> which are diametrically opposed to mine. I’ll spend my money elsewhere.

does 'exploiting African children for cobalt' feature in list of values.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/drc-mining-industry-c...

How do you reconcile your 'buying things based on values' by supporting people who exploit children.

From the article:

>Last year, many took to social media using the hashtag #NoCongoNoPhone to fight against the cobalt supply

Sounds like a win/win to me. End the terrible scourge of child labor, and end the lesser (but far more prevalent) scourge of ubiquitous smart phones.

> Sounds like a win/win to me.

Its not one of your values because there was some hashtag?

Not sure if you are making a sarcastic joke about the hashtag but how are child miners 'winners'?

Apologies for not being clear. I was being fairly serious --- if we could actually prevent predatory mining practices that would actually be a huge win, and it would also be great if cell phones (and specifically smart phones) were no long ubiquitous.

Could you explain what point you are trying to make? All of your posts in this thread seem to assume the person you are responding to said the opposite of what they actually said.

Above the poster said they would not buy a Tesla and you implied they would be supporting child miners by doing so? Where the article you linked associates Tesla with child labour in cobalt mining.

Here the poster said ending child labour was a 'win' and "how are child miners 'winners'" - aren't you in agreement that ending child labour is a 'win'?

You make assumptions that:

A. The parent has a smart phone.

B. The parents smart phone contains cobalt from the Congo.

C. That the parent isn't doing anything to minimise their purchase of new phones by using them longer, only buying second hand etc.

And that's all assuming that this is indeed a value they hold.

And even with all that, there's plenty of stuff wrong with the world. For a multi thousand dollar purchase I'd spend more time thing about the ethical implications than something that is smaller. We all have to pick and choose our battles, I don't think you can damn anyone for not being happy about the system but still engaging with it.

i was talking about EV not smartphone wrt cobalt.

> We all have to pick and choose our battles

yes agreed why not choose the most egregious then if you are taking a moral stance. Children digging out cobalt with their bare hands for your EV should outrank whatever stupid stuff elon is doing. no?

Right but if there's a choice of 2 EVs without Congolese cobalt, you can choose the one that isn't Tesla.

But anyway, humans aren't perfectly rational beings. Elon being a nob on twitter is more immediate to many people than abstract children in the Congo. I'm not saying that's morally correct, but it's how people work.

yea thats true. I am still hoping that one of these EV company heads acknowledges this some day and can be addressed.

When you buy a Tesla, I doubt Elon gets a check in your name for some percentage of the purchase price. Tesla is a company with many investors, Elon being one of them sure but conversely I’m sure there are a number people you like/support that also have a vested interested in Tesla’s success.

"Support [company] because maybe some of your friends invested in it" is a really lame argument that could be applied to virtually any company. Support Exxon because the firm that manages your grandmother's pension might be invested in Exxon... please. All this argument leads to is uncritical cheer-leading of everything.

And what values are those?

Well he recently posted a meme suggesting that climate change, homosexuality, and vaccines are brainwashing liberals

I presume this one https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/16079975918701240...

I don't see climate change in there but the other stuff and masks etc.

And what about the other car manufacturers CEOs? Are they "better"? Or they just don't tweet their thoughts?

Keeping their thoughts to themselves does make them better to some, yea.