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Comment by FirmwareBurner | Hacker News Reader

Then 90% of the clothing in EU should be banned. Have you checked what's on your feet?

Pretty sure you're not wearing sneakers "Made in Germany" by unionized workers with 38h work weeks and pension plans, but more like some Nikes made by the finest sweatshop workers of Bangladesh/Pakistan/Vietnam/etc.

Why doesn't the EU look into stopping that kind of slave labor and instead focuses on the competition of Audi and BMW?

Not saying that shouldn't be taken care of, but it seems massively hypocritical by the EU to turn a blind eye to the slavery in the fast fashion industry imports for decades and suddenly wake up to it when a local industry gets some tough competition.

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Oh I would absolutely 100% support regulations to force clothing companies operating in the EU to avoid slave labour and other horrific practices. Just like I (at least in principle, haven't looked into the details) support regulations to avoid similar things in EV batteries, another field that's way too comfortable with human rights abuses.

You're right that the EU is probably moving too slow on these things. But something is better than nothing.

  > But something is better than nothing.

I used to think that as well. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good and all that.

Now I see that selective enforcement is real, and extremely damaging. I no longer support tackling problems that address 1% of a phenomenon when problems that address 20% of the phenomenon exist. Otherwise it is just virtue signaling, letting the real problem continue, and pushing an unrelated agenda against the 1% offender.

>Otherwise it is just virtue signaling, letting the real problem continue, and pushing an unrelated agenda against the 1% offender.

Pretty much spot on! And the scary part is that this selective enforcement for virtue signaling works for the public, and works very well. Just look at the many bonkers and useless policies every country had in place in one form or another during the pandemic(besides the medically sane policies obviously).

People see their leaders and authorities doing $SOMETHING, no matter how useless it is but the more extreme and more visible it is the better, and are therefore assured that their government is hard at work and isn't just asleep at the wheel as they though. Then, after the posturing and signaling is complete, everything goes back to the status quo, and the rich and powerful can keep braking the rules like before while some patsy schmuck got a fine as proof to the voting plebs that the system and enforcement works.

Rinse and repeat for every crisis or scandal that impact the image or elections of our leaders.

Human rights abuses in mining related to battery mining is its own problem to be dealt with on its own terms. This is a good solution to that problem, not a 1% solution or virtue signaling.

Even as the EU ignores human rights abuses in other fields that supply products to the EU? No, I no longer buy that. There is no need to specify electric vehicles in the regulation - it should be general enough to cover all aspects including vehicles, textiles, electronics, telecom equipment, etc. If they want to grandfather in some specific problematic company or component, sure, go ahead and do so. But making this regulation specific to EVs is clearly cover for a different motive.

> Even as the EU ignores human rights abuses in other fields that supply products to the EU?

Pretty much every government ignores human rights abuses in pretty much every field as long as the human rights abuses happen far enough away, no? I would love a huge "no product sold in the EU can have been produced in a way which involves any form of 'human rights abuse'" law, but we know governments well enough to not expect that, right? I don't even know how you'd define "human rights abuses" in a way which prohibits both mistreatment of miners for rare earth minerals and slavery and indentured servitude and underpaid, overworked sweatshop conditions and poorly treated coffee farmers under one definition without being overly broad and hitting unintended fields; coming up with such legislation genuinely sounds like a ton of work with a significant risk of fucking over industries unintentionally.

For the moment, I'll take a trickle of laws which target specific industries rather than nothing. I certainly won't attack legislation which moves us in a good direction for not being the silver bullet "liberate everyone in the world being poorly treated or underpaid" law.

  > but we know governments well enough to not expect that, right?

So why target the EV supply chain, then? What made the politicians get up and start enacting laws now, but not start applying their lawmakering skills to other industries as well?

I mean I don't know, but I'd guess either lobbying or because someone thought it'd make their re-election chances better or because someone thought it'd give EU companies a competitive advantage? Or maybe someone is genuinely concerned about human rights and thinks this is realistically the best they can do right now? I honestly don't know or care.

And thanks to you the clothing companies say “why pick on us when you import horrendous batteries”.

The car market is about the same size as the clothing market, your 20:1 ratio is way off. Allowing the car market to become as bad as the clothing is not a win.

There is no need to specify electric vehicles in the regulation - it should be general enough to cover all aspects including vehicles, textiles, electronics, telecom equipment, etc.

Not doing enough is not an excuse for not doing anything at all, though. And clothing is typically less dangerous than EV batteries.

>Not doing enough is not an excuse for not doing anything at all, though.

That doesn't answer my question on why the EU turns a blind eye on other industries but suddenly focuses on those with local competition. Doing a good thing in one place doesn't suddenly absolve you of thousands of other poor things you did or not did.

>And clothing is typically less dangerous than EV batteries.

Is breathing in fossil fuel emissions less dangerous? How many Europeans have been killed so far by non-compliant EV batteries?

> That doesn't answer my question on why the EU turns a blind eye on other industries but suddenly focuses on those with local competition.

The answer seems obvious though, there will be more vocal and powerful lobbies in fields with local competition.

> Doing a good thing in one place doesn't suddenly absolve you of thousands of other poor things you did or not did.

I don't think anyone claimed that. But doing a good thing in one place certainly shouldn't be criticised just because in another place nothing is done, which is what you did.

> Is breathing in fossil fuel emissions less dangerous?

I think clothing is less dangerous than both fossil fuel and EV batteries.

Don't think they are turning a blind eye as there is a fair amount of regulation on supply chains in place/upcoming (e.g., CSDDD on EU level, or for example the German Lieferkettengesetz).

> […] like some Nikes made by the finest sweatshop workers of Bangladesh/Pakistan/Vietnam/etc. […] why the EU turns a blind eye […]

They don't do what you claim they do.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20230424IP...

This is a false choice to make. Why not both?

There has already been a lot of progress on the front of food supply chains, now on batteries, sometimes I hope it will come for clothing as well, and industry can be competitively brought back to the EU, and the disposable fast fashion madness will end.

I mean, they do?

Supply chain act is a thing, and active.. but might be a German thing only

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