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Wow, what a wonderful idea. Let me just roll my sleeves and create a successful nation. Germans, Czech, etc. were obviously so much smarter and hard-working th

Wow, what a wonderful idea. Let me just roll my sleeves and create a successful nation. Germans, Czech, etc. were obviously so much smarter and hard-working than us - that's exactly the reason why they created a successful nation. I have no words.

classicsnoot 8y ago
They were (probably are) and they did. One becomes smarter and more effective through learning and application, not whining and recrimination. S. Korea was demonstrably worse off than Ethiopia as well as many other sub-Saharan countries in the 1950s and look at them now. Did they achieve this through colonization, exploitation, and slavery?
- ReturnUD 8y ago
  Well, maybe you should stop supporting our dictatorial regime for your own interests and give us the same freedom afforded to the 50s S.Korea before you point your uneducated fingers at me.
  - classicsnoot 8y ago
    There is no national government that does not A) act in its own self/best interest and B) does so with the express approval of all of its citizens. The fact that you decide to blame the population of an entire nation (who are largely ignorant of global affairs as well as having no stake/vested interest in big money deals between nationstates) is indicative of your knowledge base on the subject. The game of wealth has been going on for much longer than Thirdworldism (1970s), Dependency Theory (1960s), Globalism (1940s), Socialism (~1850s), or even Capitalism (1700s).* Resource exchange and the wealth derived from it are hallmarks of pastoral societies, potentially even out dating currency exchange given the obvious value raw material plays in terms of power. What may be considered unique to the late stage Holocene is the domination of raw material exchange by Western Societies, but only in terms of its global scale. The Chinese (there are many empires that can be called this but i hope you can suss that out for yourself) knew the value of spices and precious metals even as Europeans were trying to figure out why the Saracens lived longer and better despite being "satan worshipers." Global mass transfer is what cemented the Western ascendancy on the globe. But the idea that this ascendancy was appropriated from others is a bridge too far (unless one is making an emotional or faith based argument) given the destruction the West wrought on itself, as well as the fact that every single Western Empire did substantially better economically once shorn of their colonial possessions. What is more, non colonial nations like Sweden and Switzerland are demonstrably wealthier than the original western colonialists Spain and Portugal. This, in my as well as far more notable historian's opinions, is due to culture and governance. This can be seen in the staggering achievements of the East Asian tiger economies vs. the abject shitholes of sub-Saharan Africa. The tigers were resource poor, xenophobic, and overpopulated. the -holes were resource rich, comparatively open, and underpopulated. Yet somehow, East Asia is opulently wealthy and powerful while sS Africa can barley keep the lights on. It would be foolish to claim that there were no outside influences in either case, but to blame the disparate outcomes on a single nation is not only unhelpful to solving the problem, it is deleterious. One can always make a "lead by example" argument, but that is just a transposed American Exceptionalism argument which is silly. I'd be interested in any reading you could point me to on this subject, assuming you've actually done any. My sources are all antiquated paper media, but i will give you a truncated reading list should you defy my expectations. More your speed might be the doc Empire of Dust as a point of departure. Nonetheless... "Western Guilt&Third World Poverty" Bauer,"Dont Decry Colonialism" Drake, "Decolonization" Fieldhouse, "The Middle East: Geostrategy and Oil" Khalidi and many, many more.
    - ReturnUD 8y ago
      https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783658114039 https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783658114039
      - classicsnoot 8y ago
        I'm going to buy it and read it, but i hope you realize just how fucking stupid you seem. Go ahead Dang, ban me again.
        ReturnUD 8y ago
        Well, I thought the same about you - a typical first-worlder thinking he is smart because his culture initiated him into "intellectualism". Few bubble influences there as well, with your willingness to defend a viewpoint with extreme bias without even any context of what the OP is talking about. It seems like you would go to any length to prove to yourself that you deserve to go to Harvard and spend your vacation money on NYC or wherever while the kids mine cobalt in Africa and middle-easterners get neglected by their "own" governments cuz selling oil to first-world is more lucrative than educating a nation.
        classicsnoot 8y ago
        I cannot reply directly, but i am neither sorry nor embarrassed my "culture" instilled a "read, don't rage" sentiment in me. It makes me sad that yours does not, apparently.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        ReturnUD 8y ago
        F-ck off kid.
        sctb 8y ago
        We ban accounts that show up just to start and repeatedly stoke flamewars like this. Please read the guidelines and start commenting civilly and substantively—same goes for the other accounts that brought their own gasoline. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
adventured 8y ago
Inventing fake argumentation points doesn't actually work. I said nothing about such and such nation being smarter or harder working. You said that. I said, directly and indirectly, that developing nations benefit immensely more from developed nations than vice versa. It was similarly true for the US as well when it was a developing nation. It's factually true and very easily demonstrated: it's why the global median standard of living is at the highest it has ever been, famines are almost non-existent globally, the median life expectancy globally continues to expand, there is less extreme poverty today than at any other time in recorded history, global equality is at an all-time high and has continued to improve, food security is at an all-time high, infant mortality is at an all-time low, etc. If you were right, none of that could be true, because all the wealthy & powerful nations would be busy oppressing all the poor nations, such that they could never climb the standard of living tiers. Over five decades Vietnam suffered repeated occupation, genocide, famine, civil war, a brutal form of Communism, and overall had a large percentage of its population killed. Today they're on a booming express train toward a middle income economy. What excuse could you possibly present next to that? Countries like Vietnam (and China before it), or Czech, or Estonia, demonstrate very clearly what's possible and they deserve credit for their accomplishments.
- ReturnUD 8y ago
  You are a fool.

classicsnoot 8y ago

They were (probably are) and they did. One becomes smarter and more effective through learning and application, not whining and recrimination. S. Korea was demonstrably worse off than Ethiopia as well as many other sub-Saharan countries in the 1950s and look at them now. Did they achieve this through colonization, exploitation, and slavery?

ReturnUD 8y ago
Well, maybe you should stop supporting our dictatorial regime for your own interests and give us the same freedom afforded to the 50s S.Korea before you point your uneducated fingers at me.
- classicsnoot 8y ago
  There is no national government that does not A) act in its own self/best interest and B) does so with the express approval of all of its citizens. The fact that you decide to blame the population of an entire nation (who are largely ignorant of global affairs as well as having no stake/vested interest in big money deals between nationstates) is indicative of your knowledge base on the subject. The game of wealth has been going on for much longer than Thirdworldism (1970s), Dependency Theory (1960s), Globalism (1940s), Socialism (~1850s), or even Capitalism (1700s).* Resource exchange and the wealth derived from it are hallmarks of pastoral societies, potentially even out dating currency exchange given the obvious value raw material plays in terms of power. What may be considered unique to the late stage Holocene is the domination of raw material exchange by Western Societies, but only in terms of its global scale. The Chinese (there are many empires that can be called this but i hope you can suss that out for yourself) knew the value of spices and precious metals even as Europeans were trying to figure out why the Saracens lived longer and better despite being "satan worshipers." Global mass transfer is what cemented the Western ascendancy on the globe. But the idea that this ascendancy was appropriated from others is a bridge too far (unless one is making an emotional or faith based argument) given the destruction the West wrought on itself, as well as the fact that every single Western Empire did substantially better economically once shorn of their colonial possessions. What is more, non colonial nations like Sweden and Switzerland are demonstrably wealthier than the original western colonialists Spain and Portugal. This, in my as well as far more notable historian's opinions, is due to culture and governance. This can be seen in the staggering achievements of the East Asian tiger economies vs. the abject shitholes of sub-Saharan Africa. The tigers were resource poor, xenophobic, and overpopulated. the -holes were resource rich, comparatively open, and underpopulated. Yet somehow, East Asia is opulently wealthy and powerful while sS Africa can barley keep the lights on. It would be foolish to claim that there were no outside influences in either case, but to blame the disparate outcomes on a single nation is not only unhelpful to solving the problem, it is deleterious. One can always make a "lead by example" argument, but that is just a transposed American Exceptionalism argument which is silly. I'd be interested in any reading you could point me to on this subject, assuming you've actually done any. My sources are all antiquated paper media, but i will give you a truncated reading list should you defy my expectations. More your speed might be the doc Empire of Dust as a point of departure. Nonetheless... "Western Guilt&Third World Poverty" Bauer,"Dont Decry Colonialism" Drake, "Decolonization" Fieldhouse, "The Middle East: Geostrategy and Oil" Khalidi and many, many more.
  - ReturnUD 8y ago
    https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783658114039 https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783658114039
    - classicsnoot 8y ago
      I'm going to buy it and read it, but i hope you realize just how fucking stupid you seem. Go ahead Dang, ban me again.
      - ReturnUD 8y ago
        Well, I thought the same about you - a typical first-worlder thinking he is smart because his culture initiated him into "intellectualism". Few bubble influences there as well, with your willingness to defend a viewpoint with extreme bias without even any context of what the OP is talking about. It seems like you would go to any length to prove to yourself that you deserve to go to Harvard and spend your vacation money on NYC or wherever while the kids mine cobalt in Africa and middle-easterners get neglected by their "own" governments cuz selling oil to first-world is more lucrative than educating a nation.
      - classicsnoot 8y ago
        I cannot reply directly, but i am neither sorry nor embarrassed my "culture" instilled a "read, don't rage" sentiment in me. It makes me sad that yours does not, apparently.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        ReturnUD 8y ago
        F-ck off kid.
        sctb 8y ago
        We ban accounts that show up just to start and repeatedly stoke flamewars like this. Please read the guidelines and start commenting civilly and substantively—same goes for the other accounts that brought their own gasoline. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

adventured 8y ago

Inventing fake argumentation points doesn't actually work. I said nothing about such and such nation being smarter or harder working. You said that. I said, directly and indirectly, that developing nations benefit immensely more from developed nations than vice versa. It was similarly true for the US as well when it was a developing nation. It's factually true and very easily demonstrated: it's why the global median standard of living is at the highest it has ever been, famines are almost non-existent globally, the median life expectancy globally continues to expand, there is less extreme poverty today than at any other time in recorded history, global equality is at an all-time high and has continued to improve, food security is at an all-time high, infant mortality is at an all-time low, etc. If you were right, none of that could be true, because all the wealthy & powerful nations would be busy oppressing all the poor nations, such that they could never climb the standard of living tiers. Over five decades Vietnam suffered repeated occupation, genocide, famine, civil war, a brutal form of Communism, and overall had a large percentage of its population killed. Today they're on a booming express train toward a middle income economy. What excuse could you possibly present next to that? Countries like Vietnam (and China before it), or Czech, or Estonia, demonstrate very clearly what's possible and they deserve credit for their accomplishments.

ReturnUD 8y ago
You are a fool.