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The most frustrating thing about decline like this is that we aren’t even allowed to ask the questions that would set us on a path to figuring it out. The Over

by olah_1 3y ago

The most frustrating thing about decline like this is that we aren’t even allowed to ask the questions that would set us on a path to figuring it out. The Overton Window[0] is set in such a way to perfectly ensure that the decline continues. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

electriclove 3y ago
The down voters just proved your point.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  No, the downvotes are for vagueposting. If you have a point, state it.
  - dismalsci3ntist 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - pc86 3y ago
      What the hell does the Overton Window have to do with corruption? Corruption isn't limited to one political party, and I'm willing to bet 95% of the people reading this have no idea how to even apply the Overton Window to South African politics. The only thing I can take from this is that the GP meant "yeah we all know Africans are corrupt, DUH, but we can't say it because of political correctness." I don't know that that's what he meant, but when you're like "well we could discuss the root of this but it's recently become socially unacceptable to do so" of course people are going to assume the worst thing possible.
  - HideousKojima 3y ago
    I don't know enough about South Africa to comment, but I can confidently say that in Zimbabwe the black citizens of the country now have less economic prosperity and less political freedom/equality than they had under the Rhodesian government. Rhodesia never had any racial requirements for voting/representation, at least not until the British insisted on special representitives being created for the black population as a condition of independence (source: Ian Smith's memoirs). They had educational and income requirements in order to vote, and were actively building more schools in majority black areas in order to increase the ability of black citizens to vote (and to have a better education/life in general).
- feoren 3y ago
  His post is basically "we all know why this is happening, we just can't say it. You know what I mean. Wink wink. Nudge nudge." First of all, as an outsider, no, I don't know why it's happening. Secondly, the way it's carefully couched to avoid stating an actual reason, appealing to how they're "not allowed to say it", makes it sound like the real thing they want to say is something over-simplistic and extremely bigoted like "It's because of all the Blacks." So I'll leave my downvote, thank you.
  - olah_1 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - zug_zug 3y ago
      The answer is never "blacks" that's just not an actionable thing. If you think crime then the problem then you can come up with suggestions to improve things (policing perhaps? Gun control? reducing poverty?), those improvements really have nothing to do with the skin color of anyone though, just a distraction.
    - feoren 3y ago
      > you ban the questions I'm not a moderator -- I'm not banning anything. You literally stated no reason. You asked no question. Why are you telling me that I can't handle the question when you haven't even hinted at what the real question is? And if the question you think we should be asking is "Is it because of all the Blacks?" then the reason that's not taken seriously is because it's (a) obviously false and (b) obviously asked in bad faith. Why aren't we allowed to bring up the possibility that it's because of the world cabal of Pashtun lizard-humans using their space laser to destroy society so we don't figure out the dark secret that the Earth is actually toroidal!?
    - happytoexplain 3y ago
      >This proves my point. This is a common fallacious defense. You expressed an opinion about a particular example of dishonest criticism, and then were criticized. There is no "proof" that the latter criticism is also dishonest. It's OK to criticize an opinion, even if that opinion happens to be about criticism. Also, it's hard not to point out: "Just asking questions" is such a common bad-faith tactic in the vein of "I'm not saying that it's X, but it's X" that it has actually become a meme/joke. It's absolutely valid, assuming honesty! But as a phrase it has no legs.
bequanna 3y ago
I think just having the idea of “South Africa seems to have been generally better off under Apartheid” is pretty scary for most people. So, they won’t even approach a conversation trying to determine the actual causes of decline because they feel any possible explanation is going to be racism-adjacent.
- aaomidi 3y ago
  Because saying that is stupid since Apartheid is the source of these problems? It kept a vast part of the country outside of the education needed to work the jobs that produce the highest values (finance, business, etc). So yeah the "observation" is correct, except the implication of it is not.
  - bequanna 3y ago
    Ok, so your post does a nice job of shutting down conversation and finding racism where there was none intended (as predicted). Note that I imply nothing and the statement is a simple, albeit troubling, fact. How do you propose that the discussion of decline in South Africa is framed so it doesn’t devolve into people screaming “that’s racist!!”?
    - happytoexplain 3y ago
      >I imply nothing and the statement is a simple, albeit troubling, fact Words have implications. This is one of those fallacious "but it's true" things, where it honestly becomes difficult to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt - i.e. that you think the phrase "South Africa was [insert anything positive] under Apartheid", by itself, has no possible implications.
      - bequanna 3y ago
        Ok, cool. Words don’t necessarily trigger me but I suppose I can accept that others get emotional about specific word choice. Reframe the statement so some discussion on decline can proceed without triggering anyone.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ralusek 3y ago
The Overton Window is common parlance. I agree with the other poster: what, exactly, is your point? I agree that the Overton Window is probably stifling some crucial conversations here, but your comment, as is, leaves open many racist implications.
- olah_1 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - feoren 3y ago
    Racism is incorrect. It's simply false. Average differences between races are dwarfed by individual differences between humans. This is not an assumption that the past is morally inferior. It is a simple observation that when you eliminate confounding variables, racial differences simply don't account for differences in group behavior and outcomes. You'd have better luck grouping humans by height, saying that we all know that a society full of people taller than 6' simply cannot govern themselves. We could group humans by whether they're left-handed or right-handed, whether they like cilantro or think it tastes like soap, whether they can smell asparagus in their urine, whether they have that widow's peak thing in their hairline or not, the shape of their ear, or the color of their skin. There is no evidence that skin color is more meaningful than any of those other groupings: it's simply more obvious and carries enormous historical weight. You're wrong that the question can't be asked: it can. I've seen it discussed in the context of professional sports, where it may play an actual part -- nobody was banned for that. As far as societies effectively governing themselves, the question has been asked, again, and again, and again, and again. The answer is always the same: race isn't what matters. And every time someone decides we need to figure this out again, millions have to suffer and die. If you have new evidence, present it. > a question leading to a racist conclusion disallows the questions entirely This is called "proof by contradiction". Any answer to a question that leads to a known-false conclusion is therefore not the right answer to that question.
  - cmh89 3y ago
    >Progressive ideology fundamentally assumes that the past is morally inferior and thus it is unthinkable to question if things were better in previous times What are you talking about? The progressive left frequently talks about the past be being better when it comes to the worlds increasing wealth inequality and how wages stagnated. Can you stop speaking in strawmen and make an actual point? Are you dancing around an assertion that apartheid was better for South Africa?
zug_zug 3y ago
Eh, here's a downvote too. Say a point or say nothing, there's nothing about corruption you can't say on HN, particularly if you care to link sources.
- landoftheice 3y ago
  [dead]
x3874 3y ago
It is not liked by the Left but easy to say: Most countries once managed successfully or not so successfully by "Whites" or yes, even plundered by them took a nosedive towards reduced productivity, neglected maintenance, incompetence, infighting, embezzlement, dictatorship, cultural / tribe / religious clashes after handover to local authorities happened. Just look how economically thriving Mozambique and Angola were, and what happened after they gained independence from Portugal. South Africa is another example in that long list. Hell, just look what happened with Libya and Iraq after their dictators, who subdued the masses but kept the peace, were disposed of respective being helped in their disposal by the US government.
- nickdothutton 3y ago
  Singapore did rather well after the British, Lee Kuan Yew was an intelligent man with a plan and the energy and conscientiousness to execute. Likewise, even Chiang Kai Shek in Taiwan, who was facing total defeat at the hands of the Communists. African countries have not fared so well.
- happytoexplain 3y ago
  >It is not liked by the Left This is needlessly tribalistic. This is "not liked" by some people, because of the implications for which it is most often used as a stand-in. Even the right-wingers I know admit this dishonesty when they see it committed. In other words, they "don't like it". (I'm not accusing you of this particular dishonesty - I'm just criticizing your framing)
- zug_zug 3y ago
  The question "Who caused this?" is just an oversimplification and a way to get people emotional. If you really want to make things better then you focus on the question "How do we make it better from where it is now?"
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  Don't need to bring tribal politics into it. SA suppressed something like 90% of the population for decades, and then handed over control. Now the government is completely dominated by a single party. That's a recipe for disaster no matter what color your skin is, or what region you live in.
api 3y ago
You mean ideas? The left often doesn’t want to critique ideas because they conflate that with cultural bigotry, especially if the ideas are linked to things like religions. The right doesn’t like the ideas explanation because they believe in biological determinism and think it must be race. Find an image of North and South Korea from space. Those people are genetically almost identical. What’s the difference? Ideas. Why did Europe suddenly become the worlds powerhouse right after the enlightenment when before it was poorer than many places in Asia and the Middle East? The ideas changed. Have the dominant ideas and mentalities in South Africa changed? How? That’s the question I would ask.
- nickdothutton 3y ago
  I think this is a useful framing. North Koreans have the brains, the organisational skills, and the drive to build an ICBM and a bomb, in spite of the fact that most of the rest of the world is against them, and most of their own people don’t even have enough to eat. Rather like the last white South African administration in that regard (although I believe they had some help from a friend with their free fall bombs), who had enough to eat but were sanctioned heavily but still managed to operate functioning cities.
- cmh89 3y ago
  >Those people are genetically almost identical. I'm assuming (and hoping) you mean culturally identical because all humans are nearly genetically identical. >Those people are genetically almost identical. What’s the difference? Ideas. And trade sanctions, and the support of super powers. >Why did Europe suddenly become the worlds powerhouse right after the enlightenment when before it was poorer than many places in Asia and the Middle East? The ideas changed. I guess it was a 'change in ideas', it also might have had to do with colonization of the practice of exploiting poorer countries and repatriating their wealth.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
I take it you are not talking about the weird Libertarian experiments that South Africa tried? The Ciskei experiment: a libertarian fantasy in apartheid South Africa https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/mar/23/the-ciskei-experiment-a-libertarian-fantasy-in-apartheid-south-africa https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/mar/23/the-ciskei-expe... > In the 1980s, South African libertarians set up a deregulated zone that they sold to the world as ‘Africa’s Switzerland’. It was a sham, but with its clusters of sweatshops, it was very modern – and in some ways it anticipated the world we live in today
tim333 3y ago
It's tricky talking about racial stuff though I'd say the difference between the Afrikaans/Dutch origin government and the current African one is more culture than skin colour.
- olah_1 3y ago
  Where does culture come from?
  - tim333 3y ago
    It's complicated but from centuries of history I guess. An interesting argument why the area around the Med developed before Africa is it was easy to get around by boat and spread ideas and culture - you can sail quite easily between Egypt, Israel, Italy and Greece. On the other hand sub Saharan Africa was hard - you mostly had to walk. Now of course travel and communication is easy with modern tech which I suspect will level things up.

by olah_1 3y ago

electriclove 3y ago

The down voters just proved your point.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago
No, the downvotes are for vagueposting. If you have a point, state it.
- dismalsci3ntist 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pc86 3y ago
    What the hell does the Overton Window have to do with corruption? Corruption isn't limited to one political party, and I'm willing to bet 95% of the people reading this have no idea how to even apply the Overton Window to South African politics. The only thing I can take from this is that the GP meant "yeah we all know Africans are corrupt, DUH, but we can't say it because of political correctness." I don't know that that's what he meant, but when you're like "well we could discuss the root of this but it's recently become socially unacceptable to do so" of course people are going to assume the worst thing possible.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  I don't know enough about South Africa to comment, but I can confidently say that in Zimbabwe the black citizens of the country now have less economic prosperity and less political freedom/equality than they had under the Rhodesian government. Rhodesia never had any racial requirements for voting/representation, at least not until the British insisted on special representitives being created for the black population as a condition of independence (source: Ian Smith's memoirs). They had educational and income requirements in order to vote, and were actively building more schools in majority black areas in order to increase the ability of black citizens to vote (and to have a better education/life in general).
feoren 3y ago
His post is basically "we all know why this is happening, we just can't say it. You know what I mean. Wink wink. Nudge nudge." First of all, as an outsider, no, I don't know why it's happening. Secondly, the way it's carefully couched to avoid stating an actual reason, appealing to how they're "not allowed to say it", makes it sound like the real thing they want to say is something over-simplistic and extremely bigoted like "It's because of all the Blacks." So I'll leave my downvote, thank you.
- olah_1 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - zug_zug 3y ago
    The answer is never "blacks" that's just not an actionable thing. If you think crime then the problem then you can come up with suggestions to improve things (policing perhaps? Gun control? reducing poverty?), those improvements really have nothing to do with the skin color of anyone though, just a distraction.
  - feoren 3y ago
    > you ban the questions I'm not a moderator -- I'm not banning anything. You literally stated no reason. You asked no question. Why are you telling me that I can't handle the question when you haven't even hinted at what the real question is? And if the question you think we should be asking is "Is it because of all the Blacks?" then the reason that's not taken seriously is because it's (a) obviously false and (b) obviously asked in bad faith. Why aren't we allowed to bring up the possibility that it's because of the world cabal of Pashtun lizard-humans using their space laser to destroy society so we don't figure out the dark secret that the Earth is actually toroidal!?
  - happytoexplain 3y ago
    >This proves my point. This is a common fallacious defense. You expressed an opinion about a particular example of dishonest criticism, and then were criticized. There is no "proof" that the latter criticism is also dishonest. It's OK to criticize an opinion, even if that opinion happens to be about criticism. Also, it's hard not to point out: "Just asking questions" is such a common bad-faith tactic in the vein of "I'm not saying that it's X, but it's X" that it has actually become a meme/joke. It's absolutely valid, assuming honesty! But as a phrase it has no legs.

bequanna 3y ago

I think just having the idea of “South Africa seems to have been generally better off under Apartheid” is pretty scary for most people. So, they won’t even approach a conversation trying to determine the actual causes of decline because they feel any possible explanation is going to be racism-adjacent.

aaomidi 3y ago
Because saying that is stupid since Apartheid is the source of these problems? It kept a vast part of the country outside of the education needed to work the jobs that produce the highest values (finance, business, etc). So yeah the "observation" is correct, except the implication of it is not.
- bequanna 3y ago
  Ok, so your post does a nice job of shutting down conversation and finding racism where there was none intended (as predicted). Note that I imply nothing and the statement is a simple, albeit troubling, fact. How do you propose that the discussion of decline in South Africa is framed so it doesn’t devolve into people screaming “that’s racist!!”?
  - happytoexplain 3y ago
    >I imply nothing and the statement is a simple, albeit troubling, fact Words have implications. This is one of those fallacious "but it's true" things, where it honestly becomes difficult to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt - i.e. that you think the phrase "South Africa was [insert anything positive] under Apartheid", by itself, has no possible implications.
    - bequanna 3y ago
      Ok, cool. Words don’t necessarily trigger me but I suppose I can accept that others get emotional about specific word choice. Reframe the statement so some discussion on decline can proceed without triggering anyone.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ralusek 3y ago

The Overton Window is common parlance. I agree with the other poster: what, exactly, is your point? I agree that the Overton Window is probably stifling some crucial conversations here, but your comment, as is, leaves open many racist implications.

olah_1 3y ago
[flagged]
- feoren 3y ago
  Racism is incorrect. It's simply false. Average differences between races are dwarfed by individual differences between humans. This is not an assumption that the past is morally inferior. It is a simple observation that when you eliminate confounding variables, racial differences simply don't account for differences in group behavior and outcomes. You'd have better luck grouping humans by height, saying that we all know that a society full of people taller than 6' simply cannot govern themselves. We could group humans by whether they're left-handed or right-handed, whether they like cilantro or think it tastes like soap, whether they can smell asparagus in their urine, whether they have that widow's peak thing in their hairline or not, the shape of their ear, or the color of their skin. There is no evidence that skin color is more meaningful than any of those other groupings: it's simply more obvious and carries enormous historical weight. You're wrong that the question can't be asked: it can. I've seen it discussed in the context of professional sports, where it may play an actual part -- nobody was banned for that. As far as societies effectively governing themselves, the question has been asked, again, and again, and again, and again. The answer is always the same: race isn't what matters. And every time someone decides we need to figure this out again, millions have to suffer and die. If you have new evidence, present it. > a question leading to a racist conclusion disallows the questions entirely This is called "proof by contradiction". Any answer to a question that leads to a known-false conclusion is therefore not the right answer to that question.
- cmh89 3y ago
  >Progressive ideology fundamentally assumes that the past is morally inferior and thus it is unthinkable to question if things were better in previous times What are you talking about? The progressive left frequently talks about the past be being better when it comes to the worlds increasing wealth inequality and how wages stagnated. Can you stop speaking in strawmen and make an actual point? Are you dancing around an assertion that apartheid was better for South Africa?

zug_zug 3y ago

Eh, here's a downvote too. Say a point or say nothing, there's nothing about corruption you can't say on HN, particularly if you care to link sources.

landoftheice 3y ago
[dead]

x3874 3y ago

It is not liked by the Left but easy to say: Most countries once managed successfully or not so successfully by "Whites" or yes, even plundered by them took a nosedive towards reduced productivity, neglected maintenance, incompetence, infighting, embezzlement, dictatorship, cultural / tribe / religious clashes after handover to local authorities happened. Just look how economically thriving Mozambique and Angola were, and what happened after they gained independence from Portugal. South Africa is another example in that long list. Hell, just look what happened with Libya and Iraq after their dictators, who subdued the masses but kept the peace, were disposed of respective being helped in their disposal by the US government.

nickdothutton 3y ago
Singapore did rather well after the British, Lee Kuan Yew was an intelligent man with a plan and the energy and conscientiousness to execute. Likewise, even Chiang Kai Shek in Taiwan, who was facing total defeat at the hands of the Communists. African countries have not fared so well.
happytoexplain 3y ago
>It is not liked by the Left This is needlessly tribalistic. This is "not liked" by some people, because of the implications for which it is most often used as a stand-in. Even the right-wingers I know admit this dishonesty when they see it committed. In other words, they "don't like it". (I'm not accusing you of this particular dishonesty - I'm just criticizing your framing)
zug_zug 3y ago
The question "Who caused this?" is just an oversimplification and a way to get people emotional. If you really want to make things better then you focus on the question "How do we make it better from where it is now?"
rootusrootus 3y ago
Don't need to bring tribal politics into it. SA suppressed something like 90% of the population for decades, and then handed over control. Now the government is completely dominated by a single party. That's a recipe for disaster no matter what color your skin is, or what region you live in.

api 3y ago

You mean ideas? The left often doesn’t want to critique ideas because they conflate that with cultural bigotry, especially if the ideas are linked to things like religions. The right doesn’t like the ideas explanation because they believe in biological determinism and think it must be race. Find an image of North and South Korea from space. Those people are genetically almost identical. What’s the difference? Ideas. Why did Europe suddenly become the worlds powerhouse right after the enlightenment when before it was poorer than many places in Asia and the Middle East? The ideas changed. Have the dominant ideas and mentalities in South Africa changed? How? That’s the question I would ask.

nickdothutton 3y ago
I think this is a useful framing. North Koreans have the brains, the organisational skills, and the drive to build an ICBM and a bomb, in spite of the fact that most of the rest of the world is against them, and most of their own people don’t even have enough to eat. Rather like the last white South African administration in that regard (although I believe they had some help from a friend with their free fall bombs), who had enough to eat but were sanctioned heavily but still managed to operate functioning cities.
cmh89 3y ago
>Those people are genetically almost identical. I'm assuming (and hoping) you mean culturally identical because all humans are nearly genetically identical. >Those people are genetically almost identical. What’s the difference? Ideas. And trade sanctions, and the support of super powers. >Why did Europe suddenly become the worlds powerhouse right after the enlightenment when before it was poorer than many places in Asia and the Middle East? The ideas changed. I guess it was a 'change in ideas', it also might have had to do with colonization of the practice of exploiting poorer countries and repatriating their wealth.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

I take it you are not talking about the weird Libertarian experiments that South Africa tried? The Ciskei experiment: a libertarian fantasy in apartheid South Africa https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/mar/23/the-ciskei-experiment-a-libertarian-fantasy-in-apartheid-south-africa https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/mar/23/the-ciskei-expe... > In the 1980s, South African libertarians set up a deregulated zone that they sold to the world as ‘Africa’s Switzerland’. It was a sham, but with its clusters of sweatshops, it was very modern – and in some ways it anticipated the world we live in today

tim333 3y ago

It's tricky talking about racial stuff though I'd say the difference between the Afrikaans/Dutch origin government and the current African one is more culture than skin colour.

olah_1 3y ago
Where does culture come from?
- tim333 3y ago
  It's complicated but from centuries of history I guess. An interesting argument why the area around the Med developed before Africa is it was easy to get around by boat and spread ideas and culture - you can sail quite easily between Egypt, Israel, Italy and Greece. On the other hand sub Saharan Africa was hard - you mostly had to walk. Now of course travel and communication is easy with modern tech which I suspect will level things up.