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COVID-19 Has Blown Away the Myth About 'First' and 'Third' World Competence:
One of the planet's – and Africa's – deepest prejudices is being demolished by the way countries handle COVID-19.
For as long as any of us remember, everyone "knew" that "First World" countries – in effect, Western Europe and North America – were much better at providing their citizens with a good life than the poor and incapable states of the "Third World". "First World" has become shorthand for competence, sophistication and the highest political and economic standards.
[...] So we should have expected the state-of-the-art health systems of the "First World", spurred on by their aware and empowered citizens, to handle COVID-19 with relative ease, leaving the rest of the planet to endure the horror of buckling health systems and mass graves.
We have seen precisely the opposite.
[...] [Britain and the US] have ignored the threat. When they were forced to act, they sent mixed signals to citizens which encouraged many to act in ways which spread the infection. Neither did anything like the testing needed to control the virus. Both failed to equip their hospitals and health workers with the equipment they needed, triggering many avoidable deaths.
The failure was political. The US is the only rich country with no national health system. An attempt by former president Barack Obama to extend affordable care was watered down by right-wing resistance, then further gutted by the current president and his party. Britain's much-loved National Health Service has been weakened by spending cuts. Both governments failed to fight the virus in time because they had other priorities.
And yet, in Britain, the government's popularity ratings are sky high and it is expected to win the next election comfortably. The US president is behind in the polls but the contest is close enough to make his re-election a real possibility. Can there be anything more typically "Third World" than citizens supporting a government whose actions cost thousands of lives?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Monday May 18 2020, @10:55AM (29 children)
If I say vanilla ice cream is the best flavor, and I like it much better, but I always choose strawberry - am I a reasonable and trustworthy person?
Self-proclaimed journalists, socialists, and communists: Go live in the places you think are better. Us "reprehensible" capitalists will continue to act cohesively with our stated opinions, and live where we think is best. Please, let your actions speak louder than your words.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @10:58AM (3 children)
Thanks for the laugh, I was in need of one.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday May 18 2020, @12:56PM (2 children)
You're welcome! The only inferred opinion one could reasonably determine from my statement is that I'm currently living in the country which I believe to be the "best." That happens to be the case. Please point out the hypocrisy in any of my stated opinions, unless you're prepared to articulate some other argument that your laughter was a substitute for.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @01:40PM
He was snickering at your grammar.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @03:30PM
Cohesively, right. Calls to boogaloo [npr.org] are such great signs of cohesiveness.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday May 18 2020, @11:08AM (9 children)
Well some of those Scandinavian social democracies do look very tempting, but I can't really be bothered to learn another language for now.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 18 2020, @11:13AM (3 children)
No worries, if they're really progressive they won't require you to learn the language to emigrate and will happily make all government services available in your native language.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by coolgopher on Monday May 18 2020, @12:13PM
That would be Sweden, then...
(Score: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 18 2020, @01:28PM
English is widely-spoken in several of them, as well as in Germany. Your ignorance is showing. Shoo that bee out of you bonnet, it's been stinging your last remaining brain cell and making you act the fool. More than usual I mean. Go match wits with a catfish, it's a more even battle...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 18 2020, @04:04PM
That's your definition of progressive. There are several. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a consensus as to what "progressive" means.
My meaning says nothing about provision of services to people that both aren't citizens and don't meet your requirements for presence. Unfortunately, legal requirements and actual requirements are very different. When you so structure things that many of your businesses are dependent on those who don't meet your legal requirements, I consider those "illegal" folk to be among those who are entitled to services.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by petecox on Monday May 18 2020, @11:31AM
I've been to Norway; it's friggin' cold.
Besides, I thought Jacinda's Kiwiland was supposed to be the centre-left beacon of coronavirus response?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @01:46PM (2 children)
They speak English well in all those places.
Know that it is cold and dark for much of the year there. Alcoholism, depression, and suicide are rampant. In history there have been mass migrations from Scandinavia to other parts of the world, but no mass migrations from other parts of the world to Scandinavia. There has been one very recent lesser migration there from two places. Those places are Syria and Somalia. I'll leave that there.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday May 18 2020, @01:53PM (1 child)
I consider it a bare minimum consideration to make an effort to learn their first language rather than expect them to always speak to me in mine.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @02:05PM
That's a good thing. Everyone should learn another language. But not speaking Norwegian is not a real barrier to living in Norway (for example). If you're keen to move to Scandinavia, move now and learn the language there at your leisure. Immersion is the best way to learn, and I believe they even offer free classes to help new immigrants learn their language.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 18 2020, @09:36PM
You might complain that it's only "more correct" English, and that doesn't count in the modern day and age. But as someone who learnt to communicate using "correct" English, I much prefer it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Interesting) by acid andy on Monday May 18 2020, @11:12AM (13 children)
The harms you reprehensible "capitalists" are doing are unfortunately global. And you the harms spread to other native species that cannot live elsewhere. So we'll continue to complain, loudly, until you change your ways, no matter what part of the planet we, or you, are typing from.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday May 18 2020, @11:14AM
Uhhh...
s/And you the harms spread/And you spread the harms/
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @12:17PM (2 children)
Remind me again which country this virus came from?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday May 18 2020, @01:03PM
One where the profit motive was likely given a higher priority than the well-being of its inhabitants, be they humans or other species. Just like capitalism, then. Let's note that if we believe the figures, they did a more effective job of limiting the spread of the virus within their own country than most other nations.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:45PM
It doesn't matter. The next one may very well come from NC [nytimes.com].
It matter more how you deal with (or fail to deal with [google.com])
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday May 18 2020, @12:52PM (7 children)
Right - the level of poverty for humans globally has gone down dramatically because of capitalism and western medicine, and we all know how merciful nature herself is to pandas and all of the malaria, typhus, and coronavirus victims worldwide.
Nature is a competition for survival, not a socialist/communist utopian pipedream. Capitalism actually helps people survive. Don't believe me? What was the death rate of birthing mothers before capitalist-advanced modern medicine began to intervene? And before you say Coronavirus only spread because of capitalistic technology, consider the mass extinction events that have occurred many times throughout geological history. Plants were responsible for one of the earliest, when they heavily oxygenated and de-carbonized the atmosphere. Do you think plants are reprehensible? Because plants committed a genocidal global extinction in their race to the top. If you have not incorporated scientifically determined genocidal phenomena into your worldview, I wonder if you could be seen as anything other than a hypocrite?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday May 18 2020, @01:10PM (1 child)
FFS. I suppose my comment was a bit unclear. I'm talking about social democracy. Not communism. I don't deny for one minute that there are great benefits to free market capitalism. The issue I have is the level to which it is being deregulated, subsidized and corrupted, and it needs to be supported with welfare and environmental protections which are insufficient and being eroded in the west.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 18 2020, @01:30PM
His MO is to conflate the two. And unless he's very wealthy himself, the term for this is "useful idiot." I've never understood the complete, global nihilism it takes to not only act against your own self-interest but willingly take down others in your position with you. And then they have the fucking balls to blather on about how immoral other economic systems are!
IMO it's a badly- and thinly-disguised case of crab bucket syndrome--ironically, the REAL "politics of envy" (another catchphrase that marks the user as an utter sociopath).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday May 18 2020, @01:14PM (3 children)
BTW, when I moved your scare quotes from "reprehensible" to "capitalists" it was quite deliberate. The US and UK have corrupted capitalism to take care of the rich guys and the largest corporations. It's not a free market.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @01:56PM (2 children)
True capitalism is never achieved in the same way that true communism never is. It's much easier for the powerful to rig the system so they're the only ones to gain. There's always a tension. That said, a free market system, pure or not, is demonstrably better at delivering material wealth to more people than communism is. We're not even sure that social democracy works as well as its proponents insist, because for the past 70 years European social democracies have been essentially subsidized by the United States, which is not a social democracy but has been footing the massive military bills.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:29PM
Yawn, true capitalism has existed but its failures get blamed on others. Typical capitalism gaslighting.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:22AM
Wha? A market is neither capitalist or communist... those ideologies only speak to who owns the means of production. Worker owned CoOPs in the USA are by definition communist! A command economy is where most nations go during wartime or some other existential national emergency. The bolsheviks loved that shit, so they kept it... but it's hardly by definition communist. The whole point of not having a democracy, and a government controlled command economy was because the bolsheviks argued Russia wasn't ready for true communism. For sure, the bolsheviks sucked and were utterly authoritarian... but so were all the capitalist dictators (Chiang Ki Shek, Pinochet, Marcos, the Greek military junta etc... etc... etc...), but a significant percentage of the rest of the world look at Americans like they've grown extra eyestalks when they say communism is by definition authoritarian. Most Western Europeans have had communists in power (yes, in coalition, but that's how multi-party systems ie. actually functioning democracies work). They played a part in Israeli politics (at least before the right took over completely). Communism still plays a part in Indian politics etc... etc... Those communists who wanted to avoid having to combat US propaganda in popular culture rebranded themselves "democratic socialists" to avoid the association with bolshevik socialists who were portrayed as the sole representatives of true communism, though to be fair the bolsheviks loved self-assigning themselves that mantle also. The "democratic socialist" rebranding was a mistake in my humble opinion, and it has become wishy washy and these days is even worn by neoliberal state intervention minimalists simply wanting to manage societal decline.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by acid andy on Monday May 18 2020, @01:28PM
I wouldn't say that. I'm not that much of a Luddite.
The difference is that plants did so via genetic mutations, which are arguably involuntary. When humans do so, it is through conscious choice, with the potential to understand the potential harms they are causing. Surely you can't be condoning the latter?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday May 18 2020, @04:11PM
While true, you need to realize that many of those harms are caused by local capitalists rather that by imported ones. International corporations are usually more facilitators of those harms than actual instigators of them. There are a lot of exceptions, of course. And note that some of the invasive capitalists causing harm call themselves communists...or at least are sponsored by governments that used to call themselves communist, I'm not current with what they currently call themselves.
I think it's clearer if you remove ideology from the argument and say "the powerful tend to take unjust advantage of the weak, to the point of destroying the environment in which they live". That seems to be a true statement...and is true throughout history.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @05:15PM
This is a clever argument, in that its incorrectness and unstated assumptions are subtle and hard to spot. It's similar to the "If you're not with us, you're against us" and "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" arguments. Let's be explicit about the issues of this argument, though.
1) It ignores the cost of transition. If I inherited tons of vanilla ice cream from my parents and upbringing (I have a job, a family, a home, friends, speak the language, understand the cultural norms, etc), do you expect me to throw them all away (move)? Put another way, I'm sure lots of people here know the advantages of Linux over Windows, PostGRE (or other databases) over Oracle, etc. Why do business continue to buy those inferior technologies?
2) Just because something has always been that way, it doesn't mean it can't be better. "Well, humans have always killed each other, and they always will kill each other. Why bother trying to stop them?" "The US has always had slavery, if you don't like it, move to England who has outlawed it." Etc.
3) It is setting up a strawman. The argument is that single-payer healthcare is better than getting insurance through an employer (which, if you think about it, makes no sense... I'd challenge anybody to justify this in any way besides "it's what we inherited from our forefathers and it's good enough"). If somebody told me they think strawberry ice cream more than vanilla, but they think vanilla is decent and they have a lot of it, I'd be curious why they have so much vanilla ice cream but I wouldn't think they are deceitful.