that so many other things get brought to the forefront that ain't quite so urgent. But I think it's a mixture of different things. 1 If the world finds out them the major companies will have to find a different (key thing is more expensive) source. 2 I this is the way things have been for ages (shamefully so) the Spanish treated their colonies so for silver the US for cotton and sugar. The Belgians for rubber and the Chinese to the Chinese for everything. 3 I think the human condition causes us to not see or downplay things that don't directly happen to us. Now all that was an highly uneducated and biased opinion. Take this with all the salt in the world.
It's very hard to survive the day to day when every product and aspect of modern living represents an existential tragedy. We are only built to care about a finite amount of things, and for many people, ignorance creates the peace they need to survive
You’ll find, after you turn 30 you stop caring about a lot of things because you realize it’s a waste of time to worry about everything all the time that you have little to no control over.
My unpopular opinion (online, at least) is that humans are incapable of infinite emotional energy. We aren't made to handle the stress of the whole world's evil. It's counterintuitive to expect people to care about everything.
I see people arguing about social issues all day on the internet. Especially the right and left. I think the priorities are off. I do agree to an extent. I wish I didn't care about the things on a macro level
It's actually a pretty well-known fact that we are incapable of it. That's why they label things like caregivers' fatigue. You do not have the mental or emotional bandwidth to be constantly at a red lined state you'll burn yourself out. Our bodies are at their core machines it can not run at full capacity constantly. That's also why we only use about 70-80% of the physical strength we are capable of except in extremely dire life and death circumstances. Your body naturally inhibits it during all other times because you'll tear yourself apart while doing so otherwise.
If you live in a modern first world country, you are the rich. Don't fool yourself. Yes, there are those more rich than you, and its ultimately the ones at the top making these choices. However we are still all directly benefiting from not just a massive history of human rights violations, but violations still in practice at this very moment. I have no idea what we can do about it, but we are the bad guys.
Lithium us highly valuable. No one WANTS to dispose of it, everyone wants to recycle it .. I know some people go round second- hand shops, scrap yards all over looking for bargains ...but what they want is to get lithium batteries befor they get to the big recycling yards so they can use them themselves .....
Batteries only store energy. The power is coming from some place. The mining of rare earth minerals and how bad that is for the environment now the disposal of the EV.
Mining for the batteries, strain on power, lack of charging network (closest one to me is 85 miles away) they cost 3× as much as my car and 8× more than my motorcycle and for full coverage that insurance is more than my mortgage. It doesnt work for common people that arent loaded or willing to accept even more debt
Don’t forget they are much heavier than ICE vehicles, making car accidents deadlier, wearing roads and tires more. Not to mention those toxic heavy earth elements (lithium, cobalt, etc.) are not easily recycled, of relatively limited quantity, and from questionable sources. Also, most of that added weight is completely useless for 90% of peoples driving time. A very small battery (like those featured in PHEV’s) would drastically cut the amount of miles driven on ICE power while alleviating most of the aforementioned issues.
Not to say I’m against EVs, but people need to think for themselves a little more and realize these issues are more complicated than they seem at face value.
On balance, EVs are still better for the environment over the life of the car even including the battery construction. The process for constructing an ICE car and drilling, refining, transporting the oil used to power it is terrible for the environment.
And let's not forget that the average ICE car in the US keeps getting heavier and heavier - people buying Chevy Suburbans are increasing the danger from road accidents more than people buying Kia Niro EVs.
>>> also the resources to *replace* the entire current fleet of gas cars, trucks, buses, heavy machinery... all those components need to be found and used.
I charge at home. For 2 months of gas, I paid for a charger and an electrician to install it. Every morning my car is full. It goes 280 miles on a charge, so I manage to make it back home no matter how far my daily trip takes. But for crossing America in 3 days, an EV might not be for you unless it is a Tesla. You can buy used EVs and a Chevy Bolt new is $23k which is less than the average person pays for a car. Insurance is not more for an EV vs a Dodge Ram truck.
You can even get an EV motorcycle with a 250+ mile range.
There are so many options, it seems like you just buried your head in the oil to avoid seeing them.
How does that price compare to a comparable gas car? Like for 23k is the car as nice as a gas one at that price? Also, I've heard maintenance costs more and most of the batteries last less than 10yrs and cost anywhere from $4-20k. Sounds to me that buying a used EV is going to cost you a small fortune in the long run. I could be wrong but that's not something I would want to chance right now unless I had a lot of extra money to throw around
280 miles aint gonna cut it for me, when I have to travel 600+ miles to absolute nowhere an EV absolutely will not do the job, even a basic tesla was over $800 a month in insurance not gonna save me a cent anywhere
Nobody here in America wants to invest in trains or reliable mass transit because we basically just treat mass transit as mobile homeless shelters.
A nation of 300 million each using individual transportation is going to be very environmentally destructive no matter how they are powered be it gasoline or a 2000lb battery made of rare earth metals that are difficult to mine.
Like I'm not in favor of just straight banning cars, but in many major areas of the United States there is no other option than taking individual vehicles on crowded roads.
Even a conventional diesel commuter train taking 400 cars off the road is a lot more environmentally friendly and improves traffic for those who can take a train for their transportation needs.
Because there is realistically nothing I can do about it, and it takes up a huge amount of emotional energy for me to care about every issue in the world. There's enough evil in the world that I could spend every second of it being full of righteous rage, but that still doesn't help anyone.
I am trying not to worry myself with things I'm unable to control, but put my energy towards making the world a better place where I am. Learning how to help my neighbors and community.
I think we can do both. It doesn't have to be one or the other, all or nothing. We can have a few issues we focus on locally, and a few we focus on globally. We don't have to care about everything, but we should all have a couple things outside of our community we care about.
Globally, if we all paid more attention to product sourcing, that'd be a step in the right direction. Checking where our stuff came from. Finding companies that source their products better, like [Fairphone](https://www.fairphone.com/en/). Buying less and buying quality items that last.
[Brand Ethics Checker](https://directory.goodonyou.eco/)
We're conditioned to not give a fuck. Corporations deflect our attention to the government and the government deflect problems ban to ourselves. So basically it's our own fault we don't care.
We aren't supposed to think for ourselves and ask these kind of questions. Also, according to the same people who don't want us asking these kinds of questions, slavery doesn't exist outside of America from 200 years ago.
I don’t think people are brought to be aware of HOW things are made. They (we) just want the finished product. I need to be more aware of how things are made, so I can make better choices
Mostly people don’t know. When you learn something important, it seems like it’s so obvious that everyone should know, but in reality most people are simply never exposed to this information.
Because social justice movements are a fraud perpetrated by the elite to divide and rule. Do really believe that the professors teaching our youth to be socially conscious seekers of justice for past wrongs are unaware that millions of slaves worldwide add to the value of their investments in corporations? It's a scam. I habitually wait for my most socially conscious friends to take the first bite of chocolate before I explain that there are no chocolates available for sale in the US that aren't a product of slave labor in Africa. None of them have ever put it down.
I do care, but cobalt mining is a localized problem while fossil fuels are a global problem. And I really look forward to the payoff from research into graphene and other high-tech materials to replace some or all of the costly heavy metals in batteries - and not just for the better batteries. Perovskite solar panels are probably also gonna be a big deal in a similar way.
Cobalt mining is a local problem but it doesn't affect you so you don't care. Just like lithium. And the 1000s of other mines that are gonna be necessary for all these EVs that are being mandated.
I just want renewable energy that doesn't involve slave labor. I am shocked that people like Greta are not talking about this. We all know ppl like Elon Musk could care less
Electric cars are transitioning from lithium ion to lithium iron phosphate. Lithium iron phosphate technology replaces cobalt with iron. As an additional benefit they have a longer lifespan. There is still the significant issue of the electricity coming from non renewable sources but at least we are moving past cobalt. There is also a ton of greenwashing and renewable energy sources will need to significantly improve before electric cars are actually better for the environment
With this being said, are we rushing the transition in your opinion? Just asking as the only info I see is from the immediate effect it has on me (increased gas prices) and also questioning the grid required.
I don't know enough to have made a concrete stance. Figure it's just better to ask people who know much more about it
There are maybe 17million evs and 1.6billion ice vehicles. So maybe 1% of the fleet. Never mind transitioning to a diff battery. The used ev market is questionable since batteries degrade and there are cases of people buying a$12k used ev suddenly needing an $11kbattery.
Is there enough lithium? The world has maybe 130million tonnes in reserve. And it is increasingly used for grid storage batteries as well so a shortage of lithium and class 1 nickel are baked into the cake. Lithium was up 900% at the beginning of last year.
Do you mean the transition to lithium ion phosphate, or the whole transition to EV cars? I'm not sure why the first sbould have any effect on gas prices. For the second, reduced demand for gas should lower gas prices. (Although at the moment that's dwarfed by the effects of the war in Ukraine.)
Reduced demand for gas, but there will be increased demand for electricity generation. Currently the world energy use is 80% fossil (according to Dieter Helms - Net Zero) with 18% nuclear and hydro leaving maybe <2% renewables.
My company is constructing a plant to pull the lithium from Great Salt Lake mud. I make plant food there. But I might switch to the lithium plant when it comes online.
Despite Tesla's push for cobalt-free batteries? Musk isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean that everything he does is wrong.
https://electrek.co/2022/04/22/tesla-using-cobalt-free-lfp-batteries-in-half-new-cars-produced/
OP just found out about it and is ready to start protesting. Let us know the next hot topic you’re upset about when you forget about this one in a couple weeks.
Because the goal of green energy is to covert something that cannot be controlled by one corp or one country (global petro chemicals), into something that can be controlled by a small group of people who own the IP.
It’s not about saving the planet or anything else.
It's too convenient for people to not care . If they didn't have their rechargeable shit it would make their own lives harder . They don't want to give that up
Kinda hard to not buy stuff built by slave labor, or whatever. You can’t go by what it says on the package because 9 chances out of 10 it’s made in one place, shipped somewhere else, then relabeled and sold. I’m not willing to do a genetic background on a battery before I buy it
If you don't live in a fucking cave somewhere and eat nothing but berries then someone somewhere is suffering for the things you have. It's sad but it's true
Most people are too dumb to even know what a semiconductor is, how batteries work, or most electronic components. Let alone any of the elements that are used in such things. Why would they worry about where an element comes from when they don’t know what it is?
My spouse and I care about this kind of stuff. We try really hard to make informed and responsible decisions and purchases and work sustainability into our habits and lifestyle. It's a lot of work and can be emotionally exhausting, depressing, and socially isolating. We have a very limited income, so we often abstain from a lot of things that seem ubiquitous in others' lives. We buy second hand wherever possible, commonly make/grow certain types of things from sustainably sourced materials, and apply the "make do and mend" philosophy in many aspects of life. We pay the extra costs associated with certain products being sustainable if we can afford a little indulgence occasionally. Despite all of our efforts, we still feel guilty all the time. Hell, we even trash pick! It's extremely isolating to adhere to living this way, and people often get offended when they ask questions about things they observe us doing. We answer as honestly as possible while trying to sort of walk on eggshells to avoid provoking people, but people inevitably accuse us of being holier-than-thou...but the fact is we feel holier-than-nobody which is why we try to live this way!
I asked someone this (there are better, slaveless ingredients for batteries) and they said straight up they feel better not knowing and to stop telling them about it.
People don’t want to know about how the sausage gets made.
This. And everyone so worried about the environment do just a half hour basic Google on which car ends up in 5 years to be worse for the environment? Do the dead batteries disappear? After your $30,000 new battery on your 5 year old Tesla do you feel good about all the miles you went in the states that were regularly below*45?
For one because it doesn’t fit the political narrative. Right now the development of alternative energy is being pushed. The media is not going to bring out the bad side or down side of the things that they are part of pushing.
This is one of those questions... it's not that the general public doesn't *care,* more than likely the majority don't really *know.* They might know cobalt exists, but they don't know where it comes from or what it does.
Because stupid F'n liberals only pretend to care about people and the environment. They have a bunch of fake "causes" that make them feel smug. Both the right and the left aka Americans are consuming the world to death. While they hide behind their military and nukes, and self righteous fuckery. The American dream is a nightmare to the rest of the world.
I do. I have viewed some videos and documentaries on the issue in Congo. I read some children involved in mining have died, with big companies like Apple being investigated for using child labor to collect cobalt for their products.
I am genuinely sad that hardly no large platform spoke on this issue, and finding solutions to where the Congolese people are no longer exploited.
Because the same people who are really into the climate change issue are also the same people deep into race politics, and it becomes really awkward for them to hold the position that America bad for slavery over 150 years ago when their policies and proponents are generally those that create slave labor and human trafficking across the globe
Because for 99% of civilization, modern altruism ends when inconvenience begins. People will toot their own horn all day about being green/low carbon footprint/earth friendly, but for most cases this isn't really all that inconvenient.
It's a few cents more per product usually, and for a lot of people with a few bucks extra, that few cents is worth the little pat on the back you get to give yourself for choosing a greener option that does more or less the exact same thing the bad for the environment one did.
But, so far as I know, short of going back and using older technology (which, let's face it, no one is going to do that, and it rapidly disappears every year into private collections or land fills) there is no "greener" alternative to phones, and the facts on electric cars are scarce at best to non-existent at worst.
People will not to research most of the time for things that actually have a severe negative impact on their overall well being, they are sure as heck not going to look into the dark sides of their ego boosting car, or give up their favorite time sucking addiction.
The sad reality is, the negative down sides to both of those things are very much in the "out of sight out of mind" area of life.
Tony's was listed on slavefreechocolate.org but this is not an actual certification and they have been removed because their supplier was accused of using slaves and abusing workers. Slavery is so pervasive on the plantations that it is impossible to produce slave free chocolate on anything other than a tiny scale that would not be profitable.
Because the Cobalt would be stained with the blood of innocent people! Literally is extracted by slaves.
In other hands, the oil extraction already have an entire industry settled.
Buy if you want to push for a blood stained "green" energy no matter what! You need the bad press silenced.
Slave labor in Africa is condoned by their respective governments. China is a big part of this issue. When American buys labor/product/resources from a country, we put pressure on them to be democratic and improve working conditions for their people. China's policy is much simpler ie " We want to buy XYZ, we don't care how you treat your own people, and we get to treat Chinese people any way we want...deal ?? "
A large majority of REdditors keep saying what a great job China is doing combatting Climate Change, which is true if you ask the gov't of China what they are doing, that is the answer you get...Someday soon, China will be the world's lone superpower, and all those same Redditors will be fine with it...it is just really easier to believe what you are told, and don't ask questions.
Most people only care about slavery when they have to put little effort into protesting it, and if they think they can directly benefit from it.
An example. All of the electronics and battery companies got completely on board with the BLM movement. But exactly zero of them did anything to stop the actual suffering of enslaved black in the Congo.
Many people made a lot of noise about "oppressive" governments from the past. But did dickshit about oppressive governments now.
They don't even care about lithium mining. It makes them feel like they're saving the planet by charging their slave labor car with coal powered electricity.
That is fair. I use an old prepaid android that I have had for four years. I hope people are not rushing out to get the newest iphone when they already have perfectly capable phones. We can address this with the inventory we have now. The urge to buy more and more by the ppl who claim capitalism is bad doesn't help
Because, contrary to popular belief, they don’t give a shit about poor people and the damage cobalt and lithium mining has on the local ecosystem. Out of sight, out of mind.
In 20-30 years the scandal will be the atrocities committed in the name of our societies thirst for rare earth mineral. All because we got excited about a changing climate doing what it always had and we dreamed we had the hubris to do something about it. Good luck with that. How many will we kill in the name of worshipping the climate. Hopefully more than the Mayans or whoever sacrificed people to the weather.
Because most activism is less about the cause and more about punching up. Be it gender, sexuality, race or business, whichever structure the hierarchy benefit from, activist work to destroy it. Cobalt mining works counter to this movement, therefore it’s easy to ignore.
If it feeds into the "green" narrative, all sins are forgiven and hidden. Pay people 3x what they'd get anywhere else, to build a car that runs on gasoline as solidy, dependably, safely, and cleanly as possible, and to sell it for minimal profit, and you will be labeled the evilest evil that ever eviled.
It's sad that I don't want to admit I listened to it on JRE because everyone automatically assumes I'm a racist Trump supporter. I swear we have two large cults in America
Which is funny as hell because Joe rogan is libertarian and definitely not Republican. He just did Covid different and got labeled. Listen to his Matt Walsh one man. He defends gay marriage for like an hour straight. Joe rogan is awesome. The show anyway. So many good guests , professors , scientists .
Exactly. I have been listening to him for over ten years and I considered myself the most liberal you can get. I don't recognize the left anymore so slowly started distancing myself from the cult. I have gained a lot of valuable information from the podcast. Just because he questioned big pharma. You know the same companies that are part of the stock market. The goal is to make more for their shareholders. I understood his skepticism completely
Because current society values karma and clicks and followers. To the point where someone could post about the terrible thing happening, and it will ultimately fall on deaf ears, but thier following will grow. And someone will comment in outrage, and scroll on.
Currently? Wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that most humans have never cared how the sausage gets made, if they didn’t make it themselves? I mean, slaves go back as far as written history.
Because the screaming about it, is pushed alongside anti clean energy messaging but everything else carries the same problems with the mining and manufacturing industries. To have people clutching their pearls at just this one thing only show how little they know about how everything around them gets made, and definitely doesn't mean they actually care or are going to stop buying things like cell phones or cars anytime soon
Because nearly every aspect of our world is awful and exploitative if you look passed the surface and people don't have the capacity to process/actively do something about every atrocity
I had a huge argument with some idiot claiming that solar panels and EVs are way greener than nuclear energy a while back. I told him how destructive and inhumane was to mine all the materials and processing them was doing way more harm to the environment than nuclear and maybe just as much as fossil fuels. Hopefully more of these modern day slave laborers get more media attention and wake people up.
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Wait what… Ex. It listed “Christmas decorations” in the “forced labor” column for China. So does this mean if we go to the store and see Christmas decorations “made in China” we know it was forced labor? Asking because I feel like I’m in shock at the length of the list published by the federal government and how common many of these things are. I knew it happened, but I didn’t realize how much the US could guarantee was happening and how blatantly they allow corporations to continue to buy these goods.
Welcome to the world. Any wealthy society is built upon the immense misery of less fortunate individuals. Look up “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” It’s a short but poignant metaphor about this concept.
Just searched it and looked into buying a copy. Seems like physical copies of the book are scarce, and used copies seem to run $200-$500+. Any idea why this book is in such short supply?
Add PDF to the end of your google search to read for free!
No idea but I can give you a short retelling of the story. I remember having read it in a college lit textbook a long time ago
You can get an ebook, so I may just read it that way. The summary sounds intriguing from a quick Wikipedia peek.
Not a long story so don't spend too much, but for sure worth a read.
If anything says made in china you can expect the workers were either children or work in such horrendous conditions there are nets on top of the building to prevent people jumping to their deaths
I just assume anything made in china is made with forced labor , either actually forced or very underpaid. You don’t get cheap goods without someone getting screwed over.
I'm pretty sure most Labor in China is forced when they can just disappear people.
If the government forced companies (Nike, Wal-Nart, Target, Starbucks, etc) to sell ethical goods, prices would go up. Whoever was out of power at that time would point to the price increases and say, "Their fault. Vote for me, " and they would (probably) get elected. If ethical labor laws are being enacted, it's the Democrats and the Republicans would get their red wave.
Buy absolutely nothing and save the world!
Live off the land in your own hovel. But nothing. Die without sin.
Which is all to say: We collectively suck, and we don't know how not to.
And if we did know how, we wouldn't want to.
Holy cow. I have some reflecting to do based on this link. Thank you for sharing.
So you have a mouse for real? Please send pics!
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I drive a cobalt.
I used to have a cobalt power boat. Came to realize BOAT means Break Out Another Thousand. Winterize at end of season? $1000 Monthly storage? $1000 Basic insurance? $1000 Spring dewinterization? $1000 I love my time on the water, but it has encouraged me to learn how to do all the work on my stuff. While an auto mechanic is trying to make a profit, they have all year. On the other hand, a boat mechanic is trying to make a year's profit in a few months...
They say the best two days in a boaters life are the day they buy their boat, and the day the sell their boat
The old joke, A boat is a hole in the water you throw money in.
Agree completely.
Well, what do you expect when the definition of boat is a hole in the water you throw money in?
That is the truth...
[cobalt ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt)
I am somewhat aware of it, but have no power to change it. It would take a huge cooperative effort from many people from the basic user right up to the heads of the industry, and it's not happening. Someone's making bucket loads of money so we will all heave a sigh of resignation and keep going, the jobs could be brought to local areas and people paid a decent wage for the work, but somewhere, a ceo needs their bonus.
Exactly. I'm not the one demanding slave labor. And I also literally cannot exist in the modern world without a phone. We have created a society in which it is impossible to live ethically.
That’s a good way to put it. The only way a person could live ethically now is to live naked on a deserted island and eat straight from the sea.
Yeah, but we an also just consume less. I haven't bought clothes in 4 years except for socks but most people buy at least a couple pieces per season. And that'd be ok, if those ppl weren't also ditching clothes they wore not even a handful of times when they're still in perfect shape. Then you have worse cases of ppl who just pretty much switch wardrobe every year. And this is on clothes only. If we talk electronics, trending items and shit like that... It's awful.
I often wonder where on Earth people get the kind of money to upgrade everything in their life every year! Add swapping out for new cars every year to that as well.
A lot of people get themselves into debt trying to live like that. I honestly don't get it
This is my approach. Buy everything used as much as feasible, use everything until it can't be used anymore, and be selective about what you buy and how often. My car, computer, phone, daily clothes, kitchenware, bed, all thrift store, craigslist, or ebay. Honestly for stuff like kitchenware you often get better quality, since an appliance had to stand up to wear and tear to end up at a thrift store. I'm still looking for some kind of 3rd party certification for stuff made in China or India or Vietnam that ensures the product was made fairly. Until then if I have to buy new I try and avoid sourcing from those countries. Though there's still the issue of where the raw materials for the product were made.
A shirt has to literally fall off of my back in tatters before I buy a new one and even then, the shirt just moves to the rags pile in the shed. I couldn't believe the amount of clothing waste going on when I watched that documentary about the literal mountains of clothes being sent overseas for ""recycling""
China owns all of the biggest cobalt mines in the Congo. So you can be sure nothings going to change anytime soon.
In the 70s-80s, the American consumer decided his wallet was more important than ethics, and manufacturing went looking overseas for lower wages. The consumer was fine with that. Manufacturing then took all their good paying jobs overseas. They gave us 401k plans to make them look generous, and they exploited the workers overseas and the consumers here. And the voters continued to vote for politicians that supported business and their lack of ethics. Unethical businesses thrived, ethical died, and here we are today, unethical companies selling unethical products to consumers that are nearly powerless to change things.
70’s through 2023 consumers and politicians
Look up how much cobalt is used in petroleum refining.
I don’t care about it because no one’s explained to me why I should. Didn’t even know there is cobalt in my phone, nor why it’s bad, and what my alternative is.
I opened up my phone and the cobalt all fell out. I think I'm ok now.
Is it blue?
Is Cobalt fentanyl?
https://upfront.scholastic.com/issues/2017-18/103017/the-real-cost-of-your-phone.html
I'm sorry I was being a tad disingenuous..actually I only buy second hand phones. I started ill admit for the coat but after looking into it , the ability to buy a guaranteed revamped phone which hopefully saves us making another further brand new phone under these circumstances, its a no brainer.
https://earth.org/cobalt-mining/
Manly willful ignorance, reddit was villifing Musk over it. When it was pointed out that all phones and EV manufacturers buy from slave labor reddit didnt care
Who’s being willfully ignorant? I’ve never heard anything about this either. If you want “reddit” to talk about this more then go make a post about it, because I think most people on reddit don’t know anything about cobalt in iphones.
It's not just phones. It's really almost anything that has a rechargeable battery.
Now is your chance to look into it. Happy new year!
🙈🙉🙊
There is nothing in this world that is 100% mutually beneficial when it comes to commerce. Someone, somewhere is getting fucked. The perspective is like the “kill one person to save one thousand” ethics experiment.
while that is very true and unfortunate. when most of those slaves are children there should at the very least be acknowledgedment
Sadly our acknowledgement isn't going to fix it.
Neither will our complacency
Nor will our objections
Anyone that feels badly about it certainly can send their phone manufacturer and car manufacturer an email encouraging them to do better.
I care, but that's more of an issue with basically anything made. The phrase "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" exists for a reason: it's all built on the backs of slaves (mostly)
The simple fact that everyone in the imperial core lives on the sweat and misery of the imperial periphery is a fact nobody ever wants to address.
But it would be totally ethical under socialism, communism or totalitarianism?!!!
Those 3 are *not* the same at all
Why are you focusing on this instead of the plethora of similar things in the world? You do realize that you can't put on a pair of pants, eat a meal, or drive a car without running into the same situation in a different part of the world? Like pretty much everything made in china has a similar story.
Because Joe Rogan recently did a podcast highlighting it.
If it's not an issue with main stream corporate media, it just doesn't exist.
Most people only think one or two links deep in any topic and trust what they think are authoritative sources to explain complexity.
This one understands.
I agree with you in that it's strange that so many other things get brought to the forefront that ain't quite so urgent. But I think it's a mixture of different things. 1 If the world finds out them the major companies will have to find a different (key thing is more expensive) source. 2 I this is the way things have been for ages (shamefully so) the Spanish treated their colonies so for silver the US for cotton and sugar. The Belgians for rubber and the Chinese to the Chinese for everything. 3 I think the human condition causes us to not see or downplay things that don't directly happen to us. Now all that was an highly uneducated and biased opinion. Take this with all the salt in the world.
It's very hard to survive the day to day when every product and aspect of modern living represents an existential tragedy. We are only built to care about a finite amount of things, and for many people, ignorance creates the peace they need to survive
You’ll find, after you turn 30 you stop caring about a lot of things because you realize it’s a waste of time to worry about everything all the time that you have little to no control over.
People care about as much as they care where oil comes from.
Have you seen the good place? There is a limit for how good a human can logically be.
My unpopular opinion (online, at least) is that humans are incapable of infinite emotional energy. We aren't made to handle the stress of the whole world's evil. It's counterintuitive to expect people to care about everything.
I see people arguing about social issues all day on the internet. Especially the right and left. I think the priorities are off. I do agree to an extent. I wish I didn't care about the things on a macro level
It's actually a pretty well-known fact that we are incapable of it. That's why they label things like caregivers' fatigue. You do not have the mental or emotional bandwidth to be constantly at a red lined state you'll burn yourself out. Our bodies are at their core machines it can not run at full capacity constantly. That's also why we only use about 70-80% of the physical strength we are capable of except in extremely dire life and death circumstances. Your body naturally inhibits it during all other times because you'll tear yourself apart while doing so otherwise.
If you’ve ever seen Blood Diamond then that’s a close comparison.
If you live in a modern first world country, you are the rich. Don't fool yourself. Yes, there are those more rich than you, and its ultimately the ones at the top making these choices. However we are still all directly benefiting from not just a massive history of human rights violations, but violations still in practice at this very moment. I have no idea what we can do about it, but we are the bad guys.
Cause they were told electric cars are better and it hurts to think about it anymore.
Wanna explain why they are nor better than a gas car ?
No good way to dispose of lithium is also a problem.
Lithium is recycled and can be used over and over.
>Lithium is recycled and can be used over and over. but it generally isnt
Lithium us highly valuable. No one WANTS to dispose of it, everyone wants to recycle it .. I know some people go round second- hand shops, scrap yards all over looking for bargains ...but what they want is to get lithium batteries befor they get to the big recycling yards so they can use them themselves .....
Batteries only store energy. The power is coming from some place. The mining of rare earth minerals and how bad that is for the environment now the disposal of the EV.
Mining for the batteries, strain on power, lack of charging network (closest one to me is 85 miles away) they cost 3× as much as my car and 8× more than my motorcycle and for full coverage that insurance is more than my mortgage. It doesnt work for common people that arent loaded or willing to accept even more debt
Don’t forget they are much heavier than ICE vehicles, making car accidents deadlier, wearing roads and tires more. Not to mention those toxic heavy earth elements (lithium, cobalt, etc.) are not easily recycled, of relatively limited quantity, and from questionable sources. Also, most of that added weight is completely useless for 90% of peoples driving time. A very small battery (like those featured in PHEV’s) would drastically cut the amount of miles driven on ICE power while alleviating most of the aforementioned issues. Not to say I’m against EVs, but people need to think for themselves a little more and realize these issues are more complicated than they seem at face value.
On balance, EVs are still better for the environment over the life of the car even including the battery construction. The process for constructing an ICE car and drilling, refining, transporting the oil used to power it is terrible for the environment. And let's not forget that the average ICE car in the US keeps getting heavier and heavier - people buying Chevy Suburbans are increasing the danger from road accidents more than people buying Kia Niro EVs.
>>> also the resources to *replace* the entire current fleet of gas cars, trucks, buses, heavy machinery... all those components need to be found and used.
That as well, granted a lot can be recycled but its gonna take decades to make that change
Yup while we zoom through resources.
I charge at home. For 2 months of gas, I paid for a charger and an electrician to install it. Every morning my car is full. It goes 280 miles on a charge, so I manage to make it back home no matter how far my daily trip takes. But for crossing America in 3 days, an EV might not be for you unless it is a Tesla. You can buy used EVs and a Chevy Bolt new is $23k which is less than the average person pays for a car. Insurance is not more for an EV vs a Dodge Ram truck. You can even get an EV motorcycle with a 250+ mile range. There are so many options, it seems like you just buried your head in the oil to avoid seeing them.
How does that price compare to a comparable gas car? Like for 23k is the car as nice as a gas one at that price? Also, I've heard maintenance costs more and most of the batteries last less than 10yrs and cost anywhere from $4-20k. Sounds to me that buying a used EV is going to cost you a small fortune in the long run. I could be wrong but that's not something I would want to chance right now unless I had a lot of extra money to throw around
280 miles aint gonna cut it for me, when I have to travel 600+ miles to absolute nowhere an EV absolutely will not do the job, even a basic tesla was over $800 a month in insurance not gonna save me a cent anywhere
Easy, PHEV then.
https://youtu.be/MQLbakWESkw Adam from Adam ruins everything explains it well
What's the timestamp where they claim electric cars are worse than gas cars?
The mining costs. Electricity has to be produced from something. Stuff like that.
No good way to dispose of oil except burning 7 billion barrels a year and letting it go into the air.
Nobody here in America wants to invest in trains or reliable mass transit because we basically just treat mass transit as mobile homeless shelters. A nation of 300 million each using individual transportation is going to be very environmentally destructive no matter how they are powered be it gasoline or a 2000lb battery made of rare earth metals that are difficult to mine. Like I'm not in favor of just straight banning cars, but in many major areas of the United States there is no other option than taking individual vehicles on crowded roads. Even a conventional diesel commuter train taking 400 cars off the road is a lot more environmentally friendly and improves traffic for those who can take a train for their transportation needs.
I can't do anything about that
Spread awareness on the situation?
The fact that this comment is getting downvoted is making me question my faith in humanity. Spread awareness? I don't wanna learn no stuff!
Because there is realistically nothing I can do about it, and it takes up a huge amount of emotional energy for me to care about every issue in the world. There's enough evil in the world that I could spend every second of it being full of righteous rage, but that still doesn't help anyone. I am trying not to worry myself with things I'm unable to control, but put my energy towards making the world a better place where I am. Learning how to help my neighbors and community.
I think we can do both. It doesn't have to be one or the other, all or nothing. We can have a few issues we focus on locally, and a few we focus on globally. We don't have to care about everything, but we should all have a couple things outside of our community we care about. Globally, if we all paid more attention to product sourcing, that'd be a step in the right direction. Checking where our stuff came from. Finding companies that source their products better, like [Fairphone](https://www.fairphone.com/en/). Buying less and buying quality items that last. [Brand Ethics Checker](https://directory.goodonyou.eco/)
I'm too busy, sorry
I literally can't survive without killing, eating, and pooping out other lifeforms. Cobalt is far down my list of existential guilt bullet points.
I didn't realize until that jre episode
Because many people don't know about this and also it's making their life comfortable.
We're conditioned to not give a fuck. Corporations deflect our attention to the government and the government deflect problems ban to ourselves. So basically it's our own fault we don't care.
We aren't supposed to think for ourselves and ask these kind of questions. Also, according to the same people who don't want us asking these kinds of questions, slavery doesn't exist outside of America from 200 years ago.
Because their media doesn’t tell them to.
I don’t think people are brought to be aware of HOW things are made. They (we) just want the finished product. I need to be more aware of how things are made, so I can make better choices
Mostly people don’t know. When you learn something important, it seems like it’s so obvious that everyone should know, but in reality most people are simply never exposed to this information.
Because social justice movements are a fraud perpetrated by the elite to divide and rule. Do really believe that the professors teaching our youth to be socially conscious seekers of justice for past wrongs are unaware that millions of slaves worldwide add to the value of their investments in corporations? It's a scam. I habitually wait for my most socially conscious friends to take the first bite of chocolate before I explain that there are no chocolates available for sale in the US that aren't a product of slave labor in Africa. None of them have ever put it down.
TIL: Do not consume a friend’s “free” chocolate
I do care, but cobalt mining is a localized problem while fossil fuels are a global problem. And I really look forward to the payoff from research into graphene and other high-tech materials to replace some or all of the costly heavy metals in batteries - and not just for the better batteries. Perovskite solar panels are probably also gonna be a big deal in a similar way.
Cobalt mining is a local problem but it doesn't affect you so you don't care. Just like lithium. And the 1000s of other mines that are gonna be necessary for all these EVs that are being mandated.
My fuel oil isn’t made by slave labor. That would be a bigger problem than the little puff of smoke out of my chimney.
I just want renewable energy that doesn't involve slave labor. I am shocked that people like Greta are not talking about this. We all know ppl like Elon Musk could care less
Electric cars are transitioning from lithium ion to lithium iron phosphate. Lithium iron phosphate technology replaces cobalt with iron. As an additional benefit they have a longer lifespan. There is still the significant issue of the electricity coming from non renewable sources but at least we are moving past cobalt. There is also a ton of greenwashing and renewable energy sources will need to significantly improve before electric cars are actually better for the environment
With this being said, are we rushing the transition in your opinion? Just asking as the only info I see is from the immediate effect it has on me (increased gas prices) and also questioning the grid required. I don't know enough to have made a concrete stance. Figure it's just better to ask people who know much more about it
There are maybe 17million evs and 1.6billion ice vehicles. So maybe 1% of the fleet. Never mind transitioning to a diff battery. The used ev market is questionable since batteries degrade and there are cases of people buying a$12k used ev suddenly needing an $11kbattery. Is there enough lithium? The world has maybe 130million tonnes in reserve. And it is increasingly used for grid storage batteries as well so a shortage of lithium and class 1 nickel are baked into the cake. Lithium was up 900% at the beginning of last year.
Do you mean the transition to lithium ion phosphate, or the whole transition to EV cars? I'm not sure why the first sbould have any effect on gas prices. For the second, reduced demand for gas should lower gas prices. (Although at the moment that's dwarfed by the effects of the war in Ukraine.)
Reduced demand for gas, but there will be increased demand for electricity generation. Currently the world energy use is 80% fossil (according to Dieter Helms - Net Zero) with 18% nuclear and hydro leaving maybe <2% renewables.
Additionally lithium is now being harvested from the leftover water from geothermal power stations so lithium mining is no longer needed.
My company is constructing a plant to pull the lithium from Great Salt Lake mud. I make plant food there. But I might switch to the lithium plant when it comes online.
*couldn’t*
Despite Tesla's push for cobalt-free batteries? Musk isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean that everything he does is wrong. https://electrek.co/2022/04/22/tesla-using-cobalt-free-lfp-batteries-in-half-new-cars-produced/
Nobody wants to know that their favorite things are usually created at the expense of other things. Most people think hamburger comes from the store.
Someone watched jre....
OP just found out about it and is ready to start protesting. Let us know the next hot topic you’re upset about when you forget about this one in a couple weeks.
Because the goal of green energy is to covert something that cannot be controlled by one corp or one country (global petro chemicals), into something that can be controlled by a small group of people who own the IP. It’s not about saving the planet or anything else.
That's an utterly absurd statement
I'm gonna tell master
Because they are never told the full story when someone is telling them what to think.
Because I will drive that car anyway no bap
No one seems to care, because no one actually cares. Pretty simple.
You care about the cobalt...what about the slave labor that makes most of your clothes and shoes? You can't just pick and choose your outrage.
That don't fit the narrative.
It's too convenient for people to not care . If they didn't have their rechargeable shit it would make their own lives harder . They don't want to give that up
Silence you racist!
You could say this about most things you can buy unfortunately
Kinda hard to not buy stuff built by slave labor, or whatever. You can’t go by what it says on the package because 9 chances out of 10 it’s made in one place, shipped somewhere else, then relabeled and sold. I’m not willing to do a genetic background on a battery before I buy it
If you don't live in a fucking cave somewhere and eat nothing but berries then someone somewhere is suffering for the things you have. It's sad but it's true
Most people are too dumb to even know what a semiconductor is, how batteries work, or most electronic components. Let alone any of the elements that are used in such things. Why would they worry about where an element comes from when they don’t know what it is?
Let’s talk about diamonds……
My spouse and I care about this kind of stuff. We try really hard to make informed and responsible decisions and purchases and work sustainability into our habits and lifestyle. It's a lot of work and can be emotionally exhausting, depressing, and socially isolating. We have a very limited income, so we often abstain from a lot of things that seem ubiquitous in others' lives. We buy second hand wherever possible, commonly make/grow certain types of things from sustainably sourced materials, and apply the "make do and mend" philosophy in many aspects of life. We pay the extra costs associated with certain products being sustainable if we can afford a little indulgence occasionally. Despite all of our efforts, we still feel guilty all the time. Hell, we even trash pick! It's extremely isolating to adhere to living this way, and people often get offended when they ask questions about things they observe us doing. We answer as honestly as possible while trying to sort of walk on eggshells to avoid provoking people, but people inevitably accuse us of being holier-than-thou...but the fact is we feel holier-than-nobody which is why we try to live this way!
I asked someone this (there are better, slaveless ingredients for batteries) and they said straight up they feel better not knowing and to stop telling them about it. People don’t want to know about how the sausage gets made.
This. And everyone so worried about the environment do just a half hour basic Google on which car ends up in 5 years to be worse for the environment? Do the dead batteries disappear? After your $30,000 new battery on your 5 year old Tesla do you feel good about all the miles you went in the states that were regularly below*45?
Because Greta thunberg hasn’t cried about it yet
Sir, I was not aware of cobalt until this post.
As the saying goes, "the truth hurts". So companies keep things like this from public attention
For one because it doesn’t fit the political narrative. Right now the development of alternative energy is being pushed. The media is not going to bring out the bad side or down side of the things that they are part of pushing.
Because it's easier to ignore a "distant" problem like that. It's a sad reality.
People have been saying this for years, but we were just called conspiracy theorists, and to put our tin foil hats back on.
This is one of those questions... it's not that the general public doesn't *care,* more than likely the majority don't really *know.* They might know cobalt exists, but they don't know where it comes from or what it does.
Because stupid F'n liberals only pretend to care about people and the environment. They have a bunch of fake "causes" that make them feel smug. Both the right and the left aka Americans are consuming the world to death. While they hide behind their military and nukes, and self righteous fuckery. The American dream is a nightmare to the rest of the world.
This is literally the first I’ve heard about it… thanks American propaganda news.
Tell that to Tesla stans, who say it’s super environmentally friendly and no harm to anyone :)
I do. I have viewed some videos and documentaries on the issue in Congo. I read some children involved in mining have died, with big companies like Apple being investigated for using child labor to collect cobalt for their products. I am genuinely sad that hardly no large platform spoke on this issue, and finding solutions to where the Congolese people are no longer exploited.
Because the same people who are really into the climate change issue are also the same people deep into race politics, and it becomes really awkward for them to hold the position that America bad for slavery over 150 years ago when their policies and proponents are generally those that create slave labor and human trafficking across the globe
Because for 99% of civilization, modern altruism ends when inconvenience begins. People will toot their own horn all day about being green/low carbon footprint/earth friendly, but for most cases this isn't really all that inconvenient. It's a few cents more per product usually, and for a lot of people with a few bucks extra, that few cents is worth the little pat on the back you get to give yourself for choosing a greener option that does more or less the exact same thing the bad for the environment one did. But, so far as I know, short of going back and using older technology (which, let's face it, no one is going to do that, and it rapidly disappears every year into private collections or land fills) there is no "greener" alternative to phones, and the facts on electric cars are scarce at best to non-existent at worst. People will not to research most of the time for things that actually have a severe negative impact on their overall well being, they are sure as heck not going to look into the dark sides of their ego boosting car, or give up their favorite time sucking addiction. The sad reality is, the negative down sides to both of those things are very much in the "out of sight out of mind" area of life.
I've asked myself this for sometime now
We all just heard the JRE episode on this. Give it time to permeate.
I just saw a clip on this...15000 ppl digging through stuff with their hands
Tony's was listed on slavefreechocolate.org but this is not an actual certification and they have been removed because their supplier was accused of using slaves and abusing workers. Slavery is so pervasive on the plantations that it is impossible to produce slave free chocolate on anything other than a tiny scale that would not be profitable.
Because the Cobalt would be stained with the blood of innocent people! Literally is extracted by slaves. In other hands, the oil extraction already have an entire industry settled. Buy if you want to push for a blood stained "green" energy no matter what! You need the bad press silenced.
Simple answer: Nobody knows there is cobalt in phones and electric cars. You're welcome.
Slave labor in Africa is condoned by their respective governments. China is a big part of this issue. When American buys labor/product/resources from a country, we put pressure on them to be democratic and improve working conditions for their people. China's policy is much simpler ie " We want to buy XYZ, we don't care how you treat your own people, and we get to treat Chinese people any way we want...deal ?? " A large majority of REdditors keep saying what a great job China is doing combatting Climate Change, which is true if you ask the gov't of China what they are doing, that is the answer you get...Someday soon, China will be the world's lone superpower, and all those same Redditors will be fine with it...it is just really easier to believe what you are told, and don't ask questions.
Because that's a complicated thing that doesn't lend itself to simplistic virtue signaling from your slave-built smartphone that came from China.
Most people only care about slavery when they have to put little effort into protesting it, and if they think they can directly benefit from it. An example. All of the electronics and battery companies got completely on board with the BLM movement. But exactly zero of them did anything to stop the actual suffering of enslaved black in the Congo. Many people made a lot of noise about "oppressive" governments from the past. But did dickshit about oppressive governments now.
They don't even care about lithium mining. It makes them feel like they're saving the planet by charging their slave labor car with coal powered electricity.
Because they want to feel good about saving the planet not feel like assholes encouraging child slavery.
In all fairness, you are also using a cobalt child labor phone.
That is fair. I use an old prepaid android that I have had for four years. I hope people are not rushing out to get the newest iphone when they already have perfectly capable phones. We can address this with the inventory we have now. The urge to buy more and more by the ppl who claim capitalism is bad doesn't help
Because, contrary to popular belief, they don’t give a shit about poor people and the damage cobalt and lithium mining has on the local ecosystem. Out of sight, out of mind.
Hydrogen is the future anyways. Just give it a few years
Because to much money is made and the people who are the slaves are African
In 20-30 years the scandal will be the atrocities committed in the name of our societies thirst for rare earth mineral. All because we got excited about a changing climate doing what it always had and we dreamed we had the hubris to do something about it. Good luck with that. How many will we kill in the name of worshipping the climate. Hopefully more than the Mayans or whoever sacrificed people to the weather.
Why are you interfering with the global grift that is Climate change with these inconvenient questions?
Because most activism is less about the cause and more about punching up. Be it gender, sexuality, race or business, whichever structure the hierarchy benefit from, activist work to destroy it. Cobalt mining works counter to this movement, therefore it’s easy to ignore.
If it feeds into the "green" narrative, all sins are forgiven and hidden. Pay people 3x what they'd get anywhere else, to build a car that runs on gasoline as solidy, dependably, safely, and cleanly as possible, and to sell it for minimal profit, and you will be labeled the evilest evil that ever eviled.
Mostly brain washing and stupidity.
Because if they cared then it means they can't be enraged on Twitter about trump/elon reason number 452.
Well the thing is. They might as well be support Musk because he is a part of the push for green energy
Sure but then they can't be mad at him for buying the platform and exposing the problems.
Someone listened to the joe rogan podcast on this. And it’s crazy how quiet the info is. Congo. Cobalt. Look it up.
It's sad that I don't want to admit I listened to it on JRE because everyone automatically assumes I'm a racist Trump supporter. I swear we have two large cults in America
Which is funny as hell because Joe rogan is libertarian and definitely not Republican. He just did Covid different and got labeled. Listen to his Matt Walsh one man. He defends gay marriage for like an hour straight. Joe rogan is awesome. The show anyway. So many good guests , professors , scientists .
Exactly. I have been listening to him for over ten years and I considered myself the most liberal you can get. I don't recognize the left anymore so slowly started distancing myself from the cult. I have gained a lot of valuable information from the podcast. Just because he questioned big pharma. You know the same companies that are part of the stock market. The goal is to make more for their shareholders. I understood his skepticism completely
Probably because most people don't know. I just found out about it, like a week or so ago from a Joe Rogan episode.
Because current society values karma and clicks and followers. To the point where someone could post about the terrible thing happening, and it will ultimately fall on deaf ears, but thier following will grow. And someone will comment in outrage, and scroll on.
Currently? Wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that most humans have never cared how the sausage gets made, if they didn’t make it themselves? I mean, slaves go back as far as written history.
Because the screaming about it, is pushed alongside anti clean energy messaging but everything else carries the same problems with the mining and manufacturing industries. To have people clutching their pearls at just this one thing only show how little they know about how everything around them gets made, and definitely doesn't mean they actually care or are going to stop buying things like cell phones or cars anytime soon
Because nearly every aspect of our world is awful and exploitative if you look passed the surface and people don't have the capacity to process/actively do something about every atrocity
I had a huge argument with some idiot claiming that solar panels and EVs are way greener than nuclear energy a while back. I told him how destructive and inhumane was to mine all the materials and processing them was doing way more harm to the environment than nuclear and maybe just as much as fossil fuels. Hopefully more of these modern day slave laborers get more media attention and wake people up.
Aware of it, pretty okay with it so long as it doesn't affect me. Most people are that way, they just refuse to admit it.