4 ms·

What you (plus the quote from The Economist) describe is like shooting yourself in the foot. Still, ideology aside, why would Chavez do such a thing? Was he an

by binarray2000 10y ago

What you (plus the quote from The Economist) describe is like shooting yourself in the foot. Still, ideology aside, why would Chavez do such a thing? Was he an intellectual moron? No. He knew that without oil exports his people would be hungry, and hungry people mean bloody revolution. Also, quoting from The Economist is one sided considering their position regarding Venezuela during and after Chavez. You see, media is biased and I don't want to trust them, no matter how "respectable" they are. (eg. NYT in the eve of 2003 Iraq invasion) I'd like to hear from people who live there (or from less biased reporters) about causes for this situation in which an oil rich country must import oil from its major adversary, in which the whole society dissolves. EDIT: User nnq asks the same questions as I do.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
You don't trust The Economist to be unbiased. Fine. But I know of no sources that assert either that the event in question (the firing of the oil workers) didn't happen, or that it didn't destroy Venezuela's oil production. So in the absence of any contrary evidence, I think The Economist's account of that specific event is to be trusted. Why would Chavez do such a thing? I suspect (OK, guess) that when you have a theory that you are so committed to that anything that doesn't conform is regarded as enemy propaganda, it becomes amazingly easy to do really stupid things. (Note that this does not depend on what the theory is; any theory, disconnected from any counter-evidence, is prone to this.)
civilian 10y ago
Yeah, idk if I have the tools to convince you. AnimalMuppet's response is good. If anyone is curious what The Economist's "bias" against Chavez looks like, here's a good article: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573106-appeal-populist-autocracy-has-been-weakened-not-extinguished-hugo-ch%C3%A1vezs-rotten http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573106-appeal-populi...

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

You don't trust The Economist to be unbiased. Fine. But I know of no sources that assert either that the event in question (the firing of the oil workers) didn't happen, or that it didn't destroy Venezuela's oil production. So in the absence of any contrary evidence, I think The Economist's account of that specific event is to be trusted. Why would Chavez do such a thing? I suspect (OK, guess) that when you have a theory that you are so committed to that anything that doesn't conform is regarded as enemy propaganda, it becomes amazingly easy to do really stupid things. (Note that this does not depend on what the theory is; any theory, disconnected from any counter-evidence, is prone to this.)

civilian 10y ago

Yeah, idk if I have the tools to convince you. AnimalMuppet's response is good. If anyone is curious what The Economist's "bias" against Chavez looks like, here's a good article: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573106-appeal-populist-autocracy-has-been-weakened-not-extinguished-hugo-ch%C3%A1vezs-rotten http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573106-appeal-populi...