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Is Asia just a made up continent? How do you expect the child of an uneducated subsidence farmer to become a programmer when they live in a poor country, and yo

by Aunche 4y ago

Is Asia just a made up continent? How do you expect the child of an uneducated subsidence farmer to become a programmer when they live in a poor country, and you're blocking means of external investment? What people don't seem to realize is that it's impossible to transition a place with incredibly shitty living conditions to good living conditions, without reaching a midpoint of moderately shitty living conditions.

mantas 4y ago
Old laptops are cheap. And piracy is non-issue. Learning to program is not rocket science. And that is pretty easy to learn too nowadays, just a bit harder to practice. Many of the subsistence farmers have a crapton of knowledge about their environment and how to make stuff grow. Many of them are pretty good at basic redneck engineering too. That's a pretty good background to get hold of basic programming which is not that far off.
- hurflmurfl 4y ago
  When I got my first laptop I didn't magically learn programming. That bit took me several years of learning, trying, forgetting, getting confused, re-learning... All of that would have not been possible if not for my parents providing for me. If I absolutely had to work full days ( which incidentally isn't limited to 8 hours a week in all countries in all jobs) to make ends meet, my chance of finding my calling would have been pretty slim. In other words, just the learning tools are not enough, it's but one of the necessary resources, and for some people spare time or strength can be very difficult to find.
  - mantas 4y ago
    Personally I learned programming in the evenings after school when I was 12-15. Sure that counts as „parents providing for me“ and my parents weren't farmers. But even in farming it's not like you work 24/7. And when air is crap or it's a slow season in between crops etc there's plenty of time off. And many farmers (labour, whatever) do know how important it is to give kids time to study things. TBH for me parents who drive kids around to all sorts of extra-curriculum activities for me seem to be much worse than free-range parents who just ensure that kids have time to pursue things they like. Just with some navigation to ensure they don't spend all the time partying. Which is also important though.
brnaftr361 4y ago
The thing is, is that those "shitty" conditions may well be a de facto, silently elected choice (conservative). The whole globalist ideal is that their paradigm of civilizational excellence is the only answer but it isn't, not by a long shot. Read Huxely's Island. Moreover the effects of capitalist-globalism have, I would posit, given rise to poverty in many instances with first-movers advantage, selectively shunting trade into some nations and away from others. If one nation elects to adopt the Western zeitgeist, and their neighbors neglect it, their neighbors will suffer as a product of their lack of technology. This will decrease the proportion of product to labor, increasing production cost (including non-monetary expense). [This creates huge reserves of impoverished people, otherwise known as cheap labor] pidgeonholing them into deals with the devil. At which point more developed nations can either strongarm them into really shitty compromises or just outright implant leaders. Haiti is a really stunning example of this, where France levied a huge debt against the newly independent nation. Or we can point at Madagascar where the IMF discredited them, eventually forcing them into a position where they couldn't fund malaria vaccines (or anything else for that matter). On Madagascar from David Graeber's Debt: the First 5,000 Years: "France invaded Madagascar, disbanded the government of then–Queen Ranavalona III, and declared the country a French colony. One of the first things General Gallieni did after “pacification,” as they liked to call it then, was to impose heavy taxes on the Malagasy population, in part so they could reimburse the costs of having been invaded, but also, since French colonies were supposed to be fiscally self-supporting, to defray the costs of building the railroads, highways, bridges, plantations, and so forth that the French regime wished to build. Malagasy taxpayers were never asked whether they wanted these railroads, highways, bridges, and plantations, or allowed much input into where and how they were built." On Haiti from David Graeber's Debt: the First 5,000 Years: "Haiti was a nation founded by former plantation slaves who had the temerity not only to rise up in rebellion, amidst grand declarations of universal rights and freedoms, but to defeat Napoleon’s armies sent to return them to bondage. France immediately insisted that the new republic owed it 150 million francs in damages for the expropriated plantations, as well as the expenses of outfitting the failed military expeditions, and all other nations, including the United States, agreed to impose an embargo on the country until it was paid. The sum was intentionally impossible (equivalent to about 18 billion dollars), and the resultant embargo ensured that the name “Haiti” has been a synonym for debt, poverty, and human misery ever since." The whole angle of dragging a people up is bullshit. The US alone has installed leaders and toppled parties repeatedly to maintain our status quo, and historically empires just do this. And it's always justified with some magical self-righting pretense. We do as much damage on a cultural scale as we do good on an economic one - when we're not doing damage to both, which I think is certainly the most frequent case. And let's not get started on the various military interventions over the history of the US...

by Aunche 4y ago

mantas 4y ago

Old laptops are cheap. And piracy is non-issue. Learning to program is not rocket science. And that is pretty easy to learn too nowadays, just a bit harder to practice. Many of the subsistence farmers have a crapton of knowledge about their environment and how to make stuff grow. Many of them are pretty good at basic redneck engineering too. That's a pretty good background to get hold of basic programming which is not that far off.

hurflmurfl 4y ago
When I got my first laptop I didn't magically learn programming. That bit took me several years of learning, trying, forgetting, getting confused, re-learning... All of that would have not been possible if not for my parents providing for me. If I absolutely had to work full days ( which incidentally isn't limited to 8 hours a week in all countries in all jobs) to make ends meet, my chance of finding my calling would have been pretty slim. In other words, just the learning tools are not enough, it's but one of the necessary resources, and for some people spare time or strength can be very difficult to find.
- mantas 4y ago
  Personally I learned programming in the evenings after school when I was 12-15. Sure that counts as „parents providing for me“ and my parents weren't farmers. But even in farming it's not like you work 24/7. And when air is crap or it's a slow season in between crops etc there's plenty of time off. And many farmers (labour, whatever) do know how important it is to give kids time to study things. TBH for me parents who drive kids around to all sorts of extra-curriculum activities for me seem to be much worse than free-range parents who just ensure that kids have time to pursue things they like. Just with some navigation to ensure they don't spend all the time partying. Which is also important though.

brnaftr361 4y ago

The thing is, is that those "shitty" conditions may well be a de facto, silently elected choice (conservative). The whole globalist ideal is that their paradigm of civilizational excellence is the only answer but it isn't, not by a long shot. Read Huxely's Island. Moreover the effects of capitalist-globalism have, I would posit, given rise to poverty in many instances with first-movers advantage, selectively shunting trade into some nations and away from others. If one nation elects to adopt the Western zeitgeist, and their neighbors neglect it, their neighbors will suffer as a product of their lack of technology. This will decrease the proportion of product to labor, increasing production cost (including non-monetary expense). [This creates huge reserves of impoverished people, otherwise known as cheap labor] pidgeonholing them into deals with the devil. At which point more developed nations can either strongarm them into really shitty compromises or just outright implant leaders. Haiti is a really stunning example of this, where France levied a huge debt against the newly independent nation. Or we can point at Madagascar where the IMF discredited them, eventually forcing them into a position where they couldn't fund malaria vaccines (or anything else for that matter). On Madagascar from David Graeber's Debt: the First 5,000 Years: "France invaded Madagascar, disbanded the government of then–Queen Ranavalona III, and declared the country a French colony. One of the first things General Gallieni did after “pacification,” as they liked to call it then, was to impose heavy taxes on the Malagasy population, in part so they could reimburse the costs of having been invaded, but also, since French colonies were supposed to be fiscally self-supporting, to defray the costs of building the railroads, highways, bridges, plantations, and so forth that the French regime wished to build. Malagasy taxpayers were never asked whether they wanted these railroads, highways, bridges, and plantations, or allowed much input into where and how they were built." On Haiti from David Graeber's Debt: the First 5,000 Years: "Haiti was a nation founded by former plantation slaves who had the temerity not only to rise up in rebellion, amidst grand declarations of universal rights and freedoms, but to defeat Napoleon’s armies sent to return them to bondage. France immediately insisted that the new republic owed it 150 million francs in damages for the expropriated plantations, as well as the expenses of outfitting the failed military expeditions, and all other nations, including the United States, agreed to impose an embargo on the country until it was paid. The sum was intentionally impossible (equivalent to about 18 billion dollars), and the resultant embargo ensured that the name “Haiti” has been a synonym for debt, poverty, and human misery ever since." The whole angle of dragging a people up is bullshit. The US alone has installed leaders and toppled parties repeatedly to maintain our status quo, and historically empires just do this. And it's always justified with some magical self-righting pretense. We do as much damage on a cultural scale as we do good on an economic one - when we're not doing damage to both, which I think is certainly the most frequent case. And let's not get started on the various military interventions over the history of the US...