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Speaker 1: Justin how was the weekend for you? How?

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Speaker 2: How how caught in the in the Drake Kendrick ship

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Speaker 2: did you get into?

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Speaker 3: I got annoyed after the third song, like too much homework.

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Speaker 3: I love the discourse, but I also like, as much

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Speaker 3: as I love Kendrick, I'm like, enough is enough.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like I can never totally forgive Kendrick

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Speaker 2: for making me think this much about Drake. Yeah, read

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Speaker 2: read deep like multi level theoretical analysis of yours about Drake.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I looked up the lyrics same as everyone else, but

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Speaker 3: by the third song, I was like, oh boy, uh

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Speaker 3: and then and then and then I heard someone say

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Speaker 3: who's in Kendrick's campus, Like he's not even close to

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Speaker 3: fucking done yet?

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Speaker 4: And I was like, oh god, yeah, like all of us,

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Speaker 4: I know that's what I'm saying, Like that's why this one.

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Speaker 4: I was like, I'm exhausted, Like there's only so much

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Speaker 4: combing of genius I can do before I'm like, you

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Speaker 4: know what, I'm just gonna go with whatever I literally understand.

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Speaker 4: In the moment he says it, people go like, oh,

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Speaker 4: that's a bar. I'm like, I'm pretty sure that that

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Speaker 4: was a bar, Like you gotta really think about that word.

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Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know, bro, Like, I'm just going

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Speaker 4: for what I can understand.

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Speaker 2: That one's a reference to something a guy who was

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Speaker 2: like an uncle to Drake said at a family reunion

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Speaker 2: in the late sixties. Six sixteen is that six sixteen

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Speaker 2: is the time of death? Nicole Brown Simpson. She was

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Speaker 2: announced dead by the lapd. I looked at him like,

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Speaker 2: that's not even true. We're saying that shit. Hello the Internet,

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Speaker 2: and welcome to season three thirty seven, Episode two of

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Speaker 2: Daly's Like.

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Speaker 1: I Say, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: This is a podcast where we take a deep to

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Speaker 2: dive into America's shared consciousness. It's Tuesday, May seventh, twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty four. We've never had to prepare a guest more

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Speaker 2: for how stupid we are than on today's episode. It happens,

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Speaker 2: It happens, It happens.

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Speaker 4: But hey, May seventh, though, National Packaging Design Day, National

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Speaker 4: Roast leg of Lamb Day, Okay, National Barrier Awareness Day,

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Speaker 4: National Foster Care Day, National Tourism Day, National paste up Day,

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Speaker 4: And I don't know what that is. It looks like

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Speaker 4: someone is using an exact ow knife to chop up

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Speaker 4: headlines and paces.

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Speaker 1: It looks like almost like a ransom note.

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Speaker 4: But anyway, Oh, it's just remembering the day, the time

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Speaker 4: before desktop publishing and computerized digital imaging, when many publications

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Speaker 4: were composed and completed by hand.

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Speaker 1: So shout out to the hand.

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Speaker 2: It feels like a lot of people just you know,

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Speaker 2: look at package designers, a lot of people who don't

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Speaker 2: get a lot of credit, you know, sneaking in a day,

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Speaker 2: and exactly more power to them, you know, because that's

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Speaker 2: ther wars. Everybody's a little tired of international days. Let's

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Speaker 2: take some time to honor the people who used to

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Speaker 2: glue headlines together.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like in my mind, I'm like, they didn't

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Speaker 4: do that, nah, And I'm like, there's no other conceivable

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Speaker 4: boy for that to have nah.

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Speaker 1: Probably not.

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Speaker 2: Anyways, my name is Jack O'Brien aka and Delay and Delay.

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Speaker 1: They're using AI AI.

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Speaker 2: Oh oh the music shitty.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: That is courtesy of nobody on the discord. No body,

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Speaker 2: in reference to the fact that I've yet to hear

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Speaker 2: AI music see AI art that could exist outside of

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Speaker 2: the context of Hey man.

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Speaker 1: You believe it. I believe it. Computer made this? Yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: it's not like I.

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Speaker 4: I wept when I saw that AI generated image of yeah,

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Speaker 4: of Michael J. Fox, but in the Lord of the

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Speaker 4: Rings franchise, such a I asked. So I asked myself

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Speaker 4: so many questions and I didn't realize I could be

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Speaker 4: trusted like that.

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Speaker 1: No, not happening. Lean into the computer of it all.

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Speaker 2: I'd say, there's that one Share song where her voice

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Speaker 2: has like that computer warble.

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Speaker 1: Do you believe that it's fun?

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Speaker 2: Maybe lean into the computer instead of trying to convince

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Speaker 2: us that it's like not a computer. Right right, Anyways,

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Speaker 2: I'm thrilled to be joined as always buy my co host,

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Speaker 2: mister Miles.

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Speaker 5: Yes it's Miles Gray.

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Speaker 2: Akaa Gray not like us, Gray, not like us.

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Speaker 4: I shout out to the Kendrick Lamar and Drake Beef

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Speaker 4: that had absolutely melted down my phone and my all.

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Speaker 2: My attention span, and that was just sitting in my

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Speaker 2: brain all weekend. So an AKA from me to me.

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Speaker 2: Every time a new one drops your batteries, just like

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Speaker 2: eighty now it's at forty now it's it.

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Speaker 1: My phone is off. Yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: People are sending like screencaps like going at this part.

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Speaker 4: And I'm like, I don't have time to if I don't,

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Speaker 4: if I don't understand what he's saying immediately, I don't

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Speaker 4: have the time anymore to go on genius to figure

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Speaker 4: out what he said, what he meant.

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Speaker 2: The privilege of nobody giving a shit what you think

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Speaker 2: about a rat beef that I that I love with.

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Speaker 2: I only got a few texts every time a new

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Speaker 2: one draft, mostly on text chains with you, with people

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Speaker 2: asking you what you thought anyways, Miles, Yes, we are

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Speaker 2: thrilled to be joined by a magazine and newspaper journalists

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Speaker 2: who has written for magazines like The Nation and a

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Speaker 2: small regional publication that we've mentioned a couple of times

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Speaker 2: on the show called The New Yorker. He's been contributing

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Speaker 2: to The New Yorker since he was twenty five and

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Speaker 2: is currently working on a book about the global cobalt industry.

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Speaker 2: Please welcome, Nicholas Stavros, New Yorkers.

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Speaker 1: What's welcome.

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Speaker 5: Thanks very much for having me. It's very kind. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 5: on the show.

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Speaker 2: Oh, there's more where that came from.

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Speaker 1: There's more where that came from. Yeah, So yeah, we're so.

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Speaker 1: We're big fans of cobalt here.

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Speaker 2: As mentioned before we started recording.

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Speaker 1: I'm a big Musk guy.

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Speaker 2: I just think, you know, anytime you can have a

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Speaker 2: real world iron man just an inventing our way out

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Speaker 2: of problems. Let's just see where he's going with this thing.

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Speaker 2: Let's give him three four decades without any oversight, to

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Speaker 2: just see see where he's going.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of it's kind of my pitch. But you

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Speaker 1: know or not.

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Speaker 5: I mean to be fair to wait, to be fair

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Speaker 5: to Elon Musk, though, I mean in the end of

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Speaker 5: the day, very very early on, for very different reasons

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Speaker 5: that we're not to do with. You know, some of

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Speaker 5: the human rights apaces that we're going to get into

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Speaker 5: did actually switch over from cobalt. Let's not say they

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Speaker 5: ab of the you know, cobalt mind in this kind

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Speaker 5: of artismal way, so I don't want to completely trash Tesla, okay,

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Speaker 5: but they did foresee this.

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I see that out. Yeah, well that's why

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Speaker 2: we put him in charge of everything. No, but anyways,

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Speaker 2: I also had some cryptos that don't want to pitch you.

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Speaker 1: But before or.

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Speaker 2: We get into cobalt mining, just generally the overall conversation

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Speaker 2: around you know, we're moving off of fossil fuels, We're

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Speaker 2: moving towards electric vehicles, is like, that's one of the

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Speaker 2: big solutions that I feel like it's taken hold in

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Speaker 2: the popular consciousness. And there are some problems with these

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Speaker 2: battery powered cars that you've done some in depth reporting

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Speaker 2: on son. We're gonna dig into that, but before we

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Speaker 2: dig into it, we do like to get to know

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Speaker 2: our guests a little bit better and ask you, what

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Speaker 2: is something from your search history that is revealing about

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Speaker 2: who you are, what you're up to.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess I've been Look, I've been covering the

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Speaker 5: campus protest quite a bit for the nation, and I've

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Speaker 5: been suching all kinds of things about the NYU. Making

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Speaker 5: this twenty twenty deal about cattling protest is you know,

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Speaker 5: I think for me, what's really important is that people

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Speaker 5: are allowed to exercise their their rights to free speech.

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Speaker 5: And you know, I'm not one of those free speech

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Speaker 5: absolutists who says that, you know, you can say everything

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Speaker 5: that you want all the time. But frankly, I've been

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Speaker 5: a lot of these student protests and and a lot

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Speaker 5: of the things that the kids are saying and not

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Speaker 5: hate speech, right, So I find yeah, I don't know,

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Speaker 5: not to bring it down a notch.

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Speaker 2: But no, we're going about cobalt mining. Yeah in a second. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: we're going to keep it fun and late and talk

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Speaker 2: about yeah but no.

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Speaker 1: But yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now I'm been googling the campus protests, like who's funding

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Speaker 2: those things?

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Speaker 1: Am I right? Like it's got to be Soros? Right?

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Speaker 1: What's so weird? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: That was in Political Politico And you're like.

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Speaker 1: What what are you saying?

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Speaker 5: Are you talking about?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Well, I think there's there is this, there is this,

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Speaker 4: uh A lot of more reckless reporting on it is

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Speaker 4: sort of trying to mischaracterize these protests of being anything

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Speaker 4: other than like outraged students over the state of things

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Speaker 4: in Gaza. And it's funny because as I like, I remember,

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Speaker 4: I've like talked to my mom like she's watching CNN

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Speaker 4: or something, but she's a little bit more critical. She's like,

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Speaker 4: is it really because of like TikTok? I'm like no,

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Speaker 4: She's like, yeah, that's what I thought. She's like, but

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Speaker 4: why do they keep saying that? I'm like, because they're

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Speaker 4: trying to completely obscure what the motivations are of people

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Speaker 4: that people couldn't just you know, cast their gaze upon

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Speaker 4: what is happening there and say I think that's horrific, right,

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Speaker 4: and nothing more. But yeah, that seems to be where

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Speaker 4: we're at right now.

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Speaker 5: You know, I don't have TikTok, so.

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Speaker 1: Wait, but I thought you were a journalist.

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Speaker 2: How are you reporting on any what's your sources?

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Speaker 1: Man? Yeah, TikTok and.

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Speaker 5: Try to use four Chan Reddit.

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Speaker 2: Good to know he's a Capital Jay journalist. Yeah, okay, yes,

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Speaker 2: this guy, this guy's serious.

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Speaker 1: All right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean as somebody who you know, you have

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Speaker 2: written features for the New Yorker. You worked in the

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Speaker 2: fact checking department of the New Yorker. You know, you

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Speaker 2: delivered a ted talk on the importance.

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Speaker 1: Of fact checking. How are you viewing kind of what.

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Speaker 2: We're seeing in the mainstream media right now with just

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Speaker 2: a lot of yeah, just just kind of some of

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Speaker 2: the tropes that we're talking about, where it seems like

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Speaker 2: there's a desire to kind of discredit and diminish what's

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Speaker 2: happening with student protesters.

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Speaker 5: Look again, I think that there's a very real debate

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Speaker 5: that you can have with student protesters, Like I mean,

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Speaker 5: as a journalist, you have to remain objective, sure, but

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Speaker 5: the way it's being portrayed, I mean I saw this

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Speaker 5: guy who was whose Instagram I think it was Facebook

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Speaker 5: Live or something was the viral Patriot, and you know,

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Speaker 5: he'd come over to look at Jahaddas University, Columbia University,

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Speaker 5: and he was sitting there and a bunch of students challenging.

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Speaker 5: You know, maybe don't agree with what they're chanting, but

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Speaker 5: the fact is they're standing on the sidewalk. They're not

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Speaker 5: you know, they're not like they're not saying anti Semitic

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Speaker 5: things or you know that it's you know, very very

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Speaker 5: political slogans. That's disclosed. Diverst all these things again, Like

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Speaker 5: you can disagree with that, you can debate that, you

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Speaker 5: can even you can even say that the students aren't

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Speaker 5: debating it and that there's there's little room for debate

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Speaker 5: in the student movements. But to simply just send in

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Speaker 5: heavily on police is just as to me, completely crazy

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Speaker 5: and not really what the US is all about.

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Speaker 1: Ryeah, well starting to be well now yeah, yeah, with.

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Speaker 5: With any caveats, yeah yeah, right, exactly.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it all depends on what you're protesting, right, because

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Speaker 4: I think there's that stark imagery between like like a

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Speaker 4: police escort for white supremacists exercising there for you to

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Speaker 4: first Amendment rights and then and being kettled, beaten, pepper

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Speaker 4: sprayed when you're out here trying to, you know again,

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Speaker 4: protest against something as simple as being like, I'm trying

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Speaker 4: to stop indiscriminate killing of people. That's that's really what's

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Speaker 4: bringing me out here today.

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Speaker 5: It's nuts, you see. I mean, you see it when

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Speaker 5: you go to these protesters. There's one side and another

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Speaker 5: and one side is being contained by the police, and

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Speaker 5: the other side is kind of wandering around, you know,

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Speaker 5: on the edges of the edges of the protest.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, screaming you stand no chance, old lady. In one case,

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Speaker 2: you see it, just like Cobra.

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Speaker 1: What they're not allowed to celebrate?

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Speaker 4: Come on, I know it's wild, but yeah, it just

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Speaker 4: shows again like how we have such a skewed version

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Speaker 4: of who is able.

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Speaker 1: To exercise what right at what time in this country.

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Speaker 4: And I think, I don't know, it feels like more

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Speaker 4: people are just seeing that slowly, but I'm not sure.

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Speaker 4: I mean, hopefully it reaches some kind of tipping point

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Speaker 4: where the administration is something that is t TBD.

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Speaker 2: At the moment, it feels like they're closer to doing

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Speaker 2: something more in line with the status quo than doing

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Speaker 2: something to protect the people who are currently being kettled.

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Speaker 1: But based on the Biden kind of address.

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Speaker 5: I look, I think that in the end of the day,

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Speaker 5: like as as reporters, as journalists, you have to be

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Speaker 5: very very clear that like you are just trying to

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Speaker 5: tell the truth. I mean, there's a different there, you know,

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Speaker 5: there's an opinion writing, there's But again, I think it's

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Speaker 5: important as a journalist to look at the fundaments of

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Speaker 5: what a society claims to stand for and what's actually

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Speaker 5: happening in practice. And I do think that people should

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Speaker 5: be able to debate and discuss freely, and I think

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Speaker 5: that we've really lost that as a society in a way,

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Speaker 5: and this has kind of this is once again sort

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Speaker 5: of shown to shown to the world how how lacking

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Speaker 5: we are in some of those kind of qualities from

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Speaker 5: back in the day. Well, maybe something there was I

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Speaker 5: don't know, maybe I look back to some sort of

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Speaker 5: maybe I'm sort of looking back to some dream dream

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Speaker 5: time when people were able to debate.

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Speaker 2: But I think in retrospect, people tend to view the

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Speaker 2: protests as something that like the protests of the seventies

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Speaker 2: or the sixties is something that people that were more

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Speaker 2: popular at the time than they actually were. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: they were met with police violence also, and that I

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Speaker 2: think written about in the same way that these protests

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Speaker 2: are being written about in a lot of cases.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a good piece in the in Foreign afairsm

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Speaker 5: this's actually that they dug up from the archive that

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Speaker 5: I was Oh really, I was reading earlier today.

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Speaker 1: What is something you think is underrated?

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Speaker 5: I think that the novel Spring Torrent is very underrated

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Speaker 5: by Taganyev. For me, it was this kind of like

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Speaker 5: wow moment, you know, one of those books like I

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Speaker 5: Want to be a writer mm hmm, depiction of kind

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Speaker 5: of like obsessive love and kind of and also just

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Speaker 5: like what love means between different generations and how that

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Speaker 5: can be kind of exploited and not and how people

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Speaker 5: can kind of ruin themselves through love. And I thought

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Speaker 5: that was incredibly powerful.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I love Yvonne Sergeyevitch Turgenev was a Russian novelist,

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Speaker 4: short story writer poets.

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Speaker 2: We remember we said to cut off after that's okay, yeah,

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Speaker 2: his name, that's yes, the Wikipedia pitch.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm when I was not familiar with I'm not

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Speaker 4: familiar with his work at all, but I'm also not

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Speaker 4: uh you know, I think my like my limits are

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Speaker 4: like Tolstoy and like Dostoyevsky when it comes to Russian novelists,

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Speaker 4: and it's sort.

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Speaker 5: Of basic same period you have to think of, you know,

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Speaker 5: Dostoyevsky and Kenya basically around the same time.

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Speaker 1: I saw a photo of him. He passed away when

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Speaker 1: he was sixty four.

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Speaker 2: The oh of God, living living life back then was hard.

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Speaker 4: This guy looks like time and this is like sixty

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Speaker 4: four years old, and I'm like, God, we're.

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Speaker 1: There's a photograph. Oh yeah, look at him. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: he is weathered, weathered.

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Speaker 2: There's pictures of like the old explorers who are like

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Speaker 2: in their twenties and thirties and they look like they're

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Speaker 2: like in their sixties.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: They What just shows you what a little bit of

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Speaker 4: like the things we've learned through science and stress and

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Speaker 4: diet and things like that have done for the faces.

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Speaker 4: Because like even look at like, you know, like the

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Speaker 4: kids at the turn of like the nineteenth that you

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Speaker 4: were going to the twentieth century, and you're like, like,

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Speaker 4: is that a is that like a three foot eight

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Speaker 4: for like fifty year old, right, and it's just life

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Speaker 4: is just was fucking harder than and still kind of

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Speaker 4: hard in many other parts of the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, thinking of the mountain climbers of like the eighteen

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Speaker 2: hundreds like that, you look at pictures.

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Speaker 1: They didn't know what SPF was, No, they did not.

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Speaker 5: That's sure to bring the turn down again, which I

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Speaker 5: don't want to be doing all the time. But it's

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Speaker 5: during the course of working on cobalt mining, you know,

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Speaker 5: I met a lot of these kids who were who

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Speaker 5: were mining some of the metals that go into your batteries,

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Speaker 5: and they looked so small but also so old that

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Speaker 5: you know, they just lived such difficult lives and hadn't

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Speaker 5: eaten properly essentially, So it was this kind of this

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Speaker 5: this really physical thing that you could see. And there

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Speaker 5: was one fifteen year old kid who I interviewed, and yeah,

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Speaker 5: I mean he looked he had the sort of frame

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Speaker 5: of a ten year old basically.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: One of the really upsetting details from your New York

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Speaker 2: A piece is that they give the kids drugs to

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Speaker 2: suppress their hunger so that they can just kind of

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Speaker 2: work through the day without having to be fed. Which yeah,

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Speaker 2: pretty horrifying.

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Speaker 1: All right, Hey.

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Speaker 2: Bring it up with an overrated Nicholas please, Okay, well.

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Speaker 5: The overrated I guess I was just thinking about, you know,

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Speaker 5: in terms of dichotomies. I'm there's another novel by gen

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Speaker 5: your Fathers and Sons, and it's about this kind of

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Speaker 5: like son that comes back to the family estate with

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Speaker 5: with this kind of dostyev skin radical figure in toe

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Speaker 5: and in a way he's kind of a model for

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Speaker 5: some of these Dostyev skin nihilist characters. And I think

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Speaker 5: he's called Yevgeny, but not one hundred per central because

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Speaker 5: it was a long time ago that I read it,

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Speaker 5: and I just I don't know, I didn't I found

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Speaker 5: I found the characters in that book kind of annoying

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Speaker 5: in a way, and they just kind of sort of

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Speaker 5: prattled on anyway. Spring Torrent is very good, First Love,

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Speaker 5: very good.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and sons for their Yeah yeah.

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Speaker 2: Watching anything on Netflix, man, you know what you ever

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Speaker 2: seen that?

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Speaker 5: I've been watching Tokyo Vice Okay, Oh yeah, on HBO.

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Speaker 4: I think it's actually sorry yeah, no, no, no, I mean

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Speaker 4: it's I I've only caught the first couple episodes of

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Speaker 4: the second season. I read the book when it came out,

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Speaker 4: and I was really the book was really eye opening

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Speaker 4: because as someone who's half Japanese, just like the idea

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Speaker 4: of an American person because it's so it's like my

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Speaker 4: mom's a journalist and it was written in Japan and

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Speaker 4: stuff like that. It's it's such a hard life and

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Speaker 4: it's so rigid the way like the tests you have

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Speaker 4: to take to even get in there. Like the idea

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Speaker 4: of a Westerner being like yeah, I'm gonna learn Japanese

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Speaker 4: to that level like blows my mind.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, at the show just to be pretty popular.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's that's the story of Tokyo Vice as

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Speaker 2: a Westerner trying to figure out life in Tokyo on

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Speaker 2: the on the Vice Squad.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's him writing about like what the Vice Squad

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Speaker 4: is doing, so like you learn all these different things

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Speaker 4: about Tokyo through his interactions with police. And then with

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Speaker 4: this one is sort of centering around this yakuza guy

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Speaker 4: who in the books telling was like having like renal

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Speaker 4: issues with his kidneys and was going to the United

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Speaker 4: So it's like a kind of a huge kind of.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah it was.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, it's a really good book, Yeah, because I

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Speaker 5: read it when I was in Japan a couple of

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Speaker 5: years ago, and it was it was also very eye opening,

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Speaker 5: and I remember just thinking, where are the yaks? I mean,

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Speaker 5: it's not really something that you have a experience of,

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Speaker 5: but I guess friends of mine who work there say

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Speaker 5: that it's kind of on the periphery of quite a

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Speaker 5: lot of the things, especially people who work in the

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Speaker 5: restaurant industry.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and like nightlife, Yeah, you can, it's definitely it's

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Speaker 4: a presence.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's uh, let's take a quick break

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Speaker 2: and we'll come back and we will get into cobalt

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Speaker 2: mining and other forms of mining that kind of make

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Speaker 2: a lot of the wonder technologies of our modern life

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Speaker 2: possible and kind of some dark things that are up

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Speaker 2: the supply chain behind your phone. We'll be right back,

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Speaker 2: and we're back and yeah. So you talk a lot

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Speaker 2: about the kind of cognitive dissonance that happens where people

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Speaker 2: buy an electric vehicle and think they're buying something that

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Speaker 2: is kind of redeeming, almost, like it's not just that

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Speaker 2: it's like the less bad option. It's like that every

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Speaker 2: time I drive this, like I'm kind of saving the world.

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Speaker 1: A little bit.

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Speaker 2: Is like there's even this like well known stat that

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Speaker 2: like when you drive an electric car for thirty thousand miles,

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Speaker 2: that like that gets you to carbon neutrality. Like it's like,

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Speaker 2: so like the more you drive an electric vehicle, the

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Speaker 2: more you're saving the future.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you're absolving yourself of your carbon sense, but you

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Speaker 4: have to get to thirty thousand miles or else it's

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Speaker 4: all for.

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Speaker 5: Not that's right, But that's a Yale study. I think

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Speaker 5: that that came out a couple of.

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Speaker 2: Years ago that said the thirty thousand that gave us.

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Speaker 5: That said the thirty thousand miles.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.

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Speaker 2: But in a lot of ways, it feels like you're

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Speaker 2: reporting reveals that we're replacing one form of pollution that

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Speaker 2: I think people are pretty familiar with with global climate change,

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Speaker 2: and we're global heating. I guess we learned climate change

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Speaker 2: was actually something that was concocted by the Republican Party

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Speaker 2: years ago because it's like nice and value neutral. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so it's changing. Yeah, global heating. People kind of know

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Speaker 2: about that one at this point, and there were placing

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Speaker 2: that with another form of pollution and human rights abuses

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Speaker 2: that affect poorer parts of the world and are easier

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Speaker 2: for people to ignore. Maybe, like you mentioned in an

440
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:58,480
Speaker 2: interview last year, like an Indonesian mind that is actually,

441
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:01,560
Speaker 2: you know, it's behind some of the technology we use

442
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:05,879
Speaker 2: all the time and don't think of as necessarily polluting.

443
00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:09,000
Speaker 2: But it's this Indonesian mind that's actually like the mine

444
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:11,119
Speaker 2: is coal powered, and.

445
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:15,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, the refined, the refinery and the mine, and you

446
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:19,239
Speaker 5: know it's it's it's nickel, which is like there are

447
00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 5: different types of nickel, but it's a type of nickel

448
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 5: called laterit nickel. It exists in a type of soil

449
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:30,520
Speaker 5: called laterite soil, and that refining that nickel is incredibly

450
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,679
Speaker 5: energy intensive. So if you were to do it with

451
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 5: like solar power, wind power or something like that, you know,

452
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 5: perhaps you could create green nickel. That I'm very suspicious

453
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 5: of everybody calling things green or green. But yeah, in

454
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 5: the end of the day, like all of that nickel

455
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:55,719
Speaker 5: is made through burning huge amounts of coal, and nobody

456
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 5: really looks at that. I mean, people talk about Scope one,

457
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:02,280
Speaker 5: Scope two emission, so Scope one emissions of the emissions

458
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 5: that produced Scope two emissions are you know, like again

459
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 5: the tailpipe and then Scope three emissions are everything that

460
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:17,200
Speaker 5: went into the production, shipping, etc. Of that vehicle, And

461
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:24,879
Speaker 5: I think that we look at scope three, we realize

462
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:28,320
Speaker 5: that there are all these kind of unseen externalities. Now

463
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 5: they also exist for non non electric cars as well.

464
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 5: So I'm not saying that electric cars are net worse

465
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 5: for the planet or anything like that. What I'm saying

466
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:44,040
Speaker 5: is more that we haven't really thought about the way

467
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 5: that these supply chains have been constructed and the people

468
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 5: that they affect, And we don't think about the really

469
00:24:51,880 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 5: really complex issues around sovereignty, resource sovereignty, and how people

470
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 5: are relating to the minerals in their ground. So one

471
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,199
Speaker 5: of the really interesting things. Sorry to jump right right in,

472
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:10,439
Speaker 5: but that's okay.

473
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 1: Yeah.

474
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 5: I've found basically most of the steps along the way

475
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 5: some kind of like autonomous or separatist movement or some

476
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 5: kind of group of people who are saying, listen, like

477
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 5: this is our land, these are our resources, and some

478
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 5: central government far away is coming to exploit it. Now,

479
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:34,719
Speaker 5: that's partly because this you know, these materials are found

480
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 5: in fairly remote areas. Congo has this kind of geological

481
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 5: fluke that it sits on seventy percent of the world's

482
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 5: known cobalt reserves. But it's also partly because people don't

483
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:51,120
Speaker 5: want to mine directly on the cities. I mean, if suddenly,

484
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 5: you know, another seventy percent only whatever, another forty percent

485
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 5: of the world's covert resources were found under New York City,

486
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 5: I mean, people wouldn't want to mind it. So I mean,

487
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 5: I think there is there's also something happening there. But

488
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 5: I think that, you know, with this kind of rush

489
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 5: for minerals and these this kind of like valorization of

490
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 5: and like becoming critical of these metals, which is something

491
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:21,199
Speaker 5: that I am documenting in this in this book that

492
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 5: I'm writing, it has also kind of put into play

493
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 5: some of these really complicated, complicated questions around sovereignty and

494
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 5: who owns what right.

495
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think when when I first heard that

496
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 2: okay and these things that people view as a solution

497
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 2: are actually polluting, my initial instinct was exhaustion and being like,

498
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 2: so there's like no, no, it's no whin. We're just

499
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 2: we're fucked no matter which way we go. And I

500
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,959
Speaker 2: think there are two ways to respond to that, and

501
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 2: I don't think that's right, right, But I think I'm

502
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 2: just trying to like get my mind around what people's

503
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 2: response is going to be to this information. And I

504
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 2: think one way people might respond is just like you know,

505
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 2: the Marxist critique of this consumption engine will not stop

506
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 2: until the world is empty, and like just like a

507
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,880
Speaker 2: spent husk, And the problem is not in the specifics,

508
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 2: it's in the DNA of the system, and like you know,

509
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 2: just the software's corrupt like one way or another. But

510
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,160
Speaker 2: then you like here and specifically, like in your reporting,

511
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 2: like how badly and obliviously the people involved are acting.

512
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 2: Like there's a detail in the story about Apple catching

513
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 2: some heat for some of their supply chain practices exploiting

514
00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 2: underage workers. I think going away from that specific supplier

515
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 2: for a moment and then going back once the heat

516
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 2: died down. So it presents I guess this second solution

517
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 2: of a version of the system where companies and the

518
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 2: actors within the system are actually held to account and

519
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:21,959
Speaker 2: like forced to work within the rule of law. And

520
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 2: I don't I don't need your answer on this necessarily

521
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 2: like up top, but just want to lay out like

522
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 2: kind of the big picture question in people's minds.

523
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 1: As we've been on.

524
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 2: This show talking about you know, the global climate crisis

525
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 2: and how we move forward and what the future looks like.

526
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 2: And you know, we did an episode on a ministry

527
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 2: for the Future and all the different solutions kind of

528
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 2: put out in that book. But I think before I

529
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 2: dug in a little bit and like read your reporting,

530
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 2: I think it seemed a little more bleak to me

531
00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:01,239
Speaker 2: because it was like, well, there's no there's no win here, right,

532
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 2: there's no scenario here. And then to read that it's

533
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 2: basically like nobody's trying like to you know, that that

534
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 2: like the companies are just acting without impunity and it's

535
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 2: this like version of capitalism that's completely unregulated. Like maybe

536
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 2: gave me a little sliver of hope that like there

537
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 2: is something that can be done on this front.

538
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, I've got this five volume work

539
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 5: on how to Restructure the World that I'm currently writing.

540
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 5: That's a joke.

541
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 2: Manifesto. It's given manifesto. Vibes Nicholas, No, no, no.

542
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:49,000
Speaker 5: Look this thing with Apple saying that they don't use

543
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 5: handmne cobalts and then they and then they went back

544
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 5: and started buying off of why you again. I mean,

545
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 5: that's a really important point. It's a point that they

546
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 5: will you. And since I've written the piece, it's it's

547
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 5: been true and not true. So so it's it's quite interesting, right,

548
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 5: And I don't know why that is. That's one of

549
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 5: those sort of questions that's that's hung there. So if

550
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 5: any of your listeners do know why, please get in

551
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 5: touch know why.

552
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 2: What's true that that Apple use.

553
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 5: Them to know why. You know why companies will make

554
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 5: plasures to say we're not going to use hand mine cobalt,

555
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 5: which is cobalt that comes from these very rudimentary minds

556
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 5: where there are a lot of human rights issues and

557
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 5: then they sort of reneg on their on their promises.

558
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 5: But you're totally right, Jack, I mean, I think it's

559
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 5: it's an issue that kind of frustrates me because we

560
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 5: know how to mine this stuff effectively. Now a lot

561
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 5: of people will talk to me. Somebody talked to me

562
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 5: the other day about deep sea mining and say, oh, well,

563
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 5: it's the solution because you're sucking these things off the

564
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 5: bottom of the sea. And now there's some environment problems

565
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 5: with that because people say that you're killing forms of

566
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 5: wildlife that we know very little about and so on

567
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 5: and so forth. But at the same time, there's just

568
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 5: an economic argument. There's this kind of you know, how

569
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 5: come we can't actually get a mine on the surface

570
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 5: to operate correctly? How come how come we're in a

571
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 5: situation in which these minds, which are you know, only

572
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 5: one hundred or a couple of hundred meters deep, are

573
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 5: so difficult to work out the financing for and so forth.

574
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 5: And people in the mining industry have told me that,

575
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 5: So I think there should be more focused on mining correctly,

576
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 5: mining ecologically, and making sure that a significant portion of

577
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,239
Speaker 5: the revenues from mining go back to the people in

578
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 5: the areas when mining happens, and you know, improving the

579
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 5: life the lives of those people. It's not that complicated,

580
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 5: but it is complicated in places in which corruption has

581
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 5: unfortunately become very, very entrenched. And it's also complicated in

582
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 5: which it's are in industries where people are always striving

583
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:13,520
Speaker 5: to be you know, ten dollars cheaper than the competition

584
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 5: because they think that it makes a huge impact on

585
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,840
Speaker 5: somebody's likelihood of buying an iPhone versus a Samsung or

586
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 5: whatever it is. And I was at a product unveil

587
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 5: by Stilantis for one of their new evs and actually Cicroin,

588
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 5: which is a stillantis company, and they were talking about, like,

589
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 5: come the EV being twenty three thousand euros and it's

590
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 5: much more like likely that people would buy a twenty

591
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 5: three rather than twenty four thousand, and so on so forth,

592
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 5: because European consumers are very price conscious. But I think

593
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 5: that the question is, wouldn't consumers be happier, especially if

594
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 5: they're buying evs, especially they're the type of people who

595
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 5: want to buy uvs, who are presumably concerned with what's

596
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 5: happening in the environment. Wouldn't they be also happier to

597
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 5: know that the resources in their battery have not come

598
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 5: from situations in which there's you know, conflict or human

599
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 5: rights abuses. I will note very quickly that that that

600
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 5: cita and uses a something called a lithium iron phosphate battery,

601
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 5: which is some people call it like iron powered batteries

602
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 5: or something like that. That was reading an article today

603
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 5: which called them that. But they also contain phosphate, which

604
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 5: is which is a mineral which is linked to a

605
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 5: conflict in the Western Sahara as well. So you know,

606
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 5: there are all kinds of supply chain issues, and I

607
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 5: think that traceability tracking is key, and also just kind

608
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 5: of a commitment to improving the lives of the people

609
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 5: around those minds is also key. The question is where

610
00:33:57,760 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 5: that comes from. Does it come from regulation, does it

611
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 5: come from the companies themselves, does it come from pledges.

612
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 5: There are plenty of like NGOs that do try and

613
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:12,280
Speaker 5: enforce the stuff, but I think they often get either

614
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 5: sort of pushed out on the outside or they get

615
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 5: kind of sort of brought in by by by industry

616
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 5: in order to provide a kind of a reason for

617
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 5: them being there, and they say, listen, we're doing all

618
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:32,240
Speaker 5: this wonderful stuff through these these alliances and NGOs, But actually,

619
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 5: you know, those alliances allow for other kinds of abuses

620
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 5: for example.

621
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 4: Right, it feels like kind of similar to sort of

622
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 4: like when there's conflict diamonds, where people would be like,

623
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 4: and we can proclaim these are one hundred percent conflict

624
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 4: free diamonds, but a lot of experts are like, it's

625
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:53,240
Speaker 4: a very difficult thing to be able to guarantee people

626
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 4: a lot of the time, and it sort of becomes

627
00:34:55,480 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 4: this way to you know, calm people's fears around like

628
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 4: a problematic product or or material or whatever, while also

629
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 4: continuing to be able to just sort of continue with

630
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 4: like business as usual. So I completely understand that like

631
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 4: part of this too, And you've said yourself like a

632
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,320
Speaker 4: lot of the reason why this issue is important to

633
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:19,959
Speaker 4: you to report is because there needs to be more

634
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 4: scrutiny to be able to kind of create these sort

635
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 4: of safeguards around how to make these supply chains a

636
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 4: bit more equitable. But is that you know, like like

637
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 4: as we like look at everything, it's like where does

638
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 4: where does that will come from? Because I've read that

639
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 4: some people like, well, why don't they nationalize all of

640
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 4: the minds, But then there's a whole issue of probably

641
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 4: companies that have had their operations taken away, how to

642
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 4: re like to pay them for their loss and things

643
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 4: like that and everything. It feels like it's so many complicated,

644
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 4: like that doesn't seem to be like a clean solution.

645
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 4: So is in that sense, is there even anything that

646
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:58,839
Speaker 4: seems like an efficient way or is there like what's

647
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 4: like the most important thing to consider first, not saying

648
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,800
Speaker 4: that there's a silver bullet, but like, what's one dimension

649
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 4: of this issue around corruption and these terrible like child

650
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:11,520
Speaker 4: labor practices that at the very least to begin sort

651
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 4: of begin to put people's attention towards that in a

652
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:16,399
Speaker 4: way that feels like it can maybe render some kind

653
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 4: of change.

654
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 5: Look, I think it's about it's about seeing people in

655
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:23,319
Speaker 5: other parts of the world as people. I think that's

656
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 5: the key.

657
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 4: Oh okay, sorry, I'm America, So that's I do have

658
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 4: trouble with that at times.

659
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 5: Yes, and understanding that they have needs and they that

660
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 5: they have wants and desires, and and that they they

661
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,879
Speaker 5: feel that, you know, that they should benefit from from

662
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 5: from the land that they live on. Also recognizing the

663
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 5: really really complicated history in these parts of the world

664
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:53,280
Speaker 5: is key. But the nationalization argument, to me, doesn't really

665
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 5: hold much water. Because if a country like the DRC

666
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:04,880
Speaker 5: were to have full control of its government without without

667
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 5: you know, these issues of corruption and so on, you know,

668
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:10,840
Speaker 5: maybe there would be a maybe there would be a

669
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 5: case for nationalization. But the fact is that you know,

670
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 5: they've been there have been just so many, so many

671
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 5: examples of people abusing the system there. And it's made

672
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 5: wise by the fact that there are you know, tons

673
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:28,399
Speaker 5: of international interests, not just US interests. I mean there

674
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 5: are actually very few US interests that I mean, they

675
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 5: us interests start buying sort of later in the supply chain,

676
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 5: and that's not right.

677
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 2: They're buying like enriched cobalt like at the end of

678
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:43,360
Speaker 2: the like American customers come into it exactly.

679
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 5: But you know, I mean it's really an issue for

680
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,720
Speaker 5: the Chinese to think about as well, because they're they're

681
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:50,760
Speaker 5: you know, they own a lot of the mining companies,

682
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 5: and they have a lot of you know, they have

683
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 5: a lot of the refineries, they do a lot of

684
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 5: the trading so on. So I think it's I think

685
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 5: it's an issue that is incredibly knotty and complex, and

686
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:07,239
Speaker 5: there is no solution to it. It's just something that

687
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 5: on a mind by mind basis, you know, needs to

688
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 5: be worked on diligently. And I think that there are

689
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 5: just so many examples of minds these days that do

690
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 5: provide for the local population. And I think that you know,

691
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 5: in the US, for example, there's a there's a robust

692
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 5: series of regulations that people say, oh, it's very difficult

693
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 5: to build a mine in the US. But the minds

694
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:35,319
Speaker 5: that do operate operate very well. So and you know,

695
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 5: they they don't have major well we hope they don't

696
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 5: have a major environmental sues and they don't have major

697
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 5: issues around labor rights and so on. But I think

698
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 5: that you know, you've you've got to you've got to

699
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 5: both regulate and put pressure on business on business to

700
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 5: improve their practices because at a certain point, you know,

701
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 5: everybody's going to lose out and it's going to lead

702
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 5: to all kinds of it's going to lead to all

703
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 5: kinds of issues. It's going to lead to again the

704
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 5: renewal of these septist movements which are gaining in popularity

705
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 5: and power in different parts of Africa or in Indonesia.

706
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 5: The kind of that these sort of Chinese company towns

707
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 5: where Indonesian workers don't you know, don't really have the

708
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 5: right to.

709
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 2: That.

710
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 5: You know, the unions are treated incredibly poorly and there

711
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 5: are very few labor rights. So I think that there's

712
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:37,720
Speaker 5: this kind of sense that if you're buying these minerals,

713
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 5: you have to kind of see it through from the

714
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 5: bottom to the to the top. But also be putting

715
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 5: pressure on companies that are buying and doing the refining.

716
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 4: Right because they have the most gravitational pull when it

717
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 4: comes to these sort of operations.

718
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean for the companies, isn't it more

719
00:39:54,640 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 2: profitable for things to remain chaotic and abusive on the

720
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 2: ground because that allows them or the companies or you know, China,

721
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 2: whoever it is, who is the buying side of this

722
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 2: or the extraction side of this, like it just it

723
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:17,279
Speaker 2: feels like that force for regulation is going to need

724
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 2: to come from outside of the people who are doing

725
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 2: their best to get these resources as cheaply as possible, right,

726
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 2: which seems to me.

727
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think. I don't actually think. I think

728
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:34,800
Speaker 5: it's going to obviously require much more investment and probably

729
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 5: more time spent thinking about these things. But actually I

730
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 5: think that there's plenty of evidence that once you sort

731
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 5: of put in good governance and people, if people feel

732
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 5: like being listened to and interacted with, you know, you

733
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 5: get rid of a whole bunch of other problems, which

734
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 5: which do and I think, in the long run balance

735
00:40:56,239 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 5: out some of the negative effects. And again, things can

736
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 5: only get so bad. I think that, you know, you

737
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:07,319
Speaker 5: have so many people down in Katanga or the ex

738
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 5: Katanga province, which is the south of the DRC, south

739
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 5: of Congo, who are just so dissatisfied that the sense

740
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 5: that one gets when one's down there is that something

741
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:22,320
Speaker 5: at some point is going to is going to break

742
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 5: and at best there will be mass disruptions, which which

743
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 5: could never be good for for for for a company

744
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 5: doing business down there.

745
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 4: Right right, Yeah, that's the other because I mean, I think,

746
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 4: you know, backing up, you were talking about just the

747
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 4: legacy of congo, right, and I think for people who

748
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 4: aren't aware, like you know, it's a huge supplier of

749
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:45,719
Speaker 4: slaves to Brazil, and you know, then it became like

750
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 4: rubber and you know, which is another you know, he

751
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 4: needed those for tigers. Yeah and yeah, and now we're

752
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 4: at cobalt and you know, for and I feel like

753
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 4: maybe I should have said, should have said this earlier.

754
00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 4: But you know, the big reason why cobalt has become

755
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:01,280
Speaker 4: so popular is because it's such a such a massively

756
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 4: important material in creating lithium ion bat lithium ion batteries

757
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 4: and makes it sort of you can't get the same

758
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 4: energy density without cobalt. So we're kind of stuck in

759
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 4: this place where we're relying on this material that is

760
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:17,719
Speaker 4: extracted problematically. But also it's in literally everything around you

761
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 4: that you know, for the most part, that has any

762
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 4: kind of battery, you know, and when you for people

763
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 4: who haven't seen what the conditions are, you know, in

764
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 4: some of these minds, you know, especially with child labor,

765
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 4: you're looking at kids just from the moment they are

766
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 4: able to walk and carry something, are working barefoot, not

767
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 4: using sometimes like you're saying, hand using their hands, not

768
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 4: using tools, and the amount of suffering. That's just why,

769
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just sort of it's just mind boggling

770
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 4: to think of all of these things that are so

771
00:42:46,800 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 4: essential or seen is so essential, has this massive human

772
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 4: cost behind it, And like to what Jack was saying

773
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 4: at the beginning, the thing that we're all you know,

774
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,240
Speaker 4: seems to be the most popular sentiment when talking about.

775
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 2: Like how do we you know, how are we to

776
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,439
Speaker 2: combat the carbon emissions? Like we'll just swap out gas

777
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 2: burning cars for evs. And that makes sense for people

778
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 2: who are running these industries because it's just essentially saying like, hey,

779
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 2: buy this new thing.

780
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 1: This is the answer.

781
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 4: You give a shit about the earth, This is the

782
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 4: big thing that you can do to help buy them.

783
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 1: Your way out of the problem.

784
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, buy this thing.

785
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:21,759
Speaker 4: And it comes at a time when many analysts and

786
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 4: experts alike are saying just switching engine types or combustion

787
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 4: types is not the like the end all be all.

788
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:32,399
Speaker 4: We also need to plan our cities better. We need

789
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 4: to make public transportation more effective. We need to create

790
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:38,880
Speaker 4: infrastructure for things like bicycles and so people don't necessarily

791
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 4: have to rely on vehicles. That's one sort of column

792
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:45,439
Speaker 4: of this. Then there's the energy generation part, where talked

793
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:47,439
Speaker 4: in the past about how the fact that the United

794
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 4: States electrical grid is one of the reasons why we

795
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 4: can't get a lot of cleaner sources of energy sort

796
00:43:53,080 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 4: of distributed or transmitted to more people. But then and

797
00:43:56,880 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 4: there are municipalities that are beginning to engage with these ideas,

798
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 4: but it still feels like the main theme around the

799
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 4: world is still evs and efficiency just sort of isn't

800
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:09,960
Speaker 4: as profitable then creating a new product for everyone to buy.

801
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 4: So we're just caught like in this thing, Like to

802
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 4: Jack's point, even like it feels like we're sort of

803
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 4: stuck where if okay that if we're burning dinosaur farts

804
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 4: to move our cars around, then the other side of

805
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 4: it is the human suffering on all of these technological

806
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 4: goods that are supposedly going to help us out of it.

807
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:34,280
Speaker 4: And I don't know, I'm I that was that overly cynical,

808
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,799
Speaker 4: But it does feel like just kind of where sort

809
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 4: of the discourse is taking us is like what's the

810
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 4: new thing to buy, rather than like a more holistic

811
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 4: response to this that isn't just sort of emphasizing like, well,

812
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:47,399
Speaker 4: how many evs can I sell?

813
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 2: The United States government kind of thing.

814
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:52,239
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I think the electric car is a

815
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:57,600
Speaker 5: response to smog. It's a it's a response. I think

816
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 5: you know it. This is going Bob Aaronson in the US,

817
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,879
Speaker 5: who's this kind of forgotten pioneer of the electric car

818
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 5: in the sixties and the seventies, and he was a

819
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:11,200
Speaker 5: newspaper boy, and he used to sort of cycle around

820
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 5: I think Los Angeles, not one hundred Central or I

821
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 5: need to double check, but he used to cycle around

822
00:45:18,480 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 5: the city that he lived in in California and get

823
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 5: sort of stuck behind vans and traps and things like

824
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,840
Speaker 5: that and be sort of sparted with smoke. And you know,

825
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 5: obviously California. The Clean Air Act really was pushed by

826
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 5: a lot of activists from Los Angeles in California who

827
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 5: in the sixties and seventies had kind of had it

828
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 5: with the sort of levels of toxic smog. So a

829
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 5: lot of the impetus for at least early electric cars

830
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:46,279
Speaker 5: and also electric cars in China, because you have to

831
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 5: remember that China is really the country that is pushing

832
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 5: this and has pushed electric vehicles to where they are

833
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 5: today as much as any Elon Mask or whoever else,

834
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:02,480
Speaker 5: you know, Rivian or whatever in the US. And these

835
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,919
Speaker 5: are issues of localized pollution. So if you think about

836
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:08,560
Speaker 5: if you're going back to the Indonesian example that we had,

837
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 5: you know, these big smoke stacks and these kind of

838
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 5: pristine environments, you're thinking about displacing pollution from a city

839
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 5: to a rural area, and oftentimes a area that is heavily,

840
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 5: heavily undeveloped. So I think that there's this kind of

841
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 5: interesting kind of reasoning behind the electric carn't. Now. I

842
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 5: do think that it is something that would be beneficial

843
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 5: if it was done correctly. I'm sure, I'm sure it

844
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 5: would be something that would be beneficial in the climate fight.

845
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,799
Speaker 5: But as you say, Miles, you know, there are all

846
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 5: these other issues that need to be sorted out. I mean,

847
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 5: you know, transport, there are issues of power generation and

848
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 5: construction and so on which are not going to be

849
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 5: solved with letian byan batteries alone, right, And so I

850
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:05,799
Speaker 5: think that that needs to be I think that that

851
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 5: needs to be taken into account. And yeah, I think

852
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:12,239
Speaker 5: that people who see it as a silver bullet are

853
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 5: unfortunately miss misplaced.

854
00:47:15,680 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's uh, let's take a quick break. We'll come back.

855
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 2: We'll talk about just a little bit of what what

856
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 2: cobalt mining looks on it looks like on the ground,

857
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 2: and and kind of what your overall goal is for

858
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 2: what once people know about this, what what are you

859
00:47:31,160 --> 00:47:33,000
Speaker 2: hoping the future looks like.

860
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:45,800
Speaker 1: So we'll be we'll be right back, and we're back.

861
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 2: And the world of cobalt mining is kind of a

862
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 2: strange one that does not look like anything that I

863
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 2: had really conceived of in my mind. You open your

864
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 2: New Yorker store with the story of a guy who

865
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 2: goes to dig an outhouse and finds cobalt in his backyard,

866
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:08,759
Speaker 2: and then he starts he goes into his house and

867
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 2: starts digging this like underground local mine into the floors

868
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 2: of his house and like under his neighbor's house to

869
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:22,640
Speaker 2: kind of conceal that he's struck gold. A little you know,

870
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 2: struck cobalt, but it's just this more kind of one

871
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 2: off unregulated kind of reminds you of the old timey

872
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 2: like gold rush where you use the word artisanal a

873
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 2: couple of times, where it's like just you know, one

874
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 2: person finds a chunk of this and then kind of

875
00:48:45,640 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 2: starts digging, and then there are these one off people

876
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:56,320
Speaker 2: who are unaffiliated mine workers, and it just I guess

877
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 2: it makes sense to me why this current system would

878
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 2: appeal to people who want to exploit cheap labor, because

879
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:12,319
Speaker 2: it's really the least unionized like a workforce can be.

880
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 2: It's really just these like one off actors in a

881
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:18,600
Speaker 2: lot of cases. But you just talk about what it

882
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 2: looks like on the ground, what cobalt mining looks like

883
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:21,800
Speaker 2: on the ground.

884
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that there are various different forms of

885
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:30,600
Speaker 5: cobalt mining. And when we say cobalt mining, we have

886
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:34,280
Speaker 5: to remember that cobalt is usually a byproduct of copper,

887
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:38,280
Speaker 5: and copper mining is kind of the the thing behind

888
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 5: cobalt mining, and all these mines were kind of or

889
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 5: many of these mines, if not all of these mines

890
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 5: were built by the Belgians to take copper out of

891
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 5: the ground in Congo, and some existed you know for

892
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 5: almost who are for since about four hundred a d

893
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 5: as copper mines because copper was a very important trading

894
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 5: good for the people in that area. People found copper

895
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 5: from that area all over Africa because it was used

896
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 5: to make these crosses which were used as currency. So

897
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 5: in a way, what we're talking about specifically, there are

898
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 5: two types of minds. About eighty percent eighty to ninety

899
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:22,760
Speaker 5: percent of cobalt mining has done in big industrial minds

900
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 5: these days, those industrial minds look like mines basically in

901
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 5: anywhere else in the world. There has been a report

902
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:36,879
Speaker 5: recently by a UK based NGO called raid Rights Accountability

903
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:41,399
Speaker 5: in International Development. I think that's what stands for. And

904
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,919
Speaker 5: they have talked about polluting practices that some of these

905
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 5: big industrial miners have engaged in. It hasn't been studied

906
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 5: particularly well, but basically you have to think about these

907
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 5: industrial miners as large companies which come in some of

908
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 5: them even like London Stockish Change listed companies, and some

909
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 5: of them the biggest companies in China and so on,

910
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 5: and so these are large companies that London Stock Exchange

911
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:14,720
Speaker 5: in some cases and listed companies. There's also another company

912
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:18,640
Speaker 5: called China Molly Simoc and those companies generally had hit

913
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:22,320
Speaker 5: international standards. Again, there are a lot of big Chinese companies,

914
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 5: so again we know a little bit less about those companies.

915
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 5: I was actually denied a visit to one of those

916
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:33,720
Speaker 5: Chinese owned minds, but I have been to the Chinese

917
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:38,399
Speaker 5: own mind north of a city called Lava Bashi, and

918
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:42,760
Speaker 5: you know, it's a sort of modern feeling work environment.

919
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:44,400
Speaker 5: And then you have on the other end of the

920
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 5: spectrum the artisanal mindes, which are as you say, you know,

921
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 5: people digging into their backyards, the essentially neighborhoods with big

922
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:59,239
Speaker 5: holes in the ground, and people will be digging and

923
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 5: mining at all hours of the day, apart from sometimes

924
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 5: miners don't mine on Thursdays for some reason, and they

925
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:07,960
Speaker 5: have a sort of superstition about it. And you know,

926
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 5: you'll see all kinds of people going down in very

927
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:15,799
Speaker 5: unregulated ways, people who don't even have shoes going down

928
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:19,000
Speaker 5: to mine. And that's really where the kind of worst

929
00:52:19,080 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 5: human rights abuses seem to congregate. Not to say that

930
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:26,800
Speaker 5: there aren't human rights abuses in other parts of the

931
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 5: supply chain. And then there is this huge sort of

932
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 5: gradation between the two minds. You'll have sort of semi

933
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 5: artisanal minds. And the reason I use artismal mind is

934
00:52:37,239 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 5: it's a term that's become adopted by industry to describe

935
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:45,319
Speaker 5: these small scale miners. It is not the best term,

936
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,480
Speaker 5: but it is the generally accepted term, and it is

937
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 5: the term as well used in Congo. They also use

938
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 5: the word diggers, which is clusa, which I use quite

939
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 5: a lot in the piece.

940
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's definitely takes a bit of edge, like for

941
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:05,359
Speaker 4: someone who's like, oh, it's an artisanal mind and it's like, no,

942
00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:08,440
Speaker 4: it's actually unregulated, and yeah, there's not a lot of

943
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 4: you know, structural support for the actual minds that are

944
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:12,280
Speaker 4: being dug.

945
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:14,320
Speaker 1: And it's very very scary.

946
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, just in terms of how like we've noticed a

947
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 2: like overall, the mainstream media will occasionally like pick up

948
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:28,240
Speaker 2: these stories that are overall like counter profitability, but eventually

949
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 2: we'll get the story of how, oh, like DEI or

950
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 2: like environmental investing ideals are now like a bad word

951
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 2: on Wall Street, or you know, they've they've become less

952
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:47,320
Speaker 2: popular like over time, and it just like it feels

953
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 2: like it's a little bit harder for stories that go

954
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:55,759
Speaker 2: against the grain of profitability and consumerism to get picked up.

955
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:59,719
Speaker 2: So I'm just curious, from your perspective as somebody who

956
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 2: is has been reporting on this for a while, like,

957
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:07,879
Speaker 2: how have you been happy with like the pickup from

958
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 2: the mainstream media. Have there been specific challenges and sort

959
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:15,520
Speaker 2: of what do you ultimately hope are the effects of

960
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:17,400
Speaker 2: your reporting on this story.

961
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:21,840
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean one of the people that I interviewed

962
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 5: quite early on for The New Yorker was Rick Ross,

963
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 5: And I think that's how you have to be as

964
00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 5: a journalist. Every day. I'm hustling because it's like, you know,

965
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 5: you have to just you have to be constantly pitching

966
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:39,839
Speaker 5: and going after editors and so on. It is an

967
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:43,920
Speaker 5: immensely time consuming thing on this specific topic. I was

968
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 5: really lucky to have the interest of amazing editors at

969
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 5: The New Yorker who were very supportive and also got

970
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 5: picked up as a book idea. So that was great.

971
00:54:56,360 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 5: And I've had quite a lot of interest specifically on

972
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 5: these sort of profitability you know, on this what you

973
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 5: call a counterprofitability story. Again, I don't think it's necessarily

974
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 5: a counterprofitability story. I think it's just I mean, if

975
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:20,759
Speaker 5: you think that cowboy capitalism is the only way to

976
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:27,360
Speaker 5: make a killing in these industries, than yes. But actually,

977
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 5: so many of the people at mining companies that I've

978
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 5: spoken to, and so many of the people who work

979
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:37,719
Speaker 5: at electric vehicle farms and battery firms and so on,

980
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:42,160
Speaker 5: are actually concerned about these issues and they are trying

981
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:46,600
Speaker 5: to slowly work to make them better. I think that,

982
00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:51,440
Speaker 5: like the question is due to very very large corporations

983
00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:54,240
Speaker 5: care about these things, and that's a very good question.

984
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 5: And sometimes yes, and sometimes it doesn't seem to be

985
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:03,719
Speaker 5: of particular concern, but again it is this you have

986
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:06,320
Speaker 5: to look at it within the geopolitical context as well,

987
00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:12,279
Speaker 5: like people are vying the control of these resources right

988
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:16,239
Speaker 5: between the US and China and Europe as well, don't

989
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 5: forget Europe.

990
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:20,879
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it seems like even through like the Cold War,

991
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:24,160
Speaker 4: this this place has always just sort of unfortunately been

992
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:27,439
Speaker 4: at the center of this kind of geopolitical tug of war,

993
00:56:28,120 --> 00:56:32,720
Speaker 4: where in a way, like I think just in Western media,

994
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,840
Speaker 4: there's just this thing where the exploitation, especially on the

995
00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:40,239
Speaker 4: African continent, is just seen as a norm. Yeah, And

996
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:42,839
Speaker 4: with this kind of like historical momentum of what's been

997
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:46,080
Speaker 4: happening in the DRC just over centuries. Now, it just

998
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 4: kind of it's like this one spot where like even

999
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:50,920
Speaker 4: the Pope is like, this is a I think you

1000
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:54,600
Speaker 4: called it a forgotten genocide, and it was like like

1001
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:58,080
Speaker 4: suddenly people are like, oh, what's happening there that. Yeah,

1002
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:01,320
Speaker 4: I think on some level would just the awareness around

1003
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:04,399
Speaker 4: it is obviously like the first step. But there's part

1004
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:06,680
Speaker 4: of me that's sort of just cynical about what that

1005
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 4: enthusiasm is to create something a little more equitable, because

1006
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:13,840
Speaker 4: as we've seen that those sort of values don't seem

1007
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 4: to intersect, especially with this region of the world, and

1008
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:19,680
Speaker 4: especially when it comes to things like you know, technological

1009
00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 4: supremacy that countries are vying for via these materials. So

1010
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,160
Speaker 4: it's like it feels very multi leveled, and yeah, like

1011
00:57:27,240 --> 00:57:30,320
Speaker 4: it is. It feels like something that the Biden administration

1012
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 4: only recently was like, oh, that's a ah that maybe

1013
00:57:34,880 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 4: we need to actually focus on this as well, because

1014
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 4: it seemed like this has been something that's been emphasized

1015
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:43,640
Speaker 4: at least in China and other places and to a

1016
00:57:43,720 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 4: much larger extent, and now like the Americans.

1017
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 2: Are like oh we're are we are we falling behind here?

1018
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 2: Then now this is another place for us to figure

1019
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:54,680
Speaker 2: out how we can you know, vy for some kind

1020
00:57:54,760 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 2: of supremacy or advantage, and yeah, it's at the cost

1021
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:00,160
Speaker 2: of people. So it's like, yeah, there's like this consumer level, well,

1022
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:03,360
Speaker 2: there's a geopolitical level, there's an ecological level, and it's

1023
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 2: just so multifaceted that Yeah, I think it's just it's

1024
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 2: a story that I think most people we really do

1025
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 2: have to keep in mind because they're whether or not

1026
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:15,560
Speaker 2: we like it, we are we are intersecting with just

1027
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 2: sort of this practice, obviously not directly, but something for

1028
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 2: us to keep in mind as we think about, like

1029
00:58:21,680 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 2: what are the the outcomes that we're looking for and

1030
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 2: what makes the most sense, because certainly right now, the

1031
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:31,160
Speaker 2: way things are going, it's it's it's it's not it's

1032
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 2: not the ideal. Well, Nicholas New Yorkas, thank you so

1033
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 2: much for joining us on the Daily Zeitgeist. Yeah, where

1034
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:41,480
Speaker 2: can people find you? Follow you all that good stuff?

1035
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:45,240
Speaker 5: You can follow me on Twitter at pern in Ajia

1036
00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:49,280
Speaker 5: which is p e r n e I n A

1037
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:55,120
Speaker 5: g y r E and on Instagram at a postcard

1038
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:59,080
Speaker 5: from the volcano, which is as it sounds. Those are

1039
00:58:59,080 --> 00:59:03,880
Speaker 5: two references. Sorry, I created.

1040
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 2: Them, and I of course got them, but I'm not

1041
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:08,320
Speaker 2: going to take the time to explain them to anybody.

1042
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'll just have to look them up yourself. Guys,

1043
00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:12,440
Speaker 1: come on, you should get those.

1044
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:14,120
Speaker 5: And then you can always find me on the Trump train,

1045
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 5: you know.

1046
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:20,560
Speaker 1: Cool? Yeah, nice? Nice? Yeah? What are you patriot?

1047
00:59:20,600 --> 00:59:22,240
Speaker 2: What was it a patriot livestream?

1048
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 5: Uncensored viral viral patriot?

1049
00:59:26,200 --> 00:59:28,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, viral, viru viral patriot.

1050
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:30,880
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, brother, love to hear it.

1051
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:34,600
Speaker 2: Great work on that on that front, amazing. Is there

1052
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:36,480
Speaker 2: a work of media that you've been enjoying.

1053
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, Actually, there's a really good piece by James Pogue

1054
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:46,880
Speaker 5: that was published in Granta magazine recently about Vagner mercenaries

1055
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 5: and Soecul African Republic. That's really interesting from the geostrategic

1056
00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:57,040
Speaker 5: angle in Africa. And also I've been watching with absolute

1057
00:59:57,120 --> 01:00:00,160
Speaker 5: horror at what is happening in Sudan and Duff for

1058
01:00:01,240 --> 01:00:06,920
Speaker 5: there is an ethic lensing and a potential genocidal attack

1059
01:00:07,160 --> 01:00:10,280
Speaker 5: about to happen. And a very good friend of mine

1060
01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:12,960
Speaker 5: at Human Rights Watch has been producing some very good

1061
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:18,440
Speaker 5: reports with this team there, and I have been following

1062
01:00:18,440 --> 01:00:22,440
Speaker 5: that sort of quite carefully because of course, yeah, there

1063
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:25,240
Speaker 5: are there, there are many depressing situations in the world.

1064
01:00:25,680 --> 01:00:28,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, well thanks again for joining us.

1065
01:00:28,720 --> 01:00:30,520
Speaker 5: Not to enter on a low note.

1066
01:00:30,640 --> 01:00:34,200
Speaker 4: Sorry, yeah, no, I mean appreciate, but these are part

1067
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 4: of I mean, that's the thing is to be aware

1068
01:00:36,520 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 4: in this world and that it's current state is to

1069
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:41,360
Speaker 4: have to intersect with these things. But I think, at

1070
01:00:41,440 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 4: least for me, and I think for many of the listeners,

1071
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 4: it helps to know because you can, you know, you

1072
01:00:46,600 --> 01:00:48,960
Speaker 4: can try and make decisions in the best way you

1073
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:52,960
Speaker 4: can when those opportunities arise. So yeah, otherwise, yeah, pretty

1074
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 4: much everything could be a fucking bummer for sure. You

1075
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:58,760
Speaker 4: can find me at Miles of Great on Twitter and Instagram,

1076
01:00:58,880 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 4: and Jack and I on our basketball podcast, which.

1077
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:03,600
Speaker 1: Is definitely not as much of a bummer.

1078
01:01:03,640 --> 01:01:05,960
Speaker 4: Well, depending on which NBA team you support, I'm out

1079
01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:08,640
Speaker 4: and jackot Mad Boosty, And you can also find me

1080
01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:12,280
Speaker 4: talking about frivolous reality television on four to twenty Day

1081
01:01:12,280 --> 01:01:15,160
Speaker 4: Fiance talking about ninety Day Fiance a tweet.

1082
01:01:15,200 --> 01:01:16,760
Speaker 1: I like just so much of this.

1083
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:19,280
Speaker 4: Kendrick Lamar and Drake Beef there's a picture of like

1084
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:22,600
Speaker 4: Steve Karnaki at the board on election night. You know,

1085
01:01:22,640 --> 01:01:25,440
Speaker 4: if you watch like CNBC or NBC news coverage, he's

1086
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:27,600
Speaker 4: always like at a board and it just says it's

1087
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:30,080
Speaker 4: him gesturing to like this map and says Drake has

1088
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 4: no path to two hundred and seventy. And it's just

1089
01:01:33,360 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 4: a stupid meme. And I'm hopefully I can put these

1090
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 4: memes to bed after this.

1091
01:01:39,400 --> 01:01:42,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, mostly most of my likes on

1092
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:47,960
Speaker 2: Twitter are just about that feud. Andrew Marzoni tweeted a

1093
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:51,800
Speaker 2: literary feud involving two men named Kendrick Lamar Duckworth and

1094
01:01:51,960 --> 01:01:57,600
Speaker 2: Aubrey Drake Graham is giving nineteenth century Chase Mitchell wrote,

1095
01:01:57,640 --> 01:02:00,919
Speaker 2: mostly jealous of how well Kendrick can write on a deadline.

1096
01:02:01,360 --> 01:02:05,560
Speaker 2: So yeah, roht tak a Doombi tweeted Kendrick shouldude net

1097
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:11,200
Speaker 2: and Yahoo next. So yeah, anyways, you can find me

1098
01:02:11,480 --> 01:02:13,640
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Jack Underscore Brian. You can find us

1099
01:02:13,680 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at the Daily Zeikeist

1100
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:17,880
Speaker 2: on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a

1101
01:02:17,960 --> 01:02:20,920
Speaker 2: website Daily Zeikeist dot com. Or we post our episodes

1102
01:02:21,200 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 2: and our footnotes, we're the link off to the information

1103
01:02:23,640 --> 01:02:25,680
Speaker 2: that we talked about in today's episode, as well as

1104
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:28,280
Speaker 2: a song that we think you might enjoy. Miles, what

1105
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 2: song do you think people might enjoy?

1106
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 4: Let's just vibe out on some psychedelic rock from down under.

1107
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 1: This is like you know, it's.

1108
01:02:35,920 --> 01:02:38,440
Speaker 2: An old King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard track, but

1109
01:02:38,600 --> 01:02:39,840
Speaker 2: still a banger none less.

1110
01:02:39,960 --> 01:02:40,920
Speaker 1: It's called hot Water.

1111
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:43,400
Speaker 4: If you I feel like for a lot of people

1112
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 4: who may listen to like and like CACRW kind of

1113
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:49,360
Speaker 4: morning comes Eclectic Radio, you've probably heard this song there.

1114
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:53,200
Speaker 2: But anyway, hot Water, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

1115
01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:55,560
Speaker 2: All right, we will link off to that in the footnotes.

1116
01:02:55,560 --> 01:02:57,640
Speaker 1: The Daily Zeikeis is a production of iHeartRadio.

1117
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:00,160
Speaker 2: For more podcast from my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio Wrap,

1118
01:03:00,200 --> 01:03:03,360
Speaker 2: Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. That's going

1119
01:03:03,400 --> 01:03:05,840
Speaker 2: to do it for us this morning, back this afternoon

1120
01:03:05,840 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 2: to tell you what's trending, and we'll talk to you

1121
01:03:07,720 --> 01:03:11,280
Speaker 2: all then Bye bye,