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Comment by tetris11 | Hacker News Reader

what are you suggesting

Bring back colonization for limited amount of time ie 50years. During that time establish government, educational, civil structures and start the economy. Re-educate the society, instill the values of high-trust society. Pull out of the country gradually replacing foreigners with local population. The name 'colonization' might evoke some sentiments, but we can call this some other name.

If the west keeps allowing the best people from third world countries to immigrate, it’s removing the business, political and social leaders who have the potential to improve their country.

Come to the west, get trained and return home and build something better. Doctors and engineers driving a cab in New York is so broken.

Doctors and engineers drive a cab in New York because, for them, it's better than home.

It's broken, all right, but what's broken is "home", not the west. (All right, the west is broken too, but in this situation the brokenness of the west is not the primary issue.) And they didn't that they could fix "home", so they left, and for the most part they aren't interested in going back and trying to fix it. They probably have a better perception of how hard it would be to fix than we do.

I understand why they do it, but I also understand it’s short sighted for both nations.

Best to ensure developing nations have their best talent to DEVELOP the nation rather to deprive them of the best people and hinder development and improvement. You take out the best people and what’s left, poverty, corruption and conflict that forces more people to leave and requires more outside aid.

What's the strategy for when the locals violently resist colonization, with the aid of various countries which are hostile to the colonizing power?

Democracy export? That has worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan...

While I don't agree with the parent comment, 20 years is just nowhere enough for his strategy. Mullah Omar himself was alive for almost half of those. Something like 50 years where the old regime leaders completely vanish can only work. Again I am not saying whether it is practical or whether it is even a good idea at all.

We didn't do what throwaway3521 said, though. We tried to do it "on the cheap", just occupying, not actually transforming the society, and not staying for 50 years.

For context: We occupied Japan for, what, 12 years? We technically occupied Germany longer, but practically it was about the same (I think - from memory and not researched). In that time, we transformed them from violent, racially superior, conquer-the-world militarists to more-or-less western-values democracies. But we put a lot of people in there, and we controlled every aspect of their society.

Iraq and Afghanistan, we tried to do it with half-measures rather than a complete rebuild. And it failed.

For context, one of those events started in 1945, and one in 2003.

One started because we won a decisive war against the nation, in the other we invaded the country on a flimsy excuse.

We have entirely different cultures, times, mores, media landscapes, and different series of occupations, modern weaponry, 4th generation warefare (post vietnam) tactics, the list goes on.

Why would "oh we didn't waste enough money occupying a country that we gained little from" be the right choice? How do we magically know that?

I would assume a more important factor was that Germany and Japan were both very organized, successful industrialized societies long before facing their respective downfalls in the wars. Iraq and Afghanistan both had a very, very different starting position and it would be unreasonable to expect a similar outcome.

One thing to consider is that you have to have very functional central government to be able to execute types of wars of conquest that likes of them and USA did... So simply moderating them is often sufficient to keep stability.

Other relevant context includes the fact that it was actually West Germany, with the East providing strong incentives to both the US and the West Germans to make it work, and that this was not the first attempt to turn the successful, industrialized and well educated Germany into a democracy with peaceful relations with its neighbours...

Japan and Germany were already powerful, industrialized societies that rivaled the post-war occupiers in power. They just lost the war.

Yeah, because this worked so great last time.

Just for a context here: I actually live in almost-third-world country. Thankfully no famine and loss of live but extremely dysfunctional state and society and with educational system collapsing - probably no future. My countrymen, we, could not govern ourselves. I wish this country was occupied and someone built better society!

Not even pretending to make a rational reply here, but I've seen a lot of despicable stuff on the internet and this comment may be the one that made me the angriest. I really hope this is some sort of satire because my blood is about to evaporate. Jesus fucking Christ

I'm from a dysfunctional third-world country, too (Nigeria), and I agree with the GP. Our population lacks the ability to cooperate for the greater good. Politics here is insanely tribal and corrupt. We're heading for the tatters, except something miraculous happens.

If you've never lived in a poor, corrupt, dysfunctional place, you'll not understand how bad life is that'll make someone wish to be occupied.

It's actually not. I had no running water yesterday. Also two days ago as well. I'm sorry my comment made you angry. I hope you're doing well...

You should spend a few years in a third world country. Your righteous liberal rage will evaporate as quickly as your feeling of safety (which you take for granted).

I am from a third-world country that has its own set of problems. To believe that an outside party will come in a build a "better society" for the inhabitants papers over recent history and is almost comical.

"we could not govern ourselves" really belies how young many countries are and the unique challenges they face w.r.t. interference from developed nations. Nation building takes _time_ and I would implore you to think about the historical events that have shaped your nation.

Won't work. Loyalties are family, village, tribe, city, etc. There is no "State loyalty" in these countries to build democratic institutions on. One group will take power and then use that power to benefit their group. Sudan is a tribal war in everything but name. I think the best you can hope for is a beneficent dictator.

In short term if you want to stop this particular war make UAE and Egypt hurt as they are funding the groups.

Because colonists are totally expected to do a good job this time, not just pillaging resources, setting new apartheid systems, generating even greater famines like what UK did in India and doubling down on the lazy job of drawing straight line borders not taking in consideration the human gropings in the land, what generated a lot of the current conflicts, by splitting affine people in different countries and bunching together rival groups under the same borders. As example of colonist promoted famine, if the one currently unfolding in Gaza not enough, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943

Let's not pretend India was some sort of well run paradise before the British showed up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deccan_famine_of_1630–1632.

The previous colonial/imperial regime of the Mughal Empire was just as much a burden on the population.

The main reason India is able to feed its population today is the green revolution post WW2, especially the work of Dr. Swaminathan in India. Without it I think we would still see massive famines in India.

Wasn't that basically what Ian Smith suggested for Rhodesia? His argument was that the native Africans didn't have the education level or the experience required to run a "civil" society. So the white Rhodesians should do it for a number of years. I believe his target was the late 1980s, after which everyone would have the same rights.

Hard to say if it would have worked, Ian Smiths comments was mostly made after Mugabe took over, so it was never tested if it would work, or if Smith was even sincere in his statements.

That is, to some extent, what happened in South Africa. Of course, the whites didn't give power over easily, and the road since has not been smooth. There's no reason to think the Rhodesians would have handed it over any easier, when the time came.

South Africa today is simultaneously a troubled place and yet doing well compared to many of its peers. Violent crime is very high, for example, but similar to 19th/early 20th century USA.

I find this idea perplexing. Even if you were to put emotions and politics aside, colonization doesn’t have a very good track record for the colonized people.

I am not advocating for colonisation, but most of human history has no good track record for the ruled people. Colonisation was able to uproot some very bad social evils by fiat which would be just very hard to remove in a democratic society (for good or bad). Colonisation might be a very bad idea maybe even the worst, but when no solution is working and none in sight, people might want to throw anything they can on the table and restart debating all approaches.

I think the parent comment has shared their experience which makes them think this idea might be better than status quo in their country.

Colonization was negative ROI. No one would sign up for that.

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