Comment by onreact-com | Hacker News Reader

Comment by onreact-com | Hacker News Reader

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"That's due to technological progress

Afaik, the industrial revolution needed capitalism. Any references otherwise?"

So there was no industrial revolution in the Soviet Union? Do we have to rewrite history? You are right though without knowing. The Soviet state capitalism which already resembles the current US state capitalism forced industrialization upon the rural country.

>around 1 billion people starve today, that's not a small percentage IMHO:

This have the usual idealist problem -- you have to kill people to help them...

"Let us split that value up, a bit. About a billion is hungry, according to Wikipedia (not the same as starving -- did you fake there?)."

I don't care what Wikipedia says, the UN says "starving" and the press is reporting "starving". Any jerk can edit Wikipedia.

Also stop suggesting genocide or killing people as a solution. The current system kills people in massive numbers. We have to stop THAT!

"You can't solve the problems of Bangladesh without military intervention -- see Iraq, how that goes."

Did you just suggest to go to war to solve the hunger problem? Sorry, you are downright criminal minded. I can't go on discussing with you. You seem to love the idea of killing people.

P.S.: "Consider East Germany. West Germany tried to integrate it and really, really failed."

Have you actually been to East Germany? You can't see any difference to Western Germany now, it's much more wealthy than any other country from the former Eastern Block.

>So there was no industrial revolution in the Soviet Union?

Sigh, it is a bit easier to copy things that already is invented...

My next comment was: "But sure, the technology and the scientific method has been invented. Inefficient systems can grind along for a bit, until we in the open world outcompete them."

(My original point was that everything was going better since about 100-200 years ago, for the whole world. You claimed it was just technology, which is obvious -- everyone was poor before! Then I noted that without capitalism, there would probably never have been a fast industrial revolution. Now you answered with something irrelevant.)

But you knew that, you just didn't have an answer.

>Any jerk can edit Wikipedia.

That was a small point, but you can prefer the propaganda material -- and ignore the publication with references... :-)

It does make you look even more like a troll.

>The current system kills people in massive numbers.

>Did you just suggest to go to war to solve the hunger problem?

You claimed the starvation problem motivated a change of the economic organization of the whole planet.

I went over the statistics by country for hunger and noted that either:

(a) The majority will be fixed by their local countries the coming decades.

(b) Changing the situation for most of the rest of the hungry would demand a military intervention (with many more dead than die from lack of food for many years).

But you knew that, you just didn't have an answer.

>>Have you actually been to East Germany? You can't see any difference to Western Germany now

Not relevant to my argument (about the size of a problem a thousand times smaller than what you want to solve). Either.

But you knew that, you just didn't have an answer.

You failed to adress a single one of my points!

But I knew that I wasted time, before you answered.

I sincerely hope you are a troll and not this intellectually dishonest.

>>I don't care what Wikipedia says, the UN says "starving" and the press is reporting "starving". Any jerk can edit Wikipedia.

By the way, Wikipedia quotes the UN report -- and shows you to lie or be a fanatic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undernourishment#cite_note-51

From key finding #1 in the report: "FAO’s most recent estimates put the number of hungry people at 923 million in 2007"

(Note, not starving.)

In sum, you didn't answer a single one of my points -- and didn't have a fact correct.

I sincerely hope you're a troll and not this dishonest.

I thought I could add this interview with Hans Rosling (which I referenced on TED.com), if anyone ever reads this:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=831958

I might also add to the long list of onreact's problems that the first quote made it look as if I wrote the first sentence ("That's due to technological progress").

Quotation error, too! He he, sometimes the trolls are more fun for us trolled, than the other way.

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