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> I know nothing about geopolitics in Africa, but I'd also wish that a few large companies (e.g. Tesla) would source their minerals from countries that can demonstrate political stability and avoid violence

For some minerals, e.g. cobalt, there's simply no such option. Unless they decide to go with it United Fruit Company/banana republic style, but benevolently. What's worse, a corporation or a military dictatorship?

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that's an easy one, military dictatorship is much worse. The last time when companies committed war crimes by themselves, independently of governments, was long ago.

Okay about war crimes, but there are also crimes against (humanity|nature) in the form of oil spills, forced displacements, up to now.

Yes, sure, but this is still not comparable with using weapons of mass destruction. We need to keep in mind though that the reason why corporations are not, say, nuking away their concurrence, is that they are prevented by the states. so its not as easy as "state bad, corporate good", it's rather, "as an unimportant civilian person on this planet right now, i need to be cautious of governments more than corporations"

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