I'm A Mac... And I Have Dirty Little Secret

reply to post by Amagnon


*bing*bing*bing

oil sector accounted for 65% of the GDP, 85% of government revenue, and 92% of exports
en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by stigup
I just find it amazing how Africa is the richest country, in minerals, in the world yet they are the poorest! Congo alone is thought to have 24 trillion dollars worth of minerals. Also a friend of mine has been granted political asylum and he's from Congo, the things he has told me would blow your mind. For one France, USA, and China are all pretty much trying to take over parts of Africa, slowly but surely. I think the worst thing he told me was how the US hires troops, I can't recall from which parts, from Africa to fight on the front lines of Iraq and such. So when they say only so many casualties of US troops think how many other troops from Africa died. And this is 100% fact. They PAY these governments with our tax dollars to fight our "war" These people make me sick...

Africa is not a country.

Anyway... we cant worry bout every single thing thats wrong on the planet. If I spent my day thinking bout everything thats wrong I wouldnt have time even to enjoy whats right.

So what if my computer is made of whatever conflict material... so is my xbox and my ps3 and prolly my cellphones, tv, dvd, and every single electronic I use... and when it comes to oil, well... I dont really even have to look at my car for that, when I look around me its all plastic and rubbers and all comes from oil and oil is the biggest "conflict material" on earth.

To be honest... I don't really care. If I did I would be living off a farm somewhere isolated from the modern world, in sub-human conditions just to avoid every single stupid thing thats wrong and I still couldnt eat meat, cause it would mean having to kill some living thing, I couldnt eat fish cause I had again to steal another life. Bah.

I worry about the ones close to me, the ones I love. I'm sorry if Congo, Angola, Iraq, Afghanistan, and every sh.thole on the planet arent on my mind when I wake up every day. I'm sorry but its just the way it is and I have much more important people and my own life to worry about.

To each his own. I can bare the fact that people that dont know me dont care about me... if I live or die theres no difference on the planet besides to the ones who love me and are close to me so I dont really care about some country 5000km away.

I dont care where my diamonds come from, where the materials from my pc or consoles come from, the meat, the fish, the gas that fuels my car, the oil needed to make all this plastic I use...

Some people need to be more honest and less hypocrite about these matters.

And btw... I never saw the difference between a blood diamond and a "legal" one. And I bet its the same with all those tungstens and whatever... if it looks like a diamond, feels like a diamond and if it is indeed a diamond I dont care where the hell its from, just name the damn price and I'll buy it if the situation requires. And I would prolly buy it anyway even if it was a blood diamond... all I want is the freaking thing, I want to buy it, I'm not interested in the diamonds life story nor what it has to say. When the day comes that I want to go Sigmund Freud on a diamond that may change, until then a diamond is a diamond regardless where its from.

EDIT: oh and stigup, if they get PAID to die... thats their problem and noone else's. paid to get shot... great man, good for them. I wouldnt take it... but thats just me. Shame yes, thats wrong... But dont ask me to feel sorry for ppl that are paid to kill and get killed instead.

[edit on 29-6-2010 by FraternitasSaturni]

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Here's Apple CEO Steve Jobs views on the issue.

Over the weekend, the Times ran a powerful op-ed piece that shed light on another dark link in the consumer electronics supply chain: the use of Congolese conflict minerals. In an email, Steve Jobs admitted "it's a very difficult problem."

After reading the Times piece, a reader of Wired.com wrote the responsive CEO an email inquiring how Apple sources their products' minerals and asking if the company is making an effort to use ones with conflict-free origins. About an hour later, Jobs sent this reply:

"Yes. We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials. But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it's a very difficult problem.
Sent from my iPhone"

Presumably, Jobs' iPhone erroneously corrected "conflict free" to "conflict few."

But basically what Jobs says here echoes what we know already: tech companies are insisting that their suppliers pledge to using conflict free minerals, but there's no guarantee that those pledges reflect the reality of the situation. Jobs suggests that there's no way for the suppliers to know where their minerals come from; activist groups like Project Enough insinuate that the suppliers could be deliberately misreporting the origins of their minerals. The group is pushing for tech companies to be more active in sourcing their minerals, instead of relying on the suppliers to do so themselves.

Gizmodo

Who's to blame here? Is it Apple, Foxconn, Foxconns suppliers, Foxconns suppliers suppliers etc? We can't just point the finger at Apple.

[edit on 29-6-2010 by cripmeister]

If people were raped and killed in Africa for water and Oxygen for the rest of the world we wouldn't boycott water and air.

Same thing here. No one cares. Because the corporations can do whatever they want, because its "good capitalism".

People should learn to fix and rebuild their old computers so they don't keep buying more computers they don't need... I never throw out old computers... I just fix them up and give them away to people who don't have one... And all this talk of Microsoft and Mac wanting your money... That's for people who don't know how to hack it... It's not hard at all... I've never paid for Windows software... Ever...

reply to post by jzenman

People should learn to fix and rebuild their old computers so they don't keep buying more computers they don't need...

You can't turn a VW bug into a Mac Truck. If you were going to upgrade your old computer instead of buying a new one you would probably end up building a new computer.

I never throw out old computers... I just fix them up and give them away to people who don't have one...

Yeah you fix them up by buying new parts, the parts that take the conflict minerals.

And all this talk of Microsoft and Mac wanting your money... That's for people who don't know how to hack it... It's not hard at all... I've never paid for Windows software... Ever...

Just because you steal it does not make you better, you are still using it.

Originally posted by Amagnon
The greatest conflict 'mineral' is oil - every time you use plastic, rubber, energy - you are using a conflict mineral.

I rarely agree with you, if ever, but here you hit the nail right on the head! I tried to express same but failed.

Indeed, oil is the ultimate conflict mineral and it's the blood of our society, to the extent that its price effect the price of everything else and defined in large part the dynamics of the economy. Every time a person uses toilet paper, they use oil, because it was used in the production and transport of TP. So if you really want to be PC, try the corn cobb.