The Epstein files are taking a lot of attention, but the reparations movements gaining worldwide momentum are more interesting. How do you even start pricing payback models into national economies, and what effect is that going to have on market forces. Not sure if any of it will ever come to pass.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
I'll argue that if you want to fail at a cause just join it up with "the unicause" and you make failure certain. On the other hand you might think marginalization is moral superiority and you can win by failing, in which case the unicause is for you.
I believed in the unicause in 1993 and had the good fortune to be told by black nationalists that they didn't want no honky to tell them what to do and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
nis0s•4mo ago
The idea of reparations is both a fascinating economic and social problem to think about.
I personally think reparations at a group or nation state level are impractical and infeasible, but maybe someone could show a paper or two on how they could model the effect of such resource or money movement across nations and economies.
I can’t even imagine the geopolitical consequences, but I think a lot of new nuclear nations are going to pop up.
Climate change is real, but climate justice seems like a convenient excuse to make someone else pay for your country’s bad governance. What keeps many of these countries from building up from shanties like Singapore, or becoming small and mighty like Vietnam? How do they imagine that an influx of money will solve any of those problems which keep them from transforming at the moment? Iraq has 1100% more GDP since it was bombed after 9/11, but it still struggles with electricity and water supply issues. Lack of money and resources is not the problem for many of these nations, but their leaders and elites are excellent at convincing everyone otherwise.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
It's a tough problem.
From the viewpoint of conservation, never mind climate change, it seems we would all win if people who live in tropical forests could be paid to keep them standing.
The thing is the money has to be sustained because they're going to keep living there, and it also has to go to those people and not go to the "tropical gangsters" who run their governments.
It may well be that those countries are dysfunctional and unequal because of the legacy of colonialism but today what those countries need to do is fix the dysfunction regardless of who pays who and just agreeing to pay them $X certainly won't help on it's own, particularly if you think reparations mean you paid $X and now it is all cool.
NGOs like the Gates Foundation have had some success bypassing the tropical gangsters and providing services directly but I believe in the old-fashioned Western and conservative idea that countries like that should develop their economies, tax their people, and be accountable to provide services. In the neoliberal regime Western countries have struggled to do this -- and even if the US has benefited greatly from the current open trading situation, people in the US don't believe it!
yongjik•4mo ago
We can't even get the leader of the world's most powerful country (yet) to accept that climate change is a real problem. Along with half of its citizens.
Reparations may sound nice in theory, but when we're in the middle of a fire ... maybe turn off the gas first before worrying about who's going to pay the hospital bills?
nis0s•4mo ago
PaulHoule•4mo ago
I believed in the unicause in 1993 and had the good fortune to be told by black nationalists that they didn't want no honky to tell them what to do and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
nis0s•4mo ago
I personally think reparations at a group or nation state level are impractical and infeasible, but maybe someone could show a paper or two on how they could model the effect of such resource or money movement across nations and economies.
I can’t even imagine the geopolitical consequences, but I think a lot of new nuclear nations are going to pop up.
Climate change is real, but climate justice seems like a convenient excuse to make someone else pay for your country’s bad governance. What keeps many of these countries from building up from shanties like Singapore, or becoming small and mighty like Vietnam? How do they imagine that an influx of money will solve any of those problems which keep them from transforming at the moment? Iraq has 1100% more GDP since it was bombed after 9/11, but it still struggles with electricity and water supply issues. Lack of money and resources is not the problem for many of these nations, but their leaders and elites are excellent at convincing everyone otherwise.
PaulHoule•4mo ago
From the viewpoint of conservation, never mind climate change, it seems we would all win if people who live in tropical forests could be paid to keep them standing.
The thing is the money has to be sustained because they're going to keep living there, and it also has to go to those people and not go to the "tropical gangsters" who run their governments.
It may well be that those countries are dysfunctional and unequal because of the legacy of colonialism but today what those countries need to do is fix the dysfunction regardless of who pays who and just agreeing to pay them $X certainly won't help on it's own, particularly if you think reparations mean you paid $X and now it is all cool.
NGOs like the Gates Foundation have had some success bypassing the tropical gangsters and providing services directly but I believe in the old-fashioned Western and conservative idea that countries like that should develop their economies, tax their people, and be accountable to provide services. In the neoliberal regime Western countries have struggled to do this -- and even if the US has benefited greatly from the current open trading situation, people in the US don't believe it!