Joe Rogan Experience: Congo Mining and the History of Slavery

Main topic: The human cost of modern technology

Joe Rogan speaks with author and journalist Siddharth Kara about the labor and environmental harms behind the minerals used in phones, electric vehicles, and AI infrastructure.

• Cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, tin, and tantalum are mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere.
• Kara says the supply chain is linked to child labor, forced labor, militia-controlled mines, violence, and severe pollution.
• His research estimates that, on a typical day, at least 300,000 people dig for cobalt in the Congolese copper belt; about 37% work in conditions he characterizes as slavery, and nearly 10% are children.
• Satellite imagery and water testing described in Kara’s report Blood Batteries show extensive damage to forests and waterways. In one mining region, tested water contained heavy metals at up to 950 times the WHO’s recommended limits.

Why the harm continues

• The Congo has valuable mineral deposits but remains extremely poor, a pattern Kara describes as the resource curse.
• Mining displaces communities and can leave workers with few alternatives to dangerous informal mining.
• Kara argues that companies and consumers benefit from minerals while the people and environments at the source bear much of the cost.
• He says mining impacts could be reduced through stronger protections, containment of toxic waste, worker safety measures, and environmental restoration—but that these standards are often not enforced in the Congo.

What consumers and companies can do

• Keep phones and tablets longer instead of upgrading unnecessarily.
• Recycle minerals where possible, while recognizing that recycling alone cannot undo past damage.
• Kara argues that technology and EV companies should improve conditions throughout their supply chains and help repair environmental and social harm, not simply leave when a resource is no longer needed.
• Rogan and Kara discuss the environmental trade-offs of electric vehicles, including brake-wear particles, while emphasizing that no technology is impact-free.

Kara’s book: The Zorg

The conversation also explores Kara’s book about an 18th-century Dutch slave ship and the events that helped inspire the first organized movement to abolish slavery.

• The Atlantic slave trade grew into a global economy driven in large part by sugar production.
• Africans were captured, marched to coastal forts, confined in dungeons, and transported across the Atlantic in overcrowded, brutal conditions.
• The ship Zorg became central to a legal dispute after its crew threw enslaved people overboard during a voyage. The resulting trial exposed the violence of the slave trade to a wider public.
• Kara describes how abolitionists used testimony, investigation, public campaigning, and moral appeals to build a movement.
• He connects this history to modern forced labor, arguing that slavery’s formal abolition did not end exploitation.

A broader conversation about moral responsibility

• Rogan and Kara discuss how people can rationalize treating others as less than human, whether in slavery, colonialism, or today’s supply chains.
• They consider poverty, infrastructure, energy access, conflict, reparations, and the challenge of distributing natural-resource wealth fairly.
• They also discuss whether AI could help manage resources and reduce conflict, while acknowledging the risks of handing power to systems humans may not be able to control.
• Kara’s central message is that greater awareness should lead to compassion, accountability, and practical efforts to improve people’s lives.

Key takeaway

Modern technology depends on materials whose extraction can carry serious human and environmental costs. Kara urges consumers to use devices longer, companies to take responsibility for their supply chains, and society to address the damage already done.