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A lot of people seem to think this is bad because it looks like colonialism. I think that’s a bad take. Indeed there’s an evil history of western exploitation o
by fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
A lot of people seem to think this is bad because it looks like colonialism. I think that’s a bad take. Indeed there’s an evil history of western exploitation of Africans. That consists of territorial conquest, slavery, stripping of natural resources.
Every country that managed to get out of poverty did it by moving up the value chain from subsistence farming to eg. textile manufacturing to eg. electronics.
Here, Twitter is hiring knowledge workers and paying them a good wage. They aren’t enslaving anyone. Ghana is growing a middle class, entering the tech industry, and will be able to enjoy a bigger share of the wealth created in the global economy. It’s great news.
- Grieving 6y agoIf that growing middle class becomes dependent on westerners for employment, they will become westernized. Colonization can be extremely 'peaceful'.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 1986 6y agoGhana is a former British colony (Gold Coast) that gained independence in 1957, it is already highly westernized, certainly in Accra (where I have to assume Twitter GH is going to be based - maybe Kumasi?). I'm firmly anti colonialist but I don't think this is that at all.
- imtringued 6y agoThis is absurd. I don't know why but modern politics is just plain self destructive. You get people like this criticizing even the most minor form of foreign employment from a western corporation but absolutely nobody gives a crap when foreign aid is used to subsidize weapons manufacturers and directly destabilize a country by providing perverse incentives. You dismiss dependence on westerners for employment but do you know what the alternative is? The alternative is to do everything yourself and there is no way you can compete against western nations because they band together while every African nation tries to stay independent and dislikes their neighbor just as much as they dislike westerners.
- karpierz 6y ago> Every country that managed to get out of poverty did it by moving up the value chain from subsistence farming to eg. textile manufacturing to eg. electronics. Yes, but they also built domestic industries which had its gains taxed and used to improve the nation. Doesn't work as well when an international corporation books all of the profits overseas.
- Hackbraten 6y agoIt would be nice if Twitter’s presence helped kindle domestic entrepreneurship in the long run.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 6y agoTwitter’s operating margin in 2020 was 1% (in previous years it was negative). Most of its revenue went to compensating employees. Governments can make a lot more money taxing Twitter’s payroll than they can by taxing its profits.
- munk-a 6y agoThere is a lot of tax revenue to be had - but we still can't excuse the elephant in the room which is that tech companies avoid taxes like nobodies business since the tax code still isn't well suited to actually evaluating how they earn money.
- sneak 6y agoThey still haven't figured out how to avoid payroll taxes, however. This argument is a red herring, as it usually focuses exclusively corporate income taxes and ignores the multitude of other taxes corporations have to pay to conduct business.
- karpierz 6y agoI should be clearer. I don't mean corporate taxes, I mean capital gains. Ghanaian engineers will produce intellectual capital for Twitter, whose value will be primarily sent back to the United States.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoWhen countries get excluded from trading with the West and from accessing western tech, it does great harm to them. (e.g. the history of trade embargoes against Iran, something which is a serious problem for both the country and anyone from there wishing to leave and move elsewhere) Self exclusion isn't necessarily a better thing. It's complicated to actually remedy this history.
- 908B64B197 6y agoEmbargoed countries can end it whenever they feel like: simply get a democratic government in place.
- babelfish 6y agoIf that were true, we'd have embargoed the UAE and countless others. The United States leverages embargoes for the sake of capital, not democracy.
- filleduchaos 6y agoIt's very interesting to me that the people who get paid frankly obscene amounts of money to build tech are suddenly full of concern when people in the developing world also have a chance to make said obscene amounts of money. Suddenly everyone is an expert on colonialism and international relations.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't post flamewar comments to HN. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- noxer 6y agoDaily reminder that slavery existed in Africa for a long time and was not something the western people brought there.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 6y agoAre you trying to claim that westerners importing millions of slaves from Africa didn’t result in millions of Africans being enslaved? Do you think the slave market doesn’t respond to market forces? Buying a slave is morally equivalent to enslaving someone in the same way that hiring a hitman is morally equivalent to murdering someone.
- gotoeleven 6y agoI think his point is that africa did and does continue to have a very robust domestic slave market.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- noxer 6y agoParent post implied that westerners brought slavery to Africa which is historically wrong but commonly believed. There was no attempt to justify or evaluate anything. >Buying a slave is morally equivalent to enslaving someone in the same way that hiring a hitman is morally equivalent to murdering someone. Well, there are different kind of slaves. For example debt slave, someone in the western world would go to prison potentially being used for cheap labor as well. In Africa back then such a person would likely be "owned" until the debt is paid off. Buying someone in this context surely isn't morally equivalent as enslaving someone assuming the same "contract" is applied an the slave is able to pay off the debt and be free again. Also what if someone buys a salve that would otherwise become a human sacrifice (common in Africa at that time). Assuming ofc that the human sacrifice didn't happen and wasn't simply done with another slave instead. Pretty sure westerner in Africa significantly reduced humans sacrifices maybe by buying slaves but more likely by enforcing laws against it. We really cant know what the intentions of all the people at the time where but without context Schindler also bought Jews for cheap labor that's a fact but doesn't give the context to morally judge.