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Comment by asdlfj2sd33 | Hacker News Reader

1-13 are about treating the symptoms of failed states. How about we treat the disease itself instead? Politics and state building sure are a whole lot more complex and difficult, and don't make you feel nearly as good, as feeding children. But unlike food, and all kinds of other aid, they would actually solve the problem once and for all.

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We know how to solve failed states, it's not politically possible when the Imperial power isn't willing to trade off popular sovereignty against lives saved. Given the choice between good government and self government people will choose the latter

That sounds like a worthy approach. Any practical ideas on how to actually do it?

One possibility would be to allow a section of a country to secede if 60% of the population votes to do so. That might eliminate a popular reason for war in some situations.

> Any practical ideas on how to actually do it?

The (forbidden) answer has been staring everyone in the face for half a century: bring back colonialism.

http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/08/from-cr...

>One possibility would be to allow a section of a country to secede if 60% of the population votes to do so.

How would you find out? In failed states I would think the mechanisms to solicit opinion don't exist to begin with.

Not great for the 10-20% minorities which are supported by the government of the whole country. They'd probably face oppression under a new regime, or themselves begin to rebel.

How would you define section of a country.

Presumably you'd want to subject this proposal to the same cost-benefit style analysis as these guys do. E.g. how many lives would you save per dollar?

This boils down to a long term vs short term question. State building might save a huge number of kids 5 years from now but no kids now unlike giving food.

The problem with a ranking is that it suggests a sequence of actions, when in reality you want to do more than one thing at a time (state building and giving food).

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