A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty • Hacker News Board

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#221

Post by aglavine » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #134

sooheon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hickel accuses Gates/Pinker et. al. of promoting 'hard neoliberal' (i.e. strong free market) ideals. I don't believe this characterization is fair. Gates/Pinker are selling exactly the antidote to potential guilt for "kicking away the ladder". History makes clear that "free market" ideals never apply to ourselves, only to those colonies and developing nations the IMF and World Bank can coerce into line. Argentina h…

There was effectively a uprising, a revolutionary coup and a dictatorship in Argentina during that time, causing enormous political turmoil. And your blaming this in the 'World Bank' and 'Capitalists'? No. Neoliberals had little to do with it. My comment stands: Pinker is not a neoliberal, and he's not even supporting neoliberalism. Frankly neither is Bill Gates. A 'neoliberal' would not support things like socialize…

for many people neoliberal is a tag for anything they don't like

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#222

Post by dahart » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 8:49 PM UTC

zeroname wrote: post #216

dahart wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care to litigate Hickel's argument, and I don't even necessarily agree with him. It just seems like you're ignoring the actual points Hickel made. The questions you're asking here are all answered in article, so maybe read it again? The main argument is one of degree. Hickel isn't contradicting whether the trend is down or up, and indeed it's somewhat irrelevant whether the trend is down. What he's pointing o…

> The questions you're asking here are all answered in article, so maybe read it again? I've only asked a single question: What is wrong with what Bill Gates actually said ? Hickel doesn't deal with what Bill Gates actually said, he talks a great deal about things that he didn't say. Indeed I am ignoring a lot of these points because they are irrelevant to whether "poverty" or "extreme poverty" is actually going down…

I don't know that Hickel's title was a great choice of words, and I do expect he's being intentionally inflammatory, but it seems like you're getting completely hung up on very literal, possibly pedantic, interpretation of only a few of the exact words written, and ignoring the primary broad implications being made.

> The data says poverty is decreasing.

The data show "extreme poverty" decreasing. It's a lot less clear that poverty in general is decreasing... stagnating would be more appropriate to describe overall global poverty. If you can ignore the specific claims and accept the argument as a whole, Hickel's thrust is simply that global poverty is not declining like the graph of extreme poverty would have you believe, so it's not doing justice to the issue of poverty to tweet around charts of extreme poverty in rapid decline, it gives the wrong impression.

> So how can Bill Gates possibly be wrong?

Again, Hickel's article covers this in quite some depth, with many reasons. If you don't like it, that's fine. If you disagree with it, that's understandable. But your incredulity here is misplaced.

> Hickel just wants to talk about how neoliberalism and globalization is bad, i.e. not actually anything that either Gates nor Pinker claimed.

You're probably right that Hickel wants to talk about how neoliberalism is bad. Tweeting to the masses a picture of extreme poverty in rapid decline, however, is a claim and is part of what Gates and Pinker "said".

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#223

Post by sonnyblarney » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

kiliantics wrote: post #188

sonnyblarney wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history. " This isn't surprising and the reasoning isn't that hard. Economic advancement is very hard if you have to 'figure out how to do it' i.e. intensive R&D. But if you are 'far behind' and there are examples to copy, you can just copy. Developing nations not only have many examples, but they hav…

The post war countries you mention had access to massive investment from the US, e.g. the Marshall plan. It's no surprise they're doing well. In contrast, the post-colonial developing countries today were hit with extremely predatory debt by the IMF - as a form of "international aid" - so it's no surprise they are not as wealthy. Some of these places were also very developed prior to colonialism and could have "snapp…

You've contradicted yourself in your own statement.

You can't have 'not enough investment' and then 'debt trap' (i.e. taking on too much debt) at the same time.

Which is it?

They can't access debt?

Or they're taking on too much, so much they can't service it?

Countries usually wantonly and willingly approach the IMF/WB for loans - not the other way around. The reason is because they can get better terms than anyone else will provide. The IMF/WB are sources of capital wherein none else would even exist.

The IMF/WB are not really profit centers for anyone. If it were highly lucrative, then lenders would be lining up to put money into these amazingly profitable funds! But of course this is not the case.

The reason these countries end up with problems, is the same reason they are not able to 'catch up' to rich countries: they are dysfunctional, corrupt, lacking many of the institutions and systems necessary to make use of the money.

Corrupt leaders often take a hefty chunk off the top of the loan, hand out sub contracts to their idiot friends etc., and things fail or fall apart. And then the lender is blamed?

There's a lot of money floating out there and made available for rational infrastructure investment - on very good terms - it's just that the money often can't be turned around into some kind of productive gain. This should give a hint as to why the countries are poor in the first place.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#224

Post by TorKlingberg » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

topkai22 wrote: post #180

TorKlingberg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an unfortunate conflict that homes cannot be both stay affordable and be a good investment. Houses accumulated wealth in the 20:th century because they increased in value quickly, but that means they are no longer affordable to many people. We should allow building more homes so people can buy them. But then they won't go up as much in value as when the supply is restricted.

Homes can be a good iinvestment even if prices aren’t rising (or at least aren't rising faster than inflation). You have to have shelter, so you have to purchase that some how. If you choose to rent theoretically you need to pay for the raw cost of the real estate you are living, the cost of maintaining and managing that property, and a small profit for the owner. If you own the property you can choose to do much of…

Absolutely. Housing can be an ok investment compared to renting without becoming unaffordable. Buying vs. renting comes down to a trade-off of how long you will stay, how much work you are willing to put in, etc.

For you last point, the gig economy is partially filling that role for non-homeowners. You can drive around or deliver things almost as casually as doing home improvements. Not quite as easily, but the payoff more direct.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#225

Post by falcor84 » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 10:28 PM UTC

titanomachy wrote: post #207

falcor84 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat disagree, Hans does spend some time in this article refuting the claim that benchmark doesn't matter. In particular, he shows charts demonstrating how raising the benchmark changes the result.

Who is Hans? Isn't this article by Jason Hickel?

Apologies, yes, I was referring to Hickel. I can't seem to be able to edit the comment anymore.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#226

Post by jhbadger » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

harrumph wrote: post #176

jhbadger wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern China is definitely a "market economy" in every meaningful sense of the term. Unlike in Maoist times, there is no central planning committee deciding what should be manufactured and sold and private businesses make their own decision based on what they think will sell. Is there government intervention in the Chinese market? Of course, but that's true of every country -- even the US. The completely free market…

They build cities...using their army . Your description of the country's general economic characteristics is off-the-charts wrong, and is especially wrong concerning the area where Pinker pretends that liberalized markets are why poverty in China has been in sharp decline.

There's no question that China is still an authoritarian country with a powerful military, but that's beside the point. You have to look at what has changed to stop making them poor. It's the new policy of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" (their euphasism for capitalism)

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#227

Post by justfor1comment » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 11:10 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #218

grecy wrote: post #13

One of the most amazing things I learned reading the excellent "Factfullness" by Hans Rosling [1] is that the poorest countries in the world are currently improving faster than any country ever did, at any point in history. That's correct - countries like Lesotho and Central African Republic are improving faster than his home country of Sweden ever did, at any time. In only his lifetime Sweden went from having an inf…

A repost of an old comment of mine with some good sources of the late Dr. Rosling's: Factfulness is available, for free, here: http://www.factfulness.science/ The late Dr. Rosling's website is fantastic and a good example of easy to use GUIs for data science. Play around with the data yourself here: https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;;&ch... Try taking the quiz here to see if you are smarter than…

Thanks for the good read. Very insightful book. I am not from a developed country but still had the same misconceptions that the author wanted to highlight. I think most people from developing countries also think the developed countries are way ahead of them and their home country is only getting worst.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#228

Post by marcus_holmes » Tue, Feb 12, 2019, 11:45 PM UTC

crefflar wrote: post #79

marcus_holmes wrote: post #73

I'm a bit confused about the global poverty amount. What is that $7.50 exactly? I've recently lived in Cambodia, and I'm now in Australia. $7.50 in Cambodia is enough to get three good meals and a couple of beers (for a local). $7.50 in Australia is not enough to get a single meal. How do they calculate it so they take into account disparate purchasing power?

The dollars quoted are in terms of purchasing power in the United States as of 2011.

I think I see - so if $7.50 in the USA in 2011 can buy 5Kg of rice, then the equivalent income in Cambodia is about $2.50 and in Australia is about $25... is that right?

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#229

Post by smolder » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 12:58 AM UTC

goatlover wrote: post #34

smolder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things are always getting worse in some way or another, at the same time they get better in other ways. Lowering poverty doesn't change that we're doing irreversible damage to major ecosystems.

> we're doing irreversible damage to major ecosystems. A potential rebuttal is to think of ecosystems as dynamics systems made up of species always adapting to changes, instead of something pristinely in balance that we've wrecked. Then the question becomes whether current changes to ecosystems can continue supporting us as their balance shifts, instead of thinking solely in apocalyptic terms. Life as a whole is more…

You're right, nothings static and nothings forever. However we do have a lot of control, as a species. I think the safest thing to do would be to adapt ourselves willfully to new knowledge.

Re: A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty

#230

Post by harrumph » Wed, Feb 13, 2019, 3:04 AM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #226

harrumph wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They build cities...using their army . Your description of the country's general economic characteristics is off-the-charts wrong, and is especially wrong concerning the area where Pinker pretends that liberalized markets are why poverty in China has been in sharp decline.

There's no question that China is still an authoritarian country with a powerful military, but that's beside the point. You have to look at what has changed to stop making them poor. It's the new policy of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" (their euphasism for capitalism)

It is you that is missing the point. Their army is not worth noticing because it's "powerful", it must not be overlooked because of what role it serves in the economy. It builds cities itself. Armies don't build (dozens of) cities in market economies. China is in a literal sense a command, not a market, economy in whole swathes of its body, starting with the beating heart of its double digit growth: its construction sector.