Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued • Hacker News Board

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#361

Post by AtlasBarfed » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #272

I do my part in promoting captialism, which has done more to pull children out of poverty than any other program or charity in the world. Free market reforms in China and India have done just brain blistering amounts of good in reducing human suffering, from child malnutrition, suicide rates, longevity, and access to healthcare.

Science produced these possibilities.

Capitalism is the distribution method enforced by the military by the rent-seeking ruling classes. Like democracy, it sucks but it's better than what was tried before.

Or is it?

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#362

Post by dnautics » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

dpc59 wrote: post #349

dnautics wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the noncapitalistic countries that industrialized and compare outcomes.

Russia made gigantic leaps from 1917 to 1956. They went from absolute backwards shithole to contending world power in 39 years (even less considering ww2 was over 10 years before that).

What happened after 1956?

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#363

Post by lucb1e » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

monkmartinez wrote: post #315

trissi wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But about 3 times as much new people are born, most of them in poverty....

My opinion on this is unpopular, but I will say it anyway; People shouldn't have more kids than they can afford.

I'll go further and say that we should seriously consider getting fewer children, period. We have limited resources here on Earth, and while I could probably support a couple without problems, those resources would be better spent on those who are already here.

I'm only 25 so I don't know how I'll feel in 10-20 years, but right now this is part of my consideration when thinking about long-term goals and whether I'd want to have kids at some point. I might, so for that eventuality, plan B is to adopt. Plan C is to have one (and only one) kid, which already turns two parents into one descendant, so that's better than nothing.

The only thing I'm worried about is that smart families will do this and the stupid ones produce six. It's in the education and not in the genes... but it's also in the upbringing, and if they're brought up with the mentality of the kind of people who currently get six kids...

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#364

Post by tyrust » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #272

I do my part in promoting captialism, which has done more to pull children out of poverty than any other program or charity in the world. Free market reforms in China and India have done just brain blistering amounts of good in reducing human suffering, from child malnutrition, suicide rates, longevity, and access to healthcare.

What does it mean to "promote capitalism"?

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#365

Post by coryfklein » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #328

chongli wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet who shows up for the 3.1 million children who die of malnutrition every year? Billionaires like Bill Gates. Countless volunteer aid workers with organizations such as MSF. Fact #1: Since 1960, child deaths have plummeted from 20 million a year to 6 million a year. [1] This was posted quite recently here on HN. Perhaps you missed it. At the end of the day, the problem of child poverty and the death and suffering i…

I hear that argument a lot. 6 million is a holocaust a year, I don't know if that is worth celebrating.

You literally turned the number on its head. Obviously OP is not celebrating 6 million dead, but celebrating the 14 million saved.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#366

Post by imsofuture » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

merpnderp wrote: post #272

I do my part in promoting captialism, which has done more to pull children out of poverty than any other program or charity in the world. Free market reforms in China and India have done just brain blistering amounts of good in reducing human suffering, from child malnutrition, suicide rates, longevity, and access to healthcare.

Ahh, yes, capitalism, where we funnel all of our resources to the top and hope the benevolent billionaires will reach down to help those of us in poverty.

You're of course correct that industrialization has an outsize positive impact initially. But it's pretty silly to ignore the eventuality of "and then Bill Gates donates money to make the world better!"

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#367

Post by beefield » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

monkmartinez wrote: post #315

trissi wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But about 3 times as much new people are born, most of them in poverty....

My opinion on this is unpopular, but I will say it anyway; People shouldn't have more kids than they can afford.

To me that is quite a popular opinion. Unfortunately, as often is with popular opinions, it is quite... unhelpful. For the vast majority of eart's population, kids are a pension insurance that guarantee income if you happen to live old. As soon as kids turn from asset to economical liability, number of kids fall dramatically. This has been seen over and over again.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#368

Post by class4behavior » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

abandonliberty wrote: post #255

bdz wrote: post #213

"If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost, just as many volunteers turn out. Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature—a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price. Weakness? It might be the unique strength that w…

Yet who shows up for the 3.1 million children who die of malnutrition every year? Every 3 minutes we lose more children then were in the cave. We can comprehend 13 people and the struggle against nature, while the scope of world hunger is far too complex and emotionally incomprehensible to mobilize enough people.

It's about conceptual accessibility to the solution.

When you have a small group dying of hunger because of a drought, it is easy to perceive what to do and your ability to realize it. So people are more likely to speak up.

If a drought affects an entire nation, you're at least aware this must be a complicated task. So you're more reluctant to criticize inaction.

That behavior is especially problematic when the solutions are abstract or long-term.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#369

Post by scotty79 » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

SideQuark wrote: post #335

c22 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you tease apart the effects of capitalism and industrialism? Or are they inextricably linked in your world view?

Consider places that try industrialism without capitalism: do they perform worse than those with both? I think the answer is yes, by far. For example, there's plenty of communist countries that had industrialism but failed to grow economically as much as capitalist peers as examples. I'm unaware of many (any?) examples counter to this.

I think russia did very well, even better than USA when it brought electricity, modern housing and basic education to rural populace. All without shread of capitalism. What ultimately killed communism was exclusion of russia from global technological progress. When there's no tech advancement central planning is way less efficient in running things. But when you just got new tech and need to undertake huge infrastructural projects to spread it I think that central planning has some advantages over capitalism thanks to not requiring having capital or not bothering about immediate profitability or not having to ensure that same entity that invests gets ultimate benefit out of the investment.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#370

Post by los_angeles » Tue, Jul 10, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #133

tgb wrote: post #31

Why wasn't the death of Saman Gunan more widely publicized? I barely heard about it - in the NYT article on this it's a single sentence 2/3rds of the way through the article. I'd have thought that the concept of someone sacrificing themselves for the recovery of 12 children would have been a major story. The Guardian's liveblog (or whatever this is) doesn't mention it in the first couple pages, nor do the responses o…

One reason not to focus too much on his death might be because it seems to have been more "random mistake" than "heroic sacrifice"? The children had already been located, the system for supplying and evacuating them had already been arranged, and everyone who entered the cave had all the supplies and equipment they needed to perform their tasks. Running out of air while diving is a mistake that any amateur diver with…

I read he died in a flash flood. Might not have been a mistake so much as an unexpected turn of events in a dangerous, dynamic environment.