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Countries across the continent are experimenting with this 21st century technology as a way to leapfrog decades of neglect of 20th century infrastructure.
Over the last two years, San Francisco-based startup Zipline launched a national UAV delivery program in East Africa; South Africa passed commercial drone legislation to train and license pilots; and Malawi even opened a Drone Test Corridor to African and its global partners.
In Rwanda, the country's government became one of the first adopters of performance-based regulations for all drones earlier this year. The country's progressive UAV programs drew special attention from the White House and two U.S. Secretaries of Transportation.
[...] After several test rounds, Zipline went live with the program in October, becoming the world's first national drone delivery program at scale.
"We've since completed over 6000 deliveries and logged 500,000 flight kilometers," Zipline co-founder Keenan Wyrobek told TechCrunch. "We're planning to go live in Tanzania soon and talking to some other African countries."
[...] In a non-delivery commercial use case, South Africa's Rocketmine has built out a UAV survey business in 5 countries. The company looks to book $2 million in revenue in 2018 for its "aerial data solutions" services in mining, agriculture, forestry, and civil engineering.
[...] The continent's test programs — and Rwanda's performance-based drone regulations in particular — could advance beyond visual line of sight UAV technology at a quicker pace. This could set the stage for faster development of automated drone fleets for remote internet access, commercial and medical delivery, and even give Africa a lead in testing flying autonomous taxis.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @02:15PM (8 children)
Every single educated person in the entire world has already seen this episode before! The first season was way better - when the infrastructure now crumbling was being built by those devils - hospitals, schools, teaching them trade languages, skills, the best in technology...it really was an original story! Now it's all filler and the same old plot every time. Throw money into the black hole, and it's as if it never existed...."But wait! Let's try a slightly different mix of money and technology this time!" This show needs to be canceled.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday September 24 2018, @02:24PM (7 children)
Oh FFS, just say what you actually mean already. You're not fooling anyone.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 24 2018, @03:52PM
Is he talking about Gilligan's Island?, cos i dunno. Unless he wants to talk about MaryAnne, i'm outta here.
:)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @04:01PM (1 child)
I guess he means it's a "quantum leap" when you speak of America but a "frog leap" when it comes to nations in Africa.
Not that the neglect makes something more [mercurynews.com] than a simple linguistic artifice (with the note the freezing winter states show much worse).
One wonders just where's that trumpeted "infrastructure spending" stopped? Has it even hatched yet?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 24 2018, @04:39PM
Was how bad our roads are.
In Canada, the roads are very well maintained.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @09:18PM (3 children)
He said what he meant, and I agree. People who advocate aid for Africa should be summarily executed for all the fucking crimes they have already committed with their "aid."
Africans should live in mud huts, and hunt (or be hunted by) various animals. Whatever fucking population that life-style supports, let it be, and leave it the fuck alone.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday September 24 2018, @11:03PM (2 children)
Translation: this is how Africa will speak Mandarin not English in a couple of decades.
But yes, I concede your point: if you are not able to do good, better do nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @10:43AM (1 child)
I don't think so. Speaking Mandarin is not so tough, but the characters form a barrier for many people. Of all the languages spoken in Africa most of them are written with alphabets. They haven't used logograms since ancient Egypt.
They'll probably all speak English with each other, even if the English-speaking countries vanish tomorrow. Lingua francas seem to persist long after the societies that spawn them have gone. Akkadian, the lingua franca of the ancient Middle East, stuck around for a couple thousand years after Akkad was gone. Latin, likewise, has stuck around for a long time since the Roman Empire fell.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:34AM
(what a way to miss the implied point)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @02:15PM (5 children)
Nice to hear about people coming up with and implementing decentralized solutions to these problems. How much is it to buy one of these drones? Would it be like owning a car, or more like construction equipment where you rent it?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @02:38PM (3 children)
Taking your example a step further, how big is the drone that can deliver construction equipment to the job site? Or for that matter, a container-load (~semi trailer) of anything. Seems to me that it will take a remote controlled CH-47 Chinook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJXid64fDps [youtube.com] and personally, I'd rather not be anywhere near one of these monsters if it was being remote controlled. I want the pilot to have some skin in the game.
Just build and maintain some damn roads for %^&* sake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @04:44PM (2 children)
That Chinook? Requires the skin of 4 people to use it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @08:39PM
Web-scale AI.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:47AM
"They rub the lotion on their skin, or they get the hose!" Buffalo Bill's Air Delivery Service. We wont' sweat meating your needs!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 24 2018, @04:11PM
It seems like you would want multiple drones to let one charge while the next one takes a package, and to have spares in case a drone fails.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @02:21PM (46 children)
I have no doubt - at all! - in African innovators, technologists and entrepreneurs. They could do it, for a whole continent, in just a decade.
But.
I also have no doubt in the ruling elites of almost all African countries to do their utmost in fucking up the implementations, ideas, dreams and physical asses of everybody involved, just to further their personal agendas of amassing wealth and power, instead of their peoples' well-being.
Africa has no tech problem, Africa has no people problem, Africa has no brain drain problem, Africas has no natural-disaster problem .... but what Africa does indeed have is an overabundance of not-enough-revolutionary-beheadings-of-the-right(!)-people :(
Admittedly, with revolutions you never know whether it's going to be Germany '98 style or Cambodian Civil War style .....
Yesyesyes, South Africa and Rwanda are all nice and dandy, but what about Nigeria? The Congos? Libya? Sudan? Ethiopia? Angola? Simbabwe? Madagaskar? Somalia? Sierra Leone? The whole continent basically is a slaughterhouse of administrational incompetence and tyrannical egotism.
If you have valid ideas on fixing this, please contact the UN at 555-1234.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @02:33PM (2 children)
South Africa is nice and dandy? I've been hearing that government is about to start confiscating a bunch of peoples shit and redistribute it.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @03:11PM
As far as Africa is concerned, that still counts as civilized.
For an example of the contrary do read up on land reform in Simbabwe. Which, BTW, stopped the country being Africa's Bread Basket(tm) and instead caused widespread famine and a refugee crisis that spilt into South Africa (quite ironic given your doubts, don't you think?)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @03:21PM
Which is fine and dandy. Redistributing and allocating resources is what governments are for. Tax here... Spend there... China done it. India done it. Do you see a whole lot of white land owners in either? Now, Africa will do it. If anything, it's 50 years too late.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday September 24 2018, @03:06PM (34 children)
Africa has beheaded more awful dictatorial shitheads in the past century than the rest of the world combined.
And you know what? It helped a lot; that's half the equation. The other half of the equation is not letting whoever led the military part of that exercise take control afterwards(with, say, the financial and military support of the United States against a democratic system as happened recently in Egypt)
The US got super lucky with George Washington, a military leader with massive popular support who people wanted to make a king for life chose a two term presidency, because compared to leaders of other revolutions, we got out pretty clean: france got Napoleon, China got first the nationalists, then Mao two revolutions in a row, it seems like revolutions are just a roll of the dice whether things get shittier.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 24 2018, @03:44PM (1 child)
We didn't get two term presidency by law until after FDR. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-wins-unprecedented-fourth-term [history.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Monday September 24 2018, @05:48PM
Thank you for that piece of common knowledge that relates to what I was saying tangentially.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @03:59PM (31 children)
I think the saving throw is 4d20, and you must roll ≥ 80 to avoid shit rolling downhill onto your head.
This is what gets me about people wanting to change the world, with revolutions. Only a VERY small number of people ever benefit from revolutions, at all other people's expense. Worse, is when the revolution is fomented from outside.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @04:43PM (27 children)
Like for example from ... Russia?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @04:48PM (26 children)
Actually, the USA. If you're looking at numbers alone, Russia and the US are competitive. But, the US seems to install harsher, more draconian dictators than Russia does. Compare the Shah of Iran with someone like Fidel Castro. The US loves to add insult to injury.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Monday September 24 2018, @06:15PM (25 children)
You're not going to find a US equivalent to a Lenin or Mao. It's even more pronounced these days. For example, Russia supports Bashar al-Assad, Kim Jong-un, and a few dictators in the former Soviet republics. No comparable US support for dictators exists. The worst people can point to are things like support for democratically elected "neo-Nazis" in the Ukraine (which really is support for people that Russia doesn't like), some hanky-panky in Venezuela a few years back, and of course, the ever-green complaints about how US businesses are supposedly causing all sorts of problems (even when those problems would be worse in the absence of said businesses!).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @06:37PM (20 children)
So, uhhhhhmmmmmm - Operation Ajax? WTF, man? Do you even understand what the US did to the poeple of Iran with that? Then, there are all of those banana republics. On a whim, an American corporation would overthrow one mean son of a bitch, and replace him with a even worse son of a bitch. When the corporation would holler, Uncle Sam came wading in, kicking ass, and taking no names at all, just so the corporation could install a slave master to suppress the people.
Maybe we can play Jeopardy? "Who was Noriega?"
https://theweek.com/articles/487538/5-dictators-still-supports [theweek.com]
https://www.alternet.org/world/7-fascist-regimes-enthusiastically-supported-america [alternet.org]
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-koppman/endless-us-support-for-di_b_6821136.html [huffingtonpost.com]
Maybe you would prefer to do your own search. I used the terms "America support for dictators"
I hate to cite leftist news sources, but they do present some facts that the right never wants to hear, let alone consider. The US has a history of seeing bad leaders replaced by subhuman animals, whose job it is to subjugate the poeple for the corporate profit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 24 2018, @07:26PM (19 children)
Have you even read what I wrote? The Communists did that even worse with the Bolshevik revolution, for example, which overthrew a democracy in Russia and created a 70 year hell.
So what? Not all of them together hold a candle to the Khmer Rouge, another Communist project. At some point, if you're going to think about this subject, you'll need to think about the other side and the threat it represented. The US didn't do this stuff in a vacuum. I think early on a lot of people looked at what happened in Russia and China, as well as the various other countries where Communism was being tried, and decided "We don't want to be like that, and we're willing to do a lot of nasty things to make sure we don't end up that way." And they did just that.
Meanwhile you have numerous examples of the Communist playbook for taking over a democracy. Start with an election win and then grab all the power you can before the opposition figures out what you're doing. Operation Ajax aborted the Communist takeover of Iran. No similar "operation" prevented the Soviets from doing the same to Afghanistan. That took a very ugly war to remove the Soviets once the feeding tendrils were fully inserted.
In 1980, Communism had a third of the world's population under its thumb and Russia was the primary instrument of that ideology. Today, it's more like half a percent. That sea change is in large part to countries like the US resisting that particular darkness and to Russia collapsing from within. I'll note that you, Runaway have frequently expressed concern about Islam. But we see here a far more dangerous ideology. After all, Islam has been around for over a thousand years and has long abandoned its expansionist roots. Communism went from nothing to a third of the world in about 60 years. Islam has done little over that same time frame.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @07:38PM (17 children)
*cough*
The banana republics predate the USSR. Your rationalizations are a bit out of order. It would be just as easy to hold up our own worst excesses, to explain the Soviet reactions to them. And, uhhhhh - Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.
Sometimes, our government seems to find itself occupying a moral high ground. But, it never really seems to be by design. I think it catches our "leadership" by surprise, when it does happen.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 24 2018, @08:11PM (16 children)
In other words, we're speaking of stuff over a century out of date.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday September 24 2018, @09:00PM (7 children)
Wow, nice goalpost shifting. You're free to argue about the Bolsheviks in 1917, but don't accept the mass murders the US perpetrated in Central America at around the same time?
You're not arguing in good faith here.
The above quote is from the Wikipedia entry on Guatemala.
You're going to argue that enslaving a whole country to ensure one company's profits is not an awful thing?
1954 is not a century ago by the way.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:12AM (6 children)
It wasn't about the same time (read the quote I replied to) nor were those conflicts equivalent in scale. What's the body count of these mass murders?
Then you don't get my complaints. I'm not playing this game where Communists can kill orders of magnitude more people and be considered equally heinous to the murders committed by US allies.
Again, what is the body count here?
There are worse things to enslave a whole country to. Communism has proven to be one of those things.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:52AM (5 children)
Look I get it. Communism is such a terrible thing, that as soon as anybody starts talking about it, we should start killing them.
Here's a list of the countries the US has invaded:
Philippines (Reneges on promise of Philippine independence in exchange for Filipino support during the Spanish-American War)
Fiji (Expedition)
China (Second Opium War)
China (Looting China in response to the Boxer Rebellion as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance)
Taiwan (Expedition into Taiwan)
Korea (Korean Expedition in response to "insults")
Panama, Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, Dominica Republic, Honduras, Mexico (US shenanigans with their military)
Germany (World War 1)
Russia (Russian Civil War - Formation of Soviet Union)
Germany, Japan, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria (WW2)
Korea (Korean War)
Vietnam (Vietnam War)
Guatemala (CIA overthrows of their government and funds dictator's armies)
Iran (CIA overthrows elected Prime Minister)
Cuba (Bay of Pigs)
Brazil (CIA helps overthrow the government and funds opposition groups)
Chile (CIA funds opposition then overthrows the government)
Grenada (Overthrow their government)
Nicaragua (Helps install a military junta)
Libya
Panama (Attempt to capture Gen. Manuel Noriega)
Honduras (Helps install a military junta)
Colombia (Funds and trains death squads)
Iraq (Desert Storm)
Iraq (Retaliation for alleged assassination plot)
Somalia
Sudan, Afghanistan (Retaliation for terrorist attacks in embassies)
Afghanistan (Response to 9/11)
Iraq
Shortened to just the 20th century for your convenience.
Some of them can no doubt be justified ( Germany in the 1940's comes to mind) but that list leaves out the countries the CIA has destabilised and governments overthrown because of the US fear of Socialism.
When the Chileans voted for a Socialist government in 1970, it was better that the CIA overthrew them and murdered the president?
But no, let's just pretend Communism is worse shall we?
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:51AM (4 children)
And? I recall we were comparing two countries, not merely doing the two minute hate. Where's the list of countries Russia has invaded in the 20th century? It's going to be a long list too.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:06PM (3 children)
You obviously don't like my comparison, and keep trying to shift the goalposts.
The only point you are getting across is that you have no understanding of 20th century history, and have absorbed the US anti-communist propaganda very well.
Congratulations.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @10:28PM (2 children)
No goalpost moving has occurred. I'm just pointing out that it's highly disingenuous to only speak of US misdeeds in a purported comparison with Russia. It's likely claiming someone is worse than Hitler because they murdered another person. Yes, they committed a serious evil, but one is completely ignoring a huge elephant in the tent.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 25 2018, @10:44PM (1 child)
The only point you are getting across is that you have no understanding of 20th century history, and have absorbed the US anti-communist propaganda very well.
Congratulations.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:18AM
Disagreement != lack of understanding. If you had read the thread, you would have read about why I disagree in the first place.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @10:08PM (7 children)
To expand a little on the Parttimezombie's response - you're probably familiar with the "no man is an island" idea. The government we have today, is a direct derivative of governmental policies of days gone by. Ditto for Russia, and China as well. And, of course, that also applies to countries around the world, be they first world, second, or third world countries.
When we look around us, and call some other country a "shithole", we are indicting ourselves for having helped to build the world into what it is. People not very different from the Shkrelli asshole made decisions a hundred years ago, and more, that shaped the world into what it is today. Lives are traded among the Powers That Be, and lives have a value assigned to them. There is truth in the claims that brown lives have lesser value than white lives, and black lives have less value than brown. Asians don't quite fit into the white to black scale. It's like they are a separate scale that only intersects the black to white scale in a couple of places.
Always, though, profit is more important to any American, and to most all western, governments, than lives are. The value of your life seems to be an indication of how much profit the corporates think they can make from you. No profit, little or no value. High profitability, high value.
Communist governments have a similar scale, but they aren't measuring profitability. Instead, they are measuring how well you contribute to the political cause. A life that contributes nothing to the agenda has zero value. An obedient drone has some value, while the fanatical activist has a greater value. And, of course, the party leadership has the highest value, just like a corporation.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:32AM (6 children)
There are two non sequiturs in here. Your observation about government evolution doesn't follow from "no man is an island" nor does some country being a "shithole" either mean that we are doing any indicting or that we should. After all, there's considerable evidence that the foreign policy foibles of the US since the Second World War successfully contained Communism.
And PTZ does a considerable amount of whataboutism (a Soviet specialty). Are we to ignore the greater crimes of the USSR because of mass murders in Central America? What exactly is the point of such scolding as he gives?
I've met plenty of Americans for which that isn't true. And even if it were true, so what? There are worse things to pursue than activities that yield a net benefit. The urge for profit can be steered via regulation and has been successfully steered for some number of decades in the West.
For whatever reasons, those priorities ended up being a higher body count contrary to your original assertion. They also end up with some remarkable failings that have no comparison in the US, such as remarkably large scale environmental messes (for example, Chernobyl and the drying up of the Aral Sea).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:13PM (5 children)
The "flavor" of your post seems like you have to convince me that communism is worse than capitalism. If that be the case, you're wasting your time. I'm not holding the Soviet, or Red China up as an example we should follow, after all. Both countries had casualties in the tens of millions, while the commies were doing their thing in the capitals.
Instead, I'm pointing out that we don't attain the moral high ground by default. We're screwed up enough, all on our own, that moral people can, and do, mock us for trying to pretend that we are "good", or "righteous", or whatever it is.
Kinda like the petty criminal doing his first year in prison, comparing himself to the bad boys who will probably never see the light of day, except through bars. "Well, at least I'm better than THAT GUY!! I've never done ________________." Yes, that's us, the US. "We aren't as bad as the Soviet! We don't bury tens of millions in mass graves!"
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:12PM (1 child)
Geez Runaway. I have been trying to make this point in several posts, but haven't been able to get my point across half as well as this post.
Well done.
I wouldn't like for you to think I have any beef with the US people at all.
My home town hosted ~ 500,000 US Marines during the 1940's and I will forever be grateful to them for the awful job they took on in the Pacific War. My Grandmother told me many stories about what lovely young men they were, and how the town grieved when units came back from the fighting with half their boys missing. That was a just war if ever there was one.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:07AM
And yet, what was the point of this exercise? A litany of the evils of the US in a supposed comparison with Russia which neglects to mention what Russia has done and currently does. I don't mind acknowledging the evils of the US. But when it's done as if the US is the only evil out there, I have to wonder what is up?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:03AM (2 children)
That struck me as indicating that you didn't understand how bad Communism was. Fidel and the Shah were far from the worst either had to offer and I was able to bring more worthy contenders to the table. Moving on:
That's fine as far as it goes. But it's a double standard to pay attention to the moral flaws of the US and not other countries with similar capabilities (EU, Russia, and China at present), particularly while using the pretense of a comparison which is not a comparison. And as I noted, while the US frequently and routinely acted evil, it wasn't in the same class as its foes.
We still have similar dilemmas today such as what to do about radical Islam. I don't buy, for example, that Russia's choice of supporting Assad over ISIS was a good idea, particularly since Assad's incompetence and the subsequent civil war was instrumental to the formation of ISIS in the first place. That strikes me as just another Operation Ajax moment (or rather the continuation of a previous Ajax moment by the Soviets). But then I don't buy that Islamic cooties are as dangerous as claimed. Communism had proven it was a danger by oppressing a third of humanity starting from little (as well as a remarkable history of dishonesty and violence unmatched in the corporate world). OTOH, Islam has been kicking around for almost 1400 years and hasn't really changed or grown much in recent centuries. My view is that the Moslem world is just a couple of centuries behind in social progress. Not great, but not an insolvable problem either.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:40AM (1 child)
Double standard? No, not at all. Let's say you're a cop. No matter how dirty the suspects you arrest, then testify against, you are still responsible for your own actions, morals, and ethics. You might be a clean cop, never taking any bribe money, always honest, just as clean as clean can be. Or, you might be a dirty cop, justifying lying in court with getting a really bad guy off the street. Or, you might accept bribes, drugs, women, wine, and song, to look the other way. But, no matter how dirty you might be, you can't justify it with the trash that flows through your jail.
I expect cops to be clean.
And, I expect my country to do what is morally and ethically right.
Unfortunately, neither the cops nor my country always measure up to my expectations.
And, no, you can't justify any of it. The best you can offer is "might makes right". Yeah, we've got the guns to enforce our will, but that only makes us dirty. Please don't dirty us any further with a bunch of hypocritical justifications, based on whataboutisms.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 26 2018, @04:23AM
Ultimately, either something is done about that trash or they become the new police with a different take on what they can justify. A world where the good guys are required to commit suicide for the sake of ethics is not a viable one.
That's where we're heading with this argument. If your "police", crooked or not, isn't willing to do the job of defending the weak, it's might makes right.
As to what I can justify, you're looking at two basic choices with something like Communism (and any similar domination ideology like some flavors of Islam), submission or fighting back. The US choose to fight back. That we're still alive (large scale nuclear war being one of many possible bad outcomes) and mostly free (1984 being another) means they did a lot of things right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @10:39PM
Um, no? Was there some expectation that we should? I thought it was just more khallow.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shortscreen on Monday September 24 2018, @09:56PM (3 children)
Lenin and Mao installed themselves. I'm not sure who you're trying to blame for that. Russia supports Assad vs. Al Qaeda. You favor Al Qaeda?
Kim says he is willing to negotiate. But that's not good enough for some. His country may be a shithole but you can blame US-led sanctions and military threats for that. The US "opposes" NK, tries to sabotage it, and wants to keep the area as a playground for the military. Is there some kind of alternative that they support? Do they think NK is going to surrender en masse and become a US colony?
The US backed people that Russia doesn't like in Ukraine with or without elections (remember "Yats is the guy") that was the whole point. Aside from Gulf state monarchs the US is running short on friendly dictators, so they have to fund and arm opposition groups, or create them. Even if they are Al Qaeda. That is how the US handles people it doesn't like. Throw on some sanctions too. Then the next move is to start bombing (but only when Russia isn't looking)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:48AM (2 children)
Mao had Soviet support and Lenin was Russian. Read the post otherwise.
I favor neither. Assad created the mess in the first place. Al Qaeda is not an improvement.
And that is as positive a statement as we'll ever get about the man.
You can blame Moon Nazis too because they're withholding precious Moon cheese from the starving North Koreans. There's not much point to fantasy-based blame. There are many countries in the world. Only North Korea has these peculiar issues. Maybe we ought to look for rational reasons for why the country is a shithole rather than automatically assume the US is somehow to blame.
So what? Is the US supposed to subordinate its interests to those of Russia?
You're apparently the first person to complain about that state of affairs. The US fortunately isn't running short on friendly democracies.
I think I've made it clear by now that I believe the USSR deserved all the shit it caught over the decades (mostly created by itself). Creating Al Qaeda is a pretty minor price for tossing the USSR on the garbage pile of history.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:08AM (1 child)
If the US acts like it's more important than everybody else and not accountable for anything, then it shouldn't expect to be taken seriously when it sheds crocodile tears over what other governments are doing. It's as simple as that.
We may agree to disagree.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @01:13PM
"If."
Except of course, when getting along with some of the hypocrites of the world means you can save thousands or millions of lives, right?
What's true of a country can be true of an individual. Why should I take you seriously?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:17PM (2 children)
C'mon big man, tell the racist fuckheads (AC and jmorris so far) what you think about their racist trolling. Show everyone how not racist you are by pushing back against those assholes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:38PM (1 child)
Eat a racist dick, bitch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @08:02PM
So THAT is why you're always so angry.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 24 2018, @04:15PM (5 children)
Africa has a lot of potential and a lot of unexploited resources. African countries could modernize quickly with China's help, but at what cost?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa–China_economic_relations [wikipedia.org]
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/debt-colonialism-china-africa-resources/ [thesouthafrican.com]
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/china-chases-africas-resources/ [aspistrategist.org.au]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 24 2018, @06:06PM (4 children)
Why does anyone think it's going to work better with China trying to drive modernization in Africa, than it did with various European powers and the United States? The last round of foreign powers roundly exploited Africa, in partnership with ruthless locals, while proclaiming they were there "to help." The Chinese don't even pretend to be there "to help." Also, they have even less cultural aversion to corruption than the last round of helpers; as such, they're not gonna magically make African countries more democratic, more honest, or more prosperous.
Africans have great reserves of natural resources and native talent, but they're frustrated by tribalism, post-colonialism, and foreign meddling. Their best hope is to DIY their way to a better future, but who knows if they'll be able to get there with China insinuating itself into their midst.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 24 2018, @06:54PM
Their best hope is to look at what works and copy it, with minor adaptations for local culture.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @06:56PM (2 children)
The US never really drove "modernization" in Africa, nor did much of Europe. What the US and most of Europe wanted in Africa is more properly called "exploitation".
China may very well succeed, where we failed, because they have an entirely different perspective. China has already cornered a lot of market share in Africa, because their cheap stuff is affordable. China isn't pushing Calvin Klein, or Gucci, or whatever. China pushes the same cheap crap they export to the US, but priced so that Africans can afford them. That is - the $0.30 T-shirt that sell on Wal-mart shelves for ~$5.00 is priced at $0.38 in African markets. And, China is kicking the west's ass in much of Africa.
https://www.africa-business.com/features/china_africa_business.html [africa-business.com]
One of the key phrases in that particular article: "China has been actively partnering with African governemnts". Unlike westerners, who tend to topple governments, then replace them with puppets to control the population.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 24 2018, @07:13PM
I'm thinking about loans from the World Bank and IMF, which are institutions controlled by Europe and the US. Yes, it exploited Africa, but it was done under the guise of helping them develop.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 24 2018, @08:15PM
When China starts "partnering" with the replacements it appointed will you still continue to make that distinction. I don't agree that China has an entirely different perspective here. However, I do agree that Africa will ultimately be better for the stuff that the outside world does here.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @04:49PM
Easy-peasy. Just let the Chinese "invest" in those countries and they will take care to see a RoI.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @11:54PM
1) First, determine if *you* should "fix this." Specifically, if you are taking personal ownership of fixing things, then you are basically saying it is your right, privilege, and burden to override the will of the local population and subjugate them to what you think is the way the world should work.
2) Having determined you are willing to become a "colonial oppressor," then do it right. Send it a substantial (and presumably benevolent) military force, seize control, and destroy all effective resistance. This will be very expensive and time consuming.
3) Start administering things.
4) Figure out how to decolonize, possibly by slowly incorporating locals into government and "training on the job" with some multi-year plan to withdraw. The slower the withdraw (within reason), the better.
5) Provide the support the fledgling country needs when they need it. (E.g. if Italy has a debt crisis, then other EU and other countries help them... no single country is an island)
6) Repeat for the next area.
I make no claims on the morality and immorality of the above actions. I merely suggest it would be a valid and effective way of "fixing" the "slaughterhouse of administrational incompetence and tyrannical egotism."
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Monday September 24 2018, @03:02PM (3 children)
Are they really that naive to think that their simply does not exist Africans with good enough aim to take down drones? That the solution to all their problems is to just suspend the infrastructure above the ground? I don't see it, how high do they propose these drones fly at?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:38PM (2 children)
WTF?
Do you have a point? Or just living out your hillbilly dreams on an internet forum?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:58PM (1 child)
wisnoskij? He ain't a hillbilly. I think he's from the Bronx.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @09:27PM
Ok, urban hillbilly dreams. Never spent time in the Bronx but from what I hear shooting at drones seems like a plausible hobby over there.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @03:04PM
That is all.
(Score: 1, Troll) by wisnoskij on Monday September 24 2018, @03:06PM (5 children)
What does this have to do with infrastructure? This is just a way for white people to send each other things without having to step out of their gated communities or pay for an armoured caravan.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday September 24 2018, @03:53PM (4 children)
While it would definitely help with getting little johnny the most recent edition of call of duty in the middle of the Sahara, that's certainly not the only use case. Having a centralized hub for the deliveries puts control of the delivery into the hands of the people making the delivery and the receiver of the package. All of a sudden, it could be possible for clinics to get their shipment of life saving medicine. Without having to worry about whether or not this entire shipment is going to get hijacked on the way. Just because, it could be used to benefit a group of people you seem to have a problem with, doesn't mean it can't benefit society as a whole. The whole "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face." saying seems apt here.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Monday September 24 2018, @05:34PM (1 child)
And who is shipping and who is receiving this shipment of medicine? Unless we are talking about a shipment of medicinal goat urine, or ground up rhino horn, it is White people.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 24 2018, @10:06PM
Please note I was referencing clinics that are there as effort in humanitarian aid. Specifically intended for the indigenous population.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 24 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)
Does delivering it by drone really prevent hijacking, or does it just change the manner in which shipments are hijacked?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 24 2018, @10:15PM
The technological hurdle to hijack a drone is much higher than it is to hijack a truck. There's the obvious, just shoot it down option, but that seems very likely to end with a destroyed package as well as drone. It's also much harder to spot a drone, than it is to just sit here on this one dirt road that's the only way to get from point A to point B. Sure, there'd be incentive to find a different manner to hijack shipments, but it seems like a worthwhile experiment.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 24 2018, @03:53PM (1 child)
are they running Ubuntu?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday September 24 2018, @04:06PM
Yes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy [wikipedia.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 24 2018, @04:09PM (1 child)
https://mttr.net [mttr.net]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 24 2018, @04:35PM
Menlo Park [soggy.jobs], California and Zurich [soggy.jobs], Switzerland.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday September 24 2018, @04:25PM
They're actually in Half Moon Bay [soggy.jobs].
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Monday September 24 2018, @04:57PM (13 children)
So a decade ago we were regaled with stories declaring how Africa was going to leapfrog wired infrastructure and just go straight to cellphones for everthing. Now they are going to leapfrog the rest of the world and just deliver everything by drone.
Lets translate this from pablum to English. They are going to be sitting in their mud huts for the next century and we will keep throwing things at them out of a sense of guilt. So they will be sitting in mud huts with a solar panel, sat dish and cellphone, getting a few deliveries by drone. Until such time as we tire of it all, run out of guilt or our own civilization collapses to the point we can't afford to be this stupid anymore. In the end it all has to be charity because they have little to trade for the industrial marvels the rest of the world produces and lack the skills or desire to produce any of this stuff themselves. When that happens they will still be happily sitting in the same mud huts when the last cell tower goes dark and it will be as if none of it ever happened.
They used to call it the "dark continent" for a reason, the light of civilization does not shine there and when we take a lamp in it flickers out because it just can't exist there. No civilization there, without outside influence, used the wheel, developed anything approaching advanced agriculture, developed advanced written language, high culture or art, nothing. Don't believe me, carry your butt to a museum sometime. They all have to have an African section lest they be savaged as politically incorrect. Look at it. All of it is childish and primitive stuff. Now look at Chinese art from thousands of years before, European art from a thousand years ago, Mediterranean art from several thousand years ago, Egyptian art from thousands of years ago. Now look at the tools, weapons and other artifacts on display. Seeing a pattern yet?
Reality is what is left after you have tried and failed to disbelieve your senses.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:06PM
Have you ever tried fire walking? Well, let me tell you, for someone with such an impressive intellect and formidable physique I suggest you try fire existing. This is a whole-body endurance test where you find a burning building and make it to all the rooms. Once you've visited every room you exit through the back.
If ever there was a worthy candidate you shine above.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 24 2018, @06:16PM (7 children)
What about Kush? The Copts? What about Carthage? Also, Egypt is an African civilization, in Africa.
Africa is kind of a big place with a long history. It has had many kinds of people and civilizations on it.
In more recent centuries it suffered a lot under colonialism. Political boundaries were drawn that were not natural to it, and that's just one legacy of that time that still stymies the place today.
It's glib to dismiss all that complexity.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @06:46PM (1 child)
Being racist is entirely an exercise in being glib.
a : marked by ease and informality : nonchalant
b : showing little forethought or preparation : offhand glib answers
c : lacking depth and substance :
Racism is an emotional belief, no amount of logic is going to suddenly make bigots drop their prejudice.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @09:35PM
Ah yes, brigade the posts that you don't like! Feeed your anger, let it grow and one day you can take your proper place as Emperor.
Yall fucktards be dumb, modding up obvious ignorant race baiting bullshit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa [wikipedia.org]
jmorris is a racist troll and he is consistently modded up, want to change the perception that conservatives are not all racist? Mod that bullshit down every time it comes up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @07:14PM (3 children)
Sadly, maybe Africa is too big, and has too long a history. At least some part of Africa's problem is, they've lost a lot of their history. Empires have risen and fallen there, and been forgotten. Any one of the tribes you might find in the African bush might be the legitimate heirs of some noble line from one of those forgotten empires.
Asia has similarly forgotten empires. but they also have surviving empires, and histories to show for all their trouble. Some people in Asia have more-or-less reverted to barbarity, but the civilized people far outnumber the barbarians. India, China, and Japan, especially, have rich histories going back thousands of years longer than the West. In Africa, only Egypt and Persia can make such claims.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @10:49PM (2 children)
Wot! A Tiger? In Africa? [youtube.com]
Nashville in Arkansas meets Cairo in Persia in Africa. Americans, and Geography.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:41AM (1 child)
OK, someone will need to explain this post to Runaway, or he will not understand that he has once again been slammed for being an ignoramous. Volunteers?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 26 2018, @06:54AM
And you think that explaining it to him will help? I am just enjoying a tete-a-tete with Runaway and khallow, and seeing the ignoramous hand the other his own ass. Which is which is left as an exercise for the reader.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @08:18PM
Normally, people refer to the darker people.
The modern country with the strongest genetic match to ancient Egyptians is Syria. People similar to the today's Syrians made the pyramids.
The only ancient thing of note in sub-Saharan Africa is Great Zimbabwe.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 24 2018, @06:47PM (2 children)
I'll make a rival prediction. I predict most of Africa will achieve developed world status by 2100. In some sense, though my prediction is not that different. They won't get there by using hand-me-down trinkets from the existing developed world, but by developing the same democracy-capitalism infrastructure that has worked so well for the developed world today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @11:17PM (1 child)
Yes, the Chinese will provide the knowhow for that democracy-capitalism infrastructure.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:52AM
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @07:02PM
They call it the "Dark Continent" because evil white oppressors know that the light of journalism never shines there. How many blood diamonds do you own?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @04:00AM
This is a commercial operation, rather than an experiment. Check out this talk about how it works both practically and commercially, and how it has saved people's lives:
https://www.ted.com/talks/keller_rinaudo_how_we_re_using_drones_to_deliver_blood_and_save_lives?language=en [ted.com]
The fact that they have blood spoilage down to 0% is incredible.