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Comment by nIHOPp6MQw0f5ut | Hacker News Reader

The west industrialized without gulags.

>The west industrialized without gulags.

it was called "colony" back then and Western Europe was doing it for several centuries. For example the wonderful rubber being a major part of the European technological leap at the end of 19th - beginning of 20th century was produced in Belgian Congo where not doing your daily quota would for example result in your family members mutilated or killed:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48533964

"How to get that rubber, as much and as quickly as possible?

In the absence of scruples, the answer was distressingly simple. Send armed men to a village, kidnap the women and children, and if their menfolk did not bring back enough rubber, chop off a hand - or kill a family."

No. We just exterminated countless indigenuous peoples/nations and stole their land. Not to mention stealing resources/capital from china, india, middle east, africa, etc plunging much of the world into unimaginable poverty from which many still haven't recovered. Nothing as terrible as the gulags...

The West created the modern world and lifted billions out of poverty.

We didn't lift anyone out of poverty. Stop with the lies.

After hundreds of years of european colonization, half of africa still has no electricity.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/11/13/more-tha...

The poorest people in america, australia, etc are the indigenuous people.

Most of india, after 200+ years of colonization is mired in poverty.

https://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/news/poverty-in-india-60...

And "the West" didn't create the modern world. The "modern world" doesn't exist without india, china, africa, etc.

Easy to lift people out of poverty when you literally invent the concept.

People are naturally born poor. Nobody told the Chinese or Africans to create that many poor people. Most of those children were born with the expectation that they die early. Isn't that cruel?

Are you comparing ‘tent cities’ to the gulags?

The West didn't have land hungry pre WW2 Germany next to it.

> The West didn't have land hungry pre WW2 Germany next to it.

Not sure if this is sarcasm, but I'll assume it is not.

France and Poland send their regards.

Poland had been split 3 times by a Prussian+Austrian+Russian alliance long before WW2. Some of those nations were even trying to forcibly transplant their own culture in Poland.

This is a great lesson for all those playing Civilization-like games. Don't start a country on plains without any mountains or hills blocking access from at least 3 sides.

Poland was unlucky by having mountains in south, where we have rather peaceful nations. Sea from north (Swedes invaded Poland once, but that's mostly it) and nothing (except forests) from west (with Germany) and Russia in the east. (of course now it is a bit different, but lack of natural obstacles from east/west is still real).

Remind me which country has the largest incarcerated population in the world?

‘The West’ industrialised with slave plantations and child labour.

Oh, really?

What about plantations? Who worked there? Sigh, under each stone of European squares you can find 1kg of gold that came from the "third world".

OK, so which West countries had plantations? Did Germany have them? Yeah, first ones in 1884 and lost all of them in 1914. And it was most industrialized country.

Unification into the German Empire didn't happen until 1871. The parts that were industrialized were part of France. Germany itself didn't undergo a massive industrialization until a century after Britain.

I guess you're talking about America. There is a reason why the slave based economy of the South was much less developed than the North.

The western industrialization didn’t create gulags in the western world, but it was largely paid for by untold cruelty in Asia and Africa, and slavery in the US. Concentration camps existed far before the Nazis, and many millions died through genocide and famine created by the European powers.

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