churchill

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91.
by churchill 1y ago
Charity? I mean, it's an open secret that both sides understand that the bulk of the money sent to African countries isn't supposed to be spent on the people. It's a subsidy/bribe to their developing-world elites to keep
92.
by churchill 1y ago
I've been through your comment history and I can relate. If you're highly placed enough as an elite, you can form a counter-elite and stage a change of government. But, in most cases, if you have portable, in-demand skills, it&#x2
93.
by churchill 1y ago
The systems eroding the country & making the educated & talented leave will make any new batch raised to self-select out of the country. In fact, successive generations of talented kids won't even be raised (or, only at a signi
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by churchill 1y ago
I'm happy (?) you found it fascinating, but only because you were visiting. If you had to live in Lagos for, say, 1 year, your opinion would change drastically and you'd be eager to leave.
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by churchill 1y ago
Watching this brings back memories of Nigeria's 2023 elections. It was (one of a series of) turning point(s) for me when it slowly sank in that the country wasn't worth building a life in. Working remotely & spending in a loc
96.
by churchill 1y ago
Since I'm holding onto half the odds, it's closer to 50%. but, since I'm motivated to stay alive, your chances probably look worse.
97.
by churchill 1y ago
What are the odds that you lose your life in the process?
98.
by churchill 1y ago
>Tariffs did not make the price of your BLT go up, it’s greed. What do you want to do about it, Stalin? Use the power of the state to legislate away human greed? Imprison these greedy people? Impose price controls (which have a long, sto
99.
by churchill 1y ago
Thank you; you summed it up perfectly. Globalization is the reason many Western countries still have the level of stability they do, since they can export their inflation to the developing world, while maintaining a consistent stream of che
100.
by churchill 1y ago
Yet, the average American can afford abundantly more stuff now, compared to when these jobs were in the US? How does that compute? Buying 31-inch CRT TV in the 1990s would have set you back somewhere between $2-$3k, adjusted for inflation.
101.
by churchill 1y ago
If the Chinese want to dilute the wealth of their people and use it to subsidize stuff for Western consumers, the smart thing to do would be to buy it! Anti-trade activists always agitate about how they'll jerk up prices after capturin
102.
by churchill 1y ago
It's so prevalent that Wikipedia has dedicated pages for specifically American, [0] Indian, [1] and Canadian [2] farmer suicides. In the US, farmer suicide rates are 3.5* the general population. The rate for the general population is b
103.
by churchill 1y ago
Taken to its natural conclusion, your idea is that we should farm our own wheat, thresh it, grind it into flour, make our own bread, and build our own homes. Should we do that? If jobs can't be exported to specialists who can do it at
104.
by churchill 1y ago
The US unemployment rate currently stands at 4.2% - despite all the hundreds of millions of jobs that have been outsourced to Chinese workers. Why isn't this gap larger? The reason is simple: as jobs move to places where they can be do
105.
by churchill 1y ago
I read the book referenced - Robert Lightizer's No Trade Is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America's Workers - and it was eye-opening, if somewhat misguided. In it, the author blames China's industrial as
106.
by churchill 1y ago
eli5, pls?
107.
by churchill 1y ago
Yes, I included that in the brackets. There's roughly ~240M registered SIMs, but unlike American phone line where you sign a contract, Nigerian SIMs are bought OTC and are quite disposable. But, they're tied to the National Identi
108.
by churchill 1y ago
Thank you for this. Nigerian here, and I have to say that you hit the nail squarely on the head. Population counts in Nigeria are deeply political and essentially every region/state is motivated to fake/overestimate their headcoun
109.
by churchill 1y ago
Yes. For cocaine, for example, they have large farmer networks that cultivate coca, harvest and process it lightly (drying, etc.). The cartels then finish the process and undertake the logistics of shipping it across borders, into the US, o
110.
by churchill 1y ago
Exactly this. I believe it'll free up housing and general consumer demand, reduce social security spending, etc.
111.
by churchill 1y ago
Watching intelligent people across America defend tariffs has been shocking/amusing, to say the least. We all understand that for most of human history, everyone lived at a subsistence level because we all had to farm our food, bake ou
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by churchill 1y ago
How did you make the leap from free markets vs. autarkic Juche to birth rates discourse? It's unambiguously true that free markets has made South Korea significantly, mind-bendingly wealthier than the North. And on the subject of ferti
113.
by churchill 1y ago
Exactly this. Glad someone else can see it. Having studied other settler colonial states (I believe), Israel realizes that Western weapons and doctrine guarantees they'll win every single confrontation with the Palestinians, just like
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by churchill 1y ago
>AI literally locks in power structures and perfects them. There you go advancing the same teleological theory of history you're supposed to be denouncing. Like the saying goes, history doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes: when
115.
by churchill 1y ago
I think your point has some merits, but ultimately, intent doesn't matter: action does. if the West keeps funding Israel's genocide in Gaza, then yes, it's because they believe the Palestinians are sub-human. Haven't you
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by churchill 1y ago
For now. Eventually, the injuries your system takes over time grinds your gears to a halt. And I can provide numerous examples: Portugal's colonial holdings (Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Mozambique) were unwound after the carnation revolutio
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by churchill 1y ago
Texas requires contractors to certify that they're not boycotting Israel; Florida maintains a public list of companies that boycott Israel and prohibits state investment in them; in Arkansas, the law has been upheld in federal court af
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by churchill 1y ago
It's not supposed to make sense: lobbyists paid your politicians and now, you have to support Israel, or else... There's nothing more to it. Israel knows that with access to Western weapons, it will reliably win every confrontatio
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by churchill 1y ago
I feel it's not going to last longer. With the advent of modern, mass media, young people across the West can see for themselves and they're taking a side. More specifically, they don't want their governments funding genocide
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by churchill 1y ago
oh, the Zionists got that covered already: 35 US states have passed laws/executive orders prohibiting boycotts of Israel.

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