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The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

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Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#81
post #65
post #13

I sometimes wonder what the future of human rights is considering a scenario from 10 generations from now. The survived miners will probably have children. The children who are not fit (neither physically nor mentally) will die working in mines. The mentally fit children will migrate to US. The physically fit children will have more children that are physically fit. What will happen then? Why are we ignoring the futu…

“Hard times make hard men, hard men make good times, good times make weak men, weak men make hard times”

The Fremen Mirage - https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out the rape stats. Last I checked, someone was murdered approx every 25 mins, and someone was raped approx every 15 mins.

Surely rape has to far more than about twice as common as murder? Looking at US stats the homicide rate is 0.007% and sexual assault 0.1% per year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_United_States

Why didn't you just look up the SA stats instead?

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#83
post #73
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it takes generations for the right culture to develop. If you look back at early Western large-scale democracies (as opposed to the historic smaller scale Greek ones), most of them weren't all roses for the first couple of generations.

I think this is right. We see similar phenomenon in Russia and Ukraine. There are flashes of democracy sometimes but then they revert back to what they've always known. In the case of Russia/Ukraine it's the legacy of feudalism + strong ruler syndrome which was coopted by communism and which they still have not emerged from.

If anything, differences in political culture and history define Ukrainian-Russian conflict to the greater extent than language, nationalism or economics.

Given the last 30 years, the trend is going in opposite directions — where Russia reverts to their authoritarian baseline, Ukraine actually devolves central authority and especially presidential powers. Ukrainian constitution of 1996 literally has a transition plan to disperse the power of central executive authority into several distinct bodies.

Both trends are backed by centuries of history. To put that in a perspective: Ukraine had more democratic transitions of power in the last 10 years than Russian had in the last 300.

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#84
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why there's no black-majority country that's prosperous...it's always the same story of corruption, incompetence, and/or infighting. Now, before anyone brings out the pitchforks, I'm a black African residing in Nigeria...I'm just saying that we really have to do better than this.

On Twitter recently a Nigerian business man shared some of his frustrations which I found insightful. He started a bar. Yet later discovered that his business partner was reselling booze via the back door, pocketing this money for himself. Next, the business man started a transport business. Every driver he hired mysteriously got "robbed", which means they resold the fuel. They are just anecdotes, but if widespread,…

I gotta be honest, this post reads like "just driving by I knew how to fix all these peolles' problems but they seem too lazy to care". Is it possible there's something you don't know about each of these scenarios? It's easy to construct some self congratulatory narrative when you're visiting a poor country, but it's also a trap. In the past, these narratives tended to be biological. Now they're "cultural" but the effect is often similar.

Take the pipe example. Maybe the police don't let people just "crowd fund" repairs to public infrastructure and perform them themselves. Maybe what you saw on the video isn't representative of the whole problem, or your assessment of the repair difficulty isn't accurate.

Perhaps your brilliant idea about pricing and selling ecotourism booklets isn't such a great idea after all. Maybe they already tried it and tried different price points and were too polite to tell you. That's common in "development" projects where there's a power/wealth imbalance between the person giving well meaning advice and the folks receiving it.

Speaking of which, maybe home repairs that look cheap when you're driving by aren't actually cheap by local standards. Perhaps the materials aren't affordable or people have absentee landlords that don't take care of the place because it's not in their interest to do so. There are plenty of buildings like this in SF but the reason is economic incentives, not a culture of apathy.

Who knows what's going on with your friend's construction business. As an absentee foreigner they may rely on a foreman who pockets a bunch of the workers' pay, making it a shitty deal for the workers.

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#85
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not nearly "most". Ukraine has 11million eligible soldiers. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/05/04/d...

They are talking about the L/DNR, which did in fact draft the majority of their male population. They were literally sweeping the streets any adult men they could find.

I guess by now, every man is either in exile, in the military, dead or not leaving the house for the whole year.

With pre-war (of 2014) population of 7 million, the whole region is just erased from the map by now.

Fuck russia

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#86
post #36

Was a well written article. Pretty amazing contrast in the way various people are forced to live. While obviously not great for black people during apartheid South Africa's government really fell apart afterwards. Hiv infection rates rose from 3% to 18% of the adult population. Top 10 in the world for murder rates. 30% unemployment rate. Rolling blackouts. Afrikaans Paramilitary groups. Massive organized criminal org…

I spent three years driving around Africa, exploring the remote corners of thirty five countries and really sinking into the culture as much as possible. After six months I thought I knew a lot. Six month later I learned that was all rubbish and started again. And so on. I spent a few months in South Africa, and I felt less safe there than any other country on the continent. It is extremely edgy. I genuinely believe…

I think whites are going to be increasingly irrelevant in South Africa, and apart from the poor, the old, and ideologically motivated Afrikaners, I suspect that they are going to continue to emigrate in increasing numbers. Indians are already displacing them as the dominant minority in professional contexts, but they'll also start leaving for greener pastures.

A focus on race-relations, in 2023, obscures the real issues plaguing South Africa, which, although in large part a legacy of apartheid, don't have to do with black-white relations.

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Afrikaans Paramilitary groups" was basically what Apartheid was, only state sanctioned. > Hiv infection rates rose from 3% to 18% of the adult population. It's like saying COVID rates grew XXX% in 2020 due to some new government. Yes, SA's HIV rate is absolutely awful, but HIV hardly existed before the end of Apartheid.

No, it's not like saying that - the health minister had the nickname Dr Beetroot for her ridiculous views in HIV/AIDS.

[deleted]

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#88
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why there's no black-majority country that's prosperous...it's always the same story of corruption, incompetence, and/or infighting. Now, before anyone brings out the pitchforks, I'm a black African residing in Nigeria...I'm just saying that we really have to do better than this.

On Twitter recently a Nigerian business man shared some of his frustrations which I found insightful. He started a bar. Yet later discovered that his business partner was reselling booze via the back door, pocketing this money for himself. Next, the business man started a transport business. Every driver he hired mysteriously got "robbed", which means they resold the fuel. They are just anecdotes, but if widespread,…

That reminds me of a story of western businessmen offering 50% more to local workers to get them to work more. This totally works in the US, where overtime pay can easily get workers to show up for extra shifts. The result here was they worked 50% less and were happy to take home the same amount.

Workers seem misguided in both cases, but it is clear that they had a totally different view and relationship to money.

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#89
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I am just wondering why is this largely ignored

It's ignored because it's horrifically inhumane and also probably not even true. If you earnestly have this thought, I urge you to seek help from a psychiatrist.

I don't think he was saying it is good that "unfit" children die in mines, that would be a pretty horrific assertion.

I think he is just wondering why we don't consider the impact of immigration on genetic diversity. If we have nations that have huge immigrant populations and nations that have huge numbers migrating away from them it would have an interesting impact on genetic diversity. There are a range of traits that influence whether someone would migrate from a place or stay where they were born. I don't think pondering the effects of that requires a psychiatrist.

Re: The dystopian underworld of South Africa’s illegal gold mines

#90
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why there's no black-majority country that's prosperous...it's always the same story of corruption, incompetence, and/or infighting. Now, before anyone brings out the pitchforks, I'm a black African residing in Nigeria...I'm just saying that we really have to do better than this.

Botswana and Rwanda seems to be countries with lower levels of corruption and reasonably good or improving public services. Ghana too was doing well in the last decade, but now has taken a turn for the worse since the current government took over. I live in Ghana, and the level of corruption now, and the neglect of a proper development agenda, is unbelievable. So, I don’t think there is necessarily anything that make…

I feel like if it can all turn bad just from one election to the next, then it was never really good. I wonder if Botswana and Rwanda are just as vulnerable as Ghana was.
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