How the Arab World Came Apart • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#161

Post by Retric » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:31 PM UTC

maze-le wrote: post #88

Retric wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is clear evidence that Catholic areas have lower levels of economic growth than Prodestent areas even within same country. So, religion really does impact economic growth. But, I don't think there is hard evidence to brake it down to specific causes within each religious group. PS: While you may disagree with this, there is a lot of research into this topic: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=religion+economi…

Do you have any sources for that claim? I would be genuineley interested in the methodology of this research. Its just anecdotal, but here in Germany it is the other way around. The Catholic south is prosperous, whereas the protestant north (east) is poor. I can think of examples where the opposite is true (Belgium) but I highly doubt that there is a casual connection. In Belgium for example the catholic (and more im…

I have seen several pieces of research on this topic over the years, but here is something from a quick search.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/oct/31/economics-...

I have seen US and England held up as other examples, Germany may be a counter example.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#162

Post by fsloth » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:33 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #152

fsloth wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I get the exact opposite vibes. Given how crackpot racism has a strong historical background it's very hard not to treat it as a signal of being a produce of crackpot racism. "Race" does not explain anything - although, many people would love it to because that would make it easier to comprehend the world. There is very dark history of this in european pseudoscience. There is far more genetic variation in aver…

I"m not referring to racism per se, but to accusations of racism . It's way too easy to get a "racist" label nowadays.

But that generally does not happen in mainstream literary critique of academic texts, unless for a reason.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#163

Post by bko » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:33 PM UTC

not_a_terrorist wrote: post #7

tl:dr 100 pages: 1) People are fucking poor and hungry (extreme wealth inequalities) 2) Salafi/Wahhabi (Saudi) funding of islamism 3) Antediluvian hatred between people (it goes, way, way, way farther back than Sykes-Picot)

1 is a common misconception:

> According to a 2008 survey of such studies by Alan Krueger of Princeton University, they have found little evidence that the typical terrorist is unusually poor or badly schooled

[0] http://www.economist.com/node/17730424

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#164

Post by manarth » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:33 PM UTC

cstross wrote: post #70

crdoconnor wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the oil stops being important (Just Another Commodity like, e.g. iron ore), life will probably improve for citizens of the middle east: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse We'll stop meddling and making things worse. The leaders of those countries won't be able to substitute oil wealth for popular support or funnel money into pushing Wahhabism. It's the best thing that could happen to them.

It's the best thing that could happen to them. ... In the long term. In the short term, it's going to be very, very bad for them indeed, as the sole source of foreign exchange goes away and the ordinary folks find themselves abandoned in a climate-change-drought-crippled land that has become populated well above its agricultural carrying capacity, and the elite jets off to enjoy their stolen wealth in Switzerland.

> in a climate-change-drought-crippled land that has become populated well above its agricultural carrying capacity

There was a recent HN article about Israel's progress with desalination[1]. Obvious funding issues aside, I wonder if that approach could ease some of the water issues?

Perhaps that kind of investment would be a good use for the oil income, whilst they've still got it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12191089

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#165

Post by avisser » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:33 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #64

hacker42 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems they are missing an important factor, namely 4) the personal, cultural and economical impairment due to the religion of Islam. Nobody has time to thrive when they have to pray five times a day, when almost every thought and action is dictated by an old book and when half of their human potential is hidden in cloth bags.

Have you met any Muslims that pray? Do you know anything about it all? 2 of those prayers occur before and after business hours. And even if they were working there's not a whole lot going on at 4:30am. 2 are short coffee break level prayers. A little meditation and a quick baslama and get on with it. And the longest, conveniently occurs around lunchtime anyway. I fail to see how prayer affects anyone's potential in…

Agreed. I work with a devout Muslim. I think I'd more effective if I took meditation breaks as regularly as he takes his short, prayer breaks.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#166

Post by brightball » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:33 PM UTC

danielbln wrote: post #129

cmdrfred wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She has to pay for the campaign/Clinton foundation donations somehow. Mark my words a vote for Hillary is a vote for war.[0] [0] https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/01/19496/defense-con...

So the choice is between war hawk and unpredictable megalomaniac. Sophie's choice of US politics...

And 3rd party. If there's ever a year where they gain traction, it's this year.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#167

Post by Synaesthesia » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:33 PM UTC

jcbeard wrote: post #76

sevenless wrote: post #13

The NYTimes itself is also a considerable part of the reason, considering Judith Miller, Friedman, Krauthammer and many others propagandized hard for invading Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq was stupid. It was likely illegal, based on false pretenses, and well....shouldn't have happened. The invasions initial execution was beautiful (first few days). The US Military performed splendidly. The follow through (driven by political leaders) was idiotic. Stupid decisions like not listening to his generals (Bush), disbanding the Iraqi security forces (Paul Bremer), and the odd focus on turn…

The initial execution was not beautiful, it and the occupation that followed were remarkably brutal. Dropping bombs on a Baghdad, destroying the civilian infrastructure like sewage, electricity etc. It was a case of aggression, the same crime for which the Nazi's were hanged at Nuremberg.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#168

Post by curiousgal » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:34 PM UTC

wtbob wrote: post #72

curiousgal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nobody has time to thrive when they have to prey five times a day Ah huh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

People always point to that, but the Islamic Golden Age was no more Islamic than Bonnie & Clyde's benders were financed by Bonnie & Clyde (rather than the folks whose money they'd stolen from banks). The fruits of the so-called Islamic Golden Age were planted by Classical civilisation, watered and tended by Zoroastrians, Jews & Christians — and harvested by Islam. Indeed, even during the 'Golden Age' many of the grea…

Civilisations built upon each others achievement ever since the dawn of history, it seems rather hypocritical to start cherry-picking the merits of a particular one.

Regardless, OP said Muslims couldn't thrive praying 5 times a day, the Islamic Golden Age (as big or as small as you think it was) still proves otherwise.

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#169

Post by splintercell » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:34 PM UTC

joosters wrote: post #116

jasode wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Long piece, [...] This piece may be fun to get through your flight, Yes, it's ~43000 words and at 250wpm, it would be a 3 hour read! I think I'll wait to collect some more opinions/tldrs like yours before reading it myself. Three hours would be a terrible waste of time on a substandard article. Open question: Are there better articles on the topic that use that would use that finite reading time better?

Is there a decent way to save the article as a PDF to read later, say on an ipad? I tried Safari's 'Export as PDF' but the formatting is too mangled. Safari can also save as a single 'web archive' file but I can't get that file to open on my ipad. Firefox has a save option of 'Web page, complete', but you end up with lots of files, impractical to move around to other devices. Printing as a PDF also mangles the format…

https://getpocket.com/

Re: How the Arab World Came Apart

#170

Post by pipio21 » Thu, Aug 11, 2016, 1:35 PM UTC

pipio21 wrote: post #153

For me it is extremely simple: They have an extraordinary amount of oil:Iraq,Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, natural gas: Libya,Iran or they are in the middle of strategic places to build oil ducts: Syria, Afghanistan. http://www.energybc.ca/images/profiles/oil/reserves.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g... The West needs much more energy that what they have. They have industry and without e…

One of the most interesting things traveling to African countries is lots of locals considering oil a curse.

There is a great relationship between having huge resources and war, violence and crime.

The countries in Africa with less resources are the richest ones, because they had peace for a long time. War destroys any wealth people have and give it to a few guys. It also destroys al civilization and social structures.