[HN Gopher] Colombia looks to recover billions in treasure from ...
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       Colombia looks to recover billions in treasure from 'holy grail of
       shipwrecks'
        
       Author : bookofjoe
       Score  : 8 points
       Date   : 2023-12-23 19:10 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | BugsJustFindMe wrote:
       | "We plundered billions upon billions in wealth from you, but it's
       | old now, tainted by magic history and colonial ownership dust, so
       | it would be wrong for you to have any of it back" is by far my
       | favorite dispute claim between civilizations.
        
         | astrange wrote:
         | It doesn't appear any plundering happened in this case, but
         | remember, gold coins are not useful, you can't eat them and
         | they don't actually make a country rich. Colonialism and
         | imperialism are and were not profitable.
         | 
         | This one was on the way to being plundered by Spanish
         | imperialism - you'll note Spain is not a rich country. This
         | happened because of a variant of the "resource curse"; it's
         | hard to develop a country if it's too based on natural
         | resources, whether they're yours or your colonies'.
         | 
         | Also, there were straight up no rich countries before 1900, so
         | we know nothing anyone did before that works for becoming rich.
         | 
         | (There are probably a few exceptions; the biggest one is land,
         | which can't be replaced and so actually is valuable to steal,
         | and that is part of how the US and Australia became rich
         | countries.)
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-23 23:03 UTC)