[HN Gopher] Fleeing Venezuela
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Fleeing Venezuela
Author : msh
Score : 43 points
Date : 2021-06-14 18:08 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.persuasion.community)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.persuasion.community)
| throwaway-jim wrote:
| Wow, I'm surprised that cryptocurrency actually helped him. I can
| see he cannot make a bank account since he is an illegal alien,
| but he could still hold and transfer value with the power of the
| blockchain. Smart move, since he pretty much got robbed of any
| valuable he had with him. One of the few positive crypto-related
| news I have heard lately!
| tim333 wrote:
| He wrote an earlier article (2019) in the NYT on crypto helping
| there
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/opinion/sunday/venezuela-...
| oxymoran wrote:
| Remember when everyone in Venezuela was starving and all the
| American Leftists were trying to defend Maduro and calling one a
| fascist on Twitter for criticizing Maduro's regime?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I've probably seen half a dozen "debates" in the last year in
| which American Leftists were arguing with _actual Venezuelans_
| about whether the situation in Venezuela was real or Western
| Propaganda (TM).
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I really hate grouping everyone like this. I consider myself
| left but you were arguing with a moron. I was under the
| impression in liberal democracy, even up until maybe 2015
| treating an individual as an example of all individuals from
| that group was considered reprehensible for obvious reasons,
| i.e. you will end up saying racist or sexist things. The more
| general rule, to treat everyone on the content of their
| individual character, is an important one in my upbringing
| and I would like a return to these values. Currently everyone
| is being forced, on left or right, to have it assumed that
| they occupy absurd extremist positions. I do admit these
| people are on the rise, but I'm not sure inflating their
| importance (they are seeking attention in a lot of cases) is
| helping.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > you were arguing with a moron
|
| I'm inclined to agree, but increasingly these "morons" are
| more numerous and more likely to occupy positions of power
| and authority.
|
| > I was under the impression in liberal democracy even up
| until maybe 2015 treating an individual as an example of
| all individuals from that group was considered
| reprehensible for obvious reasons, i.e. you will end up
| saying racist or sexist things.
|
| Yeah, me too.
|
| > The more general rule I would like back because everyone
| is being forced on left or right have it assumed that they
| occupy absurd positions.
|
| I'm having a hard time parsing this sentence, could you
| rephrase/clarify?
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Okay! Lot's of clarity added...
|
| For what it's worth we have the same amount of morons
| just the Internet has given them means to organise and
| communicate and people like Steve Bannon to weave in a
| bit of ethnic-nationalism into the minds of the public.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > For what it's worth we have the same amount of morons
| just the Internet has given them means to organise and
| communicate
|
| That seems concerning enough on its own, but that
| property ("means to organize and communicate") has knock-
| on effects: those morons become even more extreme and
| they come to occupy positions of power and authority in
| even greater numbers.
|
| Once upon a time you had millions of village idiots whose
| views were moderated by their community and the talking
| heads on TV, and they were typically blue-collar,
| uneducated, and had no real power or authority. Now
| because of the ability to communicate with each other,
| they develop echo chambers that radicalize their
| viewpoints. On top of that, they organize, such that the
| administer universities, overwhelm newsrooms, and lead
| DEI departments in every major company in the country.
| xster wrote:
| How did you systematically come to the conclusion that those
| "debates" shouldn't be had? Which straw broke the camel's
| back? Is it because Carlos on the internet , who writes for
| The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Americas
| Quarterly, told you so? How do we take your guidelines and
| judgement and form it into a framework of rational thought
| where it then becomes generally applicable to the general
| population if your guidance wasn't available one day?
| throwaway9d6ef wrote:
| Because actual Venezuelans are closer to primary sources
| who don't need a bunch of pseudointellectuals to handwave
| our experience away.
| intheaa728q7e wrote:
| And of course if you ask them for the source of their
| ridiculous claims they'll either link propaganda sites like
| Telesur or RT, or go off in rambling about how the CIA did
| something like that in the 60's forgetting to source anything
| djpr wrote:
| In my town, the leftists still put up "Viva Chavez" banners on
| their balconies.
| intheaa728q7e wrote:
| No need to remember, I can assure you that if this post were to
| gain popularity a bunch of wanna be Marxist and spoiled first
| world socialists will come here and try to gaslight everyone
| into thinking Venezuela is a paradise or that it's all the US
| fault when they have never set foot outside Europe or the US
| digsy wrote:
| So sad that this site has gone the way of reddit.
|
| I used to come here for tech discussions and maybe some startup
| insight.
|
| Now every day there's a post that devolves into qanon,
| trumpists, leftists bickering.
|
| I guess every site goes to the dogs eventually.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| For those interested in industrial collapse in Venezuela, check
| out this great recap of what happened with their oil industry:
| https://youtu.be/0mvjp0ZqK7Q
|
| Also check out this video on hyperinflation in Venezuela:
| https://youtu.be/ah9i3R9pRpg
|
| Finally, it's worth seeing how things look on the ground. For
| example, check out this bit on the subway:
| https://youtu.be/jN5LZR4ejkg?t=20m
| mosdl wrote:
| Reminds a lot of some of the eastern European states prior to the
| USSR collapse, but seemingly much worse.
|
| Also the power outages mentioned - they should prove that crypto
| won't help...
| rolobio wrote:
| I think that's a good takeaway. But he does mention that once
| he's in Columbia, he is able to convert some of his crypto into
| cash. So maybe storing more of his cash into crypto would have
| helped? But then again, he did need cash for bribes...
| yardie wrote:
| The amount of cash he needed to keep on hand didn't seem
| unreasonable. But keeping any less and he might have to walk
| the rest of the way. Crypto still has a long way to go to
| being the great, ubiquitous equalizer it was designed to be.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| I know Colombia pretty well.
|
| My goodness, he better not convert Bitcoin to cash there.
| Colombia is by no means much safer than Venezuela, ever and
| in particular since about 2 months.
|
| Few people remember that not too long ago Colombians were
| seeking refuge in Venezuela.
|
| He should use an online exchange if he can provide KYC.
| Something like in person exchange in Colombia is playing
| Russian/Colombian roulette.
|
| Maybe he has family he can trust with, but yeah. In Colombia,
| wrong street and someone will rob you at gunpoint for a
| phone, even if there is not Bitcoin on it.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Around the world, there is now a contest between freedom and
| tyranny, between the rule of law and the arbitrary exercise of
| naked power.
|
| Yeah, right. And the glorious state named US is leading the
| contest.
|
| If political bulshit is not allowed on HN why is such a story
| with such comments not dead ?
| merciBien wrote:
| This is so painful to read, Venezuela sounds like a failed state,
| it can't even provide running water to its people in Ordaz. The
| daily human toll must be ghastly.
|
| How does a country ever get back on a positive trajectory after
| such a catastrophe?
| tim333 wrote:
| They got a lot of advice from Cuba on staying in power. I fear
| Maduro may hang on in there till old age like Castro did.
| erikw wrote:
| I don't have the numbers, but I suspect the brain-drain is near
| total, and irreversible for a few generations. The last time I
| did a round of interviews, about two years ago with half a
| dozen companies in Chile, at least half of the senior
| engineers, and many of the hiring managers, were Venezuelan.
| None of my Venezuelan friends plan on going back, although they
| do visit, and I think would like to go back if conditions were
| different- Venezuelan culture is quite a bit more "latin" than
| Chile, so there's a fair bit of culture shock for them. As it
| is, they are putting down roots, starting families, opening up
| businesses, etc, and I don't think they'll be leaving soon, if
| ever.
| vhgyu75e6u wrote:
| Not only that, it will most likely change the political map
| for the next 20 years in those countries, at least at the
| community level. If most of the refugees get voting rights
| (at least in Spain or Colombia where most can get the
| nationality through ancestry), they will NOT vote for any
| left leaning party that helps or validates the regime
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| The brain drain is real, at least in the case of the
| petroleum engineers. Most of them left years ago to work for
| Petrobras or Pemex. I have heard mexican engineers complain
| about venezuelans coming in and undercutting the labor
| market. This was 10+ years ago, after Chavez fired 80% of the
| engineers.
| yostrovs wrote:
| I visited Bogota on a visit hosted by the city's official
| business promotion council. The main lady running these tours
| was Venezuelan.
| christkv wrote:
| Cambodia went through the same hell and worse and only started
| the path back after Vietnam invaded it and ousted the Khmer
| Rouge. It might take an outside intervention to end the charade
| of the Venezuelan government.
| bombcar wrote:
| Outside invasion - either by force or soft force (economic)
| are usually the quickest ways. Otherwise you need the rulers
| to decide to reform or the revolution to actually install a
| government that doesn't just mimic the preceding.
| rolobio wrote:
| Very good read. I have a soft-spot for Venezuela and it's
| collapse. Its fascinating watching a country make the same
| mistakes as dozens of countries before them have. History repeats
| and repeats, even though we have trivial access to it today
| through the internet.
|
| I always find it odd when people speak of Venezuela never seem to
| talk about the failures of Socialism. They seem to blame the
| failures on violence or authoritarian regimes. But how are you
| supposed to "seize the means of production" without
| authoritarianism? The author of this article mentions Marxism:
|
| > The Venezuelan government calls itself Marxist, too, but also
| seems to spend more time dreaming up ways to make a buck than on
| anything like a revolution.
|
| I would love to hear more of their opinions on Marxism. But this
| article seemed more about a journey than why the journey was
| necessary.
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(page generated 2021-06-14 23:03 UTC)