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Comment by lithos | Hacker News Reader

Google "10 year old McDonald's drive through". Recently some franchise owners were caught using 10 year olds to man drive throughs and deep fryers. Those same trio of owners are also guilty (as in already being fined and brought through court) of 150-300ish violations of under 16 year old labor laws (150 for sure, with a bunch still under the process or still being found by news organizations widening the net across state boundaries).

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Child cobalt mining is far worse than McDonalds no? We could not have laptops, cell phones, EVs, solar panels and nike shoes without child labor unfortunately. Down vote me a billion times but this is the reality of the world we live in. Child labor is worse than any moment in human history but as Julius Caesar said, “Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish”.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=child+mining+in+the+congo&pn=1&iax...

Something being done elsewhere does not excuse it being done in civilization. There have been substantial efforts to migrate from conflict minerals (cobalt being one of them, but also diamonds with manufactured diamonds), and hopefully such efforts continue.

This is also why global declining fertility rates are a positive outcome: women have agency and are using it, which will result in less child labor over time as there are less children for child labor.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-use-100-recycled-co...

https://electrek.co/2022/04/22/tesla-using-cobalt-free-lfp-b...

https://www.ilo.org/global/docs/WCMS_826749/lang--en/index.h...

https://www.worldvision.org/child-protection-news-stories/ch...

> Child cobalt mining is far worse than McDonalds no?

Indeed, but how is that important for this story? That there is worse child exploitation doesn't mean that this is excusable.

It's not excusable. It's horrible but no more horrible than the rest of the child exploitation globally to make the stuff we want which is not possible without....child labor. It is a simple fact of the matter. Point fingers but my stuff and your stuff is made with child labor. No way around it. It is the way the world works. Break it and the stuff starts getting really really expensive. I'm ok with that but only because I have the the coin to pay for it. Not the case for everyone else. They want the stuff. And cheap. Solution? Nobody has one.

> It's horrible but no more horrible than the rest of the child exploitation globally to make the stuff we want which is not possible without....child labor.

It is most certainly possible without child labor. It's not like adult labor in the DRC is particularly expensive. The per capita value of all the cobalt America uses per year is less than $1. If it were lying on the sidewalk, you probably wouldn't bother to bend over to pick up the amount of money you save by having child labor in those mines. The idea that we need child labor is asinine.

what solution do you propose? Yes, nature is brutal, but I believe we shouldn't lose our ethics even if we can't do meaningful in some areas.

Conservatism thrives on whataboutism. As long as they can point at something than is "worse" than the current system, they can excuse the current system existing and claim it is the only possible good thing

That's not Conservatism, that's apathy. On a global level, the % of illegal child labor occurring within the reach of US prosecutors is minuscule.

When you do see it in the US, it's tied to some other illegal activity.

I'm going to guess that none of these children have parents that are either legal or present, or possibly both. There was a similar story about migrant children working in auto component factories in the South that made parts for Hyundai/Kia.

...and the higher-ups do usually escape in these things. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postville_raid

quit being silly. all those things would still be possible. probably even cheaper without all the corruption that higher than normal profits bring.

child labor only enables more profit for a very few. nothing else.

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