Many of the conflict minerals required to produce modern computers, as I understand it, are not currently possible to source ethically. Is this purely about abusive labor practices or are there cultural issues which make the extraction itself the problem? Are there alternatives which could be more “sustainable”, but would make computers slower?

I worry that the idea of “we establish communism and then the exploitation stops” may ignore various microeconomic issues or make invalid assumptions about the cultures of the people who would still be doing that extraction.

And if you don’t give a shit about cell phones or the internet or whatever, what about things like MRI machines? Those supply chains are inherently global. The materials for them do not exist in any single region.

  • p_sharikov [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Several relevant problems could be solved under socialism. I don't know whether this would completely resolve the issue, but massive improvements are possible.

    1. No more treating electronics like they're disposable. Actually repair and maintain electronics.

    2. Only use as much hardware power as is actually required for the given application. Refrigerators do not need to be able to run browsers.

    3. No more treating electronics like toys. Cell phones do not need to be replaced with the newest, flashiest model every two years.

    4. No more throwing together insanely inefficient software in a rush to increase profits. Many apps now are basically running a dedicated operating system on top of your actual operating system (looking at you, Electron). This is obscene.

    5. No more unnecessary software bloat. Companies take increases in consumer computing power as an opportunity to load more garbage on your phone or computer.

    6. Crypto must die.

    7. Mobile gaming must die.

    8. VR must largely die.

    9. Gamers must touch grass.

    Edit: I am running a lightweight linux distribution on a used computer from like 2014 with an i5 processor and no graphics card, and it works great. My monitors are ancient (like 2008?), and I am still using them because there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. Wherever possible, I run native graphical software instead of web apps, and the performance difference is remarkable. So much of consumer electronics is just bullshit marketing and profit-seeking laziness.

  • jizzy [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I'll ignore planned obsolescence even though it's a massive part of the problem, since others addressed.

    It's definitely possible to have fair compensation and not slavery and sentencing people to brutal lifelong health complications for mining and handling in manufacturing the kinds of minerals necessary for modern microprocessors and other electronic components. It's also definitely possible to recycle components and materials to build newer electronics, but all of this adds to the cost. Ultimately the reduced expenses from slavery and exploitation account for why it's done this way. Nobody could realistically compete on cost while ethically producing microelectronics, if everything from supply chain to factory assembly to shipping were devoid of slavery or things worse than slavery you'd see a $1000,USD laptop today at least quadruple in price, and honestly I'd expect that to be more like a ten-fold increase because every company and paid off bureaucrat along the way needs to grift some off the top (efficiencies of capitalism yada yada). With neoliberal markets being entirely transnational, except when sanctions divide them and create proxies and the need for misdirection, any national attempts to regulate supply chains to discourage exploitation will just make your economy less productive. Every "service" economy needs microprocessors, kneecapping your domestic information industry will just shift the demand elsewhere, but the demand will never slow down. We need more and more software developers to write more and more highly abstracted code, which runs worse and requires more memory and processing power to crunch, so that the boss gets paid and the shareholders are happy. The server farm can move to anywhere that fiber optics and relatively reliable electricity are available. The states managing the mines and factories have little interest in reducing exploitation, for a lot of reasons. Multinationals use their power and money and their influence over states they control like the US to weaken the regulatory capacity of those places that are rich in mineral and human resources, specifically so that they can exploit them.

    For context, I've designed and manufactured PCBs for various projects, like FrankenPads, with a friend from Guangdong and a friend from Finland. These are older (10-11 years) IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads that we repurpose and equip with modern engineering sample CPUs like i5-10500U, DDR4 memory, NVMe hard drives, and even displays from Microsoft Surface tablets. And we're doing this with recycled components, prototype boards, engineering samples of components that would otherwise just end up in the ocean or landfills.

    The downsides are mostly cost. We're still able to make these cheaper than equivalent modern Lenovo products because we don't suck and there's such an abundance of components... But their origin was unethical to begin with so accounting for that I'm certain the prices would skyrocket if people digging it up and processing weren't dying destitute at 40.

  • SeizeDameans [she/her,any]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I think a lot of it too would come down to the whole planned obsolescence bullshit embedded in the system. Why do we need a new phone every couple of years? I'm using it to browse the internet and make calls/texts. Those basic functions don't change much, so I keep a phone until I break it. If I could fix the screen on my shitty android instead of buying a new one, I would because I don't need anything better. Same with my laptop. I would love an actual video card instead of onboard graphics, but otherwise I have no intention of replacing it unless it unrepairably breaks. Most of us, at least in the imperial core, have plenty of devices already. We don't need anywhere near as many new ones as are being made, and if we had to turn in old devices to get new ones so they could be recycled/refurbished, the amout of necessary raw materials would be even smaller.

    Also, one thing people say is that without capitalism there's no innovation. However, the need to find new, nonexploitative ways to satisfy our hunger for tech would by necessity drive innovation. I have to wonder how many ideas die because it's cheaper to just steal more raw materials from exploited countries than it is to find a new way to do things.

    (edit for readability)

  • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
    ·
    3 years ago

    if the places sourcing materials decide its too much of an ecological cost recycling/redustribution would make up the difference. we dismantle all the crypto infrastructure and we could probably give everyone a PC.

    and theres biblical amounts of electronic/mineral waste in the imperial core, gotta dig it up and repurpose it if they want more computers