I read an article last night on Yahoo.com written by Ben Silverman and it really disturbed me. While we sit in front of our televisions being entertained by FPS shooters and RPG’s, people are dying in the Democratic Republic of Congo because of it. Look I’m as much an avid gamer as the next person, but do we really know what goes on behind the scenes to get these products to our homes? Personally, I find this very saddening and disturbing.

I understand that as technology advances there becomes an increasing need for rare metals, in this case it was Coltan, which was instrumental in the development of the Playstation 2 console, but was it worth causing a war over? I highly doubt that Sony can fully be to blame in this debacle as most wars of this nature usually are spurred long in advance, but need one slight shove to take it to the brink. Its very sad though considering that the death of children was involved. Please check out the article at this link http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/playstation-2-component-incites-african-war/1231745 and I would love some feedback and comments on this issue.

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1. Derren Says:
   July 25th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

   This is an example of how twisted the understanding of basic economics has become.

   If a corporation in the U.S. wished to purchase elephant dung to be made into a special plant fertilizer, and that dung was essentially free for the picking up, would that not be a great way for trade to enhance the living conditions of a group of native Africans ?

   So when the local warlords, in conspiracy with the local government, forces children to pick up elephant dung and give it to them, the U.S. is somehow complicit in child slave labor ?

   We have been criticized for not engaging Africa in trade and thereby helping those countries. The market for metals is a free international market through which any country is free to trade.

   So now that a few corporations wish to engage in this market we are killing children and forcing slave labor ?

   One would be better focusing on the corrupt African governments and warlords.