Venezuela's Hugo Chavez dies aged 58 | Hacker News Reader

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez dies aged 58

bbc.co.uk

I'm not sure that breaking political news belongs on this site. I can read this on any news site on the web.

This story is a case study in the dynamics of flagging on HN. Every Chavez story has been flagged aggressively, with most dropping off the front page within minutes of their appearance. This one appears to have snuck in through a lull and collected enough votes to fend off the flags.

I flagged it anyways, of course.

Plonk! And now it's off the front page.

I feel like whatever gets voted to the front page by the community belongs on this site.

Yes, I won't be surprised if it gets unceremoniously dropped soon.

So don't upvote it.

He's not wrong. "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

Given the reportedly rapid decline in his health, not entirely surprising. Don't expect major changes in the country's governance. Change comes from the people, with a revolution or uprising, not the death of a leader because of an illness or for natural reasons.

Totally untrue. For a simple existence disproof: compare Mao's policies with those of his successors. One would be very hard pressed to claim that revolution or uprising caused the shift from hard enactment of anti-Western Marxism (the Cultural Revolution being the quintessential example of this) to what they have now (essentially, command capitalism.)

That's not entirely true either. The threat of a revolution can be just as effective as an actual revolution if the leaders are sensitive to it. Having a billion people to feed that might get very upset with you some day is a good reason to change, I think a real revolution in China would have been inevitable if they had not changed course. It came close enough as it was.

This is actually very, very wrong. Goverment structure often changes a hole lot if it becomes known that a leader has a terminal illness. The dictator/king or whatever is the one distributing the goods between his cronys that make up his powerstructure, as soon as a illness becomes known everybody knows that things are about to change and the infighting starts.

Revolution are not always bottom up, I would even say they are usually not bottom up. Most of the time the goverment changes because of political infighting. This holdes true for all kinds of organiational structures.

Cases where this has happend are well documented, for example in this book: - The Logic of Political Survival (http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Political-Survival-Bruce-Mesquit...)

The books is quite heavy so I would suggest this podcast on the same subject with the author: - The Political Economy of Power http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2006/08/the_political_e.htm...

May Venezuela advance and avoid other aspiring tyrants.

They have advanced a lot under Chavez. You can read it up on Wikipedia, it's all there.

You are kidding, right?

No, he probably isn't. Chavez was wildly popular with a good chunk of the population (the poor) because he did not take as much as he could have.

No, I'm not. I've lived in South America for some time and been to Venezuela, too. But I don't want to turn this thread into an argument. There is plenty of information available everywhere. You just need to look.

I smell sulfur...

lets hope the next guy unites rather than divides.

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