> Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar or whatever this is.
I appreciate your patience, dang. I genuinely never intended for this to become flamebait. I have no idea why people are so nasty to eachother. I'm not promoting any form of "nationalism" here (especially not living in South Africa or having business there), I just meant to counter the idea that poverty deterministically makes people immoral, with a point that sometimes immorality will make your society poor. Whatever everyone else is talking about is their business, but I honestly don't see how I can participate at the same level of conversation as the parent comment, and not have some risk of people reading way more into it than is necessary. You say "it's nasty", but from my perspective, it's pretty nasty to say that all poor people will just steal your stuff and can't be helped; sounds like supremecism to me, even if it can come from a good place.
"The society has no standards" and "the state is organized around cultural jingoism" are inflammatory statements, not a thoughtful exploration of the root causes of poverty in South Africa. It's important, when talking about painful and divisive topics, not to sling cheap rhetoric like that.
If you're saying that your intention was to defend poor people, I believe you; but this is not the way to express it. You'd need to provide a much more patient explanation than that, and then go over it again to take out any provocations.
I appreciate your patience, dang. I genuinely never intended for this to become flamebait. I have no idea why people are so nasty to eachother. I'm not promoting any form of "nationalism" here (especially not living in South Africa or having business there), I just meant to counter the idea that poverty deterministically makes people immoral, with a point that sometimes immorality will make your society poor. Whatever everyone else is talking about is their business, but I honestly don't see how I can participate at the same level of conversation as the parent comment, and not have some risk of people reading way more into it than is necessary. You say "it's nasty", but from my perspective, it's pretty nasty to say that all poor people will just steal your stuff and can't be helped; sounds like supremecism to me, even if it can come from a good place.