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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29600 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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Do you have similar reservations about products that include children mining cobalt sonewhere in the supply chain?

You make a good point. This is a totally psychological phenomenon based on the perception that I, personally, am being threatened by Peter Ramsey, whereas I am not a child living in the third world. Looking at it like that, I'm being petty selfish.

Not op, but children mining cobalt are not an existential threat to the west. Concern for them is purely charitable, and while I’d have no objections to a plan to re-colonise Africa, sterilise a good chunk of the adult population and take the kids out of the mines and put them in glorious well fed summer camps; in the current world boycotting mining companies… is pointless.

in the current world boycotting mining companies… is pointless.

And boycotting movies for right-wing causes isn't? You must strongly overestimate the number of people who have the "political will" to actually go through with that compared to me.

I actually agree with you entirely on the implausibility of success via conservative boycotts; I was addressing the implied discrepancy in degrees of concern. 1st, there's the domestic and personal versus foreign angle, then there is a secondary discrepancy in what success looks like. Were boycotts to succeed on the politics front, I think the world would be improved (this almost certainly won't happen). Given the state of much of Africa, I'm not sure boycotts would deliver the goal of improving life quality for the affected people, even if they worked. Those children in the mines, might be better off than in the alternative. Sorry for the lack of clarity.

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