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Comment by Dumblydorr | Hacker News Reader

How is lithium a conflict mineral? 51k tons mined in Australia, then the other top 3 countries are Argentina 16k, Chile and china 8k.

If you want to speak of conflict minerals for EVs, cobalt is WAY more problematic, since it is far more rare and mined mostly in the DRC, where we know child labor and starvation pay is given for the work that allows EV cathodes their precious Co.

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2020/03/lithium...

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Portugal is on the top ten of reserves. Its very concerning how lobbying pressure to buy political influence is already starting.

Having mineral resources its kind of a curse:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/268790/countries-with-th...

I am working the big Albemarle project in Western Australia, plenty of conflict in the project teams...

On the last day of the month, do you get to keep as much lithium as you can carry home? I'm not sure how we can make a joke about conflict minerals.

You can make a joke because that, while conflict minerals are horrible and cause enormous damage to human life, the conflicts between people on a team are also very small. Comparing the two as if they are equivalent, when we all know they aren't, is funny.

You have no idea, there's been 2.5 years of it and the toll on some people has been severe. An impossible contract was signed and this has created some very perverse outcomes.

Yes, but only in the form of carbonate tablets

Hello fellow resource-sector sandgroper!

Some countries use children to mine lithium

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/amnesty-internat...

That report is about mining cobalt, which has many applications including lithium batteries.

yes.

Bolivia has only recently defeated a US-backed coup.

Was lithium the purpose or are there greater issues at hand and Bolivia happens to have lithium deposits?

The timing is highly suspect, right after Bolivia refused a ~5% offer of joint extraction from a German company in favour of a 50% one from a Chinese one. The US also has a long history of aggression for resources.

It could be more than just that too, the Monroe doctrine is alive and well. All South American anti-imperialists get attacked by the US.

And Elon supported this explicitly.

https://twitter.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752?s=...

I'm about as far from a Musk fan as it is possible to be, but this is so clearly a joke that it take a real effort to read some kind of evil intent into it (beyond Musk's normal "I'm trolling on Twitter" annoying nature).

But I've seen people claim this before - I'm curious if there is a source this keeps coming from?

The line between insincere/sarcastic trolling and genuine sincerity has been blurred by people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who seem to freely dabble in both and sometimes use the former to excuse the later. I think understandably, some people have grown fed up with this and have decided to treat all tweets from these men as sincere tweets, to deny these men the use of 'I was just joking' to walk-back sincere remarks.

I agree with this treatment of the "joking... not joking" style of trolling.

I think this individual tweet is the sole evidence cited for Musk's supposed support, and that seems a long bow to draw from it (an equally sinciere reading would be that it is Musk's take on the history of coups in South America),

The idea that the Bolivian transfer of power was motivated by lithium scarcity doesn't make sense, because there's more than enough lithium outside of Bolivia (or even South America) to prevent them from gaining a stranglehold on the price. Also, you're accusing the Trump administration of having a long-term view of a low-carbon future, which is itself suspect.

What makes a lot more sense is that the US doesn't want China to gain a reliable and possibly even prosperous ally on the South American mainland. While Bolivia will not meaningfully affect the global supply of lithium, the demand for lithium will absolutely affect the economic future of Bolivia, and could even make it a regional power. With the Second Cold War increasingly going global, every square on the chessboard counts.

However, the evidence for US involvement in the overthrow of Morales so far consists of a strongly worded letter from OAS, while the fact that Morales actually lost a referendum asking if he should be allowed to run for a fourth term suggests that there was significant internal opposition to his reelection. But Elon Musk made a tasteless joke on Twitter, so that confirms it.

Just because there are other sources doesn’t mean capitalists won’t try to get control over Bolivia’s. The US permanent state also doesn’t depend on a specific administration; the interests of industry, banking and monopoly capitalists are always served, with minimal variation.

The fascists that staged the coup had long been supported by the US, the OAS is merely one small part of the imperialist apparatus. And Elon Musk doesn’t need to be in on it to recognise he would benefit.

After reading up on the situation it's probably less to do with lithium and more with the US's "left hand shoving cocaine up our noses while right hand slaps South American countries for making it" policy.

Morales was anti-US influence, pro-coca. The right wingers and Evangelicals were against him, and Morales was socialist... basically fits the profile of exactly the type of leader the CIA would try to depose.

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