[mrguyorama]

Part of the problem is that industrialization was achieved by exploiting globs of easily available resources. But we used them all.

We haven't left anyone something. It could very well be that we climbed the ladder and burned it behind us.

[senkora]

This is part of the civilizational collapse narrative. It is definitely true in a way.

I think that how much it would end up mattering depends on how well solar tech would withstand a civilizational collapse.

I think that a proto-industrial society with photovoltaics and batteries would be able to bootstrap itself back up to the present state, even without easily exploitable fossil fuels.

(I am not an expert in any of this)

[trollbridge]

How are they going to make pv’s and batteries in the first place?

[peyton]

Biomass can substitute. You have to defend it, which is difficult if rivals have petroleum. But that wouldn’t be an issue if nobody had petroleum.

We haven’t burned the ladder.

[philipallstar]

What do you mean, we haven't left anyone something?

[rationalist]

I've heard a few people say we've already drilled all of the easy-to-get oil, so the next civilization may not develop using oil.

But maybe all that means is they will master some other technology that we did not. It seems like previous civilizations have mastered technology that we cannot figure out.

[philipallstar]

> It seems like previous civilizations have mastered technology that we cannot figure out.

That was true for a while (e.g. in Britain they spent 500 years figuring out what the colonising Romans had done to try and recreate their advances), but I don't think we're now in that situation. The best thing would've been to mostly convert electricity to nuclear in the 1980s, as by now we'd be handing over ultra advanced nuclear designs and low carbon to the future. Now we're just playing catch-up with the 1980s.

[lyu07282]

Colonialism never really ended it just transitioned into a different form, sometimes even very overtly like parts of africa are still using the french colonial currency union (CFA) for example, the IMF keeps the global south in debt entrapment with structural adjustment programs designed to prevent development. etc. etc. we never really left them alone

[wahern]

> IMF keeps the global south in debt entrapment with structural adjustment programs designed to prevent development. etc. etc. we never really left them alone

Countries invite IMF assistance. If they wanted to be left alone, all they have to do is do nothing. If IMF loans didn't have strings attached, they wouldn't be able to borrow money, as it's those strings which build bond investor confidence. The entire point of IMF assistance is to avoid being cutoff from international borrowing for being horrible credit risks (again).

The root cause of national debt problems is primarily government corruption, but also mismanagement, often at the behest of populist politics that excuse economic policy failures by, e.g., scapegoating outside forces. The US isn't immune to this problem, either, it just happens that the US had, albeit intermittently, long enough runs of solid financial management (e.g. Hamilton during the Founding) that it could grow an economic base that could withstand intermittent periods of mismanagement without the entire economy collapsing (yet).

Even when a country is dealt a really crappy hand at the outset, it's not irreversible. Haiti is the poster child for crushing debt unfairly imposed by foreign powers, yet the Dominican Republic had the same history, but managed to overcome it. In some instances, interventions blamed for keeping Haiti oppressed were precisely what helped the Dominican Republic flourish. Likewise, nobody hears about the IMF success stories, just the failures; and it's not because the former don't exist or are rare.

[WalterBright]

> Even when a country is dealt a really crappy hand at the outset, it's not irreversible

Hong Kong was poor until 1965, when they got tired of poverty and switched to free markets. The result was amazing prosperity.

[unmole]

> switched to free markets

Hong Kong has been all about free markets since the end of the Opium Wars.

[lyu07282]

> government corruption > mismanagement > populist politics > interventions blamed for keeping Haiti oppressed were precisely what helped the Dominican Republic flourish

The rhetoric transitioned into exactly this, instead of believing they were subhuman uncivilized people we needed to save from themselves (the white mans burden), it seamlessly transitioned into neoliberal ideas of sound economic theory seeking a "scientific" rationalization of why those neoliberal policies forced onto them fail them consistently and how it's actually all their fault. Any sovereignty is reframed into dangerous intolerable "populism" that needs to be crushed by any means necessary, including crushing sanctions and blockades (stop hitting yourself), covert actions, coups and military interventions.

[wahern]

I certainly didn't assign moral fault to anyone or any group. Indeed, framing it as a moral problem is, IMO, one of the problems here. A country isn't run like a business; similarly, collective morality doesn't look anything like individual morality, assuming it's even a thing at all.

Corruption being a root cause for impoverishment is a fact. How corruption arises, and how to get out of that local equilibrium, is a difficult collective action problem without any easy answers, though there's countless books on political and economic development that explore it. Colonial oppression is a horrible explanation as it has very poor predictive power, unless you define colonialism in a conclusory, tautological way; and even then, it does zilch in terms of identifying effective solutions. Indeed, relying on an oppression narrative is one of the ways corrupt governments and elites justify and excuse the consequences of their policies.

That said, "corruption" isn't a great explanation, either, but it's certainly better than the colonialism morality narrative. Unless someone has lived in some of these poorer countries and witnessed the extremes of corruption, they tend to equivocate all kinds of corruption, and when from wealthier, more democratic countries are unable to distinguish or even imagine what severe, pervasive corruption looks like and how it effects every aspect of society.

[lyu07282]

> A country isn't run like a business

I'm not convinced you really mean that, but I agree they shouldn't. Although we've invaded countries that tried that (and are in the process of invading a few more while we are speaking).

> though there's countless books on political and economic development that explore it

we clearly have read very different books on the matter. What is the answer to corruption given by neoliberalism? Isn't the very policies enforced and implemented in the global south believed to combat corruption? Hasn't that demonstrably failed them? But people like me take issue with the whole corruption narrative, we would argue the west, especially the US is the most corrupt nation on the planet by scale, we just don't call that corruption, we just give it names like "lobbying" or "stock buy backs" and make it legal.

> Colonial oppression is a horrible explanation as it has very poor predictive power

You can see colonialism from space, with old rail lines and other infrastructure leading from the mines to the coastal cities, it literally shaped their geography, their colonial history is the single most important unimaginable violent event that has ever happened to these nations, its inseparable, it shapes their past, present and future. It has absolutely predictive power, it shaped them and our grasp on them to this very day is undeniable reality for those nations.

> unless you define colonialism in a conclusory, tautological way

We absolutely have to study colonialism as a distinct, special thing, we need to understand how this legacy shaped them and our(western) relationship to them to this day. We didn't just pack our bags and left them alone. Everyone recognizes that, it's not like we don't care, we do all kinds of things in development, its just we should observe why this all made so little progress despite 75 years, billions in aid and one failed IDF program after the other.

> relying on an oppression narrative is one of the ways corrupt governments and elites justify and excuse the consequences of their policies

you could say the same about the corruption narrative, it ignores things like effects of globalism and military interventionism too, and has served our own elites VERY well.

> That said, "corruption" isn't a great explanation, either ...

I don't get the point in your last paragraph

[crossroadsguy]

> Countries invite IMF assistance. If they wanted to be left alone, all they have to do is do nothing ….

Right. Countries that were stripped of anything and everything (lit-fucking-rally) and then left to fend for themselves when it suited the looters, they were enslaved (in every sense), "do" these things, "invite" these things! Yup. That's exactly what happens.

Just the blacks in USA and the browns in the Indian Subcontinent are backward because they "invite" those backwardness, all they have to do is stand on their feet, and how it is spelled around the West, "pull their weight". So it is.

Ffs!

[lyu07282]

It is kind of fascinating how the rhetoric shifted from the 'white mans burden' and scientific racism of colonialism to the modern day liberal international order with their purpose built institutions and their 'nobel prize in economics'. Like today it's: of course we buy coffee and cocoa beans for cheap from them, transport them and add 500% of the value to the final product, that's just how economics works, are you stupid? The 'its just in their blood, it's nature' became 'its just economics 101', it just happens to keep them under our crushing boot, it's nature. The contradictions are wild.

[cpursley]

I'm happy other people are thinking about this. One of the big stories over the fast years that few know about is a number of the French colonies kicking off the shackles. Can they make it on their own or with their new Chinese and Russian "friends"? Guess we'll see.

[lyu07282]

This platform is 90% just comfortable shitlibs living in the imperial core, so can't expect much. I think BRICS is the best thing that ever happened to the global south, if only to provide a counterbalance to the western 'empire of chaos'. As a Kenyan official put it: "Every time China visits we get a hospital, every time Britain visits we get a lecture."