I think this thread might need a refresher on how to disagree [1]. Already a few DH0 offenses. [1] http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
why should anyone be required to agree to the terms set by Paul Graham or anyone else? how terribly condescending.
Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
171–180 of 237 posts
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should find out what India's share of world GDP and trade was when the british arrived.
I really hate this argument, the change in GDP share is because the West industrialised and the East didn't, before that it was mostly a matter of population, per capita GDP didn't matter so much. Not to say I have any idea what would have happened without colonialism, but thinking that India would have retained their share of world GDP is naive.
There is a reason why Britain industrialised first. A lot of it had to do with barring Indians from making manufactured goods in their own country and importing raw materials at artificially low prices. Also Indians were not allowed to own valuable assets like tea plantations etc. Educate yourself before making statements that make no sense
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#173Freebasics is a poorly disguised but bold move to colonize Internet in developing countries. A brief prequel: http://blog.savetheinternet.in/what-facebook-wont-tell-you-a... Freebasics campaign was so flawed and the desperation in willfully misleading people was not even on an acceptable moral terms. Facebook spent a whooping 100 Crore INR for promotion and used the term "Free Internet". More about this here: http://…
*second link should point to this: http://scroll.in/article/802128/indias-internet-regulator-ju...
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#174The idiotic spectacle of otherwise intelligent people attempting to pursue a complex argument in 140-character fortune cookies is so abhorrent to me. More than anything he has actually said, Marc Andreesen's move to Twitter as the vehicle for his pronouncements has made me lose a lot of the respect I had for him. How can anyone think Twitter is appropriate for this?
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#175These people are shining a bright light on their own ignorance. I have worked with many Indians through out the years, and they are fiercely independent, inventive, and hard working. As a people and as a nation Indians are incredibly smart and thoughtful, it's incredibly disparaging for an outsider to claim that the Indian people don't know what's best for themselves.
Under colonial rule the Indian people, their wealth, and their culture were plundered and forever destroyed, now they are seeing a similar attack coming from facebook. They are smart to carefully guard their people from corporate interests who are seeking only to exploit them.
All in all the ruling class has the same arguments now as they have always had, "What's best for everyone is what's best for me" and they are always hurt when everyone doesn't agree.
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes? The geographic borders would be different, that's about it. Let's not forget that British trade policy was designed to extract raw material cheap from India, and then dump finished goods at low rates, and remove indigenous industries. The sub continent is like Europe. If allowed to be on its own, people would have modernized and gotten on with the business of making money. So why is that hard to imagine?
It is hard to imagine because the industrial revolution required a huge number of pre-requisites most of which don't seem to be present in the India of the 18th century, but which were present in Britain. In fact it is the very absence of these pre-requisites that meant Britain was in a position where it was even able to colonise India. To blithely state that if Britain hadn't colonised India that India would have in…
> In fact if Britain hadn't colonised India, some other European nation would have instead.
Are you really saying that two centuries of brutal and destructive rule by the British is totally fine because somebody would have done it regardless?
I hope I'm just misunderstanding this....
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then criticize him on that basis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11073021 The exercise in measuring charitability is merely academic in this instance. If we value having any kind of meaningful discussion then does it really not matter that we criticize on the grounds you mention and not just seize on the opportunity to mischaracterize a statement as pro-colonialist?
>just seize on the opportunity to mischaracterize a statement as pro-colonialist? It's not a mischaracterization. Just because he now regrets calling his opponents "anti-colonialists" (or rather because the internet made him regret it ) does not mean I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Did he explicitly state that he thinks India would be better off under colonial rule? No. Did he call opponents of Free Basi…
Indians are actually being nationalists for telling poor little Mark to go fuck himself and his idea of a cheaply done monopoly.
... which is still different from being in favor of or somehow defending colonialism (leaving aside the notion that he must think of them as "filthy" Indians).
We can criticize Andreessen for any among a giant pile of good reasons for doing so, while understanding that in this instance he was talking about something like anti-Westernism and should have used something like that phrase instead of the one he did.
100% of your dislike for him remains and is well-founded without undermining your argument with the belief that he really thinks those "filthy Indians" ought never to have escaped colonial rule.
(I have zero motivation to defend Andreessen on anything he's actually said or done -- I just object to the misinterpretation and mischaracterization going on here because it destroys valuable conversation and debate.)
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#178Unrelated, but why does bloomberg hijack my back button to make it more difficult to leave their site?
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#179I saw a producthunt post about how dysfunctional and elitist it had become. Wish we have some clarity regarding YC too. I can't seem to understand the logic behind when they move away an item from front page and on what basis. I am documenting but can anyone with experience explain the logic. I wouldn't have bothered but Andreessen has a lot of clout and not only me even others would love to understand the logic to clear the air.
Re: Marc Andreessen Pro-Colonialism Tweet Riles India Tech World
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, how exactly are we supposed to do this here? The original statement may have different interpretations, but none of them result in mapping "anti-colonialism" to "socialism." There's just no way to get from A to B actually looking at what was said. Then he comes along and says he meant something completely different. No relation to the original statement. Apparently a moment of total brain confusion. Do we take hi…
> but none of them result in mapping "anti-colonialism" And only a single stupid interpretation results in mapping "against anti-colonialism" to "pro colonialism", but you chose exactly that one.
What leads you to believe that?