3 ms·

My buddy owned a small motorcycle repair shop in the middle of Saigon. He was on a street full of other similar shops. The guy next door to him had a small bat

My buddy owned a small motorcycle repair shop in the middle of Saigon. He was on a street full of other similar shops. The guy next door to him had a small battery recycling shop. They'd sit out on the street in the hot sun, all day long, banging open the batteries with hammers, dust and toxic stuff flying everywhere. Nasty shit, zero concern for health. I can only imagine this happening on a global scale, with far more toxic substances.

alephnerd 1y ago
Yep. Sadly, this is how manufacturing "actually" works. Everyone on HN loves to daydream about automated assembly and additive manufacturing, but almost all manufacturing is dependent on dirty industries like oil (fertilizers, textiles, plastics), rare earth elements, coal (steel), and others. When I'd visit my SO's family back in VN or my extended family back in India, it's easy to see why manufacturing is so cost effective in those countries - the only lever low margins industries have is manpower, and that requires you to devalue life to a certain extent. This is why my parents and my SO immigrated to America.
- the__alchemist 1y ago
  It depends. China has impressive automation and vertical integration.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    You cannot decouple labor and environmental abuse from low margins industries that are upstream of high value manufacturing, even in China. Every one of those automotive robots uses chips that contain REEs that is heavily sourced from Myanmar (a country in a state of civil war) and processed in poorer Chinese provinces like Yunnan and Guangxi. The steel used to build the casing for those robots will have been forged using metallurgical grade coal that (best case) was sourced from Australia's Carmichael coal mine who's operator has evaded paying taxes and overriden Australia's labor unions with the full backing of both parties. Even today, the median household disposable income in China is in the $300-400/mo range [0], and labor abuse remains a problem in much of industrial China [1] But that's the only way you can build stuff. Commodities are inherently commodified (it's in the name) - you cannot manufacture without commodities upstream. You will always need plastics, steel, coal, rare earth minerals, etc so someone will always be commodified (or synonym - exploited). [0] - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202504/t20250425_1959460.html https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202504/t202504... [1] - https://www.somo.nl/the-hidden-human-costs-linked-to-global-supply-chains-in-china/ https://www.somo.nl/the-hidden-human-costs-linked-to-global-...
    - margalabargala 1y ago
      RE: metallurgical grade coal A tiny fraction of mined coal is used for metallurgy. If consumption of metallurgical grade coal tripled, and consumption of coal for producing power went to zero, this would be a gigantic environmental win. The only major producers of metallurgical grade coal are Australia, Canada, and the US. So I'm not sure the mine you mention is in fact "best case".
      - nine_k 1y ago
        Don't forget Indonesia and Russia. Ukraine used to mine its own coking coal before the war, but now, with mines ruined or captured, it imports coal from the US. Things like nickel and REEs also heavily depend on mining in war-torn countries like Congo or Myanmar.
  - themafia 1y ago
    As a foreigner there are certain places in China they won't let you travel through and even certain cities you cannot stay in overnight. This often coincides with where mining and industrial production are. China has an impressive ability to cover up the truth.
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      Last I went to China (mid-late 2010s), you could visit the less well off areas and off beaten paths in much of China as a tourist without too much hassle. The issue is most people don't. China is hard enough without Mandarin fluency, but going to urban villages where migrant workers live or Tier 3/4 cities where the majority of manufacting happens is an added level of difficult for "soft" people. Most tourists perfer to stay in their tourist bubbles, which tend to be a monoculture globally.
    - scotty79 1y ago
      I'm sure there's a lot of land in US, you'd get promptly kicked out of by various security forces of corporations doing nasty stuff there.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  This was the USA and Britian in their early industrial periods. Now, oil and gas field work, mining, iron and steel processing, and other raw materials extraction is either automated or high-paying unionized manual labor. The same will happen in other developing economies.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    > in their early industrial periods. > The same will happen in other developing economies Most western countries developed in an era where trade was nowhere near as globalized and instantaneous as it is today. A steel mill in 1920s Pittsburg wasn't directly competing or face disruption from a steel mill in Essen, compared to today when you are competing with public-private steel mills in China, India, Vietnam, Iran, Indonesia, etc which while also unionized and (relatively) well paid jobs, are fine working 6 day workweeks and 10-12 hour shifts for a $6,000-9,000 a year salary with a pension and free or subsidized housing, and can export finished products globally in days instead of months. Heck, even the oil industry is now outsourcing critical geological and petroleum/chemical/mechanical engineering jobs to India [0] And this is the crux of the issue - a major reason the US and Western Europe had manufacturing dominance throughout much of the 20th century was because it had the right mix of human capital, financial capital, and technology concentrated within their borders. This isn't true in the 2020s anymore - a lot of technologies are fairly democratized now, a lot of alternative domestic capital markets have formed, and research output and human capital has expanded massively across countries. Heck, China, India, and ASEAN today share developmental indicators comparable to or significantly higher than the European portion of the Warsaw Bloc during the 1990s. And even in newly industrialized countries like South Korea and Turkiye, the same abusive working standards in manufacturing industries remains, but now being powered by migrants from Vietnam/Indonesia/China or Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan respectively. [0] - https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/big-oil-is-offshoring-its-prized-engineering-jobs-to-india-2e487fd0 https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/big-oil-is-offshorin...
- mensetmanusman 1y ago
  It doesn’t have to be dirty, proper rules have to be made to incentivize solutions that leverage economies of scale. Politicians gave up and assumed manufacturing can’t be clean so they let good jobs leave while those left behind tended to die of fentanyl shipped in from China.
- vladgur 1y ago
  Tell it to the guy above[0] who is avoiding work travel to the US because “safety, health and freedom” 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097234
linhns 1y ago
Can confirm this, and as such EV aren’t environmentally friendly at all.
- Capricorn2481 1y ago
  Moreso than regular car batteries?
- rwyinuse 1y ago
  Still better than continuing using fossil fuels and facing unmitigated climate change.
- triceratops 1y ago
  Can confirm, the Deepwater Horizon was actually good for humans and the environment. /s
fujigawa 1y ago
> They'd sit out on the street in the hot sun, all day long, banging open the batteries with hammers, dust and toxic stuff flying everywhere. Nasty shit, zero concern for health. I noped out of a job offer recently where there was mention of occasional travel to India. Out of curiosity I pulled up Google Street View on the conpany's India office and this is basically what I saw. Not for me.
- lacy_tinpot 1y ago
  You noped out because you might have to travel to India? It just occurred to me that perhaps the world isn't deglobalizing, it's just that America/Americans are deglobalizing. Globalization is here to stay, even increase, with or without American. Unfortunately it seems America is writing itself out of that future. A bit ironic when we consider that not long ago America forced countries open, to increase trade and globalization. American companies relied on these new markets to sell their goods. But maybe we no longer have anything to sell to the world.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - scotty79 1y ago
    I'd nope out of any job that would require me to occasionally travel to US. I value my safety, health and freedom too much to ever visit this country. India as well. Turkey also. There are just few countries that make alarm bells in my head ring.
    - jfim 1y ago
      What's the concern with Turkey, out of curiosity?
      - scotty79 1y ago
        I'd like to not risk food poisoning, insect borne diseases, accidentally landing in Turkish prison because of some random misunderstanding and I have general reluctance of entering boundaries of semi-theocratic semi-dictatorship. I'm sure it's all silly, but as long as I don't have to I'd happily avoid any risks, even minuscule.

alephnerd 1y ago

Yep. Sadly, this is how manufacturing "actually" works. Everyone on HN loves to daydream about automated assembly and additive manufacturing, but almost all manufacturing is dependent on dirty industries like oil (fertilizers, textiles, plastics), rare earth elements, coal (steel), and others. When I'd visit my SO's family back in VN or my extended family back in India, it's easy to see why manufacturing is so cost effective in those countries - the only lever low margins industries have is manpower, and that requires you to devalue life to a certain extent. This is why my parents and my SO immigrated to America.

the__alchemist 1y ago
It depends. China has impressive automation and vertical integration.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  You cannot decouple labor and environmental abuse from low margins industries that are upstream of high value manufacturing, even in China. Every one of those automotive robots uses chips that contain REEs that is heavily sourced from Myanmar (a country in a state of civil war) and processed in poorer Chinese provinces like Yunnan and Guangxi. The steel used to build the casing for those robots will have been forged using metallurgical grade coal that (best case) was sourced from Australia's Carmichael coal mine who's operator has evaded paying taxes and overriden Australia's labor unions with the full backing of both parties. Even today, the median household disposable income in China is in the $300-400/mo range [0], and labor abuse remains a problem in much of industrial China [1] But that's the only way you can build stuff. Commodities are inherently commodified (it's in the name) - you cannot manufacture without commodities upstream. You will always need plastics, steel, coal, rare earth minerals, etc so someone will always be commodified (or synonym - exploited). [0] - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202504/t20250425_1959460.html https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202504/t202504... [1] - https://www.somo.nl/the-hidden-human-costs-linked-to-global-supply-chains-in-china/ https://www.somo.nl/the-hidden-human-costs-linked-to-global-...
  - margalabargala 1y ago
    RE: metallurgical grade coal A tiny fraction of mined coal is used for metallurgy. If consumption of metallurgical grade coal tripled, and consumption of coal for producing power went to zero, this would be a gigantic environmental win. The only major producers of metallurgical grade coal are Australia, Canada, and the US. So I'm not sure the mine you mention is in fact "best case".
    - nine_k 1y ago
      Don't forget Indonesia and Russia. Ukraine used to mine its own coking coal before the war, but now, with mines ruined or captured, it imports coal from the US. Things like nickel and REEs also heavily depend on mining in war-torn countries like Congo or Myanmar.
- themafia 1y ago
  As a foreigner there are certain places in China they won't let you travel through and even certain cities you cannot stay in overnight. This often coincides with where mining and industrial production are. China has an impressive ability to cover up the truth.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    Last I went to China (mid-late 2010s), you could visit the less well off areas and off beaten paths in much of China as a tourist without too much hassle. The issue is most people don't. China is hard enough without Mandarin fluency, but going to urban villages where migrant workers live or Tier 3/4 cities where the majority of manufacting happens is an added level of difficult for "soft" people. Most tourists perfer to stay in their tourist bubbles, which tend to be a monoculture globally.
  - scotty79 1y ago
    I'm sure there's a lot of land in US, you'd get promptly kicked out of by various security forces of corporations doing nasty stuff there.
SoftTalker 1y ago
This was the USA and Britian in their early industrial periods. Now, oil and gas field work, mining, iron and steel processing, and other raw materials extraction is either automated or high-paying unionized manual labor. The same will happen in other developing economies.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > in their early industrial periods. > The same will happen in other developing economies Most western countries developed in an era where trade was nowhere near as globalized and instantaneous as it is today. A steel mill in 1920s Pittsburg wasn't directly competing or face disruption from a steel mill in Essen, compared to today when you are competing with public-private steel mills in China, India, Vietnam, Iran, Indonesia, etc which while also unionized and (relatively) well paid jobs, are fine working 6 day workweeks and 10-12 hour shifts for a $6,000-9,000 a year salary with a pension and free or subsidized housing, and can export finished products globally in days instead of months. Heck, even the oil industry is now outsourcing critical geological and petroleum/chemical/mechanical engineering jobs to India [0] And this is the crux of the issue - a major reason the US and Western Europe had manufacturing dominance throughout much of the 20th century was because it had the right mix of human capital, financial capital, and technology concentrated within their borders. This isn't true in the 2020s anymore - a lot of technologies are fairly democratized now, a lot of alternative domestic capital markets have formed, and research output and human capital has expanded massively across countries. Heck, China, India, and ASEAN today share developmental indicators comparable to or significantly higher than the European portion of the Warsaw Bloc during the 1990s. And even in newly industrialized countries like South Korea and Turkiye, the same abusive working standards in manufacturing industries remains, but now being powered by migrants from Vietnam/Indonesia/China or Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan respectively. [0] - https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/big-oil-is-offshoring-its-prized-engineering-jobs-to-india-2e487fd0 https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/big-oil-is-offshorin...
mensetmanusman 1y ago
It doesn’t have to be dirty, proper rules have to be made to incentivize solutions that leverage economies of scale. Politicians gave up and assumed manufacturing can’t be clean so they let good jobs leave while those left behind tended to die of fentanyl shipped in from China.
vladgur 1y ago
Tell it to the guy above[0] who is avoiding work travel to the US because “safety, health and freedom” 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45097234

linhns 1y ago

Can confirm this, and as such EV aren’t environmentally friendly at all.

Capricorn2481 1y ago
Moreso than regular car batteries?
rwyinuse 1y ago
Still better than continuing using fossil fuels and facing unmitigated climate change.
triceratops 1y ago
Can confirm, the Deepwater Horizon was actually good for humans and the environment. /s

fujigawa 1y ago

> They'd sit out on the street in the hot sun, all day long, banging open the batteries with hammers, dust and toxic stuff flying everywhere. Nasty shit, zero concern for health. I noped out of a job offer recently where there was mention of occasional travel to India. Out of curiosity I pulled up Google Street View on the conpany's India office and this is basically what I saw. Not for me.

lacy_tinpot 1y ago
You noped out because you might have to travel to India? It just occurred to me that perhaps the world isn't deglobalizing, it's just that America/Americans are deglobalizing. Globalization is here to stay, even increase, with or without American. Unfortunately it seems America is writing itself out of that future. A bit ironic when we consider that not long ago America forced countries open, to increase trade and globalization. American companies relied on these new markets to sell their goods. But maybe we no longer have anything to sell to the world.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- scotty79 1y ago
  I'd nope out of any job that would require me to occasionally travel to US. I value my safety, health and freedom too much to ever visit this country. India as well. Turkey also. There are just few countries that make alarm bells in my head ring.
  - jfim 1y ago
    What's the concern with Turkey, out of curiosity?
    - scotty79 1y ago
      I'd like to not risk food poisoning, insect borne diseases, accidentally landing in Turkish prison because of some random misunderstanding and I have general reluctance of entering boundaries of semi-theocratic semi-dictatorship. I'm sure it's all silly, but as long as I don't have to I'd happily avoid any risks, even minuscule.