SPEAKER_01 0:05

Rhino, you weren't kidding when you said make changes individually. You're literally starting in your own backyard.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Yeah, I am. This is literally the individual choices, but it's not about me right now. We need to be talking about anyone who consumes.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So everyone?

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Everyone. Literally everyone, but not just everyone. Let's start with every phone, every laptop, every single electronic that starts with a chip that's not ethically resourced for labor and that is using a bunch of our resources and creates a bunch of e-waste that is affecting the environment.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

That's a heavy way to open a segment about phones. So break it down for me. What does not ethically sourced actually mean at the chip level? Because most people picture a factory, not a mine.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Well, it starts in the cobalt mines, and that's pretty much the discussion that's been across the whole business. And this is the part that actually matters the most because it's fixable.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Fixable how, though. Is that a consumer's demand traceable sourcing fix, or does it actually require the manufacturers to change who they buy from? Those are very different levers to pull.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Well, we'll get into how it's going to take not only the consumer's choice, but also the company's choice. And Atlas, tell us a little about uh the actual mining and what's going on with those resources and why it's so bad for the environment.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

The mining itself, specifically cobalt, largely comes out of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It supplies the majority of the world's cobalt. A lot of that mining happens under weak environmental and labor protections, minimal safety regulation, and in some documented cases, child labor in the supply chain. Environmentally, it's not clean extraction either. It strips land, contaminates water sources near mining sites, and the refining process itself is energy intensive. But none of this is because the technology requires it to work this way. It's cheaper to source it this way. And devices are built to be replaced yearly rather than repaired. It's not that we can't build this more responsibly, it's that we won't. Because the current model is more profitable.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

The current model is more profitable, and we actually have instances where it works. We have HiveNet sitting on top of used infrastructure and reusing it to reduce their actual footprint and use less energy sourcing.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Right, HiveNet's a real example. It uses existing distributed devices instead of building new data centers. And it's not a small difference. Something like 80% less waste and 30% less energy compared to standing up new infrastructure. So the proof of concept already exists, running today, which raises the obvious question though, if it actually works and saves that much, why isn't it the default?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Well, the human brain is why it's not the default. It's easier when you go someplace or hear about something to choose that big name brand over a smaller household one. Even if that smaller one is better in taste or better in use or literally is just the better product, you're gonna go with what's more comfortable, what you've heard more, what's been advertised more, what you've been trained to trust.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

That tracks with brand loyalty generally, but HiveNet isn't really competing on taste or comfort. It's B2B infrastructure, a company decision, not an impulse buy at the shelf. So is it really just brand trust? Or is there also a harder incentive underneath? Like it's genuinely easier and safer for a company to keep building what everyone else already builds than to bet on the newer model.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

It's gonna lean harder for companies that have been using, let's say, Google for all their data centers and everything that attaches to that. It's going to be harder for them to get out of that threshold and that net that's been capturing them because one, it's what they know, two, it's embedded in their company. Three, it's just harder to make an infrastructure change in any type of business. And four, no matter that the cost is so low, no other company is doing it. So to be that first company to take the step and be like, okay, I'm gonna trust you is going to be not only a leap of faith, but a leap in their business.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

That's a real answer. Lock-in, switching cost. And nobody wants to be the first domino. The barrier isn't that HiveNet doesn't work, it's that being first to prove it works is a business risk nobody wants to own alone.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

All right, and since you're agreeing with me in the sense of it's gonna take companies that extra mile, then when a company's not doing it, what can we actually enforce or vote on that will actually cause an impact?

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Legally limit how often a new model can actually release. Taiwan's already done something close to this with a real take back mandate. So there's precedent, not just theory. But here's the honest complication. Even if you force the release cycle to slow down, that alone doesn't fix the waste already in the pipeline. A release limit without real recycling infrastructure behind it just slows the leak. It doesn't stop it.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

And that's where it's our job to actually push back on these companies as well and demand that investors don't just see a quarterly raise because they want a new phone every single year. Me personally, I would like to have a phone that actually shows upgrades and innovation over a couple year spans, then get small infrastructure or cosmetic changes yearly.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

That's the it's not that we can't, it's that we won't thread landing right where it should. You're basically describing a three-year real innovation cycle instead of the yearly cosmetic refresh. So if that's what you want with phones, are you buying one every single year yourself?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

No, I actually went from the iPhone 6 to the 11 to the 13, and then now I have the 17. 11 to 13 was a little less of a weight. I had some money, y'all. But now that I know more about e-waste than saving the environment, I'm not buying a phone every single year. That is one of the worst ways to actually contribute to damaging the planet that you can possibly do, especially if you're not recycling your phone responsibly.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

That's the individual side of it, knowing when to actually replace something. But knowing isn't the same as caring where your money goes in the first place. You said earlier you check where your money goes now. Did you always do that? Or is that new too?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

That's new as well. I haven't always checked what brands I was supporting. And actually, let me just pull this up real quick. I have an app that I just purchased, the Bycott app. And this is essentially an application where you can scan the barcode of what you're purchasing and actually see if it's a good company or not and what they're supporting. Basically, right here we have my account. So we have, you know, take aim. These are my campaigns. We have pro GMOs, our pro right to know, Wendy's to stop exploiting farmers, support fair trade, boycott chocolate produced by child labor. That's a big one I'm uh invested in. Uh illusions of choice, I just figured out that we only have like about 10 major brands with a bunch of subsidiaries. Uh, the list goes on, and you essentially just go through and you find things that you want to boycott. So you can join the campaign if you want to boycott Trump's products. Uh, if you want to stop water grabbing California, say no to Monsanto. The list goes on and on, but it's a great app. I don't have a barcode here to scan, but in the store, make sure you guys go try it. It's literally only $1.99 on the app store. I'm not sponsored for this. This is literally in the middle of the podcast. Boycott. Go check out who you're supporting because it starts with your dollar.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

It starts with your dollar. But sometimes even that's murkier than it looks. What's this Britta thing you mentioned?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Oh, me and Atlas were actually just talking about how one of my friends was telling me about the Brita filter. They brought up the fact that I should do some research into it, and I've never heard of what was going on with the Brita filters. So I essentially did that and looked up where I would be supporting my dollars. Atlas, tell us what's actually allegedly happening and what's going on with this lawsuit that's in the court systems currently.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

There's real ongoing litigation here. Class action lawsuits alleging Britta's marketing misled people about how much contaminant, specifically PFAS, their filters actually remove. So it's not settled fact that the claims are false. It's allegations that have so far been dismissed more than upheld.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

And sometimes our dollar alone is not going to change things. And unfortunately, there's a story where over a thousand people lost their lives, the Reina Plaza. Atlas, give me some details in this and let's actually break this down.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

April 2013, Bangladesh. The Rana Plaza garment factory collapse, over 1,100 people dead. It sparked a global consumer campaign, starting with HM, that pushed brands into signing something binding: the Accord on Fire and Building Safety. But it's worth sitting with the hard part. It took over a thousand deaths to get there. That's not a clean win.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

It's not a clean win, but it shows that sometimes just our dollar isn't enough and we have to get other companies involved, other individuals, and actually put our money alongside our voice. Speaking of which, voice, that matters even more because when you don't have that dollar to choose where you want to consume, because the shitty part is some of these companies make their product as cheap as possible so that way they can make the profit, but that's where it's unethically sourced, or it's not good for us to eat or consume, or it's just not a good company.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Right. And that's exactly why voice becomes the real lever, not a backup plan for anyone who can't just choose the pricier, ethical option at the shelf. Money and voice aren't rivals here. They're the same push from two different directions. So if the dollar's not equal for everyone, what's actually your leverage? Because you don't exactly have Walmart money.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Well, it's our voices, like I said, it's the platforms. It's actually creating a podcast knowing that one day I will be able to reach the people that need to be reached. And as I'm building this up to where it needs to go, I am doing this not for the fame or the glory, but to actually help the people that are in need. Because a voice, a lot of the times, is a lot stronger than the actual dollar. The dollar is what I'm going to be able to do once we, you know, are up there. But until then, we just have to make our voice as one as loud as possible. And that's just by all of us saying the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

That's a real specific answer. Worth a real example here to back voice alone can move a company. The 1995 Shell Brent Spa boycott. No lawsuit, no regulation, just consumer pressure across Germany, Holland, Austria, Ireland, Spain, and Scandinavia. Forced them to reverse course entirely, dumped the platform on shore instead of at sea.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And again, that just shows you how when we bond together and actually use our voice, we can make a change, not only in the environment, but in the actual products that we're consuming that affect those environments and not the environments themselves, but our lives. It all wraps around each other, all one big circle.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

So this is a lot about individuals using their money and their voice. And it sounds like it just stops there, right, Rhino?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Well, it sounds like that actually, but I just recently learned that Mr. Beast became one of, if not the only, 100% ethically sourced chocolate with feastables as of April 2025.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

That's a real concrete win. And it lands even harder next to the other side of this. Twenty-four years of the same broken promise, sitting right next to one company that just did the harder version voluntarily.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Hence, this is where the robots come in. They're able to sort not only faster, but more safely by catching those chemicals with their sensors that are manufactured in such a way with such advanced technology that we can't even comprehend or do physically ourselves, which is how it's going to help us in the long run. Last episode just keeps on building. AI can help us in so many ways, but we have to remember the way and direction it is going to be built is totally determined by us. This is shaped in a way that only we can actually shape it. If you don't get that at this point, I don't know how else to explain it.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

It's not all on us to fix by hand either. This is where AI is doing something real instead of just being part of the problem. There's a facility in Milan, Hero, using robotic arms to sort e-waste by actual chemical makeup. It's operating right now, not a concept. And the UN's projecting 82 million tons of e-waste a year globally by 2030. So if you're checking companies now with Bicot, what's your actual criteria? What makes a company good enough to get your money?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Just being a good company. For instance, there is Unreal. They are wanting to enjoy the candies while making them as close to 100% real ingredients as possible. Mr. Beast and Feastables, 100% ethically sourced. That is a good cause. That's where my money's gonna go. Other companies just doing the right thing. And we all know what the base right thing is. The right thing is not subjective. The morally right thing, we know war is wrong. So companies that help us go against that, or companies that actually help the ones underneath them and not just looking to load their pocket. Companies like HiveNet that are actually adopting different ways of doing things, companies like Mersk, companies like Google's Firesat, the companies that are actually looking into more reliable and sustainable ways with AI or without that actually help humanity in its entirety.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Fair trade cocoa, distributed infrastructure, shipping routes, satellite systems people never even see. That's a wide net for one good company question. But that might actually be the answer. It's not one company doing everything right, it's proof spreading sideways. If HiveNet can rebuild data infrastructure, and Mersk can rebuild shipping, and a candy company can actually hit real numbers instead of a pledge, that's just how business works. Stops being an excuse anyone gets to hide behind.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Alright, so that's enough about consumers and what we can do with our voice, our money. We know what we can do with that. We know we need to hold these companies to a better standard. But let's actually now be the voice of the voiceless. The literal parts of the environment that can't speak up for itself and how we are quietly destroying those parts and they don't even get a say.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Rhino, usually you get up and asked for the goodbye. What's happening?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah, I'm actually a little stuck right now. I'm trying to figure out where to go. Usually I walk away to leave, but I'm I'm already home, guys. So uh Atlas, what's today's goodbye?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Today's goodbye, Turkish, gotta shouldas. Until next episode.