[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.