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The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

nytimes.com

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Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#161

Post by blumkvist »

mazerackham wrote: post #95
tsotha wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. There isn't anything recognizably communist about the Chinese system aside from the name. And the big spurt of growth didn't start until Deng's market-based reforms of the '70s. So a better way to put it would be "After its Marxist fant…

You're right, China is only communist in name, not in practice for some time now. I emphasized the word only to point out how we treat anything associated with communism as something to be burned at the stake.

Anything associated with communism should be burned at stake. The sooner the better. God bless the Chinese for figuring it out and transitioning out of that retched system.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#162

Post by blumkvist »

mazerackham wrote: post #37
piker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps American sentiment is based on China's hundreds of years of bad policy relegating those same millions of people to extreme poverty? [edit: it might be more fair to say decades here, if you believe we can only attribute "policy" to the Communist Party]

I think you're right in your edit, the Community Party has only been in power for decades. Prior to that, China was in turmoil due to colonization and imperialism by the U.S., France, Britain, and other European states, as well as Japan. I believe it's more accurate to say that the American sentiment is derived from China being a rising world power ideologically backed by Communism, and an actual threat to America's…

If it wasn't for Britain and the Opium wars, China would be in a worse position now. China was very closed and very corrupt towards the end of the Manchurian's rule. Britain did exploit China, but their policy was very different than the policy in India, for example, or in NA.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#163

Post by DanielBMarkham »

zero_intp wrote: post #131
Frondo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think I ever hear American progressives assert that they want less government. Less corrupt government? Absolutely, but the idea that government is "too big" seems entirely in province of the contemporary right (and you can partition that up into the industrialists who want to abolish the EPA, the code-worded-racists who want to end welfare, the bootstrappers who want to privatize everything, etc).

As a progressive, I would support a plan of re distributive basic income. The plan I would support would involve shrinking existing government. As a progressive, I support removing the costs of worker healthcare from labor costs to industry. As a progressive, I support reducing the over-all social cost to higher education by eliminating the federal grant and loan processes, and simply block allocating per-student rat…

Apologies for the political observation, but I'm a history buff and I found your comment interesting.

It used to be that progressives would resoundingly argue for smaller, more efficient government that achieves desired social goals. Somehow over the last 50 years they stopped doing this, and instead got into some kind of pissing match with conservatives over the size of government. It'd be great to get back to a discussion around "what are your goals, what are the trade-offs you are willing to make, and what is the most efficient way to achieve them?"

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#164

Post by blumkvist »

xacaxulu wrote: post #90

>That’s 95 percent of Americans — who are utterly wrong. Sad, funny and completely unsurprising. At least this writer understands his profession's complicity in the stultifying of America.

The author himself is quite complicit to this misbehavior.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#165

Post by MaysonL »

chris_va wrote: post #97
guelo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The environmental laws you mention happened more than 30 years ago. It sure seems like bigcos have gained the upperhand in the last generation.

Not really, it is mostly just more media coverage and observation bias. As an example, it used to be that you could just dump whatever you wanted into the local water table. Now everything is picked over with a fine comb.

Contrast the treatment of bank executives after the S&L crisis, and after the recent financial crisis. They got away with murder (not quite literally) this time.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#166

Post by tragomaskhalos »

Disasters and tragedies sell, and we now get to hear about them from all over the world, so selection bias is sadly inevitable. This is why millenarian religions like the Jehovah's Witnesses (and, perhaps, radical Islam) are able to so easily convince the gullible that the world is on its last legs.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#167

Post by blumkvist »

mazerackham wrote: post #138
aianus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, Intel is having difficulty scaling down process technology past 14nm while the fabs in China are catching up at 28nm. It's much, much easier to "catch up" than to actually innovate. With the education system and culture in China and India there's no way they're going to pass us by. Those are countries where having an original thought and arguing with your teacher gets you kicked out of school. Hell, in…

China has plenty of "original thought[s]". I bet India does too. I always find it amazing that in the U.S. we tend to judge other countries as being "unoriginal" or "lacking creativity", simply because we are better right now. We forget to factor in that we are the wealthiest country in the world, have been for hundreds of years. We have the best resources, and that create a compounding effect for our accomplishments…

He talks about the culture of those countries. If you managed a typical Indian worker all you would ever hear is "yes, sir, I understood sir, it will get done, sir". Then an endless myriad of excuses and blame shifting and promises. People there are simply wired to always say "yes", never to question, never to doubt, never to criticize. I hope you can see why this might be a problem for transitioning to a "first world" economy, which relies on workers performing services, rather than standing on an assembly line.

Things in China are a bit different, but not quite. Chinese culture makes people very reluctant to admit they do not know something. In addition to that in Chinese culture it is the responsibility of the listener to understand what is being said, as opposed to western culture where it is the speaker's responsibility to make sure that he is understood. This makes transfer of knowledge en mass a very difficult task.

These simple, but fundamental differences are major hurdles for those economies going further.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#169

Post by aaron695 »

Max_Horstmann wrote: post #6

Since this is HN, here's a question: what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?

> what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?

It will play all of it.

If you want particular ideas for small groups to get it sooner, as mentioned the big thing currently is the fact smart phones are going everywhere.

The current talked about tech is mircopayments.

So I'm assuming you're looking for an arbitrage. Western society will continue full paced but what is missing that the 1st world won't do (mircopayments being done)

Directly thinking - More translations of apps or better english learning apps to get a world language.

Cheaper and simpler versions (A free simple farmer logs, if it doesn't exist, perhaps totally based on rice or something)

Sideways thinking -

Small rewards or a lotto for watching public announcements like aids education, better heath. You could target cell phone areas. Rural different to inner city.

Wikis to design/create cheap as possible Chinese products of value to the poor. Google cardboard but wiki style.

Try and find ways to increase the value of garbage the poor scavenge. Could you recycle plastics in the backyard to new products with 3d printing or moulding or something.

These ideas are dumb but more trying to think what could be done, that isn't in the works.

Re: The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease

#170

Post by amelius »

manachar wrote: post #4

It's really weird to me how commonplace the attitude of "It is what it is" and "Government can't do anything". The air and water quality in the US is vastly better since the passage of laws that created and empowered the EPA (Created by the Republican President Nixon). The endangered species act has had many similar successes. I live on Maui. The waters are now filled with Green Sea Turtles and Humpback whales that w…

Yes. And I think the following sentence best explains why:

> When 95 percent of Americans are completely unaware of a transformation of this magnitude, that reflects a flaw in how we journalists cover the world — and I count myself among the guilty.

Sometimes it is really maddening how far astray the common perceptions are with respect to reality. It is good to have an example here that shows this clearly.

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