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Comment by profsummergig | Hacker News Reader

I'm a utilitarian, libertarian sort of guy.

The article mentions "harmful development."

Lots of things are harmful. People living in mud-homes without piped clean water, toilets, electricity, or doors and windows... is also harmful. I grew up (in better circumstances) seeing this around me in my native India... and I think it's not right to deny the poor these things.

Where is the consideration that this development may have been necessary to lift a certain number of people out of a very poor standard of living?

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Shell and other multinational companies are not philanthropic, they are prepared to leverage their considerable means to extract the maximum value.

I've lived in some of the poorest countries in the world. The narrative told to the communities going in is that everyone will get rich. The reality is very few people have the skills to take well-paid jobs. The only people to get moderately rich are the local government officials. When the resources dry up, the community is often left to deal with an environmental disaster.

Despite having seen this play out so many times, I would still consider myself utilitarian and to some extent libertarian. Unfortunately, when people are living in poverty, they are in an incredibly vulnerable position at the bargaining table. They will not able to negotiate for a fair compensation. In this situation the assumptions of a free and fair market do not hold.

I just remember Bolivia. The silver and other metals from Bolivia funded the Spanish Empire for 200 years or more. And every ordinary person is poor and the infrastructure is ramshackle.

When you have the time, checkout rates of the cancer and autoimmune within populations that live next to petro chemical facilities. The health impacts are generational, even for people who no longer live in those areas.

You can also checkout the track record of Shell in Nigeria to answer your question.

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