This journalistic impulse to sell the world as worse than it is will not end because a single journalist caught a quick (and likely fleeting) guilty conscience. It will continue until the profession recognizes that their addiction to narrative harms the entire population.
The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
41–50 of 218 posts
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#42Another big secret, is that the source of a lot of poverty being lifted is because of China. That's right, that terribly communist government suppressing its people and free speech, is actually responsible for lifting 500 million people out of poverty over the last 30 years. That is definitely a big secret of american media, and something that it neglects to report on, in favor of free speech violations, naval exerci…
Indeed, China's success has been a great testimony to the efficacy of centralized planning and communism...
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Government can't do anything" meme tends to be pushed by organizations that actively want less government. The sort of groups that listen to people like Grover Norquest who said: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." While there is a lot to be said about the idea of efficiency in government it isn't the same as…
American progressives can be just as guilty, if less organized. They tend to view big business with suspicion and incorrectly think that the American government is hopelessly corrupt and in the pocket of "Big Business and/or Wall Street".
What part of that analysis is wrong? What counterexample can you offer?
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#44Since this is HN, here's a question: what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?
She suggested that in a few years mobile phone technology has transformed Africa more than many more years of charity and monetary intervention. She suggested that services (like payment services) built on top of mobile technologies were the place to look.
The good news is, if you have a great idea along those lines, they might just invest...
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#45Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#46Since this is HN, here's a question: what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?
Incidentally, the answer to this question has been the same since the advent of technology, going as far back as agriculture.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#47Another big secret, is that the source of a lot of poverty being lifted is because of China. That's right, that terribly communist government suppressing its people and free speech, is actually responsible for lifting 500 million people out of poverty over the last 30 years. That is definitely a big secret of american media, and something that it neglects to report on, in favor of free speech violations, naval exerci…
There is no secret to the communist China's playbook. They opened to the world a vast amount of workers, charging for them pennies a day. But once that has been used up and become too expensive, the end game is joblessness and destruction of their environments. And they still have a totalitarian government.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#48Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#49Since this is HN, here's a question: what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?
By making the developed world richer, technology helps everyone.
Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
#50Meanwhile, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/19/humans-cr...