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Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

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Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#101

Post by ilstormcloud »

test_epsilon wrote: post #72
Popegaf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * More than half of Ethiopia's 110 million people have no electric power. > * Almost all of Ethiopia is under some level of food stress. Where is a country like Ethiopia getting all the money for such a mega-project? > * This happened due to Colonial era agreements in which great Britain Typical, colonial forces left a mess everywhere they went. India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine, pretty much all of Africa, my histor…

They generally found messes and left messes, sometimes better sometimes worse (depending on who you ask). You didn't think the Middle East, South America, Africa, subcontinent etc everyone just sat around singing kumbaya until "colonialists" came along did you? The "noble savage" is a thoroughly debunked, backward idea.

How is Egypt a mess before the British came exactly? How was India a mess?

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#102

Post by ilstormcloud »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #43
ilstormcloud wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, 60% of Ethiopians don't have powers. Take a look at "earth at night" satellite images. Ethiopia is dark. I'm an Ethiopian national and this affects me deeply. I am tired of desensitizing myself away from the plight of 4 foot 10 women carrying a load of firewood heavier than them.

I’d probably support coal over hydro. At least coal can be seamlessly transitioned to natural gas, solar, nuclear, etc.

But you'd understand that we generally prefer not to die from pollution right? We're also not too eager on the global warming thing as well.

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#103

Post by jryle70 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #24
jryle70 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allied? more like convenient partners. Both side needs each other. But Egypt doesn't hesitate to get cozy with Russia: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/03/egypt-us-tensio...

The US supported their coup and gives the regime billions of dollars in military aid a year despite a law that specifically forbids giving military aid to juntas that overthrow democratically elected governments. That certainly seems pretty ally-like.

> The US supported their coup and gives the regime billions of dollars in military aid a year despite a law that specifically forbids giving military aid to juntas that overthrow democratically elected governments.

Egypt was supported by the USSR for much of the Cold War. Prying them away from the Soviet's sphere, at the same time building a buffer for Israel, was a major coup. The aid is the price of that, regardless of who is in power in Cairo. Again, US ally doesn't buy SU-35 from Russia.

Middle East history and politics is mind bogglingly complicated. It's naive to try to reduce it to one sentence. American only Middle East ally is Israel. Iraq and Iran used to be close partners. I wouldn't be surprised if Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey will be mentioned the same way some day.

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#104

Post by atlasunshrugged »

ilstormcloud wrote: post #92
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize that the number of people without power in Ethiopia was quite so high, my impression was that it was more developed. I also have 0% belief that Kenya, Uganda, and Djibouti would take military action against Ethiopia. They all have their own internal problems and I doubt they would want to get mixed up in a war in which they have little to benefit from (what would the Egyptians give them?). Random que…

We're all happy the election (most of it anyways) concluded peacefully. There was a fear of violence that didn't materialize. The results indicate a massive win for the PM's party. Given how popular he is, I was expecting his party to win, but not by this margin. As for Tigray, people here are really pessimistic. Over the past 8 months, the Ethiopian government narrative was that the people of Tigray and the politica…

That's super interesting, thanks for sharing! I admit to being pretty confused by all of the politics and fighting; my impression is that the power of the TPLF came from 1) their military capacity and 2) the fact they had previously held a disproportionate number of senior positions and could give favors to Tigrayans. But given their main demand seemed to be succession and they could have demanded that as per the constitution, it didn't make a lot of sense to me to pursue it by military means.

What do you make of the recent ceasefire? Do you think people have negative opinions of the fact that Eritreans were in country and consider it a violation of sovereignty? I'm not sure if you're in tech or not but you're on HN so I'm curious what the tech scene is like & what you make of the new safaricom deal?

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#105

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

The YouTube channel Caspian Report has a great video on this subject (with a lot more detail and context): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_8X8tbjqjg

That channel's content is remarkably well-made and gives a great insight into geopolitics. I wish most YouTube content would be half as good as Caspian Report is.

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#106

Post by [deleted] »

test_epsilon wrote: post #72
Popegaf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * More than half of Ethiopia's 110 million people have no electric power. > * Almost all of Ethiopia is under some level of food stress. Where is a country like Ethiopia getting all the money for such a mega-project? > * This happened due to Colonial era agreements in which great Britain Typical, colonial forces left a mess everywhere they went. India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine, pretty much all of Africa, my histor…

They generally found messes and left messes, sometimes better sometimes worse (depending on who you ask). You didn't think the Middle East, South America, Africa, subcontinent etc everyone just sat around singing kumbaya until "colonialists" came along did you? The "noble savage" is a thoroughly debunked, backward idea.

[deleted]

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#107

Post by DocTomoe »

Popegaf wrote: post #69

Let's say Ethopia goes through with this. Would it be cheaper to start a war against them or spend money on tech to reduce dependence on the Nile? I imagine that a campaign to improve education in Egypt and train the populace for jobs to reduce Nile dependence would be a major boost to the Egyptian economy. It might drive the country to innovate and fuel a boom in their tech and engineering sector. Are there any feas…

This is a very Silicon Valley approach to a problem. How do you expect to solve a water crisis with tech and engineering, within months, not decades? There's only so much desalination plants you can build and operate...

Given that this can easily be understood as an existential threat to Egypt, war seems likely.

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#108

Post by machinehermiter »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #105

The YouTube channel Caspian Report has a great video on this subject (with a lot more detail and context): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_8X8tbjqjg That channel's content is remarkably well-made and gives a great insight into geopolitics. I wish most YouTube content would be half as good as Caspian Report is.

I just listened last night on youtube to the talk

Gyude Moore: “China in Africa: An African Perspective”

Really phenomenal discussion. I felt like my level of ignorance about Africa is pretty incredible and especially from an infrastructure perspective.

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#109

Post by test_epsilon »

ilstormcloud wrote: post #101
test_epsilon wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They generally found messes and left messes, sometimes better sometimes worse (depending on who you ask). You didn't think the Middle East, South America, Africa, subcontinent etc everyone just sat around singing kumbaya until "colonialists" came along did you? The "noble savage" is a thoroughly debunked, backward idea.

How is Egypt a mess before the British came exactly? How was India a mess?

I'll assume you're genuinely ignorant and not asking rhetorical questions here. In which caseWikipedia gives a good starting point.

Egypt:

> Muslim rulers nominated by the Islamic Caliphate remained in control of Egypt for the next six centuries, with Cairo as the seat of the Caliphate under the Fatimids. With the end of the Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty, the Mamluks, a Turco-Circassian military caste, took control about AD 1250. By the late 13th century, Egypt linked the Red Sea, India, Malaya, and East Indies.[21] The Greek and Coptic languages and cultures went into a steep decline

> After the 15th century, the Ottoman invasion pushed the Egyptian system into decline. The defensive militarization damaged its civil society and economic institutions.[21] The weakening of the economic system combined with the effects of the plague left Egypt vulnerable to foreign invasion. Portuguese traders took over their trade.[21] Egypt suffered six famines between 1687 and 1731.[23] The 1784 famine cost it roughly one-sixth of its population.[24]

India similarly, it's full of wars and empires and atrocities and disasters. Hope this helps.

Re: Ethiopia's controversial mega-dam on Nile tributary

#110

Post by oehtXRwMkIs »

mjburgess wrote: post #90
yunohn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> things still are in such disarray so long after they retreated What is “so long”? Reading online, I see that Ethiopia was not fully colonized, but Europe/UK were attacking and meddling in its affairs even in the 1930s. What most of the West doesn’t realize, is that colonization is majorly impactful and leads to disarray for decades, if not centuries. Countries need time to stabilize, after being systematically dism…

Is this the case? This seems to take the view that pre-colonisation these countries were modern functioning states; and that it was the coloniser which "destabilised them". However this seems to be rarely, if ever, the case. Colonised countries were extremely pre-modern compared to coloniser-states, and as far as I'm aware, routinely the purpose of colonisation was to establish such thing as a functioning state -- fo…

I don't understand how you interpreted the comment you replied to as taking a stance of "they were modern functioning states". The negation of causing disarray is not causing disarray. Relax with the strawmen.
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