Cell phones, tantalum, and gorillas

Factual Questions
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but I didn’t want to start a new one on a previously covered subject. (this thread tells a little about coltran). Apparently, people are being killed over this also. Plus it is bad for other animals and the environment where it is being mined.

Our local paper had an editorial about this by a biology teacher from the local university, St. Cloud State. I know this man personally, and he and his wife, also a biology teacher, have been to Africa, and do not write unsubstantiated editorials. It really made me think.

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      • So, um, who cares? Let me see…
  1. The World Heritage Foundation is mad because somebody is destroying someplace they think is special. How many times has this happened?
  2. Ecoworld-dot-com thinks that mining is bad. Surprise!
  3. Refugee International are a bunch of assholes:
    “The most positive development in the war-torn DRC today is the drop in the price of coltan,” it observed.
    -Yea, those silly negroes! If they didn’t have any money, they couldn’t hurt themselves and then maybe we could take care of them. I mean what good did money ever do a country? Who needs money and food when you’ve got gorillas?
    ~
  4. Mining is generally bad for the place it is done, but even among “animal rights activists”, very few are willing to live without any of the products of industrial society. I’d bet a fair aount of money that lots of people who work at World Heritage/EcoWorld/Refugee Int’l own cellphones.
    If they don’t care why should anyone else? - MC
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We have forums for discussing the moral or ethical merits of this.

GQ ain’t one of them.