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Comment by aprilthird2021 | Hacker News Reader

aprilthird2021

What? They don't block Internet because they want their people united. They do it because they are authoritarians who want to control every aspect of people's lives. India doesn't top the list of countries that cut Internet access because it's a haven of national unity, lol. It's probably a country more divided than any Western ones.

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The irony here is the government has little grip in much of central Africa. Militias roam the bush with little fear of law. Places like CAR are nations only because europeans drew it like that on a map. Killing the internet may be the only lever of control for the central government, they cannot control people's lives to nearly the extent is done in most the west.

In places like the US they can just use one of the gazillion laws on the books to charge anyone, then send the police on any corner to get them. There is no need to kill the internet.

We just had that whole Cliven Bundy thing happen a few years ago, no? Also, large swathes of the western US, Alaska, Appalachia, etc., are often difficult for authorities to access (at least quickly).

It's important to be clear that the lack of government control in Central Africa has a lot to do with that same sort of geographic inaccessibility. There are whole countries in Asia that exist largely because of the difficulty of administering rugged frontier; the Amazon still exists largely because the Brazilian/Colombian/etc. governments understandably have trouble administering thousands of square miles of jungle.

> We just had that whole Cliven Bundy thing happen a few years ago, no?

That's interesting because of how unusual it is. If there were hundreds of him, the US would be like central Africa.

> governments understandably have trouble administering thousands of square miles of jungle.

I'm sure that governments feel better that you understand their problems. You're replying to somebody who is enumerating those problems, not reviewing individual governments and giving them a star rating.

There are hundreds of Cliven Bundys.

The insistence on othering what clearly isn't an alien experience for our own society is annoying. It's also a bit dangerous, considering how the, "Just swoop in and merc the bastards," produced the Bundy approach; disrespect for the complexity of dealing with militias leads to tragedy.

The US doesn't have that kind of geographic inaccessibility. Cliven Bundy is alive, not because the US couldn't locate him, not because the US couldn't reach that location with overwhelming force, but because the US decided that killing him was a less optimal move than letting him be an annoyance for a while, and eventually arresting and trying him.

I don't think that's entirely it. It's true that they could have easily killed him, but that might have touched off a much wider-spread insurrection, in a location where the geography gives locals advantages in a guerilla-style approach to resistance. The choice then becomes, "Get involved in a domestic quagmire," or, "Carpet bomb conservation areas and natural wonders."

Maybe inaccessible is the wrong word. Less-accessible? And big. Lots of ground to cover, even when you have an AF base nearby.

Sure, I agree with that.

"Keep the bad parts, eliminate the good parts."

- The Authoritarian Cookbook

Lets peek into whether those divisions are organic or driven through NGOs.

You think Indians as a people are divided because of NGOs?

Did NGOs start the Gujarat pogroms? Or tear down Babri Masjid or try to impose Hindi on the Southern states? Did NGOs cause the Kashmir conflict or caused Meitei and Kuki tribes to fight each other in the Northeast? Did NGOs cause Congress to invade the Golden Temple? Did NGOs cause the BJP to announce imposing the death penalty for converting girls out of Hinduism to other religions?

Come on man

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