Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic • Hacker News Board

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#31

Post by heymijo » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 11:59 AM UTC

Clewza313 wrote: post #6

This is kind of ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that Haiti was born from a successful slave revolt and and one of the first things it did as an independent country was to expel or kill virtually all the whites, expropriate their property and destroy all the institutions associated with them. Both culturally and genetically (95.5% per Wikipedia), Haiti thus has a lot in common with sub-Saharan Africa, anot…

There is LOTS of context missing before we get to the 1804 massacre of the remaining whites in Haiti.

Thirteen years of conflict and war took place before this happened. Why? Enslaved people wanted what the French Declaration of the Rights of Man guaranteed, that "all men free and equal."

In struggling for this Haitians were bounced around like a football, between the great powers of France, Spain, and Britain.

Every attempt at autonomy or freedom was met with outright force or duplicity aimed at returning Haiti to the status quo of one of the most brutal forms of slavery in history.

What's the saying? Fool me once...

Dessalines, who ordered the 1804 massacre, had seen all of this, topped off by the French just a few years before taking out Toussaint Louverture, who was forgiving of whites.

He had also seen brutality the likes of which we cannot imagine

the French staged mass executions via firing squads, hanging, and drowning Haitians in bags

Rochambeau invented a new means of mass execution, which he called "fumigational-sulphurous baths": killing hundreds of Haitians in the holds of ships by burning sulphur to make sulphur dioxide to gas them.

Should you still think the Haitians more brutal than others, do read up on the British and French exploits in continental Europe during the Peninsular Wars. God help you should you find yourself a non-combatant in a place just taken by siege.

Haiti was born in brutal slavery. It has been meddled with incessantly throughout its history by greater powers. If we want to trace a line back, those are the dots to look at connecting.

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#32

Post by Tabular-Iceberg » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 12:37 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #14

emilgouliev wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the f*** did I just read?

The thoughts of someone who thinks "Western society" is where it is by being conscientious of how they consume and preserve resources for future generations, and is apparently unaware of "Western society" eating other societies' marshmallows. Another option is they are intentionally ignoring "Western society" consuming other society's marshmallows to make them seem more deserving of their spoils, and others more dese…

No, even countries where exploitative multinationals contribute an insignificant portion to the economy can be prosperous if and only if they have low levels of corruption. Even if they have no natural resources, they still have people who can produce value that can be exported. But only if government officials don't steal all of it first. In a lot of places you can't start a company of any kind without paying tons of bribes.

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#33

Post by Tabular-Iceberg » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 12:40 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #18

V-2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what is the marshmallow in this analogy? The surplus of resources, I guess. The disposable income of a nation.

If Haiti had, say, vast oil wealth but wasted the proceeds and you compared it specifically to Norway (who have, all things considered, responsibly handled their oil wealth) then sure. But I cannot see what resources or wealth representing the "marshmallow" that they are supposed to have foolishly, greedily gobbled up. It doesn't make sense, it's just someone painting the Haitians as a short-sighted and reckless peop…

> It doesn't make sense, it's just someone painting the Haitians as a short-sighted and reckless people

Who did that?

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#34

Post by tw04 » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 12:55 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #4

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #2

It's a marshmallow test on a national scale. You're a public institution and the taxpayer gives you a marshmallow with the expectation of using it to create some public good. You can eat the whole marshmallow yourself and feel pretty good for a while, but after that you'll have nothing but a heap of dirt (and soon that heap will be washed into the sea). You can take a bite for yourself and get a dysfunctional society…

Wait, who is eating the marshmallow ... and what is the marshmallow in this analogy?

I presume marshmallow = taxes/wealth. Eating it = corrupt politicians pocketing it/corrupt usage of it.

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#35

Post by brudgers » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 12:55 PM UTC

Clewza313 wrote: post #6

This is kind of ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that Haiti was born from a successful slave revolt and and one of the first things it did as an independent country was to expel or kill virtually all the whites, expropriate their property and destroy all the institutions associated with them. Both culturally and genetically (95.5% per Wikipedia), Haiti thus has a lot in common with sub-Saharan Africa, anot…

expropriate their property and destroy all the institutions associated with them

An odd phrasing considering that their own bodies were considered their property and slavery was among the institutions. Government was the primary institution and one which the freed slaves did not abolish.

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#36

Post by mc32 » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

kewrkewm53 wrote: post #12

simonh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...expel or kill virtually all the whites, expropriate their property and destroy all the institutions associated with them. You could have written that about Zimbabwe and it would be just as relevant. There are also a lot of people in SA who are trying to go the same route as fast as they can. I fully understand the anger and resentment these people feel towards ethnic Europeans, but revenge never comes without it'…

Yeah, history shows that revolutions which consist killing or expelling all the educated, well-off citizen typically end up having pretty bad results for everybody. Even if you successfully capture their wealth, the future will be poor when there's nobody competent enough left to manage administration, education, farms, industry, infrastructure and so on. And once things go downhill like that, it's not easy to turn t…

This happens in revolutions where race is not an immediate factor such as Venezuela. All the experts leave (including native experts) so the infrastructure which propped up the country slowly deteriorates without anyone being able to fix and maintain things properly and productivity and output go down…

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#37

Post by Tabular-Iceberg » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

smcl wrote: post #4

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #2

It's a marshmallow test on a national scale. You're a public institution and the taxpayer gives you a marshmallow with the expectation of using it to create some public good. You can eat the whole marshmallow yourself and feel pretty good for a while, but after that you'll have nothing but a heap of dirt (and soon that heap will be washed into the sea). You can take a bite for yourself and get a dysfunctional society…

Wait, who is eating the marshmallow ... and what is the marshmallow in this analogy?

The public institutions are eating the marshmallow and the marshmallow is the public funding available to them, whether it's from taxes, foreign aid or bribes extracted from ordinary people. Eating it is taking the public funding for their own personal use, or offering tenders to friends who have no intention of actually doing the job.

Here's the first result that comes up when I do a web search for "how corruption works", it's pretty informative for those who are unfamiliar with the concept: https://www.transparency.org/en/what-is-corruption

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#38

Post by Tabular-Iceberg » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 1:16 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #25

As an American expat who has lives on Hispaniola for more than a decade, I have a pretty strong opinion on this. I can’t be sure how much of this is casual and how much is symptomatic, but I I strongly believe that the main driver of the -current outlook- is culture. Both Haiti and the Dominican Republic are majority slave- descendants. Spanish were inclusive with their culture, tending to extend it to slaves, and Do…

I've never been to either side of Hispaniola, but I have been to Vanuatu and have made the same observation about French colonial culture. I fully expect New Caledonia to go down the same path if it finally gets a yes on the next independence referendum.

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#39

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

heymijo wrote: post #31

Clewza313 wrote: post #6

This is kind of ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that Haiti was born from a successful slave revolt and and one of the first things it did as an independent country was to expel or kill virtually all the whites, expropriate their property and destroy all the institutions associated with them. Both culturally and genetically (95.5% per Wikipedia), Haiti thus has a lot in common with sub-Saharan Africa, anot…

There is LOTS of context missing before we get to the 1804 massacre of the remaining whites in Haiti. Thirteen years of conflict and war took place before this happened. Why? Enslaved people wanted what the French Declaration of the Rights of Man guaranteed, that "all men free and equal." In struggling for this Haitians were bounced around like a football, between the great powers of France, Spain, and Britain. Every…

[deleted]

Re: Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic

#40

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

jhoechtl wrote: post #28

odiroot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can just nibble a little on the edge, and you get western society. That would be Singapore. Western societies are really great at consuming unconstrained amount of taxes without efficiently generating returns.

> Western societies are really great at consuming unconstrained amount of taxes without efficiently generating returns. Your personal observation, scientific fact or last nights night club small talk?

Seems like every week there's a "why does the west have to drop a billion bucks over a decade on X when Asia can do it for a cool ten mil in a year?" article on the front page of HN. This is pretty well researched and written about stuff, at least on the govenrment and public works side of things.