Re:A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty
by throwaway47861 on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:57PM
(#19145798)
> ...but Westerners have a habit of classifying dissenting opinions as "just wrong" and dismissing/ignoring them.
Fully agreed. This is also extremely prevalent in any economic discussions here in HN where most of the first-world dwellers are cozying up their minds with the generic statement "it is all getting better on average" which I think is utter BS.
As a guy who has been to pretty poor parts of the world and lives in a country that touts any small bill that will benefit zero common folk -- but is always advertised as such for 30 years now -- I have to say, most first-world population is tragically misinformed on how are the average people around the world living.
Some people do, that's true. It also seems to be true that some people have an assumption, not at all completely grounded in fact, that "all" people can and will develop "like we did". Two problems I see with this belief are that it is inherently speculative (a prediction of the future), and it assumes that other cultures Necessarily* _want_ to develop like we have. Personally, I believe there are significant imperfections in Western culture, the way we've developed and the way we operate today, I'd be extremely surprised if all cultures view our way as the best way to organize societies. You can see evidence of this all over the place, but Westerners have a habit of classifying dissenting opinions as "just wrong" and dismissing/ignoring them.