Michael @ M1ch431 @slrpnk.net Posts 0Comments 262Joined 5 mo. ago
And then failing that one too because you take literally any measure to protect your privacy. And then the next one.
If these countries were given the ingredients to be able to develop and there was no outside demand for mined materials, these children wouldn't be in the mines.
Big if, but less of an "if" if more people are made aware. It's absolutely sickening how much we rely on lithium considering how it is sourced.
We are collectively enabling modern slavery and child slavery. These corporations prefer to act innocent because they aren't sending the children themselves into the mines, but they buy the materials they mine regardless (and there's no way that they don't know the reality). Many corporations profit off the back of these people and children and they should be required to pay significant reparations.
What is in our power to stop this? We can spread the awareness of our exploitation of third-world countries - including their children, we can develop technologies that don't rely on rare materials or difficult to mine materials, we can employ automation to mine what we do need in first-world countries, and we can hold the corporations that profit from these supply chains accountable.
There are battery technologies (e.g. sodium-ion) that we could grasp and avoid mining altogether for energy storage. China is proving that sodium-ion batteries are a very promising technology, even in cars, and the sodium can be sourced from seawater or from the byproducts of desalination (the latter which likely needs to be very quickly scaled considering the fresh water crisis).
And how much slower is it to launch and use?
When you put it that way, I guess we better hand over thousands every year to Apple for the new iPhone. Wouldn't want a child slave to be unemployed.
Buy 10,000 disposable vapes every year while you're at it (if you really care). Maybe a couple cents will trickle down to the children you claim to care about.
If you're worried about these children losing their wonderful life in the mines, feel free to support them through other means.
Make it your life's work to spread awareness, bring aid to the affected countries, and support their development - you only enslave yourself by learning to do absolutely nothing against what you see as oppressive.
And getting companies that profit off of these children to support them would likely be fair. Apple, Google, and many others can handle the hit.
Your trolling aside, we all share a personal responsibility to not buy from companies that e.g. utilize cobalt/lithium in their products - slavery/child labor is rampant in those supply chains and Apple et. al are responsible for supporting it.
If there was no demand, these children wouldn't be forced to work in mines - it's that simple.
You enslave others by consuming most common products on the shelves. Modern slavery (and child slavery) is more expansive than most know and third-world exploitation is rampant - western supply chains are not immune.
While you support the enslavement of others with your consumption, corporations continue to become more and more powerful.
We invest in battery tech that utilizes supply chains with slavery and child labor to make those disposable cigarette batteries - and they just go straight into the landfill.
Lithium-ion batteries are absolutely not anything to be proud of - it's a rare material and not scalable like other emergent technologies.
Lithium-ion has the potential for fire/explosion, is hazardous, and has poor cold-weather performance when compared with sodium-ion batteries.
And earlier this year and late last year in Northern California, we had two lithium battery plant fires that very likely contaminated a significant amount of our agriculture and soil.
The contaminated farmlands produce 70% of America's greens and vegetables (a.k.a. the Salad Bowl of America). We were ill-equipped to address this situation or remediate it - see Status Coup News' reporting to see how it affected the health of residents in a 50-100 mile radius.
Even if we stored it properly (away from anything it could contaminate including people), lithium-ion is simply not viable for energy storage.
There's only ifs because powerful forces (that do not represent the will of humanity) do everything they can to suppress or derail renewable energy efforts and divert our collective focus to war and conflict.
China is proving sodium-ion batteries are viable. Sodium is abundant and the batteries seem cheap to produce. Solar panels are also cheap to produce.
Instead of economic war or other forms of conflict, we could cooperate on these technologies and move forward as a species.
It's all very easy when you realize that war and conflict are not in anyone's best interest, with consequences that could spell the end of our planet's habitability, and could cause death and suffering that make previous World Wars look like child's play.
We already know fossil fuels are undesirable for the planet and we've already had plenty of nuclear disasters.
Let's worry about expanding nuclear technologies when we achieve fusion and the world achieves stability.
If we got our head out of our ass and invested into battery tech - e.g. sodium-ion batteries or proton batteries, we could very quickly build sustainable energy storage instead of relying on technology that is potentially dangerous or continuing to rely on fossil fuels.
You too.
I'm not frightened, I just don't need to elaborate further to you online. I am not naive - I'm simply aware of the technology being used against Americans and its capabilities.
All Trump has to do is twist the definition of "terrorism" to defend his power against people not committing any crimes and suddenly mass arrests start happening with AI's guidance before literally anything can manifest. He's proven that due process isn't a concern, and has already considered suspending it.
Organizing or openly admitting to anything of the nature should never be done online with the technology being leveraged against us. There are movements that exist online in spite of this, do yourself a favor and look them up to see what they are doing.
What are you doing to do?
Convince others to stand in their power and do everything in my own power. I don't need to elaborate further.
How are you going to change a thing?
Like I said, a critical mass of Americans need to realize their power and demand better.
If you want to spread feelings of helplessness, encouraging others to see themselves as small and powerless, while also continuing to blame progressives (the people who want to achieve progress), that's your decision.
I'm hopeful that you choose differently.
Who has a better chance than Harris?
The voters should've been able to determine that with a primary. Instead the senile old man held on until the last minute and there was literally no time for a primary. After that, Democrats wasted a billion on a failed and rushed campaign.
I already said what I'm going to do. Everything that is in my power, and encouraging others to stand in their power.
What are you going to do? Keep blaming the Bernie Bros until Trump takes away all of your rights and installs himself as dictator?
If Democrats could've budged even a little bit to the left, they would've won and stopped Trump. But they couldn't. They also couldn't hold primaries before the presidential election.
You don't need to be a psychic with a crystal ball to determine that Kamala couldn't win, especially not with her strategy of shifting to the right and appealing to voters that literally don't exist.
Democrats spent more energy systematically suing third-parties off the ballot than attracting the voters they were so afraid of losing to third-parties.
What do I need to move on from or do about it?
Stop playing the blame game and do literally anything. You're projecting your own personal inaction and frustration onto progressives.
In a constitutional crisis, while the last shred of democracy is at stake, do you simply vote your way out of the mess?
There’s no checks and balances
Then you admit there is a constitutional crisis?
Playing the blame game doesn't solve anything or improve the situation. Maybe you need to move on?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding <- You are here.
What are you going to do about it?
But that’s not how the government works.
That's the problem - the government isn't working.
Have you been paying attention? We have a felon as our president, who is ignoring his oath to uphold the constitution and is bypassing due process. He is also in contempt of court. He is committing crimes daily and is destroying our economy and our country's soft power.
We're supposed to have checks and balances. Republicans are trying to make Trump effectively immune to being held in contempt of court.
Are we supposed to sit around and consent to this?
A critical mass of Americans need to demand better - and soon. I do what is in my power to move things towards that direction.
What are you doing?