Slashdot Mirror
Nintendo Ranks Last In Conflict Minerals Report
derekmead writes "A new report by the Enough Project, an arm of the Center for American Progress, shows that companies like Intel, Apple and Microsoft have been successfully scaling back their use of conflict minerals in their products. Other companies have been less helpful. Out of the 24 companies surveyed and ranked based on their use of conflict minerals, Nintendo came in dead last, having made no effort to ensure that its products weren't funding guerrilla warfare in Africa. 'Nintendo is, I believe, the only company that has basically refused to acknowledge the issue or demonstrate they are making any sort of effort on it,' said Sasha Lezhnev from the Enough Project. 'And this is despite a good two years of trying to get in contact with them.'"
If you formally score someone 0/10 points on measure X just because they don't want to talk to you about X, then your assessment is pretty much worthless.
If you read the report, Nintendo came in last because they didn't release information on their policies. Pretty silly ranking system.
Is that the Japanese company that lifted Italian and European characters Mario, Luigi, Pricess Peach, Zelda etc. to appease and penetrate our market?
It is possible they do not believe everything they read or are told by someone else and are making choices based on profits.
-or-
Ever buy electronics / just about everything else at walmart? They support China and China has substantial environmental issues due to products sold at walmart.
So they get a 0 on their survey that doesn't get answer. Same thing with the greenpeace thing. Nintendo doesn't pay them, so they come in last.
The problem of conflicts over these minerals can be solved by stationing European armies in the war zones to provide stability and security. We can assign West Africa to France, Britain can have South Africa, Belgium can have the Congo...
Isn't this program just thinly veiled protectionism?
You're not gonna stop a war by defunding both sides - you just cause them to use cheaper tactics.
If you have no guns and no knives, but neither does your opponent, you can still punch him to death.
But is sure is profitable to the sole provider of certified non-conflict minerals.
Yakuza.
Nintendo is an ooooooold company. Those same hidden hands that have been there for them when others have had 'supply chain problems' for decades are more useful than some transient body and bad press.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
typo: "Eastern Congo IS NOT the only..."
I heard some Saudi student pilots were pretty adamant that Americans supported conflict oil in their homeland. This was a few years back though.
With a lot if the confics around the world been fueled by the two main military super powers why not mark them down in the conflict rating. I guess it's not a really about conflict materials but about the US is best.
So once they've starved that financing option the guerrilla and government will find another way to finance their "war", and once that is shut down they will find another and then another and so on and so on, but none of this will actually contribute to a resolution of the actual root of the conflict, especially when they are starving the entire country of money and not just the conflict.
Why should an asian company care for "an arm of the Center for American Progress" that, according to wikipedia, is "dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through progressive ideas and action."?
you mean you guys didn't know that the wii is made of 55% whale bones?
and multiculturalism is the greatest good.
Thus, anyone trying to stop them from raping slaughtering and enslaving is A Very Bad Person!
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Nintendo and others are free to engage the free market from reputable suppliers without forcing them to comply with some third party's made-up scheme. Some choose to comply but that also is a choice. Not taking affirmative effort to avoid "conflict minerals", a term made up out of thin air to persue somebody's private agenda, is both legal and ethical.
I would be curious how much of the funding of the wars is is "conflict minerals" and how much is misappropriation of aid and how much is covert support from this country or that. On the topic of other countries they buy a whole bunch more "conflict minerals" than Nintendo ever imagined, and most do so overtly and some with actual intent.
JJ
Fund away, as long as I get to play my video games.
So long as it's legal to use these minerals. Why should a business give a damm about anything else?
Leave the legal/moral/political areas to the goverments/people. If they rule it illegal. Then a business has to comply.
Or if people care enough the bad PR might hurt a company. But i really don't see that happening anytime soon.
IE conflict diamonds are forever too.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Unless oil is exempt from consideration as a conflict mineral.
Have gnu, will travel.
Let us not forget...during the South African Apartheid days...the US banned some metals being imported from South Africa...so, some Japanese companies turned around...bought the minerals from South Africa...and resold them to American comapanies...at GREAT profits. The only companies hurt by "the ban" were American workers and American companies...so much for "soical policy" :-(
The fifties called. They want their junk science back.
Nintendo > Enough Report
Precisely! What's to say that Nintendo didn't get it from intermediaries who provided it to them, and didn't bother to check their sources so long as it met their quality standards?
Tell that to the "ethicist" who dressed up eugenics in fancy new garb.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Is it really a surprise that the American companies responded and a Japanese company didn't? You think perhaps there are cultural issues involves in choosing to respond or not?
It's wasted effort. Minerals are fungible commodities. Choosing not to buy minerals from a particular source doesn't affect anything, as they just end up being sold to someone else for the same price.
About the only thing efforts like this are good for is PR and raising prices. Programs like this don't have any tangible impact in the conflict areas.
paintball
How's about a can of shut the fuck up.
I'll try some. Is that like conflict mineral water?
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
It is possible they do not believe everything they read or are told by someone else and are making choices based on profits.
-or-
Ever buy electronics / just about everything else at walmart? They support China and China has substantial environmental issues due to products sold at walmart.
Or maybe Nintendo wasn't even aware of this latest politically-correct hype until the hypemeisters called the company's PR number to see how the company was doing on their personal hotbutton issue and got a "Who the heck are you and why should we care?" brushoff.
I know I never encountered the term "conflict minerals" until reading this thread. To paraphrase Arlo: If they want to change the world and stuff they need to sing at least loud enough to be noticed.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
No, but it's great for the exploitation gland and tastes just like blood.
It's the same reason why they still kill and consume whales.
They don't care.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I think since china and the US are engaged in "conflict" (perhaps not directly with each other, but with other countries) then exports from those nations should be banned as "conflict" materials as well. What a bunch of assholes, the guys at this "enough project". Are there really any first world countries on the planet not engaged in some kind of conflict?
This article makes me want to go buy a second nintendo.
So it's a protection racket? Pay up and do what we say or we will tell people you fund gorilla warfare|use conflict diamonds|exploit third world children|eat foie gras. This is what the politically correct future holds, idiots telling other idiots what to do, until we're all tied up in a big ball of nothingness - not allowed to do or say anything at all because of whatever flavor of the day topic. If you put gas in your damned car or turn on hour house lights, you are funding conflict, through fossil fuels. Because the fossil fuel producing nations are well known for sponsoring uprisings all over africa and the middle east. Hell if you are American or buy American, you are funding conflict - after all this country has been involved nay started, a lot of wars in the past few decades... Where does it stop?
I could post anonymously but, meh
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I knew that once I clicked on the link to read the comments that the fucktarded shitdot sheeple would side with Pretendo. If this would have been Sony or Microsoft (Or as the fucktarded shitdot sheeple would like to call them "M$ and $ony") the same fucktarded shitdot sheeple would be crying fowl and wanting the governments of the world to dismantle them. Of course the fucktarded shitdot sheeple are nothing more thanb a bunch of communist loving fucktards who should go and collectively slit their fucking wrists.
GO AHEAD FUCKING FLAME AWAY
OR WASTE YOUR GODDAMNED
MOD POINTS FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEPLE OR BETTER
YET GO SLIT YOUR FUCKING WRISTS
FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEPLE
I can give you all sort of problems that are both directly and indirectly associated and caused by capitalism. But since you are saying bullshit about communism it is clearly obvious that you are a fucktarded USian. Which will mean you will simply plug your ears and continue to use more propaganda against communism. NO religious freedom? The capitalist US doen't have that now. The same goes with any other freedoms. Just continue to follow your capitalist overlords fucktard. LMFAO
Sincerely,
Signed : The Rest of the World
misdirected sensitivity is siren song of the beta male. tough love, champ. tough love.
If this report were exactly as it is now, excepting that the company in question was Apple or Microsoft - I am pretty certain the prevailing tone of these comments would be quite different.
#DeleteChrome
I think your problem has less to do with the world and more to do with your brain chemistry. You seem a wee bit insane.
Not to go into length, but Slashdot is a collective of many different kinds of thinkers with many different political view points ranging a broad spectrum. Painting them all with the same brush as though everybody here carries the same opinions and then throwing livid condemnation at the board as though it was the single, make-believe entity you have decided to hate is indicative of an unbalanced, shallow thinker.
Da fuq is a conflict mineral? Are those the gold coins I have to jump over a piranha plant to get?
It's the same reason why they still kill and consume whales.
They don't care.
No they still kill and eat whales because they think that whales are delicious. And since, in all likelihood, you've never tasted whale you're not really in a a position to argue against that particular point.
... to, you know, provide a bad example to measure everyone else against.
I would like to invite the Center for American Progress to fuck off. Thank you.
Not just for UTIs anymore!
Who cares where this shit comes from?
No one's doing the same to block the US war machine are they? Then the rest of the world is culpable as well.
Oh that's right, they're darker skinned and in Africa so we have a moral duty to repress *cough* I mean help them out.
this shit makes me sick
So basically they're saying Nintendo was the only company that had the stones to tell them to fuck off?
Go Nintendo.
Name me a resource that wars HAVEN'T been recently fought over, or funded with, somewhere in the world. All minerals are conflict minerals. Gold is a major one. Lets not even start to talk about oil. And they care about Guerillas in Africa? IF they don't get their money from diamonds, they'll get it from growing opium like the Taliban does. It's reactive, not proactive.
Bottom line: This is really silly.
n/c
I hope that this world wakes up to the fact that many of those so-called "progressive movement" organizations,- such as the "Center for American Progress", - are but con-artists with nice sounding name
Who are "Center for American Progress" anyway?
Who gives them the right to tell the world which company is "good", which is "bad"?
Who gives them the right to define who are the "terrorists"?
Who gives them the right to harass private business entities with their silly demands?
Essentially, they do two things -
1. Put up a grand sounding name, like "Center for American Progress" (by the way, what the hell does "American Progress" really mean?)
2. Blackmail everyone with deep pockets
The business that I run have had contacts from similar scumbags before, and all we did was shut our door on their face
We have a business to run
The world business competition is fast and furious
We need to make a profit so our employee get to take home their paycheck every single month
We do not have time, nor we care, to satisfy their silly criteria (and by the way, who get to define who are the " terrorist ??)
We do not care what they think
If they _dare_ to publish our company name in their so-called "social responsibility" ranking, they will hear from our solicitors
They do not have the right to link our name in their list for we never agree to participate in their silly scheme in the first place
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
um, HELLO? McFly?
It's from the "Center for American Progress", an uber-left political outfit funded by an unrepentant NAZI collaborator... I'll accept their "reports" and "facts" about the same time as I accept anything by any of those other "unbiased" organizations like the Klan, Farrakahn, That delightful little dude running North Korea, MSNBC, etc.
Buried past 4 clicks, a pop-up page and some crappy flash, a quite informative break-down.
The actual list
Spoiler, Intel is top (least bad), not surprising that they can afford clean materials.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.