Siddharth Kara

Kara reported that water around villages near Kolwezi tested hyperacidic, in the threes and fours on the pH scale.

“The rivers and streams and well water around the villages came back in the fours and threes. which is called hyperacidic. It's deadly”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 2:18:16

Kara said companies cannot simply walk away once recycling replaces mined cobalt, because they have a moral obligation to repair the damage done.

“You created a catastrophe, a human rights and environmental catastrophe. And there's some moral obligation to repair the damage you've done”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 2:16:44

Kara said Chinese companies operating in Africa apply no meaningful human rights standards.

“there's nothing by way of human rights standards when you're talking about Chinese companies operating in Africa”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 28:25

Kara said switching away from cobalt to lithium-based chemistries would not help, since a major lithium deposit in Congo has equally horrific conditions.

“One of the biggest lithium deposits now is in the Congo. And it just started shipping under this Chinese mining company in June of this year”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 17:45

Kara recommended that consumers stop upgrading phones and tablets annually to reduce demand-side pressure.

“do you have to upgrade the phone and the tablet every year just because the tech company tells you to?”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 12:11

Kara argued that Western consumers accept environmental destruction abroad that they would never tolerate at home.

“That's the story, that we're okay destroying them and their world, so long as ours remains sacrosanct”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 6:12

Kara argued that tech companies could improve supply-chain conditions at trivial cost relative to their balance sheets.

“There's literally nothing stopping them from allocating a de minimis amount of resources relative to their balance sheets and a handful of headcount to going down to the bottom of their supply chains and doing things better”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 2:13:19

Kara said Britain compensated slave owners with a sum equal to 40% of the national budget, financed by a loan taxpayers repaid until 2015.

“the government took out a loan for that quantum. And the British taxpayer was repaying that loan up until 2015”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 1:43:43

Kara said the reparations question is complicated and he holds no firm opinion, but concluded that something is owed to descendants of enslaved people.

“it's trillions and trillions and it's an impossible sum. But something is owed”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 1:38:58

Kara said he identified the previously anonymous letter-writer who exposed the Zorg massacre as the abolitionist James Ramsey.

“And I managed to figure out who it was. And he's an abolitionist named James Ramsey, a man of deep faith”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 1:29:04

Kara said modern marine insurance, including Lloyd's of London, grew directly out of the slave trade.

“So every slave ship that crossed the Atlantic was insured. Insurance was born out of the slave trade”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 1:15:59

Kara stated that on the eve of the American Revolution, Jamaica's sugar exports were worth five times all exports of the thirteen colonies combined.

“the value of those sugar exports from Jamaica was five times the combined value of all 13 exports of everything from all 13 colonies”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 57:08

Kara noted that the hymn 'Amazing Grace' was written by John Newton, a former slave ship captain from Liverpool.

“So Amazing Grace is written by a slave trader”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 40:55

Kara called the Zorg the most consequential of the more than 40,000 slave ship voyages across the Atlantic.

“the Zorg is the most consequential slave ship that ever crossed the Atlantic”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 36:50

Kara relayed unverified accounts that Chinese mining companies have been shipping Congolese uranium home alongside copper and cobalt, explaining China's nuclear buildup.

“every one of these Chinese state-run mining companies in the same tractor trailer that's got the copper and the cobalt and the nickel, they've got uranium on it too”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 26:09

Kara estimated that at least 300,000 people, including roughly 30,000 children, dig cobalt by hand in Congo on any given day.

“And on any given day, there are at least 300,000 people, men, women, and children, digging for cobalt with their bare hands and pickaxes and shovels”

The Joe Rogan Experience: #2556 - Siddharth Kara (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 12:29