This post will be personal, and uncomfortable. Also all views are my own.
“Of course, but maybe”
I will first share a favorite joke from Louis CK. You can watch the segment here:
Now the part that really stuck with me is this:
‘How did they build those pyramids?’ They just threw human death and suffering at them until they were finished…There is no end to what you can do when you don’t give a f*** about particular people.
You really have a choice, you can all use horses and candles and be a little bit kinder to each other, or let someone suffer immeasurably, far away, just so you can leave a mean comment on youtube while you are taking a s***
Unless you have been using horses and candles, it’s fair to say we are all complicit in much human suffering — whether we are aware or not. Care to find out?
Congo & Cobalt
Welcome to the dark side of our convenience and comfort.
The reality
The documentary above is more than 1 hour long, highly recommended. If you can only spare 1 minute, just hear their song that is shown at the beginning of the video. Regardless, I will summarize a few points for you:
- 65-70% of global cobalt production is located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- People (us) want electric cars, mobile phones, laptops, all of these use batteries.
- Batteries need cobalt. While the DW documentary specifically focuses on EVs because of the drive of demand for electric cars in Europe and USA as the transition to “green” energy, we must not forget our electronic devices also use cobalt. That means: Apple, Samsung, Dell, Microsoft, Google, Tesla, etc. every single brand. No brand is immune to this.
- Congo has actually been suffering from civil war/ genocide for decades, since 1994. Adding on top of this, the demands for cobalt rise from tech companies worsen their ongoing problems: child labor, displacement, being exploited & underpaid, deteriorating living conditions (contaminated water, failing crops), children out of school, so that mining of cobalt can occur at minimum costs and maximum profits for the profiteers.
- Ultimate end-point users are us.
As of October 2023, 6.9 million Congolese people have been displaced due to violence and rebel attacks. Some of that displacement (about 400 households in October 2023) has been directly linked to forced evictions driven by cobalt mining. Mining in the DRC has particularly gained attention, albeit insufficient, due to its association with grave human rights abuses and exploitation along with the fierce international competition that leeches off it.
Souce: https://republic.com.ng/october-november-2023/congo-cobalt-genocide/
What can we do?
I guess it’s a bit late to return to horses and candles. Since we are here, we might as well reflect on our choices and think about ethical consumption, which will dictate ethical sourcing.
Ethical sourcing doesn’t come out of good conscience of the companies that make these products. It has never been the case, it has always been up to the public (consumers) pressure to ensure that these companies are responsible and cut down a little bit of their profits for the sake of “being a bit kinder to each other”.
The first thing to do is to question our “needs” vs “wants”, and perhaps reflect over the fact that there is a 70% chance the device that we are using — from phones to laptops — comes from human suffering. Do we need to constantly upgrade our devices every few years? Why this constant push for buying ‘the latest, the fastest, the best’? Who is this benefiting? Who is this hurting?
It is not a coincidence that countries that are often the most war-ridden, and impoverished, are actually the ones that have most resources — Congo being one example — resources that are the backbone of our “civilized” world comfortable lifestyle. If we collectively question a bit more, their suffering would have been a little bit less.
The second thing to do is to raise pressure so that companies on the supply chain of this material have to care about ethical sourcing. Here are a few ways:
- Signing Petitions (few examples below) that demand companies to be transparent about their sourcing process and supply chains, or apply penalties on those that engage in muddy supply chain.
- Tech-savvy folks: Creating / Contributing apps that track material origins to help bring awareness to the public and help them choose ethically. An example is this: https://www.dol.gov/general/apps/ilab, available in both Android and iOS.
- As consumers, we can choose ethical consumption as a lifestyle, not a fad. This is only possible if we keep educating ourselves, and raise awareness for the public on this matter, actively support products that are based on ethical conducts and fair trade, while boycotting those that do the opposite, willfully or ignorantly.
In the limitation of this post I won’t dive into the details of how we can verify ethical conduct and fair trade. Everything is possible, there must first be a will. Right now, it seems to me the critical first step is raising awareness. When enough people are aware, actions will follow.
Palestine | Project Nimbus, and more
Lets bid farewell to the three-decade long “problem” of Congo, say hello to an eight-decade long “problem” named Palestine. This will be about the dark side of technology-enabled injustices.
The reality
We don’t choose where we are born into. But if given the choice, I’d bet nobody would sign up to be spending their life in an open-air prison that exists for 75+years while the world just stand by and occasionally throw in a few dollars to cleanse their conscience, then turn a blind eye when thousands of children are massacred, every few years, just because “it’s complicated”.
My only hope is that through this post, I can raise awareness to some 100+ readers, that is if you actually read this. Alas, 1 is better than 0.
Now, you may ask, what is Project Nimbus? What else is there?
Project Nimbus is a $1.2bn contract to provide cloud services for the Israeli military and government. This technology allows for further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.
We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip — actions that have prompted war crime investigations by the international criminal court.
The letter by Amazon and Google employees was in 2021.
Today, 2024 — we are witnessing the most real-time documented “plausible” genocide ever, in human history, in Gaza — and guess what, project Nimbus is still there, untouched.
While Google and Amazon offer Israel occupation force Project Nimbus, Microsoft has been offering the IDF Al Munaseq app, which allows IDF access to content of Palestinians’ mobile devices along many other things — a part of the daily control over every single movement of civilians in Gaza and West Bank; Hololens — to help train IDF in combat — which seems rather unnecessary since most of the time IDF prefers unguided (i.e indiscriminate) bombing onto civilians from the safety of distance, or some other times just randomly shoot civilians because who cares? (like here or here or here), but nonetheless, it was offered as a service, perhaps as a goodwill to Microsoft shareholders.
In addition to the provision of general information such as their name, ID and phone number, users have to give access to their phone’s IP address, geographic location, access to the camera and to files stored on the mobile device, and consent to the extraction and storage of the data by the Israeli military, and of sharing the information with third parties such as other government authorities.
I’m not done with the involvement of Silicon Valley and their technology offering for the only apartheid regime left on earth, to enable further human suffering. But perhaps a pause is needed.
Slogans
I could not help but reflect on Google’s original motto “Don’t be evil”. In my opinion, there is nothing that could be more evil than empowering an occupying apartheid regime with the technology to further its brutal, inhumane oppression against a group of people, and it stains so much the legacy of goodness that come from Google’s services to the rest of the world.
Amazon — a partner in this deal, has the motto about something “…make history”. Ok.
“We believe in what people make possible” is the tagline of Microsoft.
This is part of history made possible by Amazon, Google, Microsoft now: enabling crimes against humanity — https://crimesbyisrael.com/. I wonder if that’s what “doing the right thing” is.
Some math
If we think about things in terms of revenues vs costs, which is probably the only thing that matter these days, tech companies have every reason to cease providing services to Israel occupation entities, if they take a look at the Boycott movement against Starbucks.
$1.2 bn Project Nimbus vs $26 bn(GCP’s annual revenue)+ $80 bn (AWS’) is basically 1%. If we look at the whole annual revenue of Google ($278 bn)and Amazon ($554 bn) combined, that project accounts for less than 0.002%.
Starbucks after the surge of boycott back in Nov-Dec 2023 lost 9.4% of its market value, and still continue the trend of downward spiral.
Is it worth it?
Whether it’s about “making history” or “doing the right thing” for humanity or shareholders, I wish tech companies realize that it’s better to stop services to Israel occupation entities, just by looking at the public pressure alone (which has very real dollar indication, assuming that is the only metrics that matter over killed children), and legally — it’s often better safer to not be associated with a state undergoing 2 investigations for war crimes by ICC and “plausible” genocide by ICJ.
I do hope that most of us function on the common ground that genocide is to be frowned upon.
What can we do?
This is the part that is actionable.
- Sign petition below, share, spread awareness.
- If you are an engineer, a tech worker, make a commitment to humanity. Think about how your products and services can impact real humans. Don’t turn a blind eye. The burden of intelligence is to hold ourselves accountable for what we create. Work for companies that actively put human lives over profits. Our choices matter. It matters greatly.
- Same as with the case of Congo, I do think there are a lot of rooms to help raise public awareness and pressure, by creating and using apps like No Thanks, which help identify products that come from illegal occupied territories of Palestine, and avoid enabling the occupation through our purchases.
- If you are a consumer of tech, which is all of us literally, raise your voices, push for changes. A good start is joining #NoTechforApartheid, BDS movement. Through this pressure, companies are forced to take a stand against the ongoing occupation and apartheid regime.
- If you are an investor in these tech companies, it’s time to ask the uncomfortable questions and make choices. I hope human conscience wins.
Conclusion
If you think none of this concern you, because you are not Palestinian, or Congolese, congratulations I guess, for winning life lottery.
But I’ve got some news for you — it may not be that far away — if we turn a blind eye today.
Technologies should not be the drive for human suffering or injustices. It should alleviate us from it, but only if we actively choose to. Every individual’s choice matter.
If you agree, please share, add your voices, act.
Announcing my new page
Hi there! I’m moving over to Substack. You can find me in the link below and subscribe in the new space. See you on the other side :)
