A tangentially related story about rats in New York City was published by the New York Times a few days ago[1]. An examination of 133 rats turned up hantavirus, which can cause hemorrhagic fever, as well as 18 viruses that are new to science. New York, like many major cities in the US, has a huge rat problem so one can only imagine what else is lurking right here at home.
A few years ago in Pennsylvania, I struck and killed a deer with my car (nearly totaling my car in the process.) Another man driving down the road stopped to ask if I needed any help. After I assured him that I was okay, he asked me what I planned on doing with the deer. I told him that I didn't know what the proper procedure was, or who should be called to clean it up.
He asked if he could have it.
Apparently the only restriction on eating roadkill, at least at the time, was that the antlers had to be turned over to Fish&Game (some sort of anti-poaching measure).
One thing I learned from Alaska State Troopers is that there are charities who will come pick up Moose roadkill in Alaska and process the meat for needy families. Pretty cool.
This article is telling me that the majority of Americans are overestimating their exposure to the Ebola virus, while a few weeks ago I read an article in the same vein stating that Americans have a bad sense for how quickly viruses can spread. Is this a change based on the actual perception of Americans having changed or rather just differing opinions formed from differing source information? I am speaking in generalities of course, as I have not linked the other article and would not begin to know where to find it.
I suppose that, in most cases, it'd be far easier to `nofollow` the link, but I find it fascinating that there's an opportunity for added commentary beyond what you'd get by just nofollow'ing.
How does an article titled "The long and ugly tradition of treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place" not offer any hard evidence about the cleanliness and disease rate of Africa compared to the rest of the world...
We need hard and convincing proof that can refute our colonial stereotypes. We will debate said proof and hold on to our stereotypes nevertheless. But alas.
Treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place is obviously a disservice to Africans, but with the booming economic opportunities increasingly available to everyone through the Internet, it might also very well be a disservice to you.
Lower numbers don't mean less power and reverse-racism is not real. It's just not. Unless you're writing from some alternate reality where Northern Europe has been colonized for a couple hundred years?
Hostility or prejudice towards another racial group based on the idea that your race is superior. Usually sustained by taking various stereotypes about the targeted group and portraying them as intrinsic qualities.
If there was real hostility towards white people/Europeans, sure, you would have a point. But saying "hey, there's some problematic stuff going on with the way we're talking about Africa" is not an attacking white people in particular, it's just criticizing some aspects of the system we have today. I don't think anyone would claim our world is perfect and there's nothing to criticize about it.
Is there even a racial slur for white people? I can't think of one. But there's plenty of slurs for anyone with a different skin color, and they get used a lot more often. Here's the final example: “prejudice” against white people is someone telling them they're doing some stuff wrong; prejudice against black people or immigrants is expressed by throwing them in jail, denying them jobs, making it impossible for them to get a decent education or live in an alright neighborhood. It's a pretty big difference.
I don't see how you can draw any conclusions from the data you've provided. This ranking [1] of African countries by Human Development Index [2] has Ethiopia and Liberia ranked 36th and 38th respectively out of 50 countries - all countries ranked below these two (39 to 50) were colonized. You state that these two countries "have the lowest" standards of living; I think most people would argue with your use of "lowest" here. South Africa is ranked 9th, behind the likes of Botswana (6th) and Gabon (8th), and Côte d'Ivoire is ranked 34th. So you think a ranking of 34 out of 50 is high but one of 36 (also out of 50) is low? Or does your source vary significantly from [1]?
A reasonable theory would be that the best, most productive areas were colonized first. The productivity / potential of those lands can have nothing to do with colonization and just be inherent to the land.
Did the wealth and GDP per capita in the Southern US increase or decrease after the abolition of slavery?
Righting a terrible, terrible moral wrong should come regardless of the short-term economic costs. To suggest that economic concerns trump overturning codified racism is one of the most disheartening things I've read on this site. (I do hope I've misread your comment as a support of apartheid.)
I did look up the data, and saw what you saw. However, his daughter comment links an article that claims "whilst there have been gains in some areas, overall, most Black South Africans are materially worse off now than they were under Apartheid," which I took to be the actual point he was making.
Looking at the actual situation in countires, though, this is kind of a false argument.
Take Africa. Given that there were only two uncolonized countries, the sample size there is too small to be meaningful, though the fact that neither Liberia nor Ethiopia fall into the lowest group of African countries in terms of either HDI, and there are a number of countries below both in Africa that did fall under colonial rule (Central African Republic, DR Congo, Malawi, Burindi below Liberia, plus Niger, Mozambique, Eritria, Guinea, Togo, Madagascar, and Guinea-Bissau below Ethiopia), would seem to indicate that colonial areas can be quite bad off.
Lets also look at your example of Hong Kong. The issue there is that you're conflating a single city, one that was used as primarily a trading and financial hub for the British Empire, with an entire country. Cities across the world tend to be more prosperous in general than the rest of the country. Plenty of Latin American capital cities are quite modern, and many other coastal Chinese cities are as well, but that belies the widespread poverty that might exist in rural area.
So basically the genetic term, outside of individuals and perhaps families, is always, as a matter of moral principal, negligibly close to zero? Because...?
Correlation is not causation, and correlation does not logically imply causation, but correlation is evidence of causation [1] which in a looser English context could be taken as a sort of implication. Many correlations aren't worth digging into, but others are, so you can't just dismiss all of them outright with "correlation doesn't imply causation."
Please do not consider comments out of context and reply. That's just ...bad form. In the context of the comment I was replying to, my reply was just a simple way of saying that beyond the scope of direct genetic influence (a.k.a: outside of individuals and perhaps families, as the comment put it) attributing genetic causation to observed phenomenon is simple correlation. Well, that's all I have to contribute.
He's claiming white domination generally resulted in a better standard living. Like how income equality doesn't necessary mean everyone is worse off. Even if the rich get a bigger slice of the pie, the pie may get bigger, thus standard of living is higher for everyone.
I'm all for exploring forbidden ideas, but your second paragraph doesn't follow from the first. For example, a much more plausible way for colonization to have advanced civilization is through memetics rather than genetics.
Comparatively, how is Africa _not_ dirty and diseased? The only place on Earth where long vanquished diseases are still fairly common is Africa.
By what metric (child mortality, water quality, GI diseases, environmental degradation), could you possibly undermine this statement? Africa appears dirty and diseased because it is.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/science/rats-and-their-ala...