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Comment by claaams | Hacker News Reader

Its crazy he thinks that learning physics is the solution: I believe that in the improvement of the technical ability, thus the productivity, of the people of Latin America lies the source of real economic advancement.

and not the fact that the US has spent 150+ years destabilizing that part of the world.

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Lots of places have been unstable for many years though. China, most of Europe, Russia, India, Korea. Some have shrugged that off others haven't, so it does not seem to have much predictive power.

I'd say the extent and duration of the disruption between Latin America and the counties you mentioned are quite different.

LATAM started from the get go being awfully disrupted from the 1500s and in catastrophic ways. Also, we don't call any of those areas Latin X. It shows how much impact the conquerors had that it even defines how we can the region to this day.

> I'd say the extent and duration of the disruption between Latin America and the counties you mentioned are quite different.

I don't think it is. Europe was full of wars, civil wars, conquest, occupation, and suppression and destabilization of competing nations for all that time, for example.

If you tried to back up your assumption with figures or with specific historical facts, you would see that it is wrong. It's not just about the fact that there was instability somewhere at some point, but about how it is being perpetuated. The countries you list above are very diverse. But what they all have in common, and what distinguishes them from countries in Latin America, is that there is a lot of ocean between them and the US. Admittedly, this also applies to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. But if we examine the question of what distinguishes these countries from the ones you list, it brings us back to the connection that was already pointed out above. I live in Germany and have had access to toothpaste my whole life. People my age in Cuba can still remember very well what it was like to have to do without toothpaste. Now ask your favorite LLM who temporarily prevented toothpaste from being imported into Cuba.

Blaming Cubas struggles on the US without acknowledging that Cuba, for example, has labor camps for children, is kinda silly imo.

It's a brutal dictatorship very similar to Iran. Let's all keep that in mind.

I can find nothing to support the claim that Cuba allegedly has labor camps for children. As far as I can see, this is an unsubstantiated propaganda claim. It is well known that the US is currently having ICE round up people off the streets and imprison them throughout the country. There is evidence that five-year-old children are being detained separately from their parents. The ability of people to apply double standards is always astonishing.

https://www.amnesty.de/sites/default/files/2025-03/030_2025_...

And it is simply irrational not to link Cuba's problems with the US embargo.

Weird. You seem pretty bad at searching: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Units_to_Aid_Producti...

> The ages of the inmates ranged from 16 to over 60

I will read the article and incorporate it into my view of things. I don't get the impression that you are prepared to evaluate information in a similarly open-minded way. You remain silent on all the points I have raised. This makes it clear to me that you are an ideologue.

I already knew about US immigration services abuse. It's absolutely a problem. It seems like a non sequitur in the discussion though. The actions of ICE in the US since Trump was elected don't seem like they have any relevance to the educational problems in Latin America in the 60s though? I mean, unless ICE now has time machines. If that's the case, I will absolutely start worrying. A lot.

I mentioned ICE because you mentioned something about child labor camps in Cuba. You have to keep things in context when you make non sequitur insinuations. I don't share the view that ICE is the first problematic development and that everything was fine in the US before that. We can end the exchange here. Nothing positive will come of it.

Cuba being a totalitarian communist dictatorship is of course the primary reason for both the bad economy, the disappearances, and the labor camps. These are not unrelated.

The issues with ICE are because of totalitarianism too. So one would think we agree on this point.

Attacking a country's people because the government is a dictatorship makes no sense. Especially when we were just fine with the brutal dictatorship that preceded the one we hate, because that one was capital-friendly and didn't try to give white man's money to brown people.

I mean, if your argument is that sanctions never work and are useless, then that's a position that we can argue, but I guess that means you also would support lifting all sanctions against Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, etc?

Sanctions don't never work, but they certainly must be used judiciously. They can and will be anticipated and countered, as Russia has shown. Their overuse has pushed the intended victims into a trading bloc rather than isolating them. I want a competent and effective government, even if it's one that kills innocent people for profit and destroys democracy in other countries. Instead we just get sanctions that do nothing and evil for profit.

> [Sanctions] can and will be anticipated and countered, as Russia has shown.

How have they shown that? I think they've showed that they won't stop the war, but that's not at all the same as anticipating or countering the sanctions. Since they couldn't anticipate the war lasting longer than a week I think we can safely say they didn't anticipate having an ongoing war AND sanctions.

Due to the sanctions, Russia has shifted its economic focus away from the West. This has given BRICS a massive boost. BRICS+ now controls over 40% of global GDP and over half of global oil exports. I don't know how much the sanctions are affecting people's everyday lives in Russia itself. In 2023, there were newspaper articles here in Germany about how we are still importing Russian oil, just not directly from Russia, but indirectly via India.

The topic is about Latin America in general. Cuba is a very small and extreme outlier for several reasons so not very representative, I would say. It's certainly true that communist regimes from Cambodia to North Korea to Cuba have often been horrible for their people, whatever the root causes might be.

No, I'm talking about Latin America in general though. And yes it is certainly true there was colonialism, destabilization, economic coercion, and all that from large powers. I don't deny that. The examples I gave fit exactly the same description though. There was no "vast ocean" between the Ottoman Empire and Europe where it was throwing its weight around for centuries. Nor was there a vast (or any) ocean between China and colonial European powers, or later Japan.

So if "vast oceans" are part of your thesis, you are going to have to explain and define that far better, with a lot more supporting evidence and reason for your claims.

You can vaguely handwave and pontificate about differences between other examples and just assert without any real evidence or reasoning that must have been the cause of it. But like I said, that's just not scientific or even compelling in the slightest, really.

Of course it's not scientific. I don't wear a lab coat, and neither do you. You should take a look at yourself in that regard. You can't accuse me of lacking standards that you yourself don't live up to.

Ecuador 2010, Honduras 2009, Venezuela 2002, Haiti 1994, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador until 1990, Panama 1989, Grenada 1983, Bolivia 1980, Chile 1973, Dominican Republic 1965, Cuba 1961, Guatemala 1954, and so on until the territorial destruction of Mexico in 1848: all of them wars, coup attempts, occupations, protection of U.S. corporate interests, installation of military dictatorships, attempted assassinations of heads of government, etc.

These are recent events that naturally have a massive impact on the political and economic development of the nations concerned. And you want to equate that with the fact that the Turks were in Vienna at some point or that a nation of 1.41 billion Chinese has now recovered somewhat from European colonialism. Sorry, but that's ridiculous. The US bears significant responsibility for the poor political and economic situation in many Latin American countries. You don't have to agree with this assessment. But to pretend that there aren't a multitude of valid arguments for it is either ignorant or disingenuous.

> Of course it's not scientific.

No. It absolutely is not. It's just laughable.

> I don't wear a lab coat, and neither do you. You should take a look at yourself in that regard. You can't accuse me of lacking standards that you yourself don't live up to.

You are on the side of attempting to explain it away with "US interference". It's not whether I am scientific or not, lol.

> Ecuador 2010, Honduras 2009, Venezuela 2002, Haiti 1994, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador until 1990, Panama 1989, Grenada 1983, Bolivia 1980, Chile 1973, Dominican Republic 1965, Cuba 1961, Guatemala 1954, and so on until the territorial destruction of Mexico in 1848: all of them wars, coup attempts, occupations, protection of U.S. corporate interests, installation of military dictatorships, attempted assassinations of heads of government, etc.

Europe and China had massive wars. Coup attempts, assassinations, military dictatorships, etc. in the last century.

You deny the obvious and argue with superficial platitudes. Show me a country anywhere in the world that is thriving despite being defenseless against the encroachments of a nearby superpower. I can't think of one. If you need more examples, the former Soviet countries near Russia have a similar problem.

Without the Marshall Plan, Germany would probably be an agricultural country with a below-average GDP, just like Ukraine. You would have to be completely clueless to believe that weaker countries can develop freely and independently of the influence of the major powers in whose sphere of influence they find themselves.

If you believe that the differences in economic performance and political stability in different countries have other causes, then say so openly instead of beating around the bush.

I don't ignore the obvious at all. I listed several places that were oppressed and had varying outcomes. The fact you're pretending to not understand this is weird, but telling.

That really downplays the turmoil China has gone through. It’s at least equal.

China's external turmoil can be boxed within the 1800s and I don't think it included: 80+% of casualties, forced religious conversion, forced language conversion, wholesale destruction of books and culture, etc.

>China's external turmoil can be boxed within the 1800s

Yeah except for that time that Japan tried to conquer them while they were in a civil war.

True but do you really think, all summed up, they had it worse than LATAM?

Given that the worst of colonialism happened in 16th and 17th centuries and by the 1930s, China was in a worse position than much of Latin America (e.g. Argentina), I would say that they had a harder go of things more recently than Latin America.

No it really _really_ cannot be. Go read a history book.

Graceful arguing right there.

If you feel like enlightening us how China fared worse than LATAM or you can avoid being all snarky like that.

Every place has been unstable at some point.

And every place actively destabilized by an empire is definitely unstable.

The amount of coups directly planned and executed or supported by the US military/intelligence/lobbying apparatus in south America and the rest of the world is incredible.

And then the presidents have the audacity to say that it is the right and responsibility of the locals to govern (as said by biden on Afghanistan exit).

It truly has been the most exploitative empire ever. I hope the Chinese do better. We'll find out.

You're replying in good faith to someone who ignored the main point of GP (an empire actively disrupting a region) and just said "every place has been unstable" (without even taking century-level timescales into consideration).

> an empire actively disrupting a region

> century-level timescales

Doesn't sound very scientific or predictive. Is also ignorant of history. Ottoman empire lasted many centuries. So did Roman empire. Which crushed and oppressed and destabilized a lot of Europe. China famously had their "century of humiliation" which was "century-level timescale" of "empire actively disrupting a region".

You are right, but I felt morally compelled.

I see no evidence at all they will do better. Rather the opposite.

At least so far, they have been expanding economically and not militarily, as the US. China could easily start wars with anyone they wanted, and they haven't done so. The US on the other hand, has wars all over the place.

I don't know, and I cannot know. I can only hope.

They could not easily have done so, because the US was undisputed top dog. And they are spending huge sums militarily, including on nukes.

When you blame all your problems on one single external factor, usually a person or a group of foreigners, then you also turn them into all mighty gods. South America is bigger than the US and richer in resources and population. If you don't look internally to fix your problems, then you'll be forever stuck where you are.

But it sure feels nice to blame your enemies instead, doesn't it? Let's all pat each other on the back that we're the victims, and only if... and leave it at that.

> When you blame all your problems on one single external factor, usually a person or a group of foreigners, then you also turn them into all mighty gods. South America is bigger than the US and richer in resources and population. If you don't look internally to fix your problems, then you'll be forever stuck where you are.

Way to show you really, really don't understand the politics of Latin America and who funds the various interests that run the show.

It could definitely be both.

> and not the fact that the US has spent 150+ years destabilizing that part of the world.

Latin America is bigger than Cuba and Chile...

How could you possibly think those are the only LATAM countries the US has interfered with? We have been intimately involved in every government and every election in the Caribbean, Central, and South America for generations. Just this year there has been interference in Honduras, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Colombia, Argentina, etc.

I mean.. attempted interference for sure. But since Cuba is still communist, I don't think we should overplay the US' might. And given how South Korea and Japan looks today compared to North Korea, I would be hesitant to draw any clear moral lessons.

The habit to blame the US/Europe/Jews for everything bad in the world and give a total pass to any other ethnic/political group for their transgressions seems pretty lazy at best, and actively dangerous at worst.

> The habit to blame the US/Europe/Jews for everything bad in the world and give a total pass to any other ethnic/political group for their transgressions seems pretty lazy at best, and actively dangerous at worst.

I'm not sure who you're arguing with in your head, but that kind of strawman should stay there rather than being brought into a public forum. Nobody has made any claims even remotely similar to those.

You are replying to a thread where I quoted:

> and not the fact that the US has spent 150+ years destabilizing that part of the world.

That's pretty clearly the same thing.

No, the Monroe Doctrine has been US policy for 200 years. Everybody learns about it in school and everyone knows what it means. That doesn't mean we

> blame the US/Europe/Jews for everything bad in the world and give a total pass to any other ethnic/political group for their transgressions

Europeans other than the Spanish and Portuguese have little relevance to Latin America, especially in a modern context. Jews haven't been mentioned by anyone. Would you care to elaborate?

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