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Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

economist.com

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Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#71

Post by MatthiasP »

DoubleMalt wrote: post #68
rabble wrote: post #58

Let's see, Uruguay. I'm from California but i've spent a few years living in Uruguay and started and ran a tech business in Uruguay. The country is a special unique place, but it's far from perfect. Let's start with the good things: Good Tech Policies * Laptops for every public school child (over 1 million distributed) * Free basic (64k 1 gb per month) internet on every phone line * Good 3G/4G coverage over the count…

Sounds a lot Luke Austria ( the good and the bad) ... a little bit more tech startup friendly maybe.

Except for the socially progressive part...

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#72

Post by [deleted] »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #18
jpttsn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying it's hypocritical to oppose the independence of Scotland, because there are examples of countries who have done well after their independence?

Not hypocritical, just demonstrating poor judgement due to a lack of objectivity. As a relatively right wing, conservative English publication they're opposed to independence for Scotland but of course express this in terms of it being a bad idea for Scotland. this despite all the evidence that smaller countries do better. I'll now most likely be down voted for pointing that out.

[deleted]

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#73

Post by auctiontheory »

sally777 wrote: post #64
rabble wrote: post #58

Let's see, Uruguay. I'm from California but i've spent a few years living in Uruguay and started and ran a tech business in Uruguay. The country is a special unique place, but it's far from perfect. Let's start with the good things: Good Tech Policies * Laptops for every public school child (over 1 million distributed) * Free basic (64k 1 gb per month) internet on every phone line * Good 3G/4G coverage over the count…

You're wrong. The majority of Uruguay is religious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Uruguay

"Religious" means different things to different people. It doesn't have to be US-style anti-gay anti-science fundamentalism.

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#74

Post by speleding »

gruseom wrote: post #42

I like this bit of English wit from the article, on Uruguay's cannabis legalization: "This is a change so obviously sensible [...] that no other country has made it." The Economist doesn't normally bust loose like that. (Edit: or so I thought.)

Actually, they usually allow themselves a bit more leeway in the yearly Christmas special, a fine tradition.

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#75

Post by patrickaljord »

smilliken wrote: post #65
sally777 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GMOs are bad? When did HN become anti-science?

GMOs aren't bad in principle, but they are risky; there may be Black Swan-type threats that are lingering. It also doesn't help that Monsanto's poor image casts a shadow over GMOs.

> GMOs aren't bad in principle, but they are risky

Yeah, but how can someone praise the legalization of marijuana and the prohibition of GMO at the same time? GMO and marijuana are not always bad, but it's important to let people make their own decisions about them. It's like he doesn't even know why he's pro-marijuana legalization, isn't it about individual freedom to put what you want in your body? Thought so. Also, the free laptops for all policy has been tried elsewhere and has always been a big and costly failure.

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#76

Post by Nutella4 »

sally777 wrote: post #64
rabble wrote: post #58

Let's see, Uruguay. I'm from California but i've spent a few years living in Uruguay and started and ran a tech business in Uruguay. The country is a special unique place, but it's far from perfect. Let's start with the good things: Good Tech Policies * Laptops for every public school child (over 1 million distributed) * Free basic (64k 1 gb per month) internet on every phone line * Good 3G/4G coverage over the count…

You're wrong. The majority of Uruguay is religious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Uruguay

Depends on what you mean by religious. Most Uruguayans are from Catholic backgrounds but they (at least the ones in Montevideo) behave in a secular way: No church on Sunday, and instead of having Carnival followed by Lent like all the other Latin American countries, they have Carnival that lasts for 40 days.

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#77

Post by seanmcdirmid »

DoubleMalt wrote: post #68
rabble wrote: post #58

Let's see, Uruguay. I'm from California but i've spent a few years living in Uruguay and started and ran a tech business in Uruguay. The country is a special unique place, but it's far from perfect. Let's start with the good things: Good Tech Policies * Laptops for every public school child (over 1 million distributed) * Free basic (64k 1 gb per month) internet on every phone line * Good 3G/4G coverage over the count…

Sounds a lot Luke Austria ( the good and the bad) ... a little bit more tech startup friendly maybe.

Also, add Switzerland.

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#78

Post by aluhut »

patrickaljord wrote: post #75
smilliken wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GMOs aren't bad in principle, but they are risky; there may be Black Swan-type threats that are lingering. It also doesn't help that Monsanto's poor image casts a shadow over GMOs.

> GMOs aren't bad in principle, but they are risky Yeah, but how can someone praise the legalization of marijuana and the prohibition of GMO at the same time? GMO and marijuana are not always bad, but it's important to let people make their own decisions about them. It's like he doesn't even know why he's pro-marijuana legalization, isn't it about individual freedom to put what you want in your body? Thought so. Also…

The problem with GMOs are the unknown long time risks and the fact that you may lose the ability to decide because you don't even know that it is an GMO or you don't have a choice at all.

You don't have to smoke pot, but you have to eat.

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#79

Post by Brakenshire »

patrickaljord wrote: post #75
smilliken wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GMOs aren't bad in principle, but they are risky; there may be Black Swan-type threats that are lingering. It also doesn't help that Monsanto's poor image casts a shadow over GMOs.

> GMOs aren't bad in principle, but they are risky Yeah, but how can someone praise the legalization of marijuana and the prohibition of GMO at the same time? GMO and marijuana are not always bad, but it's important to let people make their own decisions about them. It's like he doesn't even know why he's pro-marijuana legalization, isn't it about individual freedom to put what you want in your body? Thought so. Also…

> it's important to let people make their own decisions about them

You must be strongly opposed to the system of regulation in the US, where GMO products are not fully labelled, so individuals do not have a choice.

This is also (to be blunt) a nonsense, because many of the potential threats that people are worried about are social, and not individual. For instance, they are worried about farmers losing their ability to produce their own seeds, so the nation's food supply becomes dependent on a handful of multinationals. No doubt South and Central Americans are particularly aware of the political implications of putting themselves in a position like that - see the Copper mines in Chile, or the banana plantations in Honduras and Guatemala.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._intervention_in_Chile#Firs...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

If you expect individual consumers to make their purchasing decisions on long-term foreign policy, you are, to put it mildly, setting yourself up for disappointment. They are well within their rights to make decisions that affect everyone within democratic decision making processes.

Re: Uruguay is the Economist's Country of the Year

#80

Post by gruseom »

dredmorbius wrote: post #66
gruseom wrote: post #42

I like this bit of English wit from the article, on Uruguay's cannabis legalization: "This is a change so obviously sensible [...] that no other country has made it." The Economist doesn't normally bust loose like that. (Edit: or so I thought.)

The Economist doesn't normally bust loose like that Actually, it does. You just have to be aware of their style of humor to catch it.

Let's see some examples.
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