Quote of the Day: On slacktivists' shortsightedness

"In fact, the computer or smart phone in your hand, which has so profoundly shaped the world view of your contemporaries, would not exist without the very systems you hope come crashing to a halt so that you can presume to 'fix' them. …
"[D]o you even know what’s in an iPhone...? Five metals that have to be mined in places like Chile, Peru, South Africa, [the Congo] and Australia; eight rare earth minerals, nearly all of which are mined in China; human labour performed in conditions of varying degrees of decency and depravity around the world; global shipping protected by international navies; stevedore and trucking and other labour regulated by various local unions or other systems of commerce; and a staggering array of international trade agreements and treaties, all so you can have a device on which you may tweet that you hope we have a 'total system collapse.' Really?"
~ David Newhoff, from his ‘Open Response to [Pirate Bay's] Peter Sunde’