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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: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Monday May 18 2020, @08:26PM (3 children)
On the one hand Pune doesn't require you to immigrate, which I understand is not so easy for an American moving to NZ. Just what I have been told but I never looked into it.
On the other hand Pune is a good fit for some, hippie types and farmers can do well there. You seem to have experience in Pune however the flew vs brew is still a non-trivial cultural shift for most ha'ole trying to make a home there. I have heard of quite a few ha'ole have difficulty in Pune. Also the serious Meth problems on the south kona side are bit disturbing. I haven't been back since kapohoe went under lava.
I have not been to NZ but I know people from there and I have never heard of any Maori issues.
I looked at Costa Rica it is not a place I would consider without knowing the language well and land ownership can be a bit dicey.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 18 2020, @09:00PM (2 children)
We've already been burned by Costa Rican laws once, ignorant on our part but we invested in a company with an agreement written in English, therefore unenforceable in the courts that have jurisdiction... Not a reason to stay away, and the "burn" cost less than a trip down there and back - cheap education overall. Still, our Spanish would always be 2nd class, I'm sure. Family connections might compensate, might not - hard to guess the future.
Our friend on the Big Island put us in touch with some locals that we talked with on the phone and e-mailed a bit (people from his church) - they were all really really nice. We had pretty well settled on upper HPP as the place we wanted to move to, but reliable sustaining income was a major concern, and once I found a good job only 75 miles from where we were, what the hell - much easier move, and it was well worth it. Of course there are horror stories out of Puna, cars being stolen and police won't go look for them in "native land", etc. but to hear our ex-army Colonel tell about it: you respect them, they respect you - mostly.
What I heard about the Maori in the north end of North Island reminded me of 1970s Florida - people getting beat up at the beach over turf wars that basically break down on racial lines, that sort of stuff - also lots of the indie film being made about NZ is emphasizing the raw deal that the Maori got and how that has led to them having similar issues as the North American natives...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:35AM (1 child)
Rupert may have been wrong about peak oil but he got something right in this essay (after bitter experience trying to move to Venezuela in 2006) about the importance of community/tribe/connectedness:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161021081420/http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110706_mcr_evolution.shtml [archive.org]
"Living in Venezuela has been an amazing, brutal, and illuminating lesson. It is a truly alien culture that I find simultaneously beautiful, hard, giving, unfamiliar, uncomfortable and definitely self-protecting to the extreme. That is why I am confident that Venezuela, and most of Latin America, will survive the coming crash of Peak Oil better than any other region of the world. I believe it is already starting to protect itself. It doesn’t need me or any outsider to survive. But as a general rule, only those who are native here will be protected by its blessings. ...
The important distinctions about adaptivity are not racial at all. US citizens come in all colors. American culture is the water they have swum in since birth. A native US citizen of Latin descent who did not (or even did) speak Spanish would probably feel almost as out of place here as I do. They would look the same but not feel the same. And when it came time to deal collectively with a rapidly changing world, a world in turmoil, a native-born American’s inbred decades of “instinctive” survival skills might not harmonize with the skills used by those around him.
Another one of my trademarked lines is that Post Peak survival is not a matter of individual survival or national survival. It is a matter of cooperative, community survival. If one is not a fully integrated member of a community when the challenges come, one might hinder the effectiveness of the entire community which has unspoken and often consciously unrecognized ways of adapting. As stresses increase, the gauntlets required to gain acceptance in strange places will only get tougher. Diversity will become more, rather than less, rigid and enforced.
As energy shortages and blackouts arrive; as food shortages grow worse; as droughts expand and proliferate; as icecaps melt, as restless, cold and hungry populations start looking for other places to go; minute cultural and racial differences will trigger progressively more abrupt reactions, not unlike a stressed out and ill human body will react more violently to things that otherwise would never reach conscious thought.
Start building your lifeboats where you are now. I can see that the lessons I have learned here are important whether you are thinking of moving from city to countryside, state to state, or nation to nation. Whatever shortcomings you may think exist where you live are far outnumbered by the advantages you have where you are a part of an existing ecosystem that you know and which knows you.
If the time comes when it is necessary to leave that community you will be better off moving with your tribe rather than moving alone."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:48AM
I imagine the "former writer" hasn't come even close to having a reason to be concerned for his safety in the subsequent 14 years. Meanwhile, Venezuela has a murder rate of 81 per 100k people [reuters.com] in 2018.