How often do you consider slave-labor when considering new hardware purchase?

Level1Techs
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I have personally decided to keep all my fancy hardware, as new as it, and not intentionally buy myself new stuff. Now, with holidays and gifts, there isn’t much I can do, except keep it.

Has anyone seen the videos online about cobalt mining in the Congo? That’s in Africa, and they are polluting their own water and land, against their will. It’s not just Africa.

This is happening in Peru, South America and other places that I’m not aware of, probably because nobody has gone there with a camera and documented the human slavery. But some places are able to get that recognition and I want to make this discussion one that people discuss at dinner, instead of not being aware at all.

On this forum there are no tags for slavery, or mining or minerals. Let’s change that and start considering all that goes into the hardware we used to read this forum and play games, and learn more about computers with home labs.

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I generally try to make the hardware I have go the furthest I can possibly get it to go before considering upgrades, and since I consider myself on the lower end of the spectrum re purchasing I rarely look at BOM / lifecycle based stuff.

Does anyone maintain per company or per product score cards for the kinds of things you mention, specifically for computer components?

e.g. typical WD/Seagate/Toshiba HDDs ; motherboards; typical logic PCBs, typical power PCBs, and so on.

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Let’s not. This is not a political forum, it’s for techies to converse with other techies about techie topics. If you want to do politics or anything else, please move to reddit or other social media cr@p sites where shouting matches are a daily occurrence and flame wars drag on for ages :roll_eyes: I can do without those, thx!

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I get that you’re trying to start a conversation about a serious topic. But this isn’t gonna get any traction here and it most certainly won’t solve any problems.
These matters, such as the one you mentioned, along with starvation in Africa, are political. And if the powers that could wanted to stop them, they would.

How often do you consider slave-labor when considering new hardware purchase?

I don’t. If I were to worry about where everything I ever bought was produced and how it was made, I’d go bankrupt and would walk around naked and barefoot or somewhere in a cave.

Are you sure there’s nothing you can do about this? You can instruct your fam and other loved ones to not gift you anything that was produced by slave labor. Then discuss with them which countries, companies, products, etc,… are guilty of those and then refuse to accept those gifts. I’m sure that’ll go well with them. They’re still spending money getting that thing and you’re still the one accepting it. Whether you end up keeping it or not, it’s hypocritical, and it runs the economy, and thus causes more production.

Why would there be? This is a political matter on a forum that has policy of “no politics”.

@GigaBusterEXE @SgtAwesomesauce I feel like this is a political topic. Am I wrong?

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Well, what is the definition of politics? I’m asking because I’ve never really looked at it. I’ve just always assumed yhe word means a governing group that makes decisions (ideally) based on the will of the citizens of the uh that governing group was elected by.

It’s HORRIBLE to type this, but I feel that my definition is so depressingly rare, and we don’t have NEAR the impact our votes seem to allow. That’s an awful way to feel, but you said it well: we can’t vote away slavery in computer mining / manufacturing or do a god damn thing about the more than 20,000+ people dying EVERY SINGLE DAY because they are (for unknown reason) unable to feed themselves.

Edit: Also it seems impossible, but there are even starving, under-fed children in America! Whether this is due to unfit parents, or food deserts, I don’t knoe. I’d say it’s 100% the parents fault that they can’t buy food for their children but I don’t have any idea what the underlying issues could be

Yet the United States of America has a population that’s over 50% obese and around something like 30% extremely obese–but yet we can’t or won’t assist other countries in local food produxtion, or farming.

There is some small scale efforts helping areas in africa grow coffee to better their situation but it’s not a large-scale effort.

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everyone is aware half the shit we buy has slavery somewhere along the way to the final product. you can try to do some volunteer work or something, but the entire first world really doesnt care thus nothing will change

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If we really do know and this is truly accurate, then it seems to me that you, I and all other 350,000,000 Americans, and also all other countries, that also recognize this issue, also feel just as powerless as we do.

I really don’t think this is true though. If Linux got more developer support and was 75% as easy as Windows regarding equal hardware driver support and the accompanied gui-based programs or settings to modify hardware settings, simplee software installation etc, we could actually eliminate some e-waste by way of faster, more bearable experiences of new, but low-end computers.

Well O.K. that’s also not within our control, we can’t force people to use Limux and it still has lacking hardware support for certain things.

So what can we do?

We can go around naked and barefoot, and live in a wooden box, but clearly that’s to far over the edge. Can we come to a comprimise? How can we purposely minimize our future aquizition of new technology, while still enjoying our chosen style of life? Let’s fugure that out in this thread.

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No, that’s democracy. You can argue about what “politics” means, but that’s just as pointless.
You’re on a private forum where topics such as this one have been deliberately prohibited for multiple reasons, one of them being that they’re simply pointless and only stir up problems.

Buy locally. Support local businesses and refuse to buy anything that hasn’t been made anywhere else. Buy used, repair, maintain or don’t even buy.
There are things you can influence and then there are those that you can’t.

Apple got serious flak for working with Foxconn and how they treat their workers, but even they couldn’t do much to influence change because Foxconn is literally the only company that has the capacity to deliver tens of millions of iPhones every year. If China doesn’t want to step in and regulate their own companies, how do you Apple or yourself to? I know what I’m writing is kind of a defeatism, but as I said in the previous paragraph, big changes start with small steps. Draw a line where you deem is acceptable and don’t cross it.

This is also my last reply to this topic as I don’t want to waste your time or mine on discussions with no conceivable resolution. I’ve done it way too many times, lol.

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I’ll allow it. But y’all best be on your best behavior.

We will not be creating a tag for slavery. Sends a bad message. I have, however, created and applied the much more sensible #supply-chain tag.

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With regards to minerals such as cobalt; there is no way around this. Canada does supply approximately 1% of the worlds cobalt, and last I checked, Canada doesn’t allow slave labor. But it’s unreasonably expensive, due to the “fair trade” method of procurement.

The fact of the matter is this: If you want the average person to be able to have a computer, the minerals need to be obtained from various locations that employ the use of slaves. Moreover, the assembly is done in similar conditions, most of the time.

If you want a computer that is free from exploitative work, go ahead and multiply the current sticker price by 3. That’s a conservative estimate.

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Going to try and be as Neutral as possible

I am in no way shape or form agreeing or disagreeing with a policy or government act, or administration. I am not sharing a personal view or opinion. Just sharing a Professional experience working in a Global Financing Institution.

Financial Institutions typically avoid reputational risk like the plague where possible. No one wants to be the basis of a negative news story, Again, whether you agree with the under underlying rationale or not thats for you to decide.

From my professional experience with respect to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), importing solar panels came to a screeching halt for several months that called into question the viability of the solar power plant builders financially.

Extensive paperwork and proof throughout the whole supply chain of the PV modules was necessary in order for CBP to release shipments seized at the border before they got to solar plants under construction.

Generally keep in mind although not perfect that some of those corps would be sanctioned and co’s would be prohibited from doing sales… Financial Institutions would be prevented from doing business with them… AGAIN, making no personal statement about the process, quality, investigation or any political affiliation/rhetoric.

These examples may fall into the realm of #supply-chain ???

To conclude see what is a generally accepted principal, what are the existing checks and balances, see what information is out there and derive your own conclusions that drives your own comfort level.

If you want to make a difference based on your conclusions there’s a time and place to do that. That time and place may not be here.

P.S my non-neutral statement: in all shapes and forms be who you want to be, just don’t jam it down peoples throat.

WWED

EDIT: grammar and IEA link re: some of the aforementioned minerals and their supply chain plus supply/demand

https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/4eb8c252-76b1-4710-8f5e-867e751c8dda/GlobalSupplyChainsofEVBatteries.pdf

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I agree with this being a political topic, but it is also technology-related, which I think is why it’s important that these things can be discussed on a forum like this(and they can! yay!).

So, arguing from the connection-to-technology perspective, I think it’s unreasonable for the end-consumers(me and you) of such complicated products to do supply-chain analysis. You shouldn’t have to consider a countries governmental and mining infrastructure when buying any device, because that’s not realistic.

I think conveniently, as such an end-consumer, I leave the “detecting slavery” part of this equation to the journalists and politicians.
However, the “preventing slavery” part of that is important to me personally, and I believe the best course of action in this scenario is to stay informed, and don’t do something unreasonable(e.g. don’t buy from a vendor if you know they’re involved in slavery, as long as you can avoid it).

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What I meant by “best behavior” is more along the lines of not getting into a fight.

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Unfortunately, I simply don’t have the time for this sort of thing. So the best I can do is just buy from companies I trust and buy as little as possible.

EDIT: Afterthought. If you have to choose between an unreliable company that uses less undesirable supply chain sources, and a reliable company that uses more; I would be inclined to go with the reliable company that uses more. Buy once, cry once.

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O.K. so when buying food, do you consider its origin or the workwrs wellbeing? You shouldn’t have to but that’s our reality. Just because we enjoy a pieve of equipment doesn’t (in my mind) make it acceptable to disregard others aspects of how it got to us, just because we really don’t want to.

Yeah we shouldn’t have to, but it’s been like this basically since the beginning of circuit boards and it’s gotten so much worse. Let’s start openly acknowledging the issue and start brainstorming ways to truly help the situation.

If I have to pay six times the cost of a cpu that’s manufactured in America (North Ameeica) well that’s just the way it’s gonna be for a while and we should all chip in and fund the future USA manufactured chips and canadian cobalt efforts (didn’t know that existed, thank ypu) as much as we possibly can, instead of getting a good deal.

If that “good deal” means I’m supporting slave labor, I’ll feel almost as shitty as the actual slaves, so it’s for me, not a good deal.

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This.
Vote with your Wallet may seem like “what does a single euro/dollar do?”, when everyone was to demand locally/domestically produced goods, then there is a chance of production returning from Asia/Africa.

There used to be production of high-end technology goods in the UK, Germany, etc.
All of those companies went bankrupt in the 80s and 90s (and now only exist as brand-names, for example Telefunken). They went bankrupt because “cheap-shit-from-china” was accepted as good enough by the consumer.

I mean, Apple could have built their own domestic production plants. However profit margins would be smaller if they had gone that route.
Or maybe Apple would have spun out the “Apple Manufacturing Inc.” and be a global supplier of high-quality domestic electronics, who knows?

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Actually, what’s your definition of slavery?

And let’s say if you wanted to raise the minimum bar on minimum wage across the world and worker safety and social programs, would you start by mandating per product supply chain transparency at a level of UN or some such thing?

Do you split the world into UBI countries and non-UBI countries and mandate import tax from non-UBI?

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I do consider this when buying food, and certain other products. I still resent your implications, but I’ll let that slide, assuming it’s not personal or not meant that way.
I try to buy some foods only with certain labels which attempt to guarantee certain animal living conditions, I try to buy conflict-free chocolate, etc.
That is mostly because here I do have an actual choice. The additional costs are not nothing but not incredible, and the benefit is somewhat dubious(I don’t actually believe in these labels all that much), but probably not nothing.
The hope is that the worst things happen mostly for the products that don’t even care about such labels.
But with slave labor products, there often isn’t a choice. Unless someone finds out, nobody will tell you: “our product contains slave labor”. That’s why it’s different from buying a product that explicitly isn’t labeled “Bio”, “cruelty-free” etc. in a supermarket.

What I want is that one should not be able to buy a product that contains slave labor under any circumstances.
Enforcing that should be left to the government, not a label, and not the consumers.
Because only then you can start actually making a difference. People are always going to prefer the cheaper product, some because they have no choice. And slave labor will always be cheaper. You can’t condemn people for being poor and not having the choice to buy more expensive products, saying that this is “supporting slave labor”. Same goes for people that don’t know about all this stuff.
The “little improvement” by paying more for

So, to completely remove slave labor products from a population, you either need to:
Educate all people, create a trustworthy label, make them care, and solve poverty.
Or you just make it illegal, actually start doing something against it, and maybe invest in some good journalism, so the few people who know about this grow larger in numbers, and if governments try to be sneaky, hold them accountable.

The people that can try to reduce the impact of slavery by buying more expensive certified “slave-labor free” products, if and when they exist, should buy them. If you hear about a company using slave labor, you should not buy them.
But a lot of people aren’t in that position, there often is no real choice here.
And the impact of such individual decisions might be minimal if not carried out by a large mass.
And don’t let yourself be pressured into paying more because somebody tried to make you feel guilty about something you have no control over.

We elect governments to take responsibility for these things. Even if you want-but-not-need e.g. an iPhone and know about this stuff, you’re not personally responsible for slave labor, Foxcon, or all the other bad stuff that Apple might tolerate.

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I honestly believe in voting with your wallet.
If this is in important cause for you, you should fight for it, inform people around you, and refuse to buy or get thing that don’t match your value.
This is true for everything, Pollution, Animal cause, Right to repair, Privacy… There is a lot of topic that need our time and effort.

But the truth is that you are just a (wo)man, you can’t fight on every front, and you probably won’t fix it.
Every solution that is “better” will cost more, yet most people aren’t ready do live in worst condition to “help earth” or “reduce slavery”.
You see this with uncontrolled inflation. Everything cost more, so everyone want to win more, so everything cost more … bis repetita.

I chose my fight, Privacy. I think it’s important to bring up to people what wrong and who is the worst actors about it, so i am happy to see topic about abuse in the supply chain of a product. Exposure of an issue may help a lot.
Just don’t expect to have most people on board with it, most don’t have the energies.

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Voting by the wallet and voting by the circumstance

A bigg old ham-fisted push, is being lead on
[some better like domestic chips, others like All cars EV by 2035 is dangerous and BS]
We have a lot of the necessary resources here, that have been effectively untouchable, by our gooberment
The excuse being environmental at best – otherwise, the public been given a V and to shut itt

IF it was solely environmental, the government could just enforce suitable SOPs
Every bidding mining group given review and be under watchful eyes, from first shovel to decomm
Friendly reminder; that a public sector unionized mining group, wasn’t given lease renewal in MN
… Just shortly after this bigg chip/EV push came to fruition

IF something else restraining, like say, an revered native american locale
Listen to the locals residing [perhaps hire/train some of them] and pay appropriate respects
If it takes 2x as long to schedule / perform - fucc itt, let it be so
… Better than the tirade of conflicts / hostilities / legal troubles, in not complying