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Comment by superchroma | Hacker News Reader

Well, you're taking a singular vertical slice. How many plastic widgets and doodads in your house were made by an effective slave in China? What about clothes - from sweatshops in vietnam, bangladesh, etc.? We periodically see sensational stories where workers slip tragic notes into goods, but that's about it. On top of that, what about the animals we've hurt systematically? In the industrial revolution, we rendered millions of penguins into oil (400ml each). Now, industrial farms raise animals in horrific conditions and we are responsible for who knows what else for convenience and abundance?

Realistically the advanced world has been running on outsourced atrocity for decades, and we're all a bit complicit.

All that said, I would welcome additional supply chain scrutiny. I don't see a point in a consumer saving not very much money to enable child labor.

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The ideology(s) that enables rich westerners to pick and choose what supply chains to care about based on politics and feel justified in their double standards is a far greater threat to me than some guy half a world away who's bribing local officials to let him discharge toxic waste into the water I get my sardines from.

Unrelated nitpick: We've been running on outsourced atrocity since all of human history.

This comment is pure whataboutism, you laundry listed other problems to deflect from this one.

Noone here or in the article are saying those things aren't a problem, just this is as well.

Everytime a business (like Hyundai) or industry gets caught using child labor in their supply chain it's an issue and news worthy.

EDIT: now my comment is downvoted, and the article is flagged, ask yourself why can't this site's community accept news for certain topics?

EDIT2: loved this satire posted by another user here that covers this well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGinowoYu4 (use auto-translate captions)

I think it's valid to point out that this is part of a larger systemic issue as opposed to a singular localized one. Which doesn't necessarily preclude the comment from being whataboutistic.

Basically the format was, "well what about X Y Z"

X = textile industry issues

Y = environmental issues

Z = industrial farms issues

How is that not whataboutism? Noone is saying those aren't problems, but that's not what the article is about.

Ok well, they literally did say "what about..."

But generally whataboutism refers to comments that try to deter from the original issue by saying "X does it too so it's alright until they stop too". I didn't read the initial comment that way.

Yes, thus the XYZ part of my comment explaining what issues they were trying to deflect with (those issues aren't even in the same industries)

They essentially said "what about... the textile industry, the shipping industry, the farming industry"

Okay? Those are issues, we'll discuss those when an article is posted about them. But currently the battery supply chain child slave labor issue is TFA.

The point was not that it's ok for the mines, the point was that there is nothing unique about them, and there isn't much justification for focussing on them. Not to shield them from scrutiny, but to avoid making them into a distraction from child labor and slavery in general.

If you drummed up a big movement to deal with the problem of child slave labor in lithium or cobalt mines, what good have you done for the world or the kids? The same kids are still at the same risk tomorrow as they were yesterday, they just wind up in some other kind of operation, or in the extreme case maybe their only value (to those people) becomes as organ cattle. Great job!

It's a distraction to pick a specific example like that and present it as some kind of unique problem. What specific work they are put to is not the problem, it's the fact that they are enslaved at all.

It's also to say that "the green revolution is fueld by trafficked child labor" is a mischaracterization, because it is not fuelled by child labor, it merely includes child labor.

The cotton industry in the US was fuelled by slaves, because the labor was 99% done by slaves, not merely that there were some slaves.

The green revolution is such a large thing that 40k children are hardly a drop in it.

Wow. You seem really out of touch with humanity with your zealot goals, watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBGinowoYu4 (use auto-translated subtitles if you don't speak german)

Name even one of these zealot goals please.

Defending child slavery to further the goal of cheap batteries for one.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade involved more than the slaves in Western colonies harvesting raw materials, generally slavery was not used in the rest of the manufacturing process in Europe.

Just because you outsource slavery of a specific process of production doesn't mean you aren't involved in slave trade.

The solutions are to sanction the country doing it as to not reward their behavior and find another means of production, or label those companies involved as terrorists and rescue those children, or pressure the government to shut it down. Or a combination of those.

If your industry cannot adapt or live without slavery then good riddance.

So far your defenses have been:

> Might as well exploit these children, they'd be tortured anyway so there's no point in discussing this!

> Only one part of the supply chain is fueled by child labor, so it's not that bad

Which is really sad.

It doesn't count when it goes against the narrative.

It's like you learned "whataboutism" and jumped at your first chance to use it. Still got it totally wrong. What part of this comment is deflecting? Seems to be just adding additional info.

the comment is the same as going into a thread about a cop shooting an unarmed person and replying "ok well, that actually happens all the time."

No it's literally whataboutism. I know people here usually use it wrong when they disagree with a comparison or analogy, but this is not the case.

They didn't expand on anything about the article or topic or use it to compare the issues or find contradictions in logic, they just laundry listed other topics that are known and non-disputed.

This article is about exposing a lesser known but large issue of mass child slave labor (40k+) in the battery supply chain.

Most of the things they listed aren't even in the same industry supply chain (textiles, farms, shipping), how are they relevant?

it was partially in reply to the OP's dead comment blaming this squarely on democrats, and the entire thing struck me as weirdly myopic. It is whataboutism, because I think ascribing blame to a team isn't really helping.

Currently HN is showing your comment as top comment with no parent comment.

In that context your comment alone is whataboutism and distracts from discussion of the topic of the battery chain child slavery issue.

Do you stand behind your comment alone? If not would you like to edit it to discuss the topic and remove the deflections?

I agree that comment was bizarre. Outsourcing and disregard of human rights abuses in supply chains are not remotely limited to the US Democratic party. Especially since the article itself talks about China.

ok but so what??? the comment is dead and was dead when this post was only a few minutes old. most people don't even know you can see dead comments, so why is it so important to talk about it? the article isn't about democrats, no one else is talking about democrats, so why are you? can't we talk about the bad things described in the article?

I wanted to clear up any misunderstanding with superchroma. I agree that the dead comment itself is not worth discussing.

"Realistically the advanced world has been running on outsourced atrocity for decades"

And the most suave punters are very keen to embrace energy technology that promise no downsides today as they can be kicked onto future generations beyond their own lifespan. Make sure not to look behind these nuclear curtains.

>How many plastic widgets and doodads in your house were made by an effective slave in China?

Or US, which, differently from China, has, in 2022, an entire official slave business, reportedly being an important part of some states' economy. But it's always China that gets mentioned; isn't that strange?

come on man, how can you make such a claim without posting a link

Pretty sure they're referring to prison labor, eg. https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...

Also https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-wo....

But the very fact that it’s not common knowledge is very telling.

Yeah, I'm always surprised how country with slavery literally enshrined in its constitution is always so critical of the issue. It is like they are all hypocrites and don't focus first fixing their own crimes.

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