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You seem to have a very cynical view, but I think the reason nobody is verifying these things is that they're hard to actually check, and nobody wants to pay fo

by nickff 1y ago

You seem to have a very cynical view, but I think the reason nobody is verifying these things is that they're hard to actually check, and nobody wants to pay for the cost of verification. My only experience with this sort of tracking is compliance with "Conflict Minerals" reporting, and from that I can tell you that tracking and verifying the origin of any commodity or bulk good is nearly impossible to accomplish reliably. There is no real way to know where a refined metal came from, other than accepting a supplier's assurance, and maybe looking through some documents, looking for obvious mistakes. I have to imagine that avocados are similar.

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
> My only experience with this sort of tracking is compliance with "Conflict Minerals" reporting, and from that I can tell you that tracking and verifying the origin of any commodity or bulk good is nearly impossible to accomplish reliably. This is a better written and more eloquent version of the same excuse I was ranting about in my comment. And I'm afraid my response is not as eloquent: Bull. Shit. This is an eminently solvable issue. Make the executives of whatever corporation personally, criminally responsible for the slavery found in their supply chain, and then: Watch the problem be solved. No, I don't know the specifics of how you do it. That's not my job. But we put men on the moon, for Christ's sake. We, creatures not gifted by nature with wings, have the ability to fly at (mostly) reasonable cost, to such a degree where the inconveniences involved in it make it boring to discuss. Everyone in the west moves around in metal boxes with smaller metal boxes within them in which we blow up fuel and air in precise mixes to travel upwards of 80 mph, largely safely. You're telling me the collected knowledge of our species cannot be leveraged to make sure that little kids aren't doing resource extraction!? > and nobody wants to pay for the cost of verification. THAT is the real problem, and that's also solvable by the above. I bet the executives at these companies will open the business's purse REAL FAST when it's their, actual physical ass on the line, and not just a paltry fine and firm finger-wagging from the Government. In reply to the comment below: > But how do you actually verify the source? Let’s assume that some amount of conflict metals are laundered through other countries, and commingled with ‘clean’ material (which is usually how it happens); how do you figure out whether your supplier is using this material? Do you just trust any documentation they provide? If not, what is it that you’d do? I mean this is actually one application of crypto that I didn't think was brain-dead stupid. I read a paper about the potential of using blockchains to verify the integrity of materials in supply chains. More to the point though: I said, I don't know how it's done. But I guaran-damn-tee you that if the corpos will be charged, legally, personally, for the finding of slavery in supply chains, that they will figure it out and fucking quick. And, even moreso, once you raise the consequences of those "lapses" in ethics to such a degree, it's highly probable that the dubious sources will either improve or shut down entirely, because there will be no corporation in the West ready to do business with them anymore. The risk is simply too high for those in charge of said corporations. They will pay whatever it costs to have materials that are from properly vetted sources. And of course, I'm not a child, there will still be issues, none of this is a silver bullet for any of it, and there will always be bad actors acting badly. However we still have murders, and we don't just... fine murderers $500 and tell them they better not do it again, despite the fact that we can't catch them all. We catch them and we punish them.
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  > No, I don't know the specifics of how you do it. HN had four stories of the US government violating the 4th and 5th amendments for surveillance for CBP and ICE yesterday alone. The President jokes about revoking citizenship, of both natural born and otherwise. We have had dozens of citizens sent to black sites without due process. We are monitoring social media for immigrants while deporting people to illegal death camp prisons in countries they have never been. The sitting US president is a convicted rapist who attempted to violently overthrow the government 5 years ago. Who is now covering for the leader of the largest, highest-profile child rape program in history - led by one of his best friends! They, this week, published fabricated videos from official government sources. And the SCOTUS has declared him effectively immune from prosecution. We are so far from pretending to be a country of rules and laws anymore. So, fuck it, just decree it and call them terrorists at this point. Ship the execs to Guantanamo.
- nickff 1y ago
  But how do you actually verify the source? Let’s assume that some amount of conflict metals are laundered through other countries, and commingled with ‘clean’ material (which is usually how it happens); how do you figure out whether your supplier is using this material? Do you just trust any documentation they provide? If not, what is it that you’d do?
Tadpole9181 1y ago
I'm so tired of this. Here, watch this: I'm the US government with the most powerful military and surveillance network on the planet with multiple deployed floating cities. You give me a list of every supplier you use and I will recursively go down that list and every employee they have and if you use slaves to harvest materials at any point, I shut down your entire business and burn every shippng crate of stock until you get a supplier that doesn't use slaves. If you lie, I ship the executives to one of numerous black sites under my control. If we're going to do it to innocent people, shipping them to God knows what death camp without due process, I'm not going to sit here and listen anymore about this "we can't do that" nonsense about our supply chain. Woah, crazy, slavery solved. At least have the balls to tell me you want cheap avocados and don't care if child slaves pick them. I'm so God damn tired of all the excuses and smoke and mirrors.
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  Cosigned 100%. The only thing I would say is don't burn the shipping crates. That's just wasteful. Sell the products at 50% off retail to everyone in the US below the poverty line first, then everyone else, and use the funds to pay to improve the working conditions overseas. Our atmosphere doesn't need more waste in it.
- nickff 1y ago
  Let’s say you buy electrolytic capacitors, and you’re worried that they might have conflict tantalum in them. You call up the manufacturer (likely Samsung), and they tell you that they are unable to verify the origin of the metal. Even if they did tell you who sold them the metal, that’s just a refiner, and there is no way to verify whatever they tell you about the origin. Many conflict metals are laundered through other countries, and I am not sure how you’d detect that. I understand your frustration, but how do you actually verify the origins of these commodities? The professional auditors just blindly trust documentation as far as I can tell.
  - Tadpole9181 1y ago
    Then why the fuck are you buying them from there? Get a different supplier. If they can't answer that question, it's because they do use slave labor or just don't care. Neither is acceptable. I'm sorry, are you okay if you asked your boss "hey, we don't have actual slaves in the basement, right?" And they answer "I don't know?" I hope to God you would call the police. But suddenly it's acceptable because a CEO says "maybe, but it saves us 5¢ per unit and they're just brown people in another country"? I'm not going to boohoo for poor little victim companies because they just need slave labor because they're too stupid or greedy to not buy from a company who can't say "no slavery is used in making my product". "Oh no, I want to make shirts, but all the cotton I'm willing to pay for comes from slave plantations." Then don't make shirts. And if you do, that makes you a slaver too. I love how this is where the conversation is these days. This is how far the Overton window has shifted. Slavery is totally acceptable as long as you pretend you don't know. Fix it? Stop slavery? That's just too hard and we may lose profits. "Oh no, poor little us, it's impossible for us to actually care about human rights."

by nickff 1y ago

ToucanLoucan 1y ago

> My only experience with this sort of tracking is compliance with "Conflict Minerals" reporting, and from that I can tell you that tracking and verifying the origin of any commodity or bulk good is nearly impossible to accomplish reliably. This is a better written and more eloquent version of the same excuse I was ranting about in my comment. And I'm afraid my response is not as eloquent: Bull. Shit. This is an eminently solvable issue. Make the executives of whatever corporation personally, criminally responsible for the slavery found in their supply chain, and then: Watch the problem be solved. No, I don't know the specifics of how you do it. That's not my job. But we put men on the moon, for Christ's sake. We, creatures not gifted by nature with wings, have the ability to fly at (mostly) reasonable cost, to such a degree where the inconveniences involved in it make it boring to discuss. Everyone in the west moves around in metal boxes with smaller metal boxes within them in which we blow up fuel and air in precise mixes to travel upwards of 80 mph, largely safely. You're telling me the collected knowledge of our species cannot be leveraged to make sure that little kids aren't doing resource extraction!? > and nobody wants to pay for the cost of verification. THAT is the real problem, and that's also solvable by the above. I bet the executives at these companies will open the business's purse REAL FAST when it's their, actual physical ass on the line, and not just a paltry fine and firm finger-wagging from the Government. In reply to the comment below: > But how do you actually verify the source? Let’s assume that some amount of conflict metals are laundered through other countries, and commingled with ‘clean’ material (which is usually how it happens); how do you figure out whether your supplier is using this material? Do you just trust any documentation they provide? If not, what is it that you’d do? I mean this is actually one application of crypto that I didn't think was brain-dead stupid. I read a paper about the potential of using blockchains to verify the integrity of materials in supply chains. More to the point though: I said, I don't know how it's done. But I guaran-damn-tee you that if the corpos will be charged, legally, personally, for the finding of slavery in supply chains, that they will figure it out and fucking quick. And, even moreso, once you raise the consequences of those "lapses" in ethics to such a degree, it's highly probable that the dubious sources will either improve or shut down entirely, because there will be no corporation in the West ready to do business with them anymore. The risk is simply too high for those in charge of said corporations. They will pay whatever it costs to have materials that are from properly vetted sources. And of course, I'm not a child, there will still be issues, none of this is a silver bullet for any of it, and there will always be bad actors acting badly. However we still have murders, and we don't just... fine murderers $500 and tell them they better not do it again, despite the fact that we can't catch them all. We catch them and we punish them.

Tadpole9181 1y ago
> No, I don't know the specifics of how you do it. HN had four stories of the US government violating the 4th and 5th amendments for surveillance for CBP and ICE yesterday alone. The President jokes about revoking citizenship, of both natural born and otherwise. We have had dozens of citizens sent to black sites without due process. We are monitoring social media for immigrants while deporting people to illegal death camp prisons in countries they have never been. The sitting US president is a convicted rapist who attempted to violently overthrow the government 5 years ago. Who is now covering for the leader of the largest, highest-profile child rape program in history - led by one of his best friends! They, this week, published fabricated videos from official government sources. And the SCOTUS has declared him effectively immune from prosecution. We are so far from pretending to be a country of rules and laws anymore. So, fuck it, just decree it and call them terrorists at this point. Ship the execs to Guantanamo.
nickff 1y ago
But how do you actually verify the source? Let’s assume that some amount of conflict metals are laundered through other countries, and commingled with ‘clean’ material (which is usually how it happens); how do you figure out whether your supplier is using this material? Do you just trust any documentation they provide? If not, what is it that you’d do?

Tadpole9181 1y ago

I'm so tired of this. Here, watch this: I'm the US government with the most powerful military and surveillance network on the planet with multiple deployed floating cities. You give me a list of every supplier you use and I will recursively go down that list and every employee they have and if you use slaves to harvest materials at any point, I shut down your entire business and burn every shippng crate of stock until you get a supplier that doesn't use slaves. If you lie, I ship the executives to one of numerous black sites under my control. If we're going to do it to innocent people, shipping them to God knows what death camp without due process, I'm not going to sit here and listen anymore about this "we can't do that" nonsense about our supply chain. Woah, crazy, slavery solved. At least have the balls to tell me you want cheap avocados and don't care if child slaves pick them. I'm so God damn tired of all the excuses and smoke and mirrors.

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
Cosigned 100%. The only thing I would say is don't burn the shipping crates. That's just wasteful. Sell the products at 50% off retail to everyone in the US below the poverty line first, then everyone else, and use the funds to pay to improve the working conditions overseas. Our atmosphere doesn't need more waste in it.
nickff 1y ago
Let’s say you buy electrolytic capacitors, and you’re worried that they might have conflict tantalum in them. You call up the manufacturer (likely Samsung), and they tell you that they are unable to verify the origin of the metal. Even if they did tell you who sold them the metal, that’s just a refiner, and there is no way to verify whatever they tell you about the origin. Many conflict metals are laundered through other countries, and I am not sure how you’d detect that. I understand your frustration, but how do you actually verify the origins of these commodities? The professional auditors just blindly trust documentation as far as I can tell.
- Tadpole9181 1y ago
  Then why the fuck are you buying them from there? Get a different supplier. If they can't answer that question, it's because they do use slave labor or just don't care. Neither is acceptable. I'm sorry, are you okay if you asked your boss "hey, we don't have actual slaves in the basement, right?" And they answer "I don't know?" I hope to God you would call the police. But suddenly it's acceptable because a CEO says "maybe, but it saves us 5¢ per unit and they're just brown people in another country"? I'm not going to boohoo for poor little victim companies because they just need slave labor because they're too stupid or greedy to not buy from a company who can't say "no slavery is used in making my product". "Oh no, I want to make shirts, but all the cotton I'm willing to pay for comes from slave plantations." Then don't make shirts. And if you do, that makes you a slaver too. I love how this is where the conversation is these days. This is how far the Overton window has shifted. Slavery is totally acceptable as long as you pretend you don't know. Fix it? Stop slavery? That's just too hard and we may lose profits. "Oh no, poor little us, it's impossible for us to actually care about human rights."