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I hate being a naysayer, and I did buy dolphin safe tuna, and diamonds are but capitulation to the objectifying of men as wallets with dicks, but I don’t think buying conflict free minerals has a ghost of a chance to have any impact at all except to raise the price of consumer electronics while all these fungible unmarkable assets are sold in markets that don’t care.
There is an appropriate arena for the heart to speak out. This isn’t one of them.
Better would be a UN Multi-Lateral force to go in and deal with rebel forces. That of course has its own problems. Then a few doors away we have the same types of activities in Somolia and the Sudan with no assets worthy to mention. “Conflict Poverty” if you will.
Same solution would work there too. Or, if you don’t like seeing an effective UN, then sell the Congo to China and let them do it unilaterally.
Empires die when they stop being barbaric.
It has nothing to do with empires… it is tribalism that never grew into anything else.
Africa is a complete mess of tribes that all hate each other and are willing to sell each other out to “win”.
Until they get over that stupidity, they are pretty much doomed to kill each other. Whether markets buy materials from them or not, they will continue to fight each other until they “win”.
We in the west don’t understand it, and I’m glad we don’t. However, trying to change it is like demanding that packs of hyenas stop attacking each other and work together. They might do so for a short time but eventually the packs go back to fighting over their little scraps of carcass as soon as the external threat is gone.
The only solution is for Africans to grow up and drop tribalism and internal racism entirely. It’s sad, as they could do so much for themselves if they could overcome it.
#2, you need to look at the unwelcoming climate and geography through most of central Africa – no wonder there were tribal conflicts over resources. Sociologists Gerhard Lenski and Max Weber identified many social traits that go hand-in-hand with different types of societies (hunter-gatherer, pastoral/horticultural, agrarian, etc.) Pre-industrial societies tend to be traditional, bound by rules and rituals, and slow to accept change. It explains a lot of our difficulty in the Middle East, as well.
I only use free-range PC’s…..
Wouldn’t it help if we could push for legislation to force computer manufactures to recycle dead computers and other electronics?
“Africa is a complete mess of tribes that all hate each other and are willing to sell each other out to “win”.”
And this somehow is not the same on every single continent save for Antarctica?
Where there are humans that forgo two legged ambulation for the four legged mode, we will have humans killing each other.
Buying less materials or more materials from a war zone is not going to address the underlying problem of stupid hominid on hominid violence.
I agree with Bobbo on this one, nice intention, useless solution.
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How about slave free or suicide free. Nah that would require us to impinge upon domestic policies etc.
NO MORE IPHONE SALES TO AZ RESIDENTS
conflict free?
you must be having a laugh!
Extend that principle, and no one would have any oil, coal, intellectual property ….
nice sentiment though.
“Bunch of manipulating bastards preying on the ignorant.”
Again, name a continent or nation where this is not going on?
Hell you make it sound like Europe, Asia, Australia and North America are bastions of despot-free, wholesome, liberty-loving and shining examples of humanity.
Wake up. There is nowhere, when humans are concerned, that is free from manipulation and despotism.
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Nokia is the only company I know that has a policy on tantalum. China really owns tungsten although it’s easily recyclable, and tin is mostly produced in the Pacific Asia area (well except for Bolivia, right?).
Fungible commodity trading makes it near impossible (or maybe just convenient?) to trace supplies. Just ask the US and it’s supposed outrage (both left and right) over tar sands oil, even though it’s quickly become the single biggest supply of imported US oil.
“Bunch of manipulating bastards preying on the ignorant.”
Translate that to Latin and you got a motto.
Whiners.
That’s why everyone should buy PCs from Canada. We only use the highest quality baby seals and old-growth trees to make our computers.
Good video that raises awareness to this issue, well done! Conflicts arising from scarce natural resources are just going to get worse.
Somewhat related to Americans sucking on the middle east oil tit. The conflict being funneling billions to bad places and using our military to to subsidize the cost of securing those oil fields and pipelines.
On the upside, you can drive your fat ass to Walmart for pennies per mile.
#19 Actually it was somebody having a brain fart and you bought it.
They are fighting because they are tribal societies. They just happen to have a few resources they can sell for cash to help buy better weapons to kill each other with. If they had no resources they would still be fighting. The supplies of 7.62 x 39 ammo might be rather more limited however if they run out of ammo they fall back on machetes.
The US isn’t getting all that much oil from the middle east any more either. We changed suppliers for the commodity.
On the last it depends on what you drive.
“Bunch of manipulating bastards preying on the ignorant.”
Translate that to Latin and you got a motto.
Here ya go: “e plural unum” (with a heavy dose of wage slavery)
So, the heart really does need to identify the “real issue” at work. In Congo, tribal warfare may be over gold, in South Africa over diamonds, but what of Sudan and Somalia? There it is religion and race but still breaking down along tribal lines. Is pure textual analysis sufficient to identify “TRIBAL” as the pragmatic issue at work or do we need to go deeper?
“Conflict Minerals” or “Tribal Work Product?” Child labor, prison labor, wage slaves–spot the effective differences that warrant distinction. Should the “free market” be left to work its magic or should it be manipulated so objectively to what end? Should something that can’t work be pursued anyway for the morality involved.
Lets make a venn diagram. Draw a big circle. Label it Everything. Done.
Boycott all electronics! I will no longer use my pacemaker.
I wonder if that lady drives a car? Damn computers are everywhere.
#1 – bobbo,
I hate being a naysayer, and I did buy dolphin safe tuna, and diamonds are but capitulation to the objectifying of men as wallets with dicks, but I don’t think buying conflict free minerals has a ghost of a chance to have any impact at all except to raise the price of consumer electronics while all these fungible unmarkable assets are sold in markets that don’t care.
Wouldn’t raising the price have the additional benefit of reducing unsustainable Consumerism?
@2
Why do you think Africa and the Middle East are such problems? Because white Europeans went into both areas and forced tribes/groups that didn’t like each other into the same area and called it a country. Pretty much all these problems are rooted at white Europeans deciding a different life style wasn’t good enough and abruptly and forcibly changed it. Similar to how the US thought US democracy would be a perfect fit for Iraq (protip: it isn’t). I’m sure there’d be fighting without the whole country business but at least they’d have been further apart.
“Conflict Free”–so far as I know, even if countries and tribes don’t conflict, corporations will.
I agree that I think though well intentioned this is not going to produce any results.
I believe we are engaged in at least two significant conflicts at the moment. They have caused between them significantly more than 100,000 deaths. They have also caused the actual deaths of thousands of Americans. And continue to do so. Stopping these conflicts would seem to have a much larger impact – and presumably easier for us to do, seeing as we are the protagonists. As a bonus we will save not only lives, but trillions of dollars.
We could even consider using some of those saved trillions of dollars to help the people of congo. And as an additional bonus we may be able to gain some higher moral ground discussing ‘conflict’ with these apparently irredeemably conflict happy African tribes. Because we would never engage in such stupidity.
#24–Scott==”Wouldn’t raising the price have the additional benefit of reducing unsustainable Consumerism?” //// Of course it would if the price rose that high enough to affect such purchasing decisions. I should have said “might” increase the price of consumer goods. The whole point of these FUNGIBLE resources is that as long as total demand somewhat matches total supply there should be no price impact at all. Just a feel good experience for those that buy labels and marketing programs. And not paradoxically, I could see the raw materials cost staying the same while the cost of the final product went up to cover the marketing costs, or the additional returns to stockholders/CEO for the cleverness of the false differentiation?
But your main point is wanting to reduce unsustainable consumerism? Why do you want to do that? There is an absolute tautology there. Consumerism is sustained at whatever level it occupies. Consume something at a lower rate and it seems to me that ultimately it still gets consumed or replaced by something else that is consumed? I don’t understand what goal/concept you are advancing other than a religious point trying to impose some artificial meaning on the universe.
Energy and matter are the same thing. Neither can be consumed, only changed in form.
If the universe “means” anything, it means unrestrained consumerism. Certainly its the only reality that means anything? Go forth and multiply==what else is that but a call to consumerism?
Tantalum = Australia. Tungsten = China. Gold = South Africa. All these materials are available from other sources, but at higher prices. Just like most things like these, it’s not the use of these materials that’s the problem, it’s the cheap bastards like us that demand stuff at a cheap price that cause stuff like this. It’s us, not the computers, that cause the problem.
Sorry, any solution to anything that involves Americans making do with less of anything is a nonstarter. That violates the fundemental purpose of the universe.
(Sorry, any solution to anything that involves Americans making do with less of anything is a nonstarter. That violates the fundemental purpose of the universe.)
I assume you posted this from your non-air-conditioned yurt using a hand cranked computer made with locally-obtained materials? I further assume you ate only locally grown produce for breakfast.
So far Pedrito summed it up for the Republipuke side…. ” They’re gonna kill each other anyway, might as well be for make’n us iPods”.
very unoriginal
32- I posted from my air conditioned house using my smartphone. This post is from my SUV (parked, of course). I think you missed my point.
BTW, batteries are much bigger problem.
#34 Actually, I don’t – at least not anymore. This is a failed 50 yr policy driven by the dinosaur Republipuke Cubans in Miami of which the Gringo Republipukes have been exploiting for decades.
Every four years the ‘pukes head to Miami for the “Cuba Si, Castro No”, get the votes and on to the next election.
Pedrito, any Cubans in your village playing dominos? What do they think? BTW, I love the Cuban people and the food and they can dance!