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posted by Snow on Tuesday September 04 2018, @10:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-dust dept.

Brazil museum fire: 'incalculable' loss as 200-year-old Rio institution gutted

Brazil's oldest and most important historical and scientific museum has been consumed by fire, and much of its archive of 20 million items is believed to have been destroyed.

The fire at Rio de Janeiro's 200-year-old National Museum began after it closed to the public on Sunday and raged into the night. There were no reports of injuries, but the loss to Brazilian science, history and culture was incalculable, two of its vice-directors said. "It was the biggest natural history museum in Latin America. We have invaluable collections. Collections that are over 100 years old," Cristiana Serejo, one of the museum's vice-directors, told the G1 news site. Marina Silva, a former environment minister and candidate in October's presidential elections said the fire was like "a lobotomy of the Brazilian memory".

Brazil museum fire: Funding cuts blamed as icon is gutted

A deputy director at the museum, Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, expressed "immense anger", and accused Brazilian authorities of a "lack of attention". "We fought years ago, in different governments, to obtain resources to adequately preserve everything that was destroyed today." Demonstrators gathered at the gates of the museum on Monday morning, protesting against the budget cuts that they blame for the fire. Police were seen firing tear gas.

One issue appears to be the lack of a sprinkler system. Mr Dias Duarte told Globo TV that a $5.3m (£4.1m) modernisation plan agreed in June would have included the installation of modern fire prevention equipment, but only after October's elections. A major dinosaur exhibition, which was forced to shut following a termite attack five months ago, had recently reopened only thanks to a crowdfunding campaign.

Also at National Geographic, The Irish Times, and CNN.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday September 05 2018, @11:47AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 05 2018, @11:47AM (#730695) Journal
    I'll repeat the money quote:

    Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign "aid" organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

    In other words, "economic hitmen" divert a particular variety of public funds. This isn't a capitalism problem.

    Funny how when we scratch the surface a little we find once again the supposed flaws of capitalism to belong to other systems which have been conflated with capitalism. I'm not denying that this is a bad system. I'm not denying that there is greed here or that it needs to be changed. What I am denying is that this has anything to do with capitalism. It's the typical problem when public funds get used for feelgood projects. The people doling out the funds don't really care what happens as long as they don't hear about it in the media. The economic parasites intercepting the money exist only because the food sources do.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @03:53PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @03:53PM (#730787)

    Mr. Vim, is that you? Er... why do you suppose that capitalism wouldn't have the same dynamics here? How is governmental corruption distinguishable from capitalism? It seems to me that governmental corruption is capitalism in action. Self-interest at least.

    ugh, the answer is probably hand-wavey bullshit that's not supported by any observations of how private companies behave in a market

    But, let me see if I can arrange a contract with the infinite contract-enforcing turtles so we can abolish government and give this experiment a try. I just need to find a decent contract enforcer, because if the infinite turtles are the other party to the contract, I'm not sure we also want to trust them to be the enforcement on the contract.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 06 2018, @03:34AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 06 2018, @03:34AM (#731138) Journal

      why do you suppose that capitalism wouldn't have the same dynamics here?

      First, what are the dynamics? Namely that gatekeepers of other peoples' money are dumping that money via "economic hitmen" into the pockets of a variety of rent seekers. The whole thing holding this together is the power of the government. The funds exist in the first place because they are taken via taxes from the hapless public. They're routed through "economic hitmen" because the wielders of the funds have little interest in what happens to the funds aside perhaps from what they can get out of it. And the destination rent seekers have to provide little to no actual service because there's no reason to.

      In a capitalist scenario that all breaks down because the initial revenue stream is now voluntary. Something has to be provided, not merely taken. And what's the incentive to voluntarily throw money into this cluster?

      But, let me see if I can arrange a contract with the infinite contract-enforcing turtles so we can abolish government and give this experiment a try.

      We do have such beasts in the world. For example, the area around the Middle East has the hawala [wikipedia.org] system which allows one to transfer money and other valuable goods around based on reputation not government power.

      It seems to me that governmental corruption is capitalism in action.

      The obvious rebuttal here is what is the definition of capitalism? It is merely private ownership of capital together with the infrastructure needed to make that possible. Government corruption has nothing to do with that definition. The captive public revenue stream of taxation has no counterpart in capitalism. The ability to squander immense funds indefinitely has no counterpart in businesses that need to turn some sort of profit in order to continue to exist (unlike governments).