Many of the conflict minerals required to produce modern computers, as I understand it, are not currently possible to source ethically. Is this purely about abusive labor practices or are there cultural issues which make the extraction itself the problem? Are there alternatives which could be more “sustainable”, but would make computers slower?
I worry that the idea of “we establish communism and then the exploitation stops” may ignore various microeconomic issues or make invalid assumptions about the cultures of the people who would still be doing that extraction.
And if you don’t give a shit about cell phones or the internet or whatever, what about things like MRI machines? Those supply chains are inherently global. The materials for them do not exist in any single region.
if the places sourcing materials decide its too much of an ecological cost recycling/redustribution would make up the difference. we dismantle all the crypto infrastructure and we could probably give everyone a PC.
and theres biblical amounts of electronic/mineral waste in the imperial core, gotta dig it up and repurpose it if they want more computers
