[solidasparagus]

I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track. Even when you stop buying directly from the DRC, the minerals flow over the borders (see how Rwandan coltan exports jumped when people stopped buying DRC 'conflict' coltan). That part of the DRC is basically beyond the reach of the Congolese government and the bordering countries have been waging proxy wars for at least a decade in the DRC, specifically for mineral control. The problem needs to be addressed at the local level, not at the international purchasing level - this may make the tech giants purchase minerals from a new provider, but that is a cosmetic change that won't actually impact people on the ground in the DRC.

[mcv]

It being hard to track is no excuse. We shouldn't be buying products from such abusive practices. We banned slavery, child labour and other abusive practices in our own countries, but by allowing the imports of such products from other countries, we're still indirectly making use of slavery and child labour.

Recently I heard that every person in a wealthy country effectively makes use of two slaves this way.

So these products being hard to track is no excuse. We should not allow the import of products where there's any uncertainty about their supply chain. Tech giants should have a responsibility to know where their minerals come from.

And this is not just about electronics or about the DRC. I think we shouldn't let our football teams play in Qatar stadiums built by slaves. We shouldn't be importing clothes made by child labour. We shouldn't be importing from countries that don't respect the rights of workers.

We're undermining our own freedom as well as our own economies by allowing this. We're indirectly abusing people in other countries, but we're also expecting out workers to compete with them. It's undermining everything we fought for over the past century.

[solidasparagus]

I don't disagree, but if we want to actually help, we need to work with the world the way it is, not the way we wish it was. Moral grandstanding helps us feel good more than it helps the people who are actually suffering.

There will always be uncertainty about the supply chain. That's the nature of the mineral trade AFAIK.

[JulianMorrison]

> I don't disagree, but if we want to actually help, we need to work with the world the way it is

...said the people opposing abolitionism.

Reality: to achieve moral progress, sometimes you need to eat an economic recession. Suck it up, buttercup.

[solidasparagus]

Good example. The person who actually ended slavery in the US, Abraham Lincoln, didn't support abolition until the military advantages of emancipation became obvious enough that he could sell it to the people. For a long time he supported some slavery improvements, but specifically did not support abolition - which very much helped his political career and put him in position to emancipate.

[thaumasiotes]

We might also note that what Lincoln did -- the Emancipation Proclamation -- abolished slavery only in areas that were not subject to the Union, making it questionable as an act of governance. Slaves in Union territory were emancipated by the 13th amendment three years later.

[JulianMorrison]

And slavery in prison continues to this day because of a neat little exemption in that 13th amendment.

[solidasparagus]

> questionable as an act of governance

I disagree with this. You shouldn't fail to emancipate some slaves just because you can't emancipate them all.

[briandear]

When it’s your job, your family starving or out of work or homeless, then “suck it up buttercup” doesn’t sound so nice. The reality is the extreme poverty is lower than it has ever been, thanks to trade. Think it’s bad now? Try 50 years ago. The world is getting better despite the propaganda to the contrary. That we are even talking about this at all shows progress.

[crispyambulance]

> There will always be uncertainty about the supply chain. That's the nature of the mineral trade AFAIK.

Not entirely true.

There are tools like SiliconExpert which track "conflict mineral issues" in the supply chain. This tool or others like it are used by the tech giants to screen their supply chain for this as well as other more mundane problems. It's a standard part of compliance engineering (https://www.siliconexpert.com/conflict-minerals-compliance-d...).

If a component/material gets flagged in a tool like that, it certainly is fair-game to go after a manufacturer & supplier for knowingly profiting at the expense of human rights. The penalties should be severe.

Yes, there's some uncertainty. But once exploitation becomes known, it's not THAT hard to trace it and stop at least the largest supply-chain users from using it without consequence.

[solidasparagus]

I know Apple invested heavily into tracking their mineral supply chain, but I believe their final conclusion was that it is essentially impossible.

> "the lengthy nature of its supply chain – as well as the nature of the refining process – makes it “difficult to track and trace these materials”. Apple illustrates this challenge by noting that its supply chain runs through “family-run mines, brokers, smelters, refiners, and commodity exchanges – before reaching a component or subcomponent manufacturer”"[1]

From Apple's 2018 conflict minerals report - "Apple has not, to date, been able to determine whether the reported incidents were connected to specific 3TG included in Apple’s products. The challenges with tracking specific mineral quantities through the supply chain continue to prevent the traceability of any specific mineral shipment through the entire manufacturing process."[2]

[1] https://hrbdf.org/case_studies/conflict-minerals/conflict_mi...

[2] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/0001193125190...

[celticmusic]

taking the stance that the exploitation of children is unacceptable and punishing anyone who does work with those who exploit children is not moral grandstanding.

[tssva]

Didn't the parents that are suing exploit their kids for economic gain? Why should they now be rewarded with profit from a lawsuit rather than imprisoned for doing so?

[leshow]

It's also an incredibly easy position to take when all you have to do is say it's wrong. I think that's what they are getting at.

[netcan]

What do you consider grandstanding?

[pgcj_poster]

"Grandstanding" is when someone talks about problems that don't affect me. For instance, if someone says that we should prevent child slavery, that's grandstanding because I'm not a slave. On the other hand, if someone says that whiteboard interviews for engineers are unfair, that's not grandstanding because I'm an engineer.

Also, if I agree with something, then it's free speech and therefore not grandstanding.

[celticmusic]

grandstanding is when you say or do something for no other purpose than how it looks to others.

[darawk]

Ok, so I guess you'll be going to prison too, then? Or do you not own a smart phone?

[deogeo]

> we need to work with the world the way it is, not the way we wish it was

If you buy the logic behind the "resource curse", then reducing trade in such morally questionable resources could indirectly improve the state of the world.

[anodyne33]

> It being hard to track is no excuse.

Indeed. I have a good buddy who is inside council for a really visible guitar company. One of his main functions is tracking the provenance of any endangered hardwoods that go through the factory. From what I've been told there's a pretty big paper trail to document the date and place where "x" piece of Brazilian Rosewood or Ebony was harvested, but the penalty if they were to be caught building guitars from restricted or endangered wood is steep.

Maybe it wouldn't do much to dissuade the primary purchasers of cobalt, but a federal regulation popping them for a few million bucks for buying what essentially amounts to "blood diamonds" certainly wouldn't hurt the cause.

[brutt]

Hard ≠ impossible. If problem can be solved with money, then it's not a problem, it's expense.

[dehrmann]

> The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track

Commodities, in general. They're fungible, so cobalt from one supplier looks like cobalt from another supplier.

[dv_dt]

Commodities are more trackable with detailed analysis then anyone might casually think. e.g. oil is a commodity but the signature of oil from certain regions is pretty visible by chemists, and one can force oil supply from trade restricted sources to at least try to mask the signature by mixing with other sources. Not perfect but you can raise the difficulty bar on commodity sourcing.

[celticmusic]

Not only that, oil companies share these lines. They know exactly what % of the oil flowing through that pipe is company A vs company B.

I know because I worked on some of the accounting software they use.

[philipkglass]

Cobalt has only one naturally occurring isotope, so I don't think you can use any tricks from chemistry or physics to track it back to the source after it has been separated from ore. Instead you need tamper-resistant supply chain documentation all the way back to the actual mine.

[dv_dt]

I'm not familiar w/ cobalt, but materials are rarely 100% pure. One might look at non-cobalt materials associated with the pure material and what ratios they're in? Again not perfect but something.

[solidasparagus]

I think one of the problems is that the cobalt doesn't reach component manufacturers until it's been through a series of smelters/refiners.

[dv_dt]

Electronics manufacturers already have all sorts of tracking regulatory infrastructure and certifications for parts going into their BOM. Everything from other conflict materials, to limits on uses for component export/import limits because of trade sanctions, to conventional regulations on uses of materials like lead in solder, to some suppliers who won't supply to military or nuclear uses. The framework is there already, it's mostly a matter of bringing some focus to it for the particular matter of cobalt.

[solidasparagus]

But efforts to prevent conflict materials from being sold have failed in the past. There's been a focus on coltan before cobalt and it sure seems like the minerals have moved from the DRC to Rwanda (see how Rwanda became the world's leading exporter of coltan after people stopped buying conflict coltan from DRC). Similarly, efforts to stop conflict diamonds and conflict gold have not found much success.

[dv_dt]

I'd agree the efforts have not cut off that kind of business 100% but they've been effective in reducing the amount of conflict business, as well as reducing their profitability making them do more work to put the items on the market.

Conflict diamonds and gold are a different market framework than electronics components though - those items in particular have much different and arguably more varied sales avenues that make them more difficult to stop. Electronics components have an inherent complex testing quality and fewer channels for markets to move through so should be easier to control on a regulatory basis.

[celticmusic]

> I don't think this makes much sense.

Let me see if I can put it into terms you can understand.

They prosecute people who look at child porn. Not because those people abused the children, but because those people create the demand that causes the producers to abuse children.

You decrease the demand, you decrease the abuse.

Or in another form.

If you really want to stop illegal immigration, you go after the people employing them, not the illegals themselves. We used to do this and it used to be effective.

There are an innumberable number of examples of going after the demand to affect the supply.

[sharpneli]

Banning cobalt alltogether?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Applications

You’d literally make usage of an element illegal due to that. For me it sounds bit of an overreaction.

Also it would be more than tad unfair for the cobalt mines not in DRC to have to close up.

[celticmusic]

this is a strawman and you should be ashamed of yourself. You cannot find any posts by me on this forum in which I've advocated banning Cobalt all together.

Find a better response.

[sharpneli]

I misunderstood then due to the examples. As child porn is recognizeable.

But cobalt is just cobalt. You have no way of telling where it came from. Humans have faces, fingerprints and genes that allow us to have documentation that yes this person is a citizen and not an illegal immigrant, so you cannot use documentation for one person to slip by another that easily.

There is no such thing for cobalt. A document that states this 20 tons of cobalt is not dug up by kids applies just as well to a 20 tons that actually was dug up by kids.

That issue was with blood diamonds. A semilegit mine sold it’s own diamonds and blood diamonds as it’s own.

[celticmusic]

you're getting lost in the example and losing the idea.

The idea is this: You forcibly change the demand to change the behavior of the producer. And there are plenty of examples of us doing this as a society (successfully).

[sharpneli]

In the successful cases it is easy for the demand to recognize what they are getting. Employer just has to demand passport and they can avoid hiring illegals. Just looking at the person is enough. Same with child porn. Same with anything else where we have curbed demand side.

How would you say Microsoft is able to recognize where the cobalt came from?

I can’t really see any way here that would not be a de facto ban for the whole material.

[simmanian]

Just out of curiosity, do you know how regular people could know more about supply chains that are not hard to track?

[FussyZeus]

> I don't think this makes much sense. The mineral supply chain in that part of the world is ridiculously hard to track.

It's been designed to be hard to track. Just because the infrastructure is a little hit and miss and the people are overall poorer doesn't mean it's impossible to reliably manage supply lines. The problem is corporations from the "West" don't want to know where the stuff is coming from because they know damn well it's sweatshop labor, minors, political prisoners, and who knows what else. That's why it's so fucking cheap.

Google knows my fucking shoe size at this point: if they, or Apple, or Samsung, or any other company wanted to know, they would know. The problem is they don't know because when people ask uncomfortable questions, they just shrug their shoulders and go "well we aren't responsible." Fuck that. They should be responsible.

[solidasparagus]

> 'infrastructure is a little hit and miss'

Lol. The problem isn't a lack of roads, it's the fact that parts of eastern DRC are still effectively war zones. This isn't tech companies not caring, this is an ongoing war, a government incapable of controlling the country (and hardly the good guys even where they do have control), rebel groups (which have control over minerals and need income) running their own proto-states, long-standing tribal conflicts, militarily powerful neighbors with vested interests in keeping the conflict going and DRC's precious resources flowing over the borders, a widespread Ebola outbreak, and hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing their homes.

Google 'wanting to know' isn't going to solve the chaos in that part of the world that leads to the supply chain tracking problems.

[FussyZeus]

They know enough to get the damn cobalt. They can know more if they want to, or, more likely, not do business with the sort of shady ass organizations who use child labor specifically because they can't get the documentation.

I really don't understand this "that's just the way it is" thinking when it comes to corporations doing shady shit overseas. If I went to my DMV and I said "I need to register this car" and had no proof of purchase, no previous registration, no paperwork from the former owner or dealer, I wouldn't be able to register this car. Yet, somehow, a multiBILLION dollar company can just buy material from warlords or whatever tribe in remote parts of China, and ship MILLIONS OF POUNDS of it out of that region, but nobody can get a fucking receipt? Are you kidding me?

[neuroticfish]

>Yet, somehow, a multiBILLION dollar company can just buy material from warlords or whatever tribe in remote parts of China, and ship MILLIONS OF POUNDS of it out of that region, but nobody can get a fucking receipt?

What normally happens in this process is that the selling country's government official who is tasked with verifying the integrity of the receipt is bribed with a month or more salary to sign the exchange off as legitimate, e.g. the Kimberley Process. There has got to be a solution to this problem but paper trails are notoriously unreliable in scenarios like this one.

[jacquesm]

Wasn't bribery illegal?

[bluGill]

So? Who is going to know or enforce it?

Most bribes are not obvious. More like give money to the charity my brother in law runs. The charity even does some good, but the real purpose is to pay the brother in law a nice salary and pay for family trips to various places the charity operates. (You should be suspicious anytime the family of a politician has any association with a charity - it might be a real charity but often it is a way to hide bribes)

[MS90]

Not disagreeing with you, but I would be surprised if they're buying it directly from the mine and not from some sort of market/middleman/third party company. I wouldn't hold my breath for extensive receipts and documentation either. The miners pictured in the article don't even have shoes and the "hammers" they're given appear to be two pieces of rebar welded together. I'd be surprised to find much documentation at all.

[thinkmassive]

FTA...

Q: But I'm asking you, is it possible that these companies can claim that you can't prove that they're actually linked to the cobalt?

A: Certainly the supply chain is opaque. It is complex. But the plaintiffs all were injured and killed at mines owned by companies that have been publicly disclosed as sellers of cobalt to our defendants.

[nybble41]

So no real connection at all, then. Nice of them to admit it. Why are they suing these unrelated tech companies, then, and not the ones that actually sent the kids to work in the mines—i.e. themselves?

[solidasparagus]

What good do you think a receipt is in that part of the world? Of course they get a certificate of conflict-free production. And if you have a couple bucks in the DRC/Rwanda, you can get one too! Look at diamonds, gold and coltan as useful precedents that show how buyer-side pressure will not improve things unless the buyers choose to stop using the minerals altogether.

[FussyZeus]

> unless the buyers choose to stop using the minerals altogether.

BINGO. That's what you do. If the ass end of Mogadishu can't provide the minerals without using exploitative labor practices, THEN DON'T BUY FROM THE ASS END OF MOGADISHU.

And if that means an iPhone costs $200 more then that's what it fucking means, because no iPhone is worth it's weight in human suffering to have.

[solidasparagus]

This is one of those feel-good solutions that lets us feel superior but doesn't actually help the people suffering. Demand is not going anywhere.

You're also insultingly wrong with your geography.

[celticmusic]

seriously. How the fuck are people's moral compass so off? I understand reality is reality, but there are some things that should not be, and for slightly cheaper electronics of all things?

fuck that.

[naravara]

>They can know more if they want to

Sure they could. They would basically need to set up a modern version of the East India Trading Company, build themselves a mercenary army, and go in there and set up a proxy government that adheres to whatever regulatory policies they want to define.

We called that "colonialism" the last time around though, and most of the countries it happened to were not fans.

[yters]

The problem with colonialism is exploitation of the people, not the setting up of a just government. I'm in favor of Western countries coming in and setting up a just government, even if there is a profit motive involved. It at least is much better than a constant war torn and corrupt environment.

[monknomo]

Where would the justice derive from in a government that was set up for the purposes of extracting resources in one area and transferring the resulting resources and wealth to a different area?

[FussyZeus]

False dichotomy. Or Strawman. Both apply.

[Spooky23]

I don't think that it is.

If you look at what the PRC is doing to establish footholds and reliable supply chains, it bears a strong resemblance to those old trading companies. The US does various "counter-terrorism" operations in different countries, essentially borrowing African military units.

[vinniejames]

The only reason "they know your shoe size" is because you carry around a $1000 phone that tracks your every move and spend all your disposable income through their platforms.

The same cannot be said for the poor Cobalt miners, so no they can't just will that info into existence simply because they "want to know"

[FussyZeus]

This is not some arcane magic here. This is making companies responsible for the vetting of their suppliers. 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. That's fucking it. That is NOTHING to a company like Apple, it would barely be a rounding error in their budget.

And if the mine is in the midst of a warzone and you can't be sure if they aren't using prisoners or children? Then find a different goddamn mine.

[solidasparagus]

You should do a little more research. The problem that we've been trying to solve for over three decades is not easily solvable with your naive ideas - do you really think we haven't tried your ideas? The problem is that there are mines that pass all inspections that then sell minerals produced elsewhere. Given the chaos in that part of the world, it is not realistic to prevent this from happening because there is not a way, last I checked, to differentiate between the minerals produced using ethical methods and minerals produced using conflict methods. Finding a different mine does not mean you have impacted the original mine.

Unless you have a way to prevent demand for these minerals, there is not a known, effective solution to these problems.

[jcranmer]

There's a historical story that's relevant here. In the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, the contract for steel cable was let to someone whose reputation was such that the engineer insisted that all of the output tested for quality, and none of the bad cable was to be let installed on the bridge. Yet almost all of the bad cable made it onto the bridge, because the contractor did a good job of figuring out how to frustrate all of the compliance and inspection procedures for the cable.

That's the hard part of supply chain vetting: trying to ensure that your contractor isn't trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If you think "a plane trip and a few days of a couple people's time" is going to be sufficient to actually ensure that you're getting responsible cobalt, well, I have a bridge for you.

[naravara]

>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.

[moron4hire]

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.

[naravara]

>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.

[microtherion]

I think it's a bit harder than that. But Apple is already doing it (or claims to be doing it). The latest Supplier Responsibility report claims that 100% of their Cobalt supplies is audited: https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2... And Apple claims to regularly remove suppliers for violations.

Up until a few years ago, Cobalt was specifically called out as being a problematic resource, with incomplete audits and widespread violations. Now, Apple claims to have this under control. Either Apple is lying or misguided, or the initiators of the lawsuit are.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the initiators of the lawsuit were wrong. It seems that Apple often gets lumped in with other tech companies' labor and supply practices, regardless of whether their specific policies are actually more strict than common industry practice (cf Mike Daisey's "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs")

Disclaimer: I work for Apple, but don't shop for their Cobalt, so I have no firsthand knowledge of the actual situation.

[EncryptEntropy]

You seem to know the answer but are you currently in Africa doing anything? Do you sit there and post from a computer/phone/ use these companies services? Magic is all you’re speaking. Social media virtue signaling while you are not solving the problem. Arguing just to argue. If it was so simple as just hop on a plane and/or just don’t buy from there then the companies worth billions would have already done that.

[celticmusic]

Why do you need to be in Africa to start changing US law and regulations?