Mastodawn

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖May 18, 2017

Henry Rollins: Advice for young people https://mastodon.social/media/E2Gxi0jBwssPb4mYQMg

Hallå Kitteh May 18, 2017

> You're going to get a sense of what globalization looks like.

It's what enables people from privileged countries to take a summer, get a backpack, go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya, and have their mind blown.

It's what turns the local lower class to a global upper class that gets scared when people from other countries want a part in that privilege.

When people fight globalization because it outsources American jobs to China, they're fighting to retain that privilege, where you can get globally rich by being born in the right country.

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖May 20, 2017

@clacke I'm originally from Sri Lanka. I didn't really have the means to travel a whole lot, but going around talking to people did expand my mind. I was very fortunate to come to the U.S. which, I understand most people couldn't afford.

I think his message is that those who can should travel outside their bubble and see the consequences of the actions their leaders support. I know lots of Westerners who have traveled the world to return humbled

Hallå Kitteh May 20, 2017

@cypnk I'm happy that you were able to come to a place you feel fortunate to be! Did you come alone or with your family, if you don't mind me asking?

I think he is right that visiting places and meeting people opens your mind. I just instinctively lash out at "use the power of globalization to see how terrible globalization is". It could be regarded as a jujutsu move, I suppose. But the way he describes it really makes it sound like slumming.

LARP being in poor countries for a while, then withdraw to your own safe harbor and reflect.

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖May 20, 2017

@clacke Henry has traveled to more corners of the world than most people ever dream of. He's speaking from a place that I don't think is easy to grasp, but coming from one of those deprived places, I understand why he wants more young people to see the world. It's anything but slumming

I tend not to speak too much of my family, but I came here when I was 10 years old

Hallå Kitteh May 21, 2017

@cypnk Thanks for sharing! I'm not trying to speak for anyone, just describing how I reacted to the text.

I'm divided on the concept of backpacking, in particular from an environmental perspective and the perspective of how much of the world you really get to see. It depends a lot on how you do it and what you do with it. I do agree that it is probably good for the backpacker personally.

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖May 21, 2017

@clacke Backpacking need not involve another country. I've hitchhiked (not recommended BTW) quite a bit and seen what unbridled greed does to a community. I live in New York now and travelling a bit North is enough to show just how devastating globalization can be. Poverty, desperation, drug abuse, you name it

It's been enough motivate me to change the way I live my life

@cypnk I don't know, man. Globalization just enables someone with maybe lower expectations of living standard, or maybe just better local economic policies, to benefit from that job instead of the person who had it before.

And someone with capital to profit, of course. Whether this is a problem is not something people can agree on.

Poverty, desperation and drug abuse is caused by local policy in response (or not) to globalization. Minimum wage, zoning, taxation, certification requirements, trade restrictions ... The locally unemployed can't get work because administrations protect the locally employed from the globally employed and unemployed.

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖May 21, 2017

@clacke In the case of New York, the Buffalo area was home to a lot of factories. Lots of jobs got outsourced so they went from having something to nothing

The drug abuse started when people were being over-prescribed opioid medications. They got addicted and moved on to heroin

As for benefiting from globalized jobs: Foxconn employees were jumping to their deaths in Shenzhen, China. There were factory fires in Dhaka, Bangladesh killing workers

They're being exploited too

Hallå Kitteh May 21, 2017

@cypnk At the same time, people from rural China were queuing up to start working at FoxConn.

Hallå Kitteh May 21, 2017

@cypnk Globalization is not Pareto-optimal, that's for sure. There are people gaining and losing from it. I just think people criticizing globalization are blind to the people gaining, except when they are people who already are rich.

Why should people in Dhaka and Shenzhen be denied job opportunities because Buffalo can't take care of its citizens? Is that ethical?

Hallå Kitteh May 21, 2017

I should say, not a Pareto improvement.

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖May 21, 2017

@clacke Because those countries don't distribute the wealth to those who truly need it at all. Dhaka is a prime example: The people working there are getting paid practically nothing and they're incentive to give up more prosperous (and safer) jobs. They're not benefiting. The factory owners are. And globalization is enabling that

Citizens lose in both lands, owners win

Hallå Kitteh May 21, 2017

@cypnk If other jobs are more prosperous, what is their incentive to take the crappy job?

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖May 21, 2017

@clacke "Work in this factory and we won't take your farm through eminent domain"

Or "Sign this contract you can't read"

You'd be surprised

Hallå Kitteh May 21, 2017

@cypnk Ok, that's a good example of when free trade can't solve everything. This kind of situation is in fact a situation where I would be in favor of trade barriers and/or other regulation, because each business can't be required to look into the conditions of each trade partner and consumer power probably won't make it happen through voluntary means, so a government is a good place to place this responsibility.

What do you say, @dtluna? I'm sure you have a different answer than I do.

- A business partner in another country is violating the NAP.
- Your enlightened self-interest would be to not act immorally and trade with this partner, but your competition is trading with them, and your choice is to do it or get undercut.

r҉ustic cy͠be̸rpu̵nk🤠🤖May 21, 2017

@clacke That used to be the case in Sri Lanka too until enough people left the country (as Henry Rollins said) and saw what was really out there. Came back and said, this isn't going to work

They started putting pressure on factory owners until wages were paid more evenly. Some overseas contracts were cancelled, but workers prospered and the economy grew. That wasn't because globalization

Hallå Kitteh May 21, 2017

@cypnk That's a heartwarming story! Glad to hear it.

Those factories are running because of globalization. Should the factory be in Buffalo instead?

Those people were able to leave because Sri Lanka allowed them to leave and because other countries allowed them to enter. That's part of globalization too.

The freedom to leave the country you were born if conditions there are unfair is the most important part. I'm aware that people's financial situation may make it impossible to use this freedom, but that doesn't make the freedom any less important.

Stephen Michael Kellat May 21, 2017

@clacke @cypnk The planet-wide taxation claims by my nation-state make leaving troublesome too. Wherever I go, I must still pay them taxes.

Hallå Kitteh May 21, 2017

@alpacaherder @cypnk Yes. You come from a troublesome place. The requirement is unethical, but from what I hear from my US friends over here, the effective rate when working abroad isn't all that bad for a simple salaryman?

Simon 🌧May 23, 2017

@alpacaherder @cypnk @clacke remote taxes only kick in for the US if you make over $90k a year. I actually think it's an excellent tax on wealth, an an excellent way of preventing wealth from fleeing to tax havens.

It's annoying if you are unfortunate enough to make twice the average family income in the US.

Simon 🌧May 23, 2017

@clacke @cypnk in this article from 2002 David Graeber does a good job of drawing the distinction between the left's form of globalization and the neoliberal form of it. Also some history on the term:

https://newleftreview.org/II/13/david-graeber-the-new-anarchists