141–150 of 210 posts
My friend from Central America got upset when nearly everyone at a London party took turns to do coke in the bathroom. He told me a pretty harrowing story of how his family had had their lives ruined by drug gangs. A colleague of mine was on a flight when balloon of drugs burst inside a drug mule. They died. Our appetites fuel a cycle of violence and depravity.
This is a great article; I didn't think I would read the whole thing but AFAIK, its a reasonable thorough account on the rise of Bukele. As an aside, I find it incredibly amusing that the China-funded library is decorated with rather Western culture - Harry Potter, Star Wars, and even Mario. Even Chinese money is used to uphold American cultural hegemony.
>Even Chinese money is used to uphold American cultural hegemony. It makes me think of German barbarians who, after sacking the urbs aeterna, couldn't think of a better name for themselves than Holy Roman Empire.
It's crazy how popular authoritarian demagogues have gotten around the world. His campaign, mannerism, and treatment of media and opposition can be a cut and paste of a bunch of different politicians of the world. At the end of the day though, I really hope it all works out.
What's crazy is just how terrible the globalist neoliberal political agenda and the mindless cookie cutter politicians they produce everywhere have been, that people are thoroughly fed up and are looking for alternatives, no matter how bad.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> many cultures are quite incompatible with democracy, unlike the West That's an old excuse of dictators, one of a series of obviously self-serving justifications for their taking power and oppressing others. Consider the cultures worldwide where democracy has thrived: The 'West' (Western Europe/US/Canada), Eastern Europe, South Asia, East Asia (S Korea, Japan, Taiwan - the wealthiest part of China by far, per capita…
I think you're getting the causation backwards here. Successful countries can maintain democracies, but when a democracy runs into a crisis it can't handle, it usually ceases to be a democracy. You're just not counting the failures because most failed democracies turn into some other form of government.
But doesn’t this seem to be a no true Scotsman fallacy? If you call all failed democracies not real democracies, you can write them off and only focus on the successful ones.
Does a corrupt and poor democracy ceases to be a democracy?
I agree that democracy is the best system when implemented well. I’m just pointing out that many countries have struggled to succeed as democracies because they lack the proper mindset and culture of maintaining one.
I read an article a while ago that showed a correlation between the violent crimes per capita and how close to the equator that country was. Basically, the hotter the climate, the more crime.
Link the article? Sounds badly researched as Belarus and Russia are cold places with a lot more crime than hotter places in East and South East Asia.
My friend from Central America got upset when nearly everyone at a London party took turns to do coke in the bathroom. He told me a pretty harrowing story of how his family had had their lives ruined by drug gangs. A colleague of mine was on a flight when balloon of drugs burst inside a drug mule. They died. Our appetites fuel a cycle of violence and depravity.
It's the worst kind of resource curse.
Gang crime seem to be a common weakness of democracies. There's a notable list of countries that had to resort to elect a quasi-dictator to get rid of gangs. As my hometown is coming to grip with a bubbling gang war, I wonder if there is a better way.
I think people forget that universal suffrage and male suffrage are pretty recent phenomenon, so when talking about democracies we should understand that historical democracies were very different. As such this weakness may be more of a character of modern universal suffrage democracies. There might be a middle point between everybody voting and one person voting that would be more optimal.
That’s called an dictatorship. Absolute unquestionable authority is a myth, even Stalin relied on the support of others to stay in power and had to make decisions while keeping that in mind. Most other dictators in history didn’t even remotely have as much power as him.
Quoting from the article: "The whole point of democracy is to spread political decision-making and create approval-based feedback loops with the population so that good leaders are elected and bad leaders are deposed without resorting to violence. Dictatorships concentrate power to permit more state dynamism but at the expense of this dispersed risk. This makes dictatorships a higher risk-higher reward proposition. A…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's crazy is just how terrible the globalist neoliberal political agenda and the mindless cookie cutter politicians they produce everywhere have been, that people are thoroughly fed up and are looking for alternatives, no matter how bad.
> globalist neoliberal political agenda Bukele pitches crypto at CPAC, so it’s frankly hilarious you think he resides outside this order.
This speech? You think that makes Bukele a "globalist neoliberal"? That would indeed be hilarious, if you did. I do like your sense of humor!
But no I wasn't claiming any particular person is or is not "with" the western ruling class. Obviously this order welcomes many horrible dictators (and "authoritarian demagogues") among its ranks, famously in the Middle East but really anywhere it furthers their power. I was just commenting on the parent's post about people supporting them, and it's in contrast to their cookie cutter ones. The Justin Trudeau, United Nations types.
Not saying any particular politician or policy is better or worse, just that people feel like they've been failed.
Quoting from the article: "The whole point of democracy is to spread political decision-making and create approval-based feedback loops with the population so that good leaders are elected and bad leaders are deposed without resorting to violence. Dictatorships concentrate power to permit more state dynamism but at the expense of this dispersed risk. This makes dictatorships a higher risk-higher reward proposition. A…
No they don't. The issue with dictatorships is that your powerbase rurns from "the people" (or a wealthy subset of the people, depending on how well your democracy works), to a small group of powerfull supporters. Army generals, police chiefs and so on. Even if you were an angel, the power dynamics of dictatorships don't give you the ability of doing all too much for the general populace. Thats the beuaty of democrac…
So democracy suffers from 2 main issues: 1) timeliness: some problems need to be solved now, not in 10 years. Example, need to decide your stance against Russia. 2) fragility from the inside: A malicious player can manipulate democratic institutions and convert it to an autocracy. See Russia, Turkey and Jan 6 USA.
Not sure how one can design a system robust to these two threats.