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Comment by balthasar | Hacker News Reader

Its crazy that one of the most dysfunctional third world countries borders the most powerful and prosperous. Weird huh?

Mexico's history is really complex, way before the US was a thing, New Spain (today's Mexico) was heading to become one of the most powerful and prosperous regions. It was right in the center between Asia and Europe, New Spain's silver currency was used in both continents as exchange currency, New Spain along with the whole Spanish Empire had to fight British pirates in our seas, there were expeditions to Alaska to prevent Russian colonizations in our territory, the first universities in The Americas were born here. But then the Spanish Empire collapsed, just at the moment when the US emerged strong. US governors did the best for their people and took advantage of this collapse, implementing strategies like the Monroe Doctrine, controlling the whole region. I'm not trying to justify our current situation or blaming the US for all our problems, but it is impossible denying the US has had a big part in Mexico's current state (losing half of the territory in the US-Mexico war, influencing in elections, empowering certain groups and fighting others, and more recently giving tons of guns and money to the cartels).

Mexico is really not that dysfunctional. Mexico is not even third world.

We just hear a disproportionate of news from Mexico because of how close it is.

On one side, I [selfishly, unfairly] like that Americans are conditioned by the media to be so scared of Mexico. I almost never see other Americans here. I meet a lot of people day to day who just haven't spoken to an American that wasn't a Mexican-American. Those experiences are some of the most interesting you can have when traveling.

But on the other side, that's not healthy for the people of either country. For example, I regularly meet Mexicans that think Americans hate them. And comments from the people who post in /r/the_donald regularly have me shaking my head muttering "poor sheltered bastard."

Even HN commenters will talk about how they want to pull the trigger on leaving their boring office job and move to Chiang Mai, but that's a pretty incredible move. It's far away and with a much different culture and language, which is a cool thing but increases the chances that you just won't do it.

Meanwhile I'd say I have a pretty exotic lifestyle living on nothing and I'm just a 2 hour flight from my family in Austin.

Mexico, which is not part of NATO and not subject to Russian hegemony, is by definition part of the Third World [0].

Colloquially, judging by its per capita GDP [1] and intentional homicide rate [2] it seems to fit right in with what people think of when they use the term "Third World".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

its just sensationalist nonsense.

Not really, they have always been more dysfunctional. The southern border of the U.S. is basically there to separate America from that dysfunction.

Now, for what it's worth, the dysfunction is far less pronounced further away from the border. It's quite a developed country, aside from the sorts of places where you can be raped and murdered for criticizing the wrong people. This is largely despite the state though, which is why you'll probably see more secession.

Gee, I wonder if having the largest consumer of drugs on the northern border contributes to this dysfunction.

That same northern neighbour whose ambassador is attributed as having a key role in the assassination of the ideological leader and president after the last revolution, and brought the country back into 4 more years of violence and fighting [1].

Or that same northern neighbour who swept in and took almost half its land after Mexico had just come out of a war against Texas and another against France.

Historically the US has been the prime benefactor of not only Mexico, but all of Latin America being dysfunctional, which is why the CIA has been involved in destabilizing the region for years.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lane_Wilson

Agreed. Most Americans are unaware how destabilizing US policies have been to Latin America in general. From toppling democratically elected leaders, to supporting corrupt murderous regimes during the cold war.

they are truly disgusting.

Who/what is? The Mexican government? The cartels?

That sentence might make some sense and be arguably relevant if you replaced “third” with “first”. (As written, it suggests that the most powerful and prosperous third world nation is bordered by the most dysfunctional third world nation, and that this is somehow relevant to a story about Mexico, which is, for starters, not a third world nation.)

yr right they are a very stable and egalitarian power house.

This is such an interesting question so I made a blogpost about it: https://medium.com/@kwbil/the-poor-are-shunned-even-by-their...

Yeah Canada must hate having us so close.

nice

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