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Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

theguardian.com

41–50 of 66 posts

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#41
post #4

Interesting! I find the whole gig space fascinating. I wonder how much of it relies on exploitation of regulatory latency. My guess is that these actors has such momentum and platform advantage that even if all talked-about regulation were to pass, it would still remain popular despite price surges.

>I wonder how much of it relies on exploitation of regulatory latency

All of it, is my guess. In cities where Uber was regulated, it lost to the already existing taxi system.

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#42
post #16

I've lived in Joburg all my life. Joburg, especially the inner city, is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Couriers are at risk? We all are. I don't know anyone who doesn't have a story of being held up at gunpoint somewhere around joburg, even the wealthy northern suburbs. Happened to me 4 times, twice in one week. Try convincing an armed mugger some other tit stole your phone already. Fun times. I also…

> The western world has stolen enough wealth from us. That's a feeble victim mentality that you should consider re-evaluating. Not uncommon on the African continent and elsewhere (blaming colonialism etc), but it's obviously not as simple as that, and you know it.

Are you saying that wealth extraction from Africa to its former colonial masters does not happen anymore?

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#43
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And just for clarity, an example of restricting travel in a god damned pandemic is not an example of "systemic economic exclusion", it may be an ill conceived policy choice, but the west is also not responsible for your pathetically low vaccination rate which likely helped the new variant come into existence. I’m not from Africa nor am I from America so I don’t think I have a horse in this race but I think this is…

> It has a clearly skewed understanding of the power differentials of the pandemic and then blames the nations with less power for being able to pull less strings. A stupid but justifiable policy from the past 2 weeks cannot be a good example of why South Africa is spiraling the toilet. Sorry. Pick better examples. South Africa has been spiraling the toilet way before COVID. > Secondly, damn are we really gonna blame…

I never said that SA had a vaccine shortage I’m saying are we really gonna blame SA when 1) there’s no evidence of wrongdoing on their part except to use their world reknowned infectious disease institutions to discover an existing variant that had entered their populace; 2) other nations are equally if not more flawed?

My understanding is the only reason SA even sounded the alarm was that they were smart enough to proactively be scanning for variants aggressively. They frankly did the world a favor and the world responded by assuming those poor African fucks are gonna dirty everyone with their disease.

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#44
post #10

I've lived in Joburg all my life. Joburg, especially the inner city, is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Couriers are at risk? We all are. I don't know anyone who doesn't have a story of being held up at gunpoint somewhere around joburg, even the wealthy northern suburbs. Happened to me 4 times, twice in one week. Try convincing an armed mugger some other tit stole your phone already. Fun times. I also…

> The western world has stolen enough wealth from us. South Africa has taken all the rope it had and hung itself with it. Sure the west stole enough from South Africa, but South Africans stole more from other South Africans than the west ever stole from South Africa, and they continue to steal from other South Africans, and will continue doing so. South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west, it is…

Do you have sources to backup this often repeated rhetoric?

I don’t think you can downplay the role of foreign capital and multi-nationals In South Africa’s economic problems for the past two decades - for example the role that The Guptas, McKinsey and KPMG all played in looting the state.

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#45
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The western world has stolen enough wealth from us. That's a feeble victim mentality that you should consider re-evaluating. Not uncommon on the African continent and elsewhere (blaming colonialism etc), but it's obviously not as simple as that, and you know it.

Are you saying that wealth extraction from Africa to its former colonial masters does not happen anymore?

> Are you saying that wealth extraction from Africa to its former colonial masters does not happen anymore?

Nothing happening to the wealth of South African today is happening without explicit authorization by a political party that have had a legislative majority and/or super majority for almost 30 years. Pointing fingers at the west for what South Africans do to other South Africans won't fix any problems South Africa has.

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love my country and it’s people. I think we have enough to feed and house everyone. It often feels like other people are pulling the strings. Well, stop for voting the people pulling the strings... A quick example: The largest owner of land is the South African Government, and yet laws are pushed through to allow land to be confiscated from people of a particular race and "redistributed" to other people of a sele…

More broadly, as a pragmatic issue utterly divorced from the goal of “justice”, few nations achieve prosperity when confiscation is the norm, as prosperity usually involves planning and investments with multi year returns. If a nation wishes to repair inequalities through transfers, the less disruptive way to do it is through taxation. Seizing specific properties outright is an arbitrary and capricious distribution o…

I don’t agree with the policies around land without compensation but the economic prosperity that the people of the USSR and PRC experienced after instating those policies can not be denied.

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#47
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The western world has stolen enough wealth from us. South Africa has taken all the rope it had and hung itself with it. Sure the west stole enough from South Africa, but South Africans stole more from other South Africans than the west ever stole from South Africa, and they continue to steal from other South Africans, and will continue doing so. South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west, it is…

Do you have sources to backup this often repeated rhetoric? I don’t think you can downplay the role of foreign capital and multi-nationals In South Africa’s economic problems for the past two decades - for example the role that The Guptas, McKinsey and KPMG all played in looting the state.

> for example the role that The Guptas, McKinsey and KPMG all played in looting the state.

Who made that possible? The voters, who voted for Zuma and the ANC and gave them a legislative super majority, who then in turn gave the Guptas all the power that they managed to get and either looked the other way or more likely were complicit in the Gupta's corrupt dealings with KPMG and McKinsey.

Without South African politicians selling out the South Africans who voted for them, the Guptas, KPMG and McKinsey would be entirely irrelevant. But I'm sure these facts won't prevent South Africans from lynching some more foreigners.

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#48
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has a clearly skewed understanding of the power differentials of the pandemic and then blames the nations with less power for being able to pull less strings. A stupid but justifiable policy from the past 2 weeks cannot be a good example of why South Africa is spiraling the toilet. Sorry. Pick better examples. South Africa has been spiraling the toilet way before COVID. > Secondly, damn are we really gonna blame…

I never said that SA had a vaccine shortage I’m saying are we really gonna blame SA when 1) there’s no evidence of wrongdoing on their part except to use their world reknowned infectious disease institutions to discover an existing variant that had entered their populace; 2) other nations are equally if not more flawed? My understanding is the only reason SA even sounded the alarm was that they were smart enough to p…

> They frankly did the world a favor and the world responded by assuming those poor African fucks are gonna dirty everyone with their disease.

Do you not get how viruses work? Many western nations has or had travel restrictions from other western nations.

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#49
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The western world has stolen enough wealth from us. South Africa has taken all the rope it had and hung itself with it. Sure the west stole enough from South Africa, but South Africans stole more from other South Africans than the west ever stole from South Africa, and they continue to steal from other South Africans, and will continue doing so. South Africa's biggest roadblock to prosperity is not the west, it is…

So we're clear, I'm not proposing the west do any kind of reparations. You just won't calculate it and the damage is already done, a pay cheque isn't going to help. But you are wrong. I'd prefer it if they just left, take their corporations with them. They don't have to return anything, just go. Firstly, I am referring to the whole continent. The west didn't just destroy one nation, they took us all out (except Botsw…

> China is busy creating the next silk road through crafty debt tactics. Once again: Something the West could do to help us, but won't. Which is going to cost you a great deal more in the long run

This is something that bothers me too. The west seems to be totally ignoring China's activities in sub-Saharan Africa.

Re: Ghost riders: the invisible lives of Johannesburg food couriers

#50
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of your argument relies on the assertion that the West took resources from Africa. And yes, while that is true to some extent, it is not the whole story. > America's wealth was greatly enhanced by the railways built by the slaves they stole. IIRC (and wikipedia agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade ) the slaves were bought by the west. The theft was done by native Africans for the most part…

> Certainly, but it was not the West that, for the most part, enslaved and then sold the African slaves. Surely the righteous West could’ve freed those slaves and not fought to keep them for centuries? If you read the wiki link further, you’ll see that they paid Africans to find slaves, because they couldn’t survive on their own - amidst warring tribes and diseases. They would transport slaves as cargo, resell them t…

> Surely the righteous West could’ve freed those slaves and not fought to keep them for centuries?

Where did I claim that the West was not at fault?

(The rest of your argument relies on this sort of strawman so there's no need to respond to it).

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