
Native people are left poor as tech world takes lithium from under their feet - stablemap
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/tossed-aside-in-the-lithium-rush/
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apsec112
The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics strikes again.

"The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or
interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very
least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem
worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem
falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a
problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster."
[https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-
eth...](https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/)

I'm sure the newspapers, though, are totally fair, neutral observers who have
no reason at all to have grudges against tech companies:
[https://www.baekdal.com/blog/what-killed-the-newspapers-
goog...](https://www.baekdal.com/blog/what-killed-the-newspapers-google-or-
facebook-or/)

~~~
notahacker
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest a journalist's opinion that the jobs
and small financial inducements offered might not be adequate compensation for
local residents has more to do with the fact that lithium mining tends to
pollute the local environment and causes water shortages than the assumption
that newspapers are biased against hardware companies (whose products they all
use) because Google hurts their ad revenue.

The "Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics" becomes relevant if one is convinced
that mining companies are totally honest, reasonable negotiators who's primary
concern is solving the local communities' problems and not extracting maximum
resource at minimum cost. Personally, I don't believe that. YMMV.

~~~
apsec112
"primary concern is solving the local communities' problems and not extracting
maximum resource at minimum cost"

That's a clear false dichotomy: either people have no self-interest, or else
they must be the bad guys. But almost everyone in any market operates
primarily from self-interest. If a company that was losing money offered you
your current job at twice the salary, would you say no, because you placed
their interests above your own? Of course not. If you didn't take it, it would
most likely be because you worried the company would go broke and lay you off,
a clearly self-interested motivation. And the communities here - if someone
offered them far more than the lithium was worth, would they turn that down? I
really don't think they would. So either being mainly motivated by self-
interest doesn't make someone bad, or else almost anyone who buys or sells
anything is bad.

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
I think a more appropriate example scenario would be something like this: You
are driving through the desert with a truck full of food and water. You come
upon an old couple whose car has broken down, hundreds of miles from the
nearest town. They beg you for help, offering anything for some water. As a
shrewd negotiator, you assess the current market situation and offer a gallon
of water in exchange for the woman's diamond earrings and the man's gold ring.
This is a win/win scenario! They get to stay alive a little longer, and you
get a great deal on some jewelry. No coercion needed, and since both sides
entered into the deal voluntarily who can complain! As you drive off, you
smile to yourself at the thought of how wonderful it was that everyone acted
in their own self interest and managed to improve their situation.

~~~
tyree731
That analogy isn't quite right. It would be more apt if the couple instead of
having diamonds and gold had, well, lithium. What is that couple going to do
with lithium? For that couple, that lithium is effectively worthless, even
factoring in if circumstances were better, but the food and water is
priceless. Both sides do legitimately benefit from that transaction, even if
one side is legitimately upset about how much more the other benefits from the
arrangement.

It's reasonable to desire that resources extracted from a country or region
should benefit the people of that country or region more than the companies
extracting those resources. The problem is that that is a classic tragedy of
the commons, making it unreasonable to expect or hope that that sort of
problem gets solved on an individual basis. Yes, let's hold mining companies
to task for not further helping impoverished communities near mines, but let's
not mistake that it is the government of Argentina that allowed this to occur
to begin with.

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sharemywin
Just looked up typical mining royalties and found this:

The CMR royalty is based on a company’s annual profits from mining. It is
typical of Canadian mineral royalties, which are mainly profit based, and all
of which have some specific peculiarities, often related to embedded
incentives. In the case of the CMR, its main characteristics are:

̇ a stepped ladder of royalty rate –

̇ no royalty on the first $10,000 of annual profits;

̇ 5% of annual net profit between $10,000 and $5 million;

̇ escalating in 1% increments per $5 million of net profit, to maximum 14%
(for net profit above $45 million);

̇ subject to an overall maximum rate on all net profit of 13% (for profit
above $220 million);

~~~
Avshalom
Ah yes percent of net profits, "monkey points".

~~~
sharemywin
still a lot better than the 3% mentioned in the article.

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noam87
> Exar plans to start constructing a $400 million lithium-brine plant here
> next year. Eventually reaching [...] about $250 million annually, at today’s
> prices.

> By the time the plant is running, Exar will have paid about $250,000 to the
> indigenous groups. And after that, the six communities would share a total
> of about $178,000 each year.

> Many indigenous residents were unaware of the contracts, learning about them
> from Post reporters who were able to review the documents at the provincial
> mining office.

How much of the problem boils down to education and information asymmetry? --
(e.g fracking here in NA.) -- Terrible contracts signed by small under-
educated communities who only later find out they're getting screwed.

I wonder are there organizations that help small communities understand their
own bargaining power and long-term impact when structuring such deals?

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sjwright
According to the numbers in the article, the lithium in one Tesla equals about
17,000 smartphones. I mean it's pretty obvious when you think about it, but I
hadn't stopped to think about it until now.

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kahrkunne
Well, you know, they do _choose_ to sell those land rights that cheap...

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exstudent2
Subtitle: "Indigenous people are left poor as tech world takes lithium from
under their feet"

The article then goes on to say that the companies aren't "taking" anything.
They've signed contracts with the government and tribes to rightfully mine
lithium. Sure some people want a larger cut of the pie but the companies
aren't doing anything unethical and the article is clearly biased from the get
go.

~~~
Avshalom
contracts make things legal, not ethical.

~~~
mixedCase
By this line of thought, every transaction where an entity gets a better deal
than than the other is unethical.

~~~
ashark
I can't be the only person (red state-raised American, even!) to have had
serious difficulty reconciling _Business, as She is Practiced_ —including
exactly what you mention—with the basic ideas of fairness and justice we're
all immersed in from birth. The whole thing, top to bottom, makes me feel
pretty icky, and it's only that everyone else acts like it's OK that keeps me
operating in ordinary society (which is, I'm pretty sure, a substantial moral
failing on my part)

