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Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

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Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#61

Post by letrowekwel »

factsaresacred wrote: post #30

"There Are No Successful Black Nations" was the original title of this article in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/09/why-black-people-must-h... It's an uncomfortable title, but it's a truth that must be confronted. How have once downtrodden countries like Korea, China, and large swaths of Eastern Europe been able to turn rags into riches while most of Africa has so far failed to? GDP is not everythi…

IMO the main problem is the arbitrary way borders were drawn in Africa by colonialists. Too many ethnicities that didn't get along very well suddenly shared a common state, while others were split between many countries. When even much richer and educated areas have problems with multiculturalism of much smaller scale (the Balkans, Spain, Belgium for example), it's not surprising that countries like DR Congo with over 200 languages spoken are basically ungovernable through democratic means. The border situation isn't anywhere near as bad in South America and most of Asia - and even there countries which lack common national identity tend to be less stable than others.

Peaceful coexistence of many cultures within the same society is a nice idea, but in reality it's very hard to do right due to the tribal nature of our specie. Highly successful multicultural countries appear to be an exception, rather than a norm.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#62

Post by oneshtein »

nathell wrote: post #41
inglor_cz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was born in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and it took decades to get rid of its awful legacy. Socialism sucks. The idea of "means of production owned collectively" tends to suck even in capitalism (too many shareholders), but if the owner is the state, it sucks massively. Any alignment of interests goes out of the window, massive white elephant projects get built in the name of ideology, "superfluous concerns…

I was born in the People’s Republic of Poland, and I think most of the suckage you’ve described are due to oppressive authoritarianism of the former Eastern Bloc countries, and have little if anything to do with collective ownership of means of production.

ANd oppressive authoritarianism is because «all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others».

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#63

Post by benj111 »

slavboj wrote: post #59
chmod600 wrote: post #34

"held out the promise of an efficient state-led economy that would uplift the downtrodden Black majority. And for a while, it did." There it is, the perpetually-available deal offered by all politicians: give us power and we will fix problem X (or maybe all problems). Maybe intentions are good and the power is used to alleviate problem X. But soon those interested in solving X are replaced by those interested in the…

Sounds like a pretty good argument that South Africa's previous regime should not have given up power.

Is it?

Are you suggesting apartheid should have continued?

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#65

Post by gsatic »

inglor_cz wrote: post #16
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh I'm from a nation way more socialist than the USA and we have 3x the median wealth per capita (Australia). We have a much lower mean wealth though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... If you're one of the top 1% in America life is great. But the 99% should not be going around saying socialism sucks. That to me indicates you're gullibility and mindless support of the 1% who have waaaay…

I was born in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and it took decades to get rid of its awful legacy. Socialism sucks. The idea of "means of production owned collectively" tends to suck even in capitalism (too many shareholders), but if the owner is the state, it sucks massively. Any alignment of interests goes out of the window, massive white elephant projects get built in the name of ideology, "superfluous concerns…

AI will. Once we get past the hype and scam phase.

People have forgotten the alternative to capitalism and communism proposed by Veblen and others was the technocracy.

Back then there were no computers which is why the movement failed. But there already existed a tension between the Engineer and the manager/luxury/leisure class.

Veblen said the natural instinct of the Engineer is to reduce waste (ie corruption). While the natural instinct of the leisure class is to signal power and status through how much they can waste and get away with.

This tension is very much alive and is what produces Snowden. With AI do not underestimate what the next bunch of Snowdens will attempt as a natural reaction to the injustices they see.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#66

Post by prmph »

factsaresacred wrote: post #30

"There Are No Successful Black Nations" was the original title of this article in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/09/why-black-people-must-h... It's an uncomfortable title, but it's a truth that must be confronted. How have once downtrodden countries like Korea, China, and large swaths of Eastern Europe been able to turn rags into riches while most of Africa has so far failed to? GDP is not everythi…

> GDP is not everything of course. But even on measures of safety, why is Africa so much more violent than equally poor Laos or Cambodia?

Can you point to some statistics to back this up? I've lived in Africa for most of my life, and I struggle to see the truth of this. Apart from some countries at war, where is tis extreme violence going on? For what it's worth, I felt far more unsafe when I lived in the US.

Compare how many people were killed in wars in the 20th century, by continent. Africa has been by far more peaceful compared to Europe and Asia; it's not even close.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#67

Post by OfSanguineFire »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #51
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really blamed on Apartheid? Whenever I have talked with South African Blacks about the various tribal affiliations of the country, they claim that each community did not much like each other (and everyone hated the Zulus) since long before white people arrived. Indeed, it was white oppression that gave an impetus to pan-Africanism where, for a time in the ANC, people might have united across tribal affiliatio…

The Tutsi and Hutu split stretches back before colonisation too. You could make the argument that it was always going to be a problem and the colonizers didn't materially affect the course of history. What you can't do is argue they didn't intentionally take advantage of this split for their own purposes. Because they did and it's documented history. edit to add: Here's a pro-apartheid Quora answer that suggests the…

That odd poster is writing about the (rather abortive) Bantustan effort after 1970. While that effort aimed to separate whites and blacks, it didn’t particularly seek to separate blacks from each other in spite of a claimed titular nationality for each; the projected bantustans were quite tribally mixed. So, it isn’t an example of what you were claiming.

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#68

Post by dathinab »

AlbertCory wrote: post #46
kriops wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That is 100% wrong. Even in the very capital of corruption (in the US, anyway), Chicago, the slogan was "good government is good politics." In other words, doing a good job with the boring stuff is also good for getting elected.

> In other words, doing a good job with the boring stuff is also good for getting elected.

yes and that is fully unrelated to the question of weather politics is about morals or not

e.g. you explanation also would go hand in hand with not electing anyone with very bad morals because then it's guaranteed that they won't just do "the boring stuff good" but will try to do other stuff; Or if they are corrupt will not do the boring stuff sustainable good because of corruption sneaking in slowly etc.

or in other words voting with ethics/morals in mind _but focusing on candidates with non extream ethics/morals_ is essential for there beeing any chance for good government longterm

Re: Why South Africa Is on the Brink of Chaos

#70

Post by prmph »

rejectfinite wrote: post #48
factsaresacred wrote: post #30

"There Are No Successful Black Nations" was the original title of this article in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/09/why-black-people-must-h... It's an uncomfortable title, but it's a truth that must be confronted. How have once downtrodden countries like Korea, China, and large swaths of Eastern Europe been able to turn rags into riches while most of Africa has so far failed to? GDP is not everythi…

>but it's a truth that must be confronted Why? I really do not care anymore. How much have been poured in? How many marshall plans in $? While Germany rose from a bombed out nation in 1945 to the EU's strongest economy? South Korea too is even more impressive, from an illiterate peasant nation to now with Samsung and all that. Japan got hit with the most destructive man made weapon, twice. Granted, they were an Asian…

> How much have been poured in?

Nothing. Do you actually think vast sums have been poured into Africa, with the objective of helping its development? If so, I'd like to disabuse you of that notion.

Actually, development aid to Africa (a drop in the ocean compared to what the US sends to Israel, or spent on the Iraq/Afghan war each week, for instance) is intended to hinder its development, by propping up the donor countries industries at the expense of local industry, or by supporting rulers who tow the western line.

I cannot go into all the reasons why/how this is the case, but all the information is out there if you search for it.

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