So, I wrote this as a response to >>>/leftypol/2230222, but I thought, I might as well post is as a general criticism to the whole chan… And so, I guess I'll post it here.
I'm a leftist. I came as a refugee from 4chan. I've been browsing this board, looking for replacement of my favorite boards, and noticed that there are no boards for math, science (hard or social sciences), engineering, history or economics/finance. Let me give you an example of why I think it would be a good idea to have those. It's a rather extreme example, but bear with me.
See the pic? Do you know why the legacy of Chavez failed? It's because they wasted a ton of money on useless crap. What you will hear from many of those venezuelan emigrants (esp. from the middle class ones) is that the Chavez government would give them cash for the most stupid shit, like tourism. They would be given hundreds or even thousands of dollars to travel to other countries. That's basically throwing money away and fucking stupid for a 3rd world country that depends on sale of raw materials. I'd guess those were part of the "social programs" the defenders talk about so much…
His government also gave a ton of "help" in the form of money and resources to other government and people from other countries. Do you think those countries helped them back when things went downhill for Venezuela?
If you don't know some basic math, history, have a sense of basic personal finances and at least some knowledge of technical matters, then how are you supposed to put things in perspective? Let's say you are the president (aka manager) of a country. You have to manage a TON of resources and want to change how things work (a la Chavez or Trump). You start moving money from some areas of your govt. to other areas, and then people complain that you cut a ton of jobs, killed programs that you thought were useless but are actually fundamental to have a basic modern society (like, say, weather forecasting) or whatever. And, since you already sent that money elsewhere, you have no money left, so you have to ask someone to lend money to your government, which means you will have to pay MORE money in the future. See where I am going? This shit repeats even at a domestic level.
Being stupid with money, ignorant of how our current society works, not knowing how hard and context-sensitive technical matters are, and not being able to have some sense of the history of things (including the detals and not just general history) to be able to predict the future to some degree, not only affects YOU personally, and IMO SHOULD be basic knowledge. Things aren't going to work just because you have some good intentions.
I think creating those boards would help a lot to reduce ignorance.
>>40903Am only replying to this because am super bored. Think generally you'd post what you're after on
>>>/edu/ or
>>>/leftypol/.
>It's because they wasted a ton of money on useless crap.<global oil prices plummeted and Venezuela - which relies almost entirely on oil revenue for its income - went into a seven-year recession. Inflation skyrocketed and shortages of basic goods became widespread.Pic related. Basically they should have made a cyclical balanced budget a la Chile, and not counted on the abnormally high oil prices always being there.
>You start moving money from some areas of your govt. to other areas, and then people complain that you cut a ton of jobs, killed programs that you thought were useless but are actually fundamental to have a basic modern society (like, say, weather forecasting) or whatever.Generally you're supposed to increase revenues to increase services by levying more taxes, or just from GDP growth, and not by cutting other essential services.
>>40904Yeah, that's exactly what I meant to say: you actually have to have a clue on how to manage money, otherwise you end up becoming poorer. It can happen to you. It can happen to your community. It can happen to your country, or even to the world as a whole.
Knowledge of math, economics, history helps avoid bad situations. I'm no expert in any of those, yet I do have some sense of how things need to be done to avoid poverty, at least in my personal finances. And that shit applies to everything. Most solutions to problems in technical matters have to do with management of resources rather than abilit or feasibility.
>>40908>>40906Thanks, could be useful.
But I didn't mean /biz/ only in the sense of "world economics", or US economy, or the stock market… I meant in the most general sense.
>>40913>yet I do have some sense of how things need to be done to avoid poverty, at least in my personal finances.This will lead you astray. As an example basic Keynesian economics says if you're in a recession you ought to spend more money, even on useless things, and even if it means going into debt, to increase aggregate demand. This is actually the justification for having a cyclically balanced budget, so that when the business cycle is down you can spend loads of money on stimulus, (for example giving everyone a few thousand dollars below a certain means tested threshold) without being badly sunk into debt. If it sounds a little like saving for a rainy day, it sort of is, but this is somehow a completely fringe policy, and there's the important proviso given above, that you're saving to spend
extra money when you're running low. And this is just one example.
>>40914>Keynesian economics says if you're in a recession you ought to spend more money, even on useless things, and even if it means going into debt, to increase aggregate demand. And this is why I say technical matters are hard. This applies to countries and their governments. On the other hand, and going back to the example of Venezuela: why would you, say, give money to people to travel to other countries to estimulate the economy? Most of that money isn't going to companies in your country, it's literally going to another country…
Also, does this apply to individual people? I mean, if you are poor and in a bad economic situation, spendng money on useless things will only make things worse for you. So that logic obviously doesn't happen at all levels.
>>40915Yeah, I noticed. Still, would be cool to have those discussions in its own board, as I proposed.