News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
[dead]
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by sctb on Monday January 15, 2018 @10:34PM (#16155604)
Since we've already asked you not to start flamewars by posting unsubstantively, we've banned this account. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at [email protected] and we believe you'll start posting within the guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by BookmarkSaver on Monday January 15, 2018 @06:48PM (#16154545)
Yeah, the Gates Foundation only cares about their image, they're really just in the pocket of Nigerian oil tycoons.

LMAO. Or, you know, there are tens of millions of people in Nigeria suffering from problems unimaginable in the West, and their goal is to help children and eliminate diseases rather than wait for fundamental governmental reform that won't occur for decades at least.

[dead]
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by adventured on Monday January 15, 2018 @07:48PM (#16154911)
Nigeria is not swimming in money.

You're talking about $200 or $300 per capita of GDP going to corruption, maximum.

They have an economy comparable in size to Indiana, with 190 million people.

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by btilly on Monday January 15, 2018 @08:02PM (#16154976)
You're talking about $200 or $300 per capita of GDP going to corruption, maximum.

Do you have a source?

According to https://www.pwc.com/ng/en/publications/impact-of-corruption-... the cost of corruption in Nigeria is around $1000 per person per year, and rising. Given that the GDP per capita is estimated at around $2180 per person, this is not a small impact.

(I was surprised to find that GDP per capita is less than income per capita.)

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by simplemath__ on Monday January 15, 2018 @07:12PM (#16154674)
>shithole

you're tipping your hand a little much

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by btilly on Monday January 15, 2018 @07:48PM (#16154904)
According to https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept... Nigeria is tied for 136th worst corruption in the world, out of 176 countries. Worldwide, Nigeria is the poster boy for scams. Google "nigerian 419 scammer" for an example. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... the per capita income of Nigeria is < $6k per person, placing it at 127/187 worldwide with under 40% of the global average. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe... the 2015 WHO estimate placed Nigeria with a life expectancy of 54.5, which placed it at 177 out of 183 countries.

You may think that "shithole" is too strong of a statement. But that description seems about right to me. What is average for Nigeria would qualify as a horrible slum in most countries.

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by JumpCrisscross on Monday January 15, 2018 @08:12PM (#16155016)
> You may think that "shithole" is too strong of a statement. But that description seems about right to me

It's a term that was recently applied, with almost comical precision, to countries that are predominantly black. It was applied in respect of the people from those countries, specifically immigrants, more specifically regarding their individual merit as potential Americans.

TL; DR When discussing race, particularly anything relating to black people or predominantly-black countries, it's probably best to use another word.

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by wooter on Monday January 15, 2018 @08:29PM (#16155082)
as a minority immigrant from a shithole country, i find this opinion condescending and racist. please use whatever adjective you would use for any other race - i don't need my sensitive minority ears protected by an up-to-the-minute adjective whitelist, thanks.
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by simplemath__ on Monday January 15, 2018 @08:49PM (#16155153)
your appeal to authority is naked
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by dang on Monday January 15, 2018 @11:32PM (#16155843)
We've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by wooter on Monday January 15, 2018 @09:02PM (#16155207)
his fake offense on behalf of others is a faux pas. its a common term. we can't use "shit hole" because some people recently decided that was the case?
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by dang on Monday January 15, 2018 @11:34PM (#16155858)
Would you please stop doing flamewars on Hacker News? It's against the guidelines and beyond tedious, and you've done a lot of it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by btilly on Monday January 15, 2018 @08:31PM (#16155087)
(Quickly hits Google.)

I'm not going to bother keeping up with every tweet from our cheeto-in-chief to keep track of things that might offend politically correct people this week. There is no limit to what can potentially offend others. There is a limit to how much of my attention that I wish to devote to the topic.

If that bothers you, perhaps you should reconsider what offends you. Because like it or not, "shithole" is an accurate description of Nigeria. It would not be a fair description of, say, Botswana.

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by JumpCrisscross on Monday January 15, 2018 @09:33PM (#16155333)
> If that bothers you, perhaps you should reconsider what offends you. Because like it or not, "shithole" is an accurate description of Nigeria

I am neither telling you to stop using that word nor expressing offense. Language is complicated. Two words with similar definitions can mean vastly different things. Understanding that is part of communication.

You now know this term carries additional implied meaning. Ignoring that fact could be used to communicate a message. Similar to how some people selectively use the words "retarded" and "fag" loosely to communicate something meaningful. (Others are simply linguistically clumsy, or mean to communicate something hateful.) Depending on the circumstances, that may be what you want to communicate, completely unnecessary (thereby lowering your signal:noise ratio) or even debilitating to your argument. Knowing that implied information simply allows you to control that nuance.

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by dang on Monday January 15, 2018 @11:33PM (#16155852)
We clearly can and clearly should do much better on HN than bicker about whether '"shithole" is an accurate description of Nigeria"'. This is embarrassing. Please don't feed it.

Same goes for everyone else in this subthread of course.

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by JumpCrisscross on Monday January 15, 2018 @07:35PM (#16154827)
This user has a track record on this front [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16127928

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by thisacctforreal on Monday January 15, 2018 @08:33PM (#16155094)
I find these style of comments very distasteful.
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by cornyNetHandle on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @12:53AM (#16156136)
Why?
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by labster on Monday January 15, 2018 @06:46PM (#16154527)
Yes, truly how terrible they are to spend money encouraging the eradication of polio.
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by comicjk on Monday January 15, 2018 @06:59PM (#16154600)
Not to mention, polio spreads! If you can eradicate polio in a country for a paltry $100 million, it's in other countries' interest to do so, even if some of the money gets stolen. This is the difference between traditional charity evaluation (which seeks honest management) vs effective altruism (which seeks good done per dollar).
Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by simplemath__ on Monday January 15, 2018 @07:13PM (#16154681)
exactly!

People can't look past the egregious* waste of money to see that it isnt a waste at all, even if Nigeria should have repaid the debt or Japan should have forgiven it.

None of that matters! The result matters! Eradicating polio matters!

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates Are Paying Off Nigeria's $76M Debt... by yipopov on Monday January 15, 2018 @07:29PM (#16154771)
>Yes, truly how terrible they are to spend money encouraging the eradication of polio.

Yes, that was what the loan was for. Even if it all went to its intended purpose, that doesn't excuse apparently not budgeting for any repayment. I expect that money is currently lining someone's pocket in Lagos.

I'd have been more impressed if they spent the money directly to tackle the next challenge and letting the politicians answer personally to Japan regarding the whereabouts of their money. Instead they are encouraging more loans and more corruption.