The Junk Drawer

Sativied

Well-Known Member

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Depends on how you look at it. Is it because of their skin color that Africa and African lives are considered less valuable, or is it because of yours?
One conflict is on Europe's doorstep, involves a nuclear power and NATO plus allies. It will change the map of Europe and central Asia and could lead to a revolution and civil war in Russia and or it's dissolution as a federation. There are many civil wars around the world and several in Africa, they are mostly internal conflicts involving local warlords. Russia is stirring up shit in Africa too and getting rid of them will do much for peace in Africa and cut off arms supplies and Wagner mercenaries.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
One conflict is on Europe's doorstep, involves a nuclear power and NATO plus allies. It will change the map of Europe and central Asia and could lead to a revolution and civil war in Russia and or it's dissolution as a federation. There are many civil wars around the world and several in Africa, they are mostly internal conflicts involving local warlords.
The logical reasons for Ukraine getting support don’t change the obvious reasons Africa doesn’t. We can afford to help both.

“There are many civil wars around the world and several in Africa, they are mostly internal conflicts involving local warlords.”

That sounds an awful lot like the Africa just being Africa argument. That thought is the real reason they don’t get maximum effective support and why we let it happen. That’s what’s going on, we let it happen.

It’s (oversimplified to match the level of Luke’s question) not a matter of Ukrainians being white, or Africans being black, it’s because of how white people have treated and still treat Africa. We crippled them and now refuse to help them rise up cause they’re a bunch of cripples.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
The logical reasons for Ukraine getting support don’t change the obvious reasons Africa doesn’t. We can afford to help both.

“There are many civil wars around the world and several in Africa, they are mostly internal conflicts involving local warlords.”

That sounds an awful lot like the Africa just being Africa argument. That thought is the real reason they don’t get maximum effective support and why we let it happen. That’s what’s going on, we let it happen.

It’s (oversimplified to match the level of Luke’s question) not a matter of Ukrainians being white, or Africans being black, it’s because of how white people have treated and still treat Africa. We crippled them and now refuse to help them rise up cause they’re a bunch of cripples.
A lot of Africa's (and middle eastern) troubles were and are caused by Europe, from dividing nations into colonies by 19th and 20th century powers, right up to the Soviets sending millions of AKs to Africa, to Wagner there now supporting warlords. The UN was made to stop international conflict, it doesn't work so well for internal conflicts most of which were and caused by the legacy of colonialism. What are we to do? Send in a bunch of white soldiers to former colonies to keep the peace? When empires break up or die control and new countries usually form along former colonial administrative lines, it will happen that way in Russia too, if they break up.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
We got involved in Iraq to secure the oil economy. Burkina Faso has nothing we want. Similarly we watched while Rwanda, another place unimportant to billionaires, tore itself apart.
Yes it’s always about the money, the biggest and in this case lacking motivator. There’s no major economic impact from the conflicts in Africa, at least not directly noticeable. But there‘s more to it. Not much for goverments and billionaires, but why do we don’t care as much? The media usually doesn’t cover what governments feel is most important, they just want clicks and ad revenue. Dying black people in Africa just isn’t a profitable topic because people, the readers, don’t care as much about black people dying in Africa.

If Ukrainians were black… is nonsense, cause neither white Russia or white europe would have tolerated a black nation in that area.

But what if those African children in schools getting kidnapped and their limbs chopped off were white. It would definitely be more covered by the media and more read by readers. We’d probably send in enough troops to really deal with the situation. Uyghurs are basically half-white, apparently that is not enough to make the world give enough shits. Gotta be fully white.

Obviously it’s more than skin color. Americans shoot and kill 5-6x more American kids per year than Russians kills Ukrainian kids. Why do other nations not protest much, boycott till they introduce common sense gun laws and disarm the clearly dangerous public. Why just messages of sympathy and prayers. Cause that’s just America being America, different culture. Apparantly white kids dying isn’t that much of a bigger issue than black kids dying when there’s too much money involved.

The reason those places have nothing you want still has a lot to do with the color of their skin. If they were white calvinis enclaves… If Iraq was white, democratic instead of a tirany…

How about Afghanistan? If they were white they’d be a EU candidate or special state of the US. I blame countries like my own for giving colonization and anything close to it such a bad name…which again comes down a lot to skin color.
 

cannabineer

Ursus marijanus
Yes it’s always about the money, the biggest and in this case lacking motivator. There’s no major economic impact from the conflicts in Africa, at least not directly noticeable. But there‘s more to it. Not much for goverments and billionaires, but why do we don’t care as much? The media usually doesn’t cover what governments feel is most important, they just want clicks and ad revenue. Dying black people in Africa just isn’t a profitable topic because people, the readers, don’t care as much about black people dying in Africa.

If Ukrainians were black… is nonsense, cause neither white Russia or white europe would have tolerated a black nation in that area.

But what if those African children in schools getting kidnapped and their limbs chopped off were white. It would definitely be more covered by the media and more read by readers. We’d probably send in enough troops to really deal with the situation. Uyghurs are basically half-white, apparently that is not enough to make the world give enough shits. Gotta be fully white.

Obviously it’s more than skin color. Americans shoot and kill 5-6x more American kids per year than Russians kills Ukrainian kids. Why do other nations not protest much, boycott till they introduce common sense gun laws and disarm the clearly dangerous public. Why just messages of sympathy and prayers. Cause that’s just America being America, different culture. Apparantly white kids dying isn’t that much of a bigger issue than black kids dying when there’s too much money involved.

The reason those places have nothing you want still has a lot to do with the color of their skin. If they were white calvinis enclaves… If Iraq was white, democratic instead of a tirany…

How about Afghanistan? If they were white they’d be a EU candidate or special state of the US. I blame countries like my own for giving colonization and anything close to it such a bad name…which again comes down a lot to skin color.
Similarly to Uyghurs, very few Americans can tell you what a Rohingya is. It reveals the mentality that a recent head of state (!) put on display with a remark about “shithole countries”.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
A lot of Africa's (and middle eastern) troubles were and are caused by Europe, from dividing nations into colonies by 19th and 20th century powers, right up to the Soviets sending millions of AKs, to Africa to Wagner there now supporting warlords. The UN was made to stop international conflict, it doesn't work so well for internal conflicts most of which were and caused by the legacy of colonialism. What are we to do? Send in a bunch of white soldiers from former colonies to keep the peace? When empires break up or die control and new countries usually form along former colonial administrative lines, it will happen that way in Russia too, if they break up.
I was baiting Luke a bit out of fun, you’re making my points.

“Send in a bunch of white soldiers from former colonies to keep the peace?”

Exactly. So it IS about skin color.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
I was baiting Luke a bit out of fun, you’re making my points.

“Send in a bunch of white soldiers from former colonies to keep the peace?”

Exactly. So it IS about skin color.
It might be to them with a bunch of their former colonial masters arriving to teach them "civilization". They have African peacekeepers there too, but they don't seem to be having any more luck than Canadian or any others. Nobody will care about the Russians either when Ukraine whips their asses and they descend into the stone age. However, the economic refugees will be an issue for Europe, they always are, no matter what their color or religion. Smaller European cultures feel more threatened than a big sprawling one like the global Anglo culture and ethnic Russians are perceived as a threat to the Baltic states and Finland. Jews were hard to identify in Europe and were not any different than Christians in appearance, but Hitler nearly wiped them out. You don't need to be very different to be "othered", language, religion, appearance and sexuality will all do it. In America half the population lost even their basic human right of family planning and reproductive rights, forget the constitutional ones! Women only had the right to vote for 100 years in most western countries and black men had it 50 years before women did.

The world is not perfect, but we are part of an ongoing process of social justice that depends on liberal democracy and is its inevitable result. Gandhi's method worked because he was trained as a British lawyer and Britian was becoming a more liberal democratic country. It was the rise of liberal democracy, the reaction to Hitler and the rise of the UN and international law that ended colonialism. The same thing happened in Holland, as liberal democracy gained ascendency, colonialism went out of favor well before WW2.
 

CANON_Grow

Well-Known Member
Yes it’s always about the money, the biggest and in this case lacking motivator. There’s no major economic impact from the conflicts in Africa, at least not directly noticeable. But there‘s more to it. Not much for goverments and billionaires, but why do we don’t care as much? The media usually doesn’t cover what governments feel is most important, they just want clicks and ad revenue. Dying black people in Africa just isn’t a profitable topic because people, the readers, don’t care as much about black people dying in Africa.

If Ukrainians were black… is nonsense, cause neither white Russia or white europe would have tolerated a black nation in that area.

But what if those African children in schools getting kidnapped and their limbs chopped off were white. It would definitely be more covered by the media and more read by readers. We’d probably send in enough troops to really deal with the situation. Uyghurs are basically half-white, apparently that is not enough to make the world give enough shits. Gotta be fully white.

Obviously it’s more than skin color. Americans shoot and kill 5-6x more American kids per year than Russians kills Ukrainian kids. Why do other nations not protest much, boycott till they introduce common sense gun laws and disarm the clearly dangerous public. Why just messages of sympathy and prayers. Cause that’s just America being America, different culture. Apparantly white kids dying isn’t that much of a bigger issue than black kids dying when there’s too much money involved.

The reason those places have nothing you want still has a lot to do with the color of their skin. If they were white calvinis enclaves… If Iraq was white, democratic instead of a tirany…

How about Afghanistan? If they were white they’d be a EU candidate or special state of the US. I blame countries like my own for giving colonization and anything close to it such a bad name…which again comes down a lot to skin color.
The media like when a situation can be easily explained to the layperson in 90 seconds. Ukraine vs Russia can be easily associated with democracy vs autocracy. The Yugoslav wars didn't receive the media coverage it should have either, and more than 100,000 people died. I'm sure skin colour has some part in it not getting the coverage it should(I would argue culture is the more important identifier for the media), but that 90 second soundbite is the biggest issue.

As far as the general public not caring as much, my guess is it's more to do with the lack of media coverage and we only have so much bandwidth to be thinking about problems happening elsewhere in the world. The vast majority don't closely follow what is happening in their own country regarding politics, excluding the 90 second culture war topics. It's not that they don't care because of skin colour, it's just not on their radar of things they pay attention to on a day to day basis.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
(I would argue culture is the more important identifier for the media),
And then I would agree but still suggest one could argue that comes down whether it’s white men’s culture or not.

I don’t agree with the rest of your assessment, the stories are not too complicated to convey. When the war in Ukraine started it was obvious most were pretty clueless about Ukraine and the situation, one far more complicated than conflicts in Africa. Yet look at at all the experts on social media now. The egg comes before the chicken. The reason there’s not more media coverage is that the little there is doesn’t generate enough ad revenue because not enough people care.

The Yugoslav wars didn't receive the media coverage it should have either,
Don’t know about that in NA, but it’s a pretty common knowledge in my side of Europe and I assume at their closer neighbors too. Yugoslavia was a very popular holiday destination for Europeans, kids in my class in the 70s/80s went to either France or ‘Joegoslavië’, and the Srebrenica massacre is a huge stain on our own history. Different times though when it comes to media access so I don’t think it compares regardless.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
it doesn't work so well for internal conflicts most of which were and caused by the legacy of colonialism. What are we to do? Send in a bunch of white soldiers to former colonies to keep the peace?
Quoting you but really my thoughts, frequently.

Similar dilemma with Suriname (former Dutch colony) and some of the Caribbean islands still in the Kingdom (like Saba and Statia). Even more obvious than Africa, those remote colonies and their problems (poverty, corruption, domestic violence, drug problems) are a result of colonial times. We shipped their ancestors to those places. White people who go there with the best intentions, proven solutions, are still dismissed as colonial intellectuals who think they know everything better. In fact, when their children return from college and universities in mainland NL, their ideas and solutions are often too dismissed as being from the same source. Not just because of colonization but also the decolonization. Makes US’ exit from Afghanistan look squeaky clean.

They, and nations in Africa do need our help, but many of them don’t welcome it because of the colonial history. When they really need it and ask for it, we help, we send money and people. And then it takes just one of those warlords or corrupt dictator wannabees to go on TV and connect the support and influence that automatically comes with it to the colonial past for white people to go “see they don’t even want our help”. Much of the billions we gave to former colonies ended up in the pockets of corrupt government employees, and they of course resist implementing the white men’s law and order on all layers. Suriname, like countries in Africa, like Afghanistan, cannot be helped adequately right now without the west telling them and in some cases forcing them how to run their country. No sane person is even considering not telling Russia how things should be ran.

My point is, at what point does it become an excuse to not interfere. I think we’re past that point already.
 

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
No problem, Elon will fit him out with a neurolink thing in his brain and give Ron an artificial personality and AI instructions too, Roboron... He can help Abbott walk again too with that gizmo, for a price...
you think a synthetic personality supplied by a fucking freak like muck would be better than what he already has?...seems like it would be close to an even trade to me.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member

Meet the new threat Congress can’t handle: Ari Melber’s A.I. breakdown

6,209 views Jun 5, 2023 #Congress #AI #ArtificialIntelligence
The age of artificial intelligence is here. From GPS systems to voice-activated assistants and, up next: brain implants, we all encounter A.I. technology in our daily lives, even if we aren’t aware of it. MSNBC’s Ari Melber reports on new technology breakthroughs that are shaking up industries and rippling through politics.
 

CANON_Grow

Well-Known Member
And then I would agree but still suggest one could argue that comes down whether it’s white men’s culture or not.

I don’t agree with the rest of your assessment, the stories are not too complicated to convey. When the war in Ukraine started it was obvious most were pretty clueless about Ukraine and the situation, one far more complicated than conflicts in Africa. Yet look at at all the experts on social media now. The egg comes before the chicken. The reason there’s not more media coverage is that the little there is doesn’t generate enough ad revenue because not enough people care.


Don’t know about that in NA, but it’s a pretty common knowledge in my side of Europe and I assume at their closer neighbors too. Yugoslavia was a very popular holiday destination for Europeans, kids in my class in the 70s/80s went to either France or ‘Joegoslavië’, and the Srebrenica massacre is a huge stain on our own history. Different times though when it comes to media access so I don’t think it compares regardless.
Let's be honest, the media doesn't really care what the actual situation is during any conflict, but they can sell team good vs team bad in 90 seconds regarding the war in Ukraine. Same can be said for how the future conflict of China vs Taiwan is already being presented, and that is getting a lot of media attention already; even the Venezuela presidential crisis got a lot of press when there was the bad guy vs good guy. While it is gross, the media covers these conflicts in the same manner as many sporting events.

It is not obvious how the media would present the good guy vs bad guy in Sudan(EDIT: I was thinking about a different conflict it appears, my mistake). It's horrible what people are having to deal with and no doubt a humanitarian crisis. Like many conflicts that happen in the Middle East, it's usually far more complicated than the quick sell 'good vs bad' that western media focuses on.
 

Sativied

Well-Known Member
It is not obvious how the media would present the good guy vs bad guy in Sudan.
You make good and valid points but I don’t think the complexity or inability to explain it is a bigger obstacle for the media coverage than people simply not caring enough. Sudan sure was a better subject for ad revenue a little over a decade ago when it was Christians vs Muslims. That sells. Now it’s just black people vs black people in Africa doing their thing. If one side was white (or produced the majority of advanced chips) it would at least have a separate thread at riu.
 
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