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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

#191

Post by Retric »

Chathamization wrote: post #188
Retric wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only get to vote for a tiny number of people, the groups with early access to pick who runs have far more power than the 'popular' vote. "I voted for Kodos." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_and_Kodos PS: Obama might have been a better option, but I disagree with over half of what he has done.

You get to vote for a lot of people, but most people simply ignore this. Take Obama - started as a state senator, ran for Congress, then ran for the Senate, then for the presidency. In each of these elections he had to get through both a primary and general election. In each of these elections he also had to rely on a network of supporters and surrogates, the most important of which are other elected officials (many…

There are ~320 million people in the US the first filter that drops 99.99% of them is by far the most important. EX: Pro life democrat or pro choice republican running for president = good luck.

Further, I don't think a great president looks much like a great senator.

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

#192

Post by danharaj »

webXL wrote: post #102
danharaj wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is reasonable to believe that the tragedy of the commons is caused by society being organized around private ownership, not the nature of the commons itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons#Critici...

Without private ownership, resources cannot be traded to their highest utility. Politicians ultimately are left to figure that out (when they get around to it, of course).

> Without private ownership, resources cannot be traded to their highest utility.

The language of economics is designed so that this is tautologically true and all empirical evidence that this is false is euphemized away with the term 'externality' or 'market failure'.

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

#194

Post by beatpanda »

Chathamization wrote: post #188
Retric wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only get to vote for a tiny number of people, the groups with early access to pick who runs have far more power than the 'popular' vote. "I voted for Kodos." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kang_and_Kodos PS: Obama might have been a better option, but I disagree with over half of what he has done.

You get to vote for a lot of people, but most people simply ignore this. Take Obama - started as a state senator, ran for Congress, then ran for the Senate, then for the presidency. In each of these elections he had to get through both a primary and general election. In each of these elections he also had to rely on a network of supporters and surrogates, the most important of which are other elected officials (many…

You're still ignoring the role of money here. Yes, there are a lot of elections, and in every election, the amount of money a candidate is able to spend is a huge influencing factor on whether they can beat their opponents. This is also true in primaries, and in state legislature elections, and governor's races, and everywhere else. If you can't buy advertising to get in front of people, you can't get name recognition, which means you don't poll well, which means the media won't cover you, and nobody will think of you when it comes time for them to vote. It's all very straightforward.

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

#195

Post by mazerackham »

blumkvist wrote: post #167
mazerackham wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worl…

I don't really know much of Indian culture, but I doubt it's as simple as a "yes sir" from your "typical Indian worker". That sounds like a gross oversimplification.

Again, I reiterate that while cultural effects can be there, I think it's much more prudent to look first for the historical and social causes of differences (wealth, resources, times of prosperity & peace vs war and famine). I'd bet money that those effects are orders of magnitude greater than any cultural effects. It's not as simple as you make it out.

As a point of reference, I want to again point out that immigrants from India and China to the U.S., carrying that same culture, have created much of the innovation from America over the past 20-30 years. I don't think that would've happened with typical "yes, sir, I understood sir, it will get one, sir" attitude, that you are placing on the "typical Indian".

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

#196

Post by mazerackham »

blumkvist wrote: post #162
mazerackham wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This weak justification for imperialism is dangerous for our future generations. The subjugation and exploitation of technologically weaker peoples for PROFIT, usually under the guise of some self-righteous religion, mandated by god, is something that I hope humanity is done with.

In this case, it was a war fought to force a drug trade. Pathetic.

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

#197

Post by blumkvist »

mazerackham wrote: post #196
blumkvist wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This weak justification for imperialism is dangerous for our future generations. The subjugation and exploitation of technologically weaker peoples for PROFIT, usually under the guise of some self-righteous religion, mandated by god, is something that I hope humanity is done with. In this case, it was a war fought to force a drug trade. Pathetic.

Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that. The Chinese demanded silver and nothing else whatsoever for their goods, creating MASSIVE trade deficit with all of Europe, sucking practically all of the silver there and then some (from Mexico and Brazil). The traders found a way to get silver from the Chinese (in exchange for opium). Trade loomed even more. Then the Chinese decided to forcefully stop the Opium trade, which would crush their trading partners. This lead to the first Opium war, which was quickly settled, but the Chinese broke their part of the contract which lead to the 2nd Opium war.

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

#198

Post by [deleted] »

mazerackham wrote: post #195
blumkvist wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worl…

I don't really know much of Indian culture, but I doubt it's as simple as a "yes sir" from your "typical Indian worker". That sounds like a gross oversimplification. Again, I reiterate that while cultural effects can be there, I think it's much more prudent to look first for the historical and social causes of differences (wealth, resources, times of prosperity & peace vs war and famine). I'd bet money that those eff…

[deleted]

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

#199

Post by Chathamization »

beatpanda wrote: post #194
Chathamization wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get to vote for a lot of people, but most people simply ignore this. Take Obama - started as a state senator, ran for Congress, then ran for the Senate, then for the presidency. In each of these elections he had to get through both a primary and general election. In each of these elections he also had to rely on a network of supporters and surrogates, the most important of which are other elected officials (many…

You're still ignoring the role of money here. Yes, there are a lot of elections, and in every election , the amount of money a candidate is able to spend is a huge influencing factor on whether they can beat their opponents. This is also true in primaries, and in state legislature elections, and governor's races, and everywhere else. If you can't buy advertising to get in front of people, you can't get name recogniti…

But that's the thing - no matter the amount of money poured in, the vast majority of campaigns still feature candidates ignored by almost everyone. For most campaigns, the money doesn't affect someone's opinion of the candidates, because they aren't even aware of the candidates.

You see this more and more as you move away from the big races - I've seen numerous examples where the loser outspent the victor 20 or 50 to 1. Heck, there was even a situation recently where someone with just about no political or financial backing came in second (doing better than several candidates with much better funding and much more insider connection) simply because his name sounded like another politicians. When I look at things like this, it seems like apathy influences our politics much, much more than money.

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

#200

Post by 13thLetter »

api wrote: post #184
13thLetter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't "pop" because that's not how economics works. If the alarmists are correct and peak fossil fuels is just around the corner, then after the peak the cost of fossil fuels will gradually go up until alternatives -- alternatives that we know about and can make use of relatively quickly -- make more economic sense. At some point, certain sources of oil will become economically viable which aren't now. At a higher…

You're assuming that the alternatives are actually physically able to meet demand. If that's the case, then great -- what you describe would occur. If not then the only alternative is demand destruction. We can handle some amount of demand destruction in the form of cutting wasteful consumption, but too much would very rapidly disintegrate into... well... actual destruction. I think a lot of people oversell nuclear p…

> Radical greens are not really that powerful.

But then why did Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants, plants which already existed and were running without major problems?

Radical greens are not powerful in the sense of having direct political power, but they are extremely powerful in that the radical green memeplex (nuclear is bad, GMOs are bad, pollution is getting worse, recycling is a moral obligation, humanity is generally a blight on the planet) is hardened conventional wisdom in most, if not all, Western nations.

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