The mental gymnastics people go through to prove that what THEY like is perfectly okay but anything past THAT line is bad is astounding. The idea that the gaming industry isn't part of the industrial sector is equally as wild.
Like other consumer electronics, game console components are sourced via complex global supply chains that rely upon the mining of critical elements (including metals and rare-earth elements) and the production of new plastics, with parts assembled via highly specialized manufacturing processes — linking the gaming industry to oversized carbon emissions and the devastating environmental and socioeconomic impacts of mining and petroleum extraction.
A new console’s ingredient list is stunningly long. It includes gold, copper, lead, nickel, zinc, lithium, cobalt and cadmium — the mining and purification of which are associated with huge energy and water usage, as well as environmental harm. Extracting and processing ores often releases large quantities of hazardous chemicals, such as arsenic or mercury, into surrounding communities and ecosystems. Also, much mining is done in tropical developing nations, where poorly regulated extraction and processing cause deforestation and pollution. -- https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/playing-dangerously-the-environmental-impact-of-video-gaming-consoles/
Mining is extremely damaging to the environment. From extraction to production, the process pumps out billions of kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air. The manufacturing of the Sony Playstation 4, for example, has produced 8.9 billion kg of CO2 since its release in 2015. -- https://earth.org/sustainability-and-the-video-gaming-industry/
The Green Gaming Project estimated that 5% of residential electricity use in California is consumed by gaming, including play on consoles, desktop computers and mobile phones. Of those three, “gaming consoles were the largest energy users,” said Norman Bourassa, principal scientific engineering associate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, where the project was conducted.
“That’s an alarming number,” he said, because it puts game consoles “in the realm of the highest energy users, like refrigerators.” -- https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/playing-dangerously-the-environmental-impact-of-video-gaming-consoles/
Don't tell me how pure and awesome you are to be fighting AI when you turn a blind eye to strip mining if it's for the sake of something YOU like. Don't tell me you care about jobs when you don't give a damn about jobs that are lost in other sectors.
I get it, though. You're going to keep saying "but it's not as bad as this OTHER THING," and that's fine. Just stop with the "moral high ground" bullshit. Your "moral high ground" is a lot less elevated than you like to pretend.
