"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45597318 also. I'm sympathetic for where you're coming from, even though I don't fully understand—but this implementation is not working.

My SO's family is from the portion of Gia Lai neighboring Cambodia. Gia Lai itself is fairly poor, but ime the neighboring half of Cambodia is even poorer and desperate.

It's the same story in the Mekong Delta as well (having had to go to extended family weddings in rural An Giang).

And calling out the relative lawlessness in Cambodia is not racism in any shape or form. Based on your comment history, it seems you are reflexively defensive about Cambodia to a startling degree.

Cambodia was dealt a bad hand, but so was Vietnam and Laos as well, yet neither have the same degree of institutionalized criminality that you see in Cambodia.

The problem at the end of the day lies with the country's leadership, and a quasi-reformed Khmer Rouge member like Hun Sen just isn't the right leader to help Cambodia develop out of the LDC category.

Heck, Bangladesh (historically a peer of Cambodia) was also formed due to a tumultuous history and severe instability in the 1970s-90s, but concentrated on state capacity development - something which Cambodia's leadership thumbed their nose at in the 2010s.

> To call a country full of any type of people is the definition of racism.

"The USA is full of people who believe in freedom of speech". Racist?

Different cultures are ... wait for it ... different. There are cultures I would not want to live in.

There's a reason why so many people are desperate to get into the US.

> * To call a country full of any type of people is the definition of racism*

This is bullshit. This kind of stuff isn’t black and white. Am I racist for calling Monaco a place full of rich people? Of course not, I’m describing the situation people are in, not their characters. Same holds here.