sk comments on The Craigslist Revolution: a real-world application of torture vs. dust specks OR How I learned to stop worrying and create one billion dollars out of nothing - Less Wrong

47 Post author: Kevin 10 February 2010 03:15AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (219)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: sk 14 February 2010 12:43:32AM *  0 points [-]

Looks like you are assuming that the west - England, France, Spain etc conquered other countries to improve those countries. In reality, the primary motivation was to get economic leverage against the competing powers at the time. And often times, this is done at the expense of the economic well-being of the people of the conquered countries. For example, the British Raj destroyed the budding local textile industry and trade between India and other European countries, Persia and Turkey.

If not, what makes you think it would be any different with Africa?

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 14 February 2010 06:53:54PM 5 points [-]

Looks like you are assuming that the west - England, France, Spain etc conquered other countries to improve those countries. In reality, the primary motivation was to get economic leverage against the competing powers at the time.

No one is assuming that. Everyone here assumes that the conquerors would be motivated by self-interest. The argument some are making is that the conquering would still have the side effect of making life better for the conquered.