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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

#111

Post by thinkingemote »

wonderwonder wrote: post #59
dan-robertson wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps one thing to say is that not that many countries developed in general in the last hundred years or so, depending on how you count them. It seems there isn’t really an easy path to development and many African countries started a very poor quite recently without the smoothest transition out of colonialism. You might count a few Caribbean countries for your initial question, eg the Bahamas is 90% black and has…

The Bahamas is successful essentially because it's a subsidiary of the US. With 80% of it's economy based on tourism and most of the rest on financial services for people that want lee way. If cruise ships stopped going there the island would collapse in a few months.

Cruise ships stopped during the recent pandemic. Did it collapse? I imagine it suffered, but do we know what happened?

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

#112

Post by prmph »

seafoam wrote: post #61
prmph wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Paul Rusesabagina could not be reached for comment.

Not sure what this has to do with Rwanda having low corruption. The kinds of countries in the 3rd world that are sufficiently "liberal" to the liking of the west are usually cesspools of corruption and poverty.

I should know, because I have experienced it myself. In Ghana set up stalls for trade on the sides of major roads, at considerable risk to their safety. Successive governments have tried to force them away for a while, only for people to denounce those actions as heartless. Invariably, they slowly creep back. Imagine those who promote this situation are fined or jailed. Is that a case of being authoritarian, or a case of robust enforcement of safety rules?

Here you have an African country enforcing the rule of law and a strong national identity, and with actual results to back it up. Of course mistakes can be made, and I'm not holding up the Rwandan regime as blameless in terms of human rights. But if you you focus on quality of life of the average citizen, they have improved a great deal.

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

#113

Post by PentelicoMarble »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #18
jeffwask wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we don't continue apartheid, where will we get billionaires to buy social media companies and run them into the ground as a political stunt?

I assume this is in reference to Elon Musk. That story is bunk. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-min...

But his father did own an emerald mine. That's what the Snopes link says.

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

#114

Post by hoseja »

fleddr wrote: post #71
boeingUH60 wrote: post #23

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,…

No freeze. The grasshopper can just keep on fiddling.

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

#115

Post by [deleted] »

concordDance wrote: post #21
wonderwonder wrote: post #19

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…

Do you think South Africans would be better off today if there had been no attempt to apolish apartheid? Genuine question, not a gotcha.

[deleted]

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

#116

Post by fleddr »

luckylion wrote: post #107
tdeck wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ef…

In what corrupt country have you seen the police super active to keep random citizens from fixing issues that affect them personally? In what countries do they even have the manpower to keep someone posted on each broken piece of infrastructure to guard it and make sure that it doesn't get fixed? It sounds like you're reaching for explanations and grasping at straws. At some point you either get to "maybe aliens did…

The grasping at straws is because I, a westerner, said it. Had a local expressed it, which they regularly do if one cares to listen, then none of the examples would be challenged. Half my examples are made by locals, they aren't even my personal take on it.

Not only is any plain and simple observation I make incorrect, it is also not so subtly assumed to be driven by an agenda of biological or cultural racial hierarchy.

Which is to suggest that I'm a supremacist looking to confirm my supremacy. That is what is implied.

I can handle that bad faith toxic notion just fine, no issue there. The real issue is that this style of discourse strongly discourages people to call out very serious issues that are grounded in reality. Just pretend they don't exist.

To remind what got this started:

"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."

And where we're at now: Nah, it's all fine. Stop talking about it.

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

#117

Post by wonderwonder »

thinkingemote wrote: post #111
wonderwonder wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bahamas is successful essentially because it's a subsidiary of the US. With 80% of it's economy based on tourism and most of the rest on financial services for people that want lee way. If cruise ships stopped going there the island would collapse in a few months.

Cruise ships stopped during the recent pandemic. Did it collapse? I imagine it suffered, but do we know what happened?

That is a good point. Their GDP is 11.2 billion. Their losses during Covid are estimated at $7.9 billion. They did survive.

https://www.iadb.org/en/news/covid-19-effects-and-impacts-ba....

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

#118

Post by obscurette »

gowld wrote: post #27
boeingUH60 wrote: post #23

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.

[flagged]

The idea that it's related to the colour of skin, is flawed. Any one really knowing anything about European history, knows that the history is full of surprisingly local examples like this: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144039X.2020.18...

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

#119

Post by concordDance »

mrburkins wrote: post #91
boeingUH60 wrote: post #23

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.

How many majority black countries were afforded the opportunity to grow up unmolested by great powers during their formative post colonial years? How many once in a generation leaders were assassinated or deposed in favor of brutal yet capital friendly regimes? America, with all its cultural heritage of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson and Lincoln barely survived the 1960’s due to political assassinations. It’s hard t…

No country has ever been unmolested during their formative years except maybe the USA.

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

#120

Post by [deleted] »

heywherelogingo wrote: post #82
rightbyte wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]
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