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You recently said something along the lines of “I like the west except its people”
Yes, that's true. There's much I like about the west. For example the institutions are great in theory but the people around them lead to them rotting and withering from inside.
Singapore for instance basically copied British Insitutitons on Independence and has done really really well over the last 70 years while the UK has just declined. The institutions are the same in both places, the only difference is the people, and that's where the divergence in fortunes comes from.
I was just stating a fact, not trying to wage culture war.
Explain how “I hate western people” isn’t waging the cultural war if my claim that third worlders commit crime at higher rates / police fear to arrest them is waging the culture war?
He 'hates western people' does not imply 'he loves Africans'- my read of him is that he prefers brahmins, han, other orientals to whites.
If the charge is that I prefer competent productive members of society to unproductive people who take out more than they put in or those who would support values and systems that seek to give such people more power and control over society to such people rather than competent people (compared to current baseline, which is already strongly in favour of unproductive vs productive on the basis of raw numbers alone), then yes, I plead guilty.
I don't care whether you are white, black, yellow, green or purple. I care that you are productive and contribute to society and don't try and prevent other productive people form reaching their potential through setting up artificial barriers; and at least if you are a drain on society (nothing inherently wrong in that, people can become disabled through no fault of their own), then at least you express some gratitude for the hand that feeds you instead of complaining it isn't feeding you enough and passing laws and regulations forcing it to feed you even more.
Based on productivity per worker or per hour worked, the most productive people in the world are whites. Oriental countries barely keep up while working twice the hours after a punishing grind that makes no one want to have kids because it sucks so much.
Productivity isn't just about how much effort the person puts in for what objectively comes out, it's a lot to do with the situation of society outside as well. A lazy barista is the west making a mediocre cup of coffee in 5 mins which sells for £4 will register as more productive than a highly skilled and experienced coffee guru barista in Istanbul selling premium coffee which he also makes in 5 mins for 50 TRY (around £0.8). The fact that objectively the second cup of coffee tastes better and is a better overall experience for the drinker for the same amount of effort by the barista doesn't change the fact that on productivity stats the first cup of coffee will show as 5x the level of productivity.
The first cup of coffee is selling for more for the same amount of effort (and thus shows as being more productive in the stats) not because of how hard people work, but also because of the surrounding circumstances.
Vis a vis: A lazy guy with a digger will be far more productive digging holes than an efficient guy with a shovel in terms of dirt moved per hour. Productivity is usually more about levels of historical capital investment and the environment surrounding a person rather than anything else. The fact that the first person is more productive than the second is an accident of birth where the first guy got to be born in a rich western country and the second guy in a poor developing countery even though if the situation were swapped total holes dug per hour overall would go up massively. My proposal is simple: bring the second guy over to the high historical capital investment zone and watch humanity flourish.
Turkish coffee and espresso-based drinks are very different products with different traditions and are enjoyed by different people with different tastes. The espresso-based coffee in Istanbul is globohomo tier. If PPP is being calculated correctly, a cappuccino in London and a cappuccino in Istanbul are approximately the same product and count approximately the same amount to PPP GDP.
Fair point, I agree the same (approximately) contribution to PPP GDP, however even globohomo coffee flavoured swill in England adds more to nominal GDP than the same liquid does in Istanbul. Then there's also the whole PPP vs Nominal debate to be had, there are genuine advantages (such as vacationing overseas) that come from being ahead (or more ahead) in nominal vs PPP terms, and of course the capital investment point still stands in how quickly people are able to produce the same level of PPP output.
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