how about the history of imperialism where some countries came in, exploited the local population and their natural resources, and reaped the benefits of historical, compounding wealth?
how about the history of how those wealthy countries then turned around and squashed democratic uprisings in order to install oppressive, right-wing regimes that were more friendly to their interests?
how about the history of trade sanctions which further cripple countries which are already disempowered and exploited?
these social darwinist explanations always seem to miss the simple facts of history
So Cuba must very rich having sent its armies and advisors throughout the world fomenting revolution, overthrowing governments and installing puppet governments.
My point is imperialism is a distraction. The Koreas, Taiwan even Singapore were under Japanese imperial rule and were destitute countries —one of them isn’t even officially recognized as such, yet have prospered. And the Koreas provide a “twins study”. SKorea even went through military rule (arguably Taiwan too) yet they’ve prospered.
The imperialism that has transpired in Latin America and Africa is different from that in Asia, so the consequences have been different. Some areas of difference include: the degree of plunder and destruction; how the occupying country treats the colonies; the degree of future exclusion in global trade; which dominant powers it finds among its allies.
If we don't consider a country's history of being exploited and oppressed, then we are in danger of creating an ignorant and bigoted explanation for the differences in outcomes.
Japan colonized areas of northeast Asia and Southeast Asia pretty brutally over the course of 50 years or so. In addition they forced some of the population to learn Japanese. It wasn’t a kid gloves colonization.
For that matter the US was a colony of the British Empire and yet came to do well. Russia had suitors attempt colonization a few times but as history tells us that failed, they have vast resources, they have had some great minds yet have come up short. I think imperialism is a distraction. From your POV Korea should be dump. It was colonized by Japan and later had US approved military dictators -a big no no in your books. But see where they are today.
Disparities in wealth in Latin America and Africa can be traced directly to their history of exploitation and colonization. That there are other countries that have had brutal occupations and have prospered more is irrelevant to this fact. Myriad historical factors, including the other ones that I cited in my comment (such as treatment in global trade, ongoing exploitation, allyships with dominant powers, etc), still distinguish these countries and their histories. There is no checklist approach to history, the details matter and when you look at the history of impoverished areas in Latin America and Africa, it is plain to see the connection to their present circumstances.
Vestiges of feudalism is a big factor in all those examples, including Russia and Ukraine. China was very feudal too, till the republic --and then became a satellite to Japan and back to a Communist feudal system and back out. Chile, Uruguay not so feudal.
Systems that retained vestiges of feudalism and were late to adopt industrialization suffer. But things can turn around quickly, if the countries pursue a strategy that works for them.
Myanmar/Burma is one such place. They could quickly industrialize or they could waste their opportunity --it's up to them. We'll see.
South Africa has the single worst inequality in the world [0], and up until very recently there was apartheid ruled by the descendents of dutch colonizers. This still fits the pattern of imperialists coming in, and enriching themselves at the expense of local populations. It's just that in this case the occupying population hung around permanently. But they're still hoarding the wealth.
The cape was literally a restocking hub for the global trade hegemon (Dutch) and later served similar purposes for the following hegemon (British). Of course it had higher rates of capital accumulation. This was seen even into the 60s
> Is everyone insane or is there something I'm missing.
in a sense, much of the world is insane because they pursue narcissistic types of social status.
but I also do think this is just fun - putting aside the idea of getting a cameo as a status symbol, it's just fun to get a message from some public figure whose work you admire.
Status symbol? Maybe for highschoolers, but if someone showed me this IRL, as an adult, and actually paid real money for such platitudes I would question their maturity level. What an exploitative model.
It's nowhere near thousands. It's usually like a hundred bucks. E.g. I've had friends do one from Chris Hansen as a joke for a large age-gap couple in our group, for the cost of $50.
It's an interesting idea. Do you have reason to believe that people's preferences in different areas are correlated? Not saying they're definitely not, but that's my first skeptical thought.
I think some areas will be correlated and some will not. e.g. I see plenty of overlap between articles, podcasts and books, but less overlap between those things and music.
I'm pretty curious to see what the correlation ends up being.
Id be surprised if you get much signal out of demographic info.. but I would think music correlates more with general aesthetic taste which may transfer.
this article was terribly written. totally meandering, unorganized, rambling. I was desperately curious to understand it but it barely explained anything and went around in circles, with gratuitous jokes that just served to further delay the info.
The author successfully turned the Maillard reaction into a buzzword: long article without a clear explanation into what it does,saying the same thing over and over. This was a waste of time.
thanks, that was interesting. i'm still curious about why maillard reacted food is more nutritious/bioavailable, that article didn't seem to address that. the OP may have but i got exhausted scrolling
Look, I am all for self-care and not overexposing yourself to terrible news all day every day. But to act like negative news is making us think the world is worse than it is is just sheltered.
The reality is the world has a lot of terrible things happening all day every day and humanity is basically not doing anything to stop it as of now. Here are a few:
(1) in the US, a lot of people don't get enough healthcare because they can't afford it, and just go bankrupt when they get cancer
(2) black people are still terrorized and murdered by police, who largely get off scot-free
(3) the US and its business partners perpetrate crimes against humanity in the middle east on a regular basis
(4) the daily gruesome reality of poverty in the US
(5) We continue our slow but sure march towards climate apocalypse which will largely affect the most vulnerable among us.
This idea that "the standard of living" is higher... well sure, if you have a certain amount of money. But many people don't get healthcare, don't have any leisure time, don't have money to travel. And yeah, there's peace here, but what about in Yemen? What about in Honduras? Iraq? Afghanistan? So what, because we have iPhones we're supposed to think everything's amazing?
But here's my problem with that... what am I supposed to do to help? With any of that?
It seems to me like I've got two options:
A) Filter/slow my news consumption to just the stories that are relevant to me plus the big huge actual breaking news stories and miss out on all the bummer stories about how bad it is in Yemen
or
B) Keep reading the news unfiltered and worrying about people in Yemen that I can't help and then switch to worrying about people in Honduras that I can't help then worrying about wildfires in California that I can't help and then worry about everything else until eventually I get so upset by the state of the world and how helpless I am that I fall into deep depression and end up harming myself or losing the will to live altogether.
Flipping your comment around, I'm all for being well-informed and reading the news, but what am I supposed to do about it? I vote. I pay taxes. I donate to local charities. Yeah the situation in Yemen is bad but what good does reading a news story do? Is my reading of how bad Yemen is going to help the people in Yemen? Is my inevitable mental health decline going to make their lives better?
What can I do with that information besides say "yeah Yemen is pretty bad isn't it"?
that's why I say self-care is important. there's no point in torturing yourself over everything. we have to vary how much responsibility we want to take based on how hopelessly things feel outside our control. but deluding yourself into thinking the world isn't bad is just putting your head in the sand. yeah, it sucks, but we're all in this together. By being aware, if the opportunity arises to do something about it (e.g. by lobbying a presidential candidate, or a president), then you will be able to. If you don't know about it, you can't do anything even if some opportunity arises.
I personally strongly disagree (the world is bad but it's far better now than it ever had been) but I understand your point of view and I'm okay with it. Different people have different world views and different lenses they see the world through, so everyone has different tolerances. Personally I can't watch hours of bad things back to back without feeling bad, and if I see heartwrenching stories of war-torn Afghani families I'm going to be an emotional wreck for the rest of the day. It legitimately has a negative impact on my day-to-day life. I also have an addictive personality so one thing leads to another.
Some people can drink socially. Some people can function in their daily life as alcoholics. Some people find out they can't be around alcohol at all without relapsing to destructive alcoholism. It's the same for any addictive substance, and "news" definitely is addictive.
But, on each of this metrics (minus climate change), the US is better off today than it was 50 years ago.
The world conflicts that you cite involve fewer civilian casualties, today, than before. There are obviously horrible things going on in the world, but the mindset that people are generally worse off today is largely shaped by the media and false.
Don't take my word for it. Go plot violent crime rates worldwide. Or poverty rates, or quality of life, or starvation rates. Or access to medical care (you think it's expensive today, those treatments weren't even available 50 years ago!). None of those things are trending in the wrong direction. Except maybe the US cost of medical care, that stuff is mind boggling.
Given that no spot in the value chain is particularly profitable (drug companies, hospitals, doctors, nurses, insurance companies), I am more inclined to believe there are structural issues rather than greed.
The police only kills about 1000 people per year in the USA, and some of those kills are justified. Including it in the same list as global warming is IMO an example of 'Availability bias means that after we see negativity, we overestimate its significance' mentioned in the article.
You're downplaying the damage those murders do black communities. And for every black person murdered, 1,000 more are terrorized with less than lethal force.
> But to act like negative news is making us think the world is worse than it is is just sheltered.
I disagree, I think that's exactly what negative news does.
Your 5 terrible things actually underscore another point, often the negative news makes us also feel helpless.
We can all vote; some of us have free time to volunteer; some of us have spare cash we can donate.
I'm not sure what I am supposed to do though on a day-to-day basis as the horrible news keeps coming.
Anecdote: I cut the wire (nixed cable TV) over 20 years ago when I started a family.
What a shock it was then when on road trips our family would find ourselves in a Best Western breakfast room with cable news showing explosions, people being set on fire by Isis, planes crashing, dead children washing ashore. I would have a momentary panic attack thinking that, just as we headed out for vacation, the world decided to come crashing down.
I learned to calm down, remind myself that, at any given time there is always something horrible happening on Earth and that the news is going to make sure you know about it.
I'm informed. I vote. But I also want to have a waffle from time to time without my hands shaking with fear.
that's why I say self-care is important. we can't take too much individual responsibility for the world's issues. and if we don't let ourselves enjoy life when we can, then there's no point in even saving this world. but that's different from saying "the world is actually better than we think it is." the world is actually terrible. but we can still carve out some joy for ourselves when we can without deluding ourselves.
> But to act like negative news is making us think the world is worse than it is is just sheltered.
You can't falsify "negative news is making us think the world is worse than it is" by giving a list of bad things happening (which are all true, not disputing that).
it's inherently a subjective question, based on what you value. if you value access to technology, then you'll think things are better than ever. if you enjoy arguments based on "average" and "median" then you might find some data to support an optimistic worldview. but if you look at the lot in life of those who suffer most, you will find a different story. if you value access to healthcare, access to leisure time, access to peace, you will find a different story. everyone has to make their own judgment of the world but in my opinion the articles tone is inappropriately optimistic
the choice of metric that defines "how the world is" is where the subjectiveness lies, as my comment explains. the article was generally about "how bad the world is." if you find some result specifically about people's estimates of specific metrics, e.g. child mortality, poverty, etc, then we can have the discussion you're trying to have.
Worse yet, what many consider a standard of living increase such as air travel, cheap energy, and an abundance of material goods shipped from all over the planet are actually contributing to the climate crisis.
I hate to use the word "privileged" because it is so loaded but I do think that this shows privileged thinking. "The world is great!" yeah because you have enough money/power to go about your life comfortably, and you're ignoring the plight of those that don't. "You only think the world is bad because of these cognitive biases".... lord take me now
> The conduct of the Iraq War, for example, was substantially a result of a popular American myth/narrative about how other cultures are, deep down, like us, and democracy is the equilibrium every society gravitates towards.
can you please elaborate on this? it sounds like you're proposing the offensively wrong notion that the Iraq War was noble and well-founded, truly aimed at restoring democracy to Iraq, but went wrong because the Iraqi people are simply allergic to democracy
> but went wrong because the Iraqi people are simply allergic to democracy
There's an assumption in what you're saying that the "Iraqi people" is a meaningful entity with a collective will that is expressed through collective action. We use that kind of thinking to reason about liberal democracies where there is a meaningful entity (a voting public with a storng shared national identity) and a mechanism (elections) for expressing preferences and a means (representative government, civil society) of taking collective action. It's not a very useful way to analyze a bunch of people who have none of those things.
My point wasn't that "Iraq is allergic to democracy." It was that thinking in terms of societies being drawn to or repulsed by democracy is an error in itself. The way to avoid those errors is to study lots of societies over a long period of time. That's where history helps you identify and understand the narratives and categories you unconsciously use to understand the world.
I don't know whether Iraq's current culture is amenable to democracy. However I don't know that the U.S.'s current culture is actually more amenable to democracy. Further, the idea that the U.S. military effort aims to install democracy has been disproven over and over again - the U.S. military generally aims to install regimes that are friendly to U.S. military and business interests, regardless of the wishes of the local people who are actually governed. This is the opposite of democracy. So it seems inappropriate and even offensive to bring up the question of whether Iraq is ready for democracy, though I don't think you intended to be offensive.
I think that Bush was sincere in his belief that bringing democracy to Iraq was a (if not the) primary goal of the Iraq War, and that doing so would be beneficial to the Iraqis. And I could believe that he felt a "white man's burden" and obligation that, because he could do so, he ought to do so.
[And to be clear: my belief is that the notion of "white man's burden" is incredibly racist and offensive, and I do not condone actions taken in such a manner.]
While I wouldn't call it "allergic to democracy", I can also entertain arguments that successful democratic regimes have preconditions for their success that Iraq simply did not have. I can even entertain arguments that democracy is not the best form of government, and it strikes me as mildly offensive to presume that democracy is automatically better than whatever form of government exists.
I think OP's point is that the Iraq War was undertaken in the [racist] belief that they were bettering the Iraqis by bringing democracy to them, and the failure is that, well, we were racist in the first place to believe that "bringing democracy" to another people is "bettering" them.
> I think that Bush was sincere in his belief that bringing democracy to Iraq was a (if not the) primary goal of the Iraq War, and that doing so would be beneficial to the Iraqis.
I believe that Bush probably stroked himself thinking this way, as did virtually the entire media and political class. However I don't think it was anywhere close to a primary goal, as you say. More to the point: their actual conduct in the war does not indicate in any way that this was a genuine goal as opposed to a piece of propaganda.
> While I wouldn't call it "allergic to democracy", I can also entertain arguments that successful democratic regimes have preconditions for their success that Iraq simply did not have.
Any citations for this notion? But to restate a point I made in another comment: the discussion of whether Iraq is ready for democracy is almost offensively inappropriate and nonsequitur, because the U.S. military does not aim to install democracy, it aims to install regimes that are friendly to U.S. military and business interests, regardless of the wishes of the local people who are governed.
To put it another way, we have no way of knowing whether Iraq is "ready for democracy" based on the Iraq War because the U.S. military did not act in a way to actually try to install democracy.
I don't recall if Why Nations Fail specifically covered democracy, but at the very least, you can definitely see why nations caught in the vicious cycles it outlines might suffer more because of democracy.
> because the U.S. military does not aim to install democracy, it aims to install regimes that are friendly to U.S. military and business interests
No. The US military does not aim to install any regime, it aims to defeat the enemy's military. That's the big thing of what went so horribly wrong in Iraq: the US kept pushing military solution after military solution to fix very-non-military problems and was confused as to why it didn't work.
> The US military does not aim to install any regime, it aims to defeat the enemy's military.
If you look at U.S. foreign policy (covert and overt, CIA, military) over history, one consistent goal is to install regimes that are friendly to the U.S. and to topple regimes which are not. Defeating the military of the hostile regime can be part of that. But if that were it, then the U.S. would just leave once that had been accomplished, and that's not what happens.
The U.S. generally sticks around and tries to install a replacement, often undemocratically. On the occasion that they do implement democratic elections, any winner that is not sufficiently friendly to U.S. interests is undermined or even couped and a (usually right-wing) government is installed undemocratically.
Occasionally the U.S. will even undermine the democratic government of a country it hasn't even officially militarily engaged with, because the leader is threatening U.S. business interests. The history of U.S. relations with Latin America is littered with this type of illegal covert warfare, most recently in Bolivia with Evo Morales who was nationalizing natural resources that U.S. business wanted access to.
> But if that were it, then the U.S. would just leave once that had been accomplished, and that's not what happens.
That is exactly what the US military planned with Iraq, Rumsfeld had outlawed any talk of Phase IV (nation building). The generals wanted out of there as quick as possible because they knew it would be a clusterfk regardless of Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney thinking State, USAid and the UN would just manage Chalabi’s flowering democracy.
Of course, that fantasy lasted as long as it to blow up the UN HQ in Baghdad.
I think ideological is a better word than racist here.
A racial purist would adopt one of two positions - invade and extract value - or don't waste our money on those people. It's true from the left side they see rightists but this is an optical illusion. It's as how I used to believe a democrats were secret Maoists.
One could argue that Iraqi circumstances are fundamentally less suitable for democracy, not because "the Iraqi people are simply allergic to democracy" but because of the structure of the country divided both by religion (Sunni vs Shia) and ethnicity (the Kurdish regions) - democracy in the region would be much more feasible if the Ottoman empire was divided differently according to the boundaries of the "natural" communities (e.g. instead of the current Iraq/Syria border one would have a Shia state, a Sunni state and a Kurdish state since, say 1930s) but the currently established borders are drawn in a way as if to intentionally maximize the long-term instability within each country.
Like the US, (catholic vs protestant) and ethnicity (some Mexican regions) ... The division of the Ottoman empire was nullified by the War of Independence of the Turks. A Kurdish state would have never been possible, because of the ethnic plurality in the region. The religious divide, is an expression of a political one. The Iraq-Syria border makes as much sense as the US-Mexican border, German-French, still democracy is a possibility.
That sounds plausible though I'm not educated enough to comment on that. But I do know that the question is separate from the Iraq War because the IW never truly aimed to establish an autonomous democracy.
They have 50% cousin marriage, which predicts high levels of clannishness and low support of democracy.
It looks like if you want to bring democracy to the middle east, you first have to stop cousin marriage then try again in a few generations time.
This would also reduce genetic disease and raise IQ. There are no charities or programs to pick this low hanging fruit as it's very un-PC to talk about this.
how about the history of how those wealthy countries then turned around and squashed democratic uprisings in order to install oppressive, right-wing regimes that were more friendly to their interests?
how about the history of trade sanctions which further cripple countries which are already disempowered and exploited?
these social darwinist explanations always seem to miss the simple facts of history