3 ms·

That's a lovely tale, but is it actually true? The path "western" countries took to riches was long, painful, and destructive. The alternatives available today

by emn13 7y ago

That's a lovely tale, but is it actually true? The path "western" countries took to riches was long, painful, and destructive. The alternatives available today simply weren't available then. If indeed the only route to modernization were via the exact path medieval Europe ended up taking then maybe you'd have a point. But that's not the case - right? If all you have to burn is wood, and all you can grow are relatively unimproved crops, then that's what you burn and grow. But nowadays even the poorest of countries has better options available, and likely can get some help in exploring those options too. Also, brazil is not some weak, destitute country. It's GDP is comparable to italy & france, and even per capita it's similar to the EU members bulgaria and romania. At PPP, the average income is pretty much smack on the world average, similar to china and serbia (the poorest EU country). Brazil isn't rich, but neither is it poor; it has the means to spend at least a small amount of effort avoiding deforstation. And let's not forget that deforestation will likely hurt Brazil too in the medium term; trying to avoid that isn't asking for a major sacrifice. It's asking for calm, rationality, and discipline. And yes, that's not at all trivial, but it's not a black and white affair either; some improvement is probably achievable, right?

Mirioron 7y ago
>and even per capita it's similar to the EU members bulgaria and romania Bulgaria is a poor country. Bringing them up as an example is a bad idea, because life there isn't great. >But nowadays even the poorest of countries has better options available, and likely can get some help in exploring those options too. Yeah, and that "help" will come after we've sanctioned them into irrelevance, right? How would you feel if people discussed openly like this that China should buy a large chunk of the US and force the US to submit through sanctions from the world? Sanctions that would likely severely impact the quality of life of the people in the US? (Even then Americans would still be richer than Brazilians are right now.)
- emn13 7y ago
  Bulgaria's GDP is comparable to brazil's and about world average. It's not poor. It may feel that way, being so close to much richer countries, but it's just not poor in any absolute way. In PPP bulgaria is even well above average and median: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... --- As to sanctions, and the fairness and perception thereof: I don't think that fairness matters; nor should matter. There's no good way to figure out what's "fair" and what's not in the first place, and different people have different perceptions. Waiting for fairness simply implies not acting; and that's too costly. The whole situation isn't trivially generalizable to other countries anyhow; deforestation of the amazon happens in the amazon basin, i.e. largely in Brazil. This circumstance applies here, not elsewhere, and circumstances aren't always irrelevant. Furthermore: the only reason to apply sanctions in the first place (and I hope I wasn't the poster to use that word?) is to induce change. If the sanctions are too mild and change not induced, they're merely harmful. If sanctions do induce change, then there's no "sanctioning into irrelevance" to speak of anymore, right? But personally: I'd hope that sanctions could be applies precisely enough to induce change without impacting quality of life very much for the vast majority of brazilians that aren't chopping away daily. E.g. by prohibiting the trade in goods that encourage chopping as long as chopping persists (beef and vegetable oil IIRC?); If you want fairness; how about a simultaneous push to lower tariffs or other barriers on other goods. The aim should not be to punish, simply to force change. --- Finally, I'm going to emphasize that I really think aiming for international fairness is a terrible idea here - but... if indeed a similar issue were to face the US or EU, I'd vehemently agree that sanctions are warranted. And there are issues where it'd be only fair to apply pressure even today. But the thing is: it's not a tit-for-tat game; the point is to cause change. Sanctions that don't cause change are worse than pointless; they're damaging. And however unfair that may be, I don't think it's going to be easy to leverage the US like that anytime soon. Maybe china, you're right... but then the question is whether they'd do that even if it's in the rest of the world's interest - after all, sanctions typically hurt the sanctioning country too (both directly and indirectly), not to mention cause diplomatic damage. If if china had the leverage, would they "waste" it on something like GHG, or instead prefer to "win" the next trade war? Which brings me to a small dose of realism: it might be benevolent and selfless to apply pressure on Brazil wrt. the rainforest today, but which country is going to waste whatever leverage they have over Brazil and squander diplomatic goodwill over a rainforest that's everyone's problem, most specifically Brazil's too? Brazilians might even be better off in the long run - but countries aren't easily that selfless, so it's not going to happen. This whole discussion is likely going to remain hypothetical.
vihren 7y ago
Serbia is not a EU country.The poorest EU country is Bulgaria ( I should know, I'm from there). I have been to Brazil and the situation is very different there. You are correct that the GDP is comparable, but the gap between the rich and the poor there is far worse, though I don't have the stats to back up my claim. Just an observation. That being said I'm sure that the short term profits they make from cutting the rainforest will definitely only help widen the gap between the rich and the poor there. I agree with you that they have other options to better their situation in a more sustainable way.
- emn13 7y ago
  Going by wikipedia's stats, bulgaria is noticably richer at PPP, but not in raw $, so it's not surprising you'd notice the difference in person (and I'll bet the region you visited matters too). The inequality will matter too, as you say. Brainfart about serbia, I was simply skimming european countries ;-). Ref: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality#Gini_coefficient,_after_taxes_and_transfers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

by emn13 7y ago

Mirioron 7y ago

>and even per capita it's similar to the EU members bulgaria and romania Bulgaria is a poor country. Bringing them up as an example is a bad idea, because life there isn't great. >But nowadays even the poorest of countries has better options available, and likely can get some help in exploring those options too. Yeah, and that "help" will come after we've sanctioned them into irrelevance, right? How would you feel if people discussed openly like this that China should buy a large chunk of the US and force the US to submit through sanctions from the world? Sanctions that would likely severely impact the quality of life of the people in the US? (Even then Americans would still be richer than Brazilians are right now.)

emn13 7y ago
Bulgaria's GDP is comparable to brazil's and about world average. It's not poor. It may feel that way, being so close to much richer countries, but it's just not poor in any absolute way. In PPP bulgaria is even well above average and median: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... --- As to sanctions, and the fairness and perception thereof: I don't think that fairness matters; nor should matter. There's no good way to figure out what's "fair" and what's not in the first place, and different people have different perceptions. Waiting for fairness simply implies not acting; and that's too costly. The whole situation isn't trivially generalizable to other countries anyhow; deforestation of the amazon happens in the amazon basin, i.e. largely in Brazil. This circumstance applies here, not elsewhere, and circumstances aren't always irrelevant. Furthermore: the only reason to apply sanctions in the first place (and I hope I wasn't the poster to use that word?) is to induce change. If the sanctions are too mild and change not induced, they're merely harmful. If sanctions do induce change, then there's no "sanctioning into irrelevance" to speak of anymore, right? But personally: I'd hope that sanctions could be applies precisely enough to induce change without impacting quality of life very much for the vast majority of brazilians that aren't chopping away daily. E.g. by prohibiting the trade in goods that encourage chopping as long as chopping persists (beef and vegetable oil IIRC?); If you want fairness; how about a simultaneous push to lower tariffs or other barriers on other goods. The aim should not be to punish, simply to force change. --- Finally, I'm going to emphasize that I really think aiming for international fairness is a terrible idea here - but... if indeed a similar issue were to face the US or EU, I'd vehemently agree that sanctions are warranted. And there are issues where it'd be only fair to apply pressure even today. But the thing is: it's not a tit-for-tat game; the point is to cause change. Sanctions that don't cause change are worse than pointless; they're damaging. And however unfair that may be, I don't think it's going to be easy to leverage the US like that anytime soon. Maybe china, you're right... but then the question is whether they'd do that even if it's in the rest of the world's interest - after all, sanctions typically hurt the sanctioning country too (both directly and indirectly), not to mention cause diplomatic damage. If if china had the leverage, would they "waste" it on something like GHG, or instead prefer to "win" the next trade war? Which brings me to a small dose of realism: it might be benevolent and selfless to apply pressure on Brazil wrt. the rainforest today, but which country is going to waste whatever leverage they have over Brazil and squander diplomatic goodwill over a rainforest that's everyone's problem, most specifically Brazil's too? Brazilians might even be better off in the long run - but countries aren't easily that selfless, so it's not going to happen. This whole discussion is likely going to remain hypothetical.

vihren 7y ago

Serbia is not a EU country.The poorest EU country is Bulgaria ( I should know, I'm from there). I have been to Brazil and the situation is very different there. You are correct that the GDP is comparable, but the gap between the rich and the poor there is far worse, though I don't have the stats to back up my claim. Just an observation. That being said I'm sure that the short term profits they make from cutting the rainforest will definitely only help widen the gap between the rich and the poor there. I agree with you that they have other options to better their situation in a more sustainable way.

emn13 7y ago
Going by wikipedia's stats, bulgaria is noticably richer at PPP, but not in raw $, so it's not surprising you'd notice the difference in person (and I'll bet the region you visited matters too). The inequality will matter too, as you say. Brainfart about serbia, I was simply skimming european countries ;-). Ref: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality#Gini_coefficient,_after_taxes_and_transfers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...