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Best case: they want to be Myanmar and open up at least halfway, still whitewashing the worst of it so nobody gets human rights trialed but seriously trying to Westernize. Worst case: they want another round of free Volvos and KJI will reappear like nothing happened as soon as the free Volvos get delivered. Middle case: there's an actual civil war on and the diplos visiting people now have a 50/50 chance of disappearing as soon as they get home.
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Oct 8, 2014 20:35
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 16:33 |
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I think a lot of the US-centric bitching is because the society very prominently functions on the bones of two massive infrastructure efforts (WW2 + interstate highways) and the national mythos is also all about massive projects (Marshall Plan, the moon, the Internet) transforming the country in one generation or less. Meanwhile, nothing except the latter has visibly been done in fifty years and bridges are falling down, sometimes with cars on them. It's not wrong to say the country could do better and faster, but yes, a lot of the comparison to Europe comes off artificially poorly due to the fact that continental Europe's infrastructure is both newer(!) and originally built with US money. The other thing is that while massive, high profile projects are much harder to do now, run of the mill construction is still much better. Your typical UK 3BR house is half the size of a US version and comes with appliances that are also half the size, the drainage is unreliable and the heating drastically varies based on what floor you're on - and I'm talking about the newer stuff here. This tells me the problem is on the macro scale and fixable if the political will ever exists again. [It also helps that 45 of the 50 states don't *really* care about illegal immigration and the resulting cheap labor costs, as opposed to the UK literally electing fascists on the completely unfounded suggestion that too many Bulgarians are completely legally showing up.]
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Oct 19, 2014 17:37
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