Everyone tries but they are not listening because they claim that everything from the science are lies (climate change, vaccines etc). They will never change and the level of education and ability to think logically and objective is close to zero. The right wing parties boost this because they know they are their path to power.
On the other hand, Palm oil is one of the densest crops that exist, as in it yield the most nutritional value per m2. So sustainable Palm oil production is less harmful to habitat than mostly any other crop in any other country.
Just Google “the benefit of palm oil production”
Palm Oil yields 4-10 times more oil per hectare than other sources of vegetable oil such as soybeans or coconut palms. The plant accounts for just 9% of the 322 million hectares of land used to produce oil crops globally, yet it produces 36% of the oil. This makes it an efficient and profitable use of land.
Unfortunately deforestation to make palm oil is still a thing, but this is not equal among palm oil producing countries.
In Denmark our main vegetable oil product is from Raps seeds, using about 5 times as much agricultural area for similar yield. But fortunately for us, we had our deforestation of almost the entire country several hundred years ago to make a huge naval fleet, and no body complains today that we are not regrowing those forests.
This is not an equal standard for developing countries, they always get blamed much worse for doing things we already did decades or centuries ago in developed countries.
These countries need to be helped, not to be hindered.
Fun fact, the Jamestown Colony, the first colony Britain set up in the Americas, was intended to send timber back to Britain because they were running out of wood for construction and fuel due to all of the deforestation.
I think the anger is directed and the agricultural conglomerates and the governments that have allowed those groups to pillage these places while selling out their countrymen, not the farm workers themselves or the citizens of those countries. Probably no matter the issue, that is likely the case. I know palm oil is important to many people, and colonialism is a lot of the cause of these issues for both the people and those that care about the local environments, as many times they are the same people.
Many people, myself included, don’t know much about the current Malay government, so the initial action being mistrust of something like this shouldn’t be a surprise. As people are realizing how much of our natural resources we’ve squandered for quick cash, I don’t fault them for being angry.
As you said though, it’s important to realize there are good and bad actors in all of these situations, plus many doing what they need to survive in many of these regions.
Very nice post, I admit I don’t know a lot about Malaysia either, but I’ve seen many times that they are working to make Palm oil production sustainable.
It’s easier for us to fight each other as individuals instead of focusing our dissatisfaction toward the ones causing these problems, so I didn’t want to see this sink down into that when everyone had valid criticisms. I want to see the people and environment be protected.
From looking it up quick, 90% of palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, so it is important to understand how it is being produced, so I’ve marked some things to read so I can get better informed. I’m glad you were brave enough to speak up when everyone was pretty fired up on the issue already.
I’m glad you were brave enough to speak up when everyone was pretty fired up on the issue already.
Thank you, I was half expecting to be massively downvoted. Still I think it’s worth pointing out that this issue isn’t nearly as black and white as some wants us to believe.
In part because I feel I’ve been mislead myself, and usually it’s done in a propaganda like fashion.
We all get fed info from everywhere, it’s just our individual responsibility to filter through it and verify it. Nothing to feel guilty over, just post if the joy of the human experience. 🙃
We all get fed info from everywhere, it’s just our individual responsibility to filter through it
This is absolutely true, but if the propaganda is dominating an issue, it can be hard to distinguish from something that is universally accepted, and seems it doesn’t need to be questioned.
Even going for the research requires strong critical thinking, as research is often paid for to show a specific wanted result by the customer.
This we have most famously seen with the tobacco and sugar industries. But it is really really common.
So to filter correctly is not always easy.
It will always be a challenge, but we’re also in an era where communication is available to us at the same capacity it is to the propagandists. We’ve got leakers and whistleblowers like never before. We also have crackpots who can do the same, but it’s much harder to isolate and silence those with positive agendas.
All we can do is keep trying to learn all we can and apply our critical thinking and share what we learn. I post a lot here and always try to show references, as itn no expert on anything, just someone with a love of learning.
It’s worth considering the biodiversity loss where palm oil is grown, as all land area is not equally valuable to nature either. Most palm oil plantations used to be rainforests.
True, I just don’t think we are entitled to point fingers, and Malaysia claims to have sustainable production.
This rape seed field is just outside my house, it’s darn pretty IMO, but the biodiversity that was here is gone centuries ago.
I dont think they made a uturn, they did however correct the course. Drugs are still decriminalized but police will have the ability to kick drug users out of playgrounds and beaches.
Yeah, this seems pretty reasonable to me. The problem with drug criminalization is putting people in prison for using, not kicking them out of where they happen to be using if it isn’t their property.
I mean, if China is serious about re-unifying with Taiwan, the Chinese government should just step down and submit themselves to Taiwanese rule already.
Am I misunderstanding the article? Because it seems to be saying that while things are still bad, there have been vast improvements while at the same time saying that things aren’t much better than they used to be?
The dream of unity being shattered part seems to rest in the idea that there are still a bunch of white racists in South Africa. Did anyone expect white racists would just disappear once apartheid ended? Did anyone really think they wouldn’t pass that racism on to their kids? Because that’s really fucking naïve.
From what I can tell from the article itself, South Africa has made some major steps in the right direction and has improved a lot of people’s lives. It’s just still got a long way to go before things are actually equitable. It’s also really doing badly in terms of government corruption and income inequality (which have nothing to do with Mandela’s ideas about unity). It seems to me like the thrust of the article shouldn’t be that the dream of unity lies shattered, it should be that you can’t fix 50 years of apartheid in 30 years without it.
I think the main thrust is that the ANC made great progress in 10 years, then stagnated for 10 years, and is now getting progressively worse for the last 10 years. Voters therefore are not optimistic for the next 10 with ANC in power. Corruption destroys unity and respect for governing authority, just look at the USA a few years ago.
Imo, it’s not healthy when any one political party (or one head of state for that matter) governs for too many consequent years, and this goes for any country. This would automatically lead to nepotism and corruption, a dysfunctional state as the leaders become more and more estranged from its constituents. Even though I can empathise towards the voter’s choice for upholding the ANC in power for fear of regression to their past regime. Democracy, though simple in theory, can be very complex in reality.
You could be describing my Midwest American city. Democrats here have no competition, so they get away with all kinds of corruption. There have been attempts to disrupt the local party machine from within, but they’ve been unsuccessful.
There has never been a peaceful cure for conservatism. Historically, when conservatism has infected a population, the cure has always been a violent one. Pacifism has never worked against conservatives. Failure to enact the cure early on will result in endless oppression and murder by the right.
The U.S. is also being taken over this time. There is no one coming to save anyone. The time for the normal people to defend against conservatives is right now, not after they have their permanent win-condition. If we do not act now, they will kill and oppress the normal people just as they always have in the past.
Many people were fed up with the Spanish king at that point and invited the Muslims to take over. Spain would not be captured so easily if the inhabitants fought for it instead of against their current rulers.
"The last Visigoth king, Roderick, was not considered a legitimate ruler by all of the inhabitants of the Spanish Kingdom, and some Visigothic nobles aided the Islamic conquest of Spain. One name frequently mentioned is Count Julian of Ceuta who invited Tariq ibn-Ziyad to invade southern Spain because his daughter had been raped by King Roderick. "
If you just substitute some nouns you get the takeover of Hawaii by the US. I mention this because based on what I am seeing it sounds like some some random local thugs sold out their people to invaders hoping that they would get a better deal for themselves under them vs the king.
Unless you got multiple opinion polls and voting records showing that the “people” supported it I don’t think much of your argument.
And I’m pretty sure that the Muslim caliphates didn’t participate in a triangular slave trade which still has repercussions across North America and Africa today in terms of inequality and oppression.
Well, apparently the Mourish Occupation of the Iberian Peninsula was what brought to the Dark Ages Europe advanced irrigation techniques which spread from there increasing agricultural production, the growth of cities and ultimatelly the Renaissance, so we probably would need to pay them, or at least their descendants (mainly Northern African Arabs).
That said Portugal at least in this is a joke (and I say this as a Portuguese National) - for example some years ago the local politicians came up with a scheme to give the descendants of Jewish Sephardites (a group which was expelled from Portugal in the 15th century) portuguese nationality, which is quite an “interesting” choice of “reparations” taking in account the country’s much more recent and way more harmful history of Slavery.
Anyways, the whole thing is corrupt as fuck, with for example Jewish Organisations in Russia providing wealthy Jewish locals with “proof” of their Sephardite ancestry for the purpose of gaining Portuguese Nationality (which is only worth it because it means EU citizenship), to the point that the present day richest and most well known portuguese national is Roman Abramovich.
This talk now is in the sequence of that crap (which continues, which for example some Hamas hostages given expedited Portuguese Nationality to try and secure their release as “portuguese”), the sudden rise in the recent elections of the far-right party who are the only nationalists around (so the only who frown upon the whole giving away of citizienship to people who never ever even visited the country) and the Portuguese President (who is basically a powerless figure who loves media attention) having suggested that Portugal and Spain should “compensate” former colonies.
Do you apply the same logic to all other developments too? That descendants of american slaves now live in the US instead of having to run from lions and hippos, or all the western science and technology spread all around the world by european colonizers? That’s a pretty shit argument dude.
Rest of your statements seems logically sound though.
I think it is pretty simple. Everyone fucked up everyone else for a very long time and there is nothing we can do about it but try to help people alive today who need help today.
That would excuse murder, rape, theft and so on as long as it was done yesterday, not today.
Clearly there is some need to place responsability on people, at least up to a point, with some kind of limit of how far one goes in that, both in terms of temporality and directness of the relation of the punished with the criminals and those recieving compensation with the victims.
There are some widelly accepted rules for some of these things: for example somebody who murders somebody else should pay for it no mater how long it takes to catch that person, whilst the children of the murderer should not pay for their father/mother’s crime.
However in other areas it’s not so simple: should the children of somebody who stole money be forced to give it back if they inherited that ill gotten money?! An argument can be made that if they are not forced to return it, they would be enjoying the proceedings of the crime whilst the victims carry on suffering because of not having that money, all of which would be an injustice.
But if they should, how about grandchildren? How about great grandchildren? How about all the present day citizens of a nation whose elites commited crimes centuries ago? Should they all lose a little bit to compensate a group of people only entire verifable link with victims from long long ago is having been born in a present day geographical nation that contains an area were the victimization is thought to have occurred?
Whilst I think group guilt and group victimhood for crimes commited centuries ago - as in the suggestion of the President Of Portugal - is complete total bollocks and a way to whitewash the ill gotten nature of the wealth of most of the Portuguese Old Money (including him, who is the son of a Minister in the time of Fascism, hence old money), I can see how, say, taking away things people inherited which were obtained by theft (for example, returning to the descendants of the owners old paintings stollen by the Nazis) is a fair and just thing to do.
I’m describing the reason why the statute of limitations came to be.
The reason is however more generic that just that, and provides explanation for things like not making the children pay for the crimes of their parents.
As for my overall point of it not being simple, notice how there are different statutes of limitations for different crimes.
It’s no secret that large parts of africa are still uncivilized. That doesn’t mean africans are inferior to us, they’re not, but many of them still need to deal with wildlife in ways we do not.
I mean, Hippos are statistically one of the largest killers of people where they live, they are adorable killing machines. But yeah it’s a bad line that makes a salient point in this instance
The descendants of slavery owe white people for the privilege of living next to white people, usually in a neighborhood with poorer infrastructure, huh?
Well, apparently the Mourish Occupation of the Iberian Peninsula was what brought to the Dark Ages Europe advanced irrigation techniques which spread from there increasing agricultural production, the growth of cities and ultimatelly the Renaissance, so we probably would need to pay them, or at least their descendants (mainly Northern African Arabs).
I see. This means that if any invader improved a property they took over in any sense of the word the takeover was justified. If for example I steal your car but give a good wash. You should thank me for cleaning it and I was right to steal it, since you were neglecting it.
The Moorish kings were genuinely better rulers on many, many topics, so it’s more like your car thief replaced the transmission with a clear upgrade, but yes, reparations are an innately immoral idea that punishes children for the sins of their parents.
You can not fix the sins of the past, only stop them from happening again.
Many of the former Euro colonies started with stone tools and a nomadic lifestyle and where drug into the modern age (for the time of course) If Europe should repay the descendants of slavers, conquerors, and rapists for the advancements they brought, then by your own logic the colonies owe Europe reparations. Congrats your colonial policy is French!
Spain and Portugal aren’t full of disease and poverty despite the fact that they used to be colonies, while their former colonies are full of disease and poverty.
Well I can’t say Spain and Portugal aren’t full of disease and poverty, but that’s probably because of the decades of corporatist fascism and Nazi Germany/Italy/the Vatican quashing the socialist/anarchist governments there to install a dictator, and not because of Al-Andalus which actually brought great prosperity to the region
I’m guessing they’re trying to say that you don’t need to feel bad for having privileges that others don’t. Acknowledge, yes, but you didn’t choose the circumstances you were born into.
Clowns have it backwards. Instead of empowering workers to make better things, to receive better education and actually become a force in this modern world, they are empowering employers so they can exploit them more. It’s like their government has a collective IQ of 6 (+/- 3). You just can’t make up this level of stupid.
The productivity of the country is going somewhere. If it’s not coming back to help the people then that tells you everything you need to know about the motives of their leadership.
Lol as an American, good luck with that. You’ll probably have some “good times” in early to mid-stage capitalism. Then, you’ll reach late stage and realize it’s all rigged.
Nah. The tracks are laid already. They’ll go straight to late stage. Turns out the problem was never free market versus heavily regulated. It was always rich people twisting the system.
Yeah, it’s not like there’s been a good track record in Latin America of socialism being allowed to be implemented. There’s basically 2 countries you could call socialist, and both are sanctioned and under constant threat of regime change.
Well yeah, and that’s the false promise being sold to these people. At least with the economy and national resources under government care there’s a hope to clear out corruption and a certain amount of welfare had to exist to get votes. Once it all goes private it’s going to be ten times worse because there’s no such check on a corporation. They’ll just sell your potatoes right out from under you and bring in foreign troops to enforce it.
The West let it happen. They didn't arm Ukraine quickly enough, nor did they do much of anything to help Ukraine in the decade before. Instead they became closer pals with Russia after the annexation and even more dependent. Had they nipped this in the bud more than a decade ago, Russia wouldn't have had the means nor the will to invade Ukraine.
Europe and the USA need to ramp up production of military assets as if it's wartime and help Ukraine defend itself, instead of twiddling their thumbs and asking themselves if Putin is really serious while Ukraine soldiers lose their lives.
The West let it happen. They didn’t arm Ukraine quickly enough, nor did they do much of anything to help Ukraine in the decade before.
A decade before the country was run by Russian puppet Viktor Yanukovych. Any western economic or military assistance would have helped Russia continue to own Ukraine politically.
Instead they became closer pals with Russia after the annexation and even more dependent.
The hope was, and there was a lot of evidence it was working, that engaging Russia economically would act as a force against Russian aggression because no one could imagine Russia throwing away their access and economic prosperity by openly invading another country. Also, Ukraine, immediately following the exit of Yanukovych in 2014 had a lot of corruption in government with lots of Russian backed political appointees still there.
At the time it didn’t look like a country that could or would defend itself from Russia even if they were invaded. The taking of Crimea with almost no push-back from Ukraine, and Ukrainian military officers marking their weapons of war to Russia in exchange for Russian military command reinforced this idea.
Had they nipped this in the bud more than a decade ago, Russia wouldn’t have had the means nor the will to invade Ukraine.
Who is “they” and “nipping” it sounds like you’re suggesting would be to flood the (at the time) half corrupt country half Russian owned country with Western weapons to untrained people. 2014 was also when the USA was fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trying in Afghanistan to build a domestic army to defend their government against the Taliban.
You’re looking at Ukraine as the Zelenskyy-era version which has this hope and promise of being a less corrupt place and fighting Russia. Zelenskyy didn’t even take office until 2019. Even then it took a couple of years to learn that he was going to be different than the previous leaders.
I say all of this, and I hugely support Ukraine today! I want more support for them from my government and others, but that doesn’t change what Ukraine was 10 or more years ago.
Who is "they" and "nipping" it sounds like you're suggesting would be to flood the (at the time) half corrupt country half Russian owned country with Western weapons to untrained people
The Western powers, but mostly Western Europe. The Baltic states and Poland were very wary of Russia and there multiple news articles of them fearing a Russian invasion (Lithuania 2017).
Gearing up NATO for a possible invasion to actually increase military spending for secure Baltic borders, stockpiling arms and weapons, as well as gradually much harsher sanctions for Russia together with increasing economic distancing - aka a strong response, could've shown Russia who not to trifle with. The former USSR states said multiple times that Russia wouldn't recognize much apart force.
The Nord Stream pipeline was beyond idiotic. After signing the Paris agreement in 2015, agreeing to get more gas into the EU and from Russia of all parties, was just dumb. The dependency created was more on European side than Russian side.
Russia started testing its own internet and tried producing its own chips for Russian "independence", but after the annexation how could that not be interpreted as preparation for disconnection from Western tech?
Probably the situation was complex back then and even more complex today, but the reality is that to many people the attack on Ukraine was not a surprise but a matter of time.
Who is “they” and “nipping” it sounds like you’re suggesting would be to flood the (at the time) half corrupt country half Russian owned country with Western weapons to untrained people
The Western powers, but mostly Western Europe. The Baltic states and Poland were very wary of Russia and there multiple news articles of them fearing a Russian invasion (Lithuania 2017).
The Baltic countries and Poland have been the victim of large national powers for nearly all of the 20th century. Further, NATO has strengthen the Baltics as well as Poland. How are you suggesting this changing the situation in Ukraine historically? For the point you’re making, are you treating Ukraine as a NATO member and suggesting they should have received equal treatment?
Gearing up NATO for a possible invasion to actually increase military spending for secure Baltic borders, stockpiling arms and weapons,
This happened. The Baltics only joined NATO in 2004, and today NATO members have bases and armies in these countries.
as well as gradually much harsher sanctions for Russia together with increasing economic distancing - aka a strong response, could’ve shown Russia who not to trifle with.
There were sanctions on Russia after the 2014 invasion of Crimea. Russia didn’t do anything to NATO. Geopolitically, responding militarily to a completely separate sovereign nation being invaded without that country asking for assistance would have been the exact global hegemonic response our enemies claim we are.
The former USSR states said multiple times that Russia wouldn’t recognize much apart force.
And today NATO countries are still free with zero Russian soldiers on them. I’d like it to stay that way.
The Nord Stream pipeline was beyond idiotic.
I’ve already addressed this. The West was trying to engage Russia economically strengthening ties to Russia to give them something to lose if they went to war again.
After signing the Paris agreement in 2015, agreeing to get more gas into the EU and from Russia of all parties, was just dumb. The dependency created was more on European side than Russian side.
Russia is largely a petro-state. If you’re trying to build economic ties with them you have to have mutual trade. Natural resources are one of the few things Russia has to sell. Further, the goal of switching to natural gas was to switch to cleaner energy generation for Europe than coal. In that, it was successful.
Russia started testing its own internet and tried producing its own chips for Russian “independence”, but after the annexation how could that not be interpreted as preparation for disconnection from Western tech?
India is also launching its own semiconductor research and manufacturing capacity right now. source Are you suggesting its planning to disconnect from Western tech?
Probably the situation was complex back then and even more complex today, but the reality is that to many people the attack on Ukraine was not a surprise but a matter of time.
Yes, there were voices saying we should cut off and isolate Russia instead of engage in the early 2000s. Think of the consequences. Doing so would have also handed Ukraine to Russia on a silver platter. There never would have been an invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022. With zero consequences, why would Russia have stopped at Crimea in 2014?
dw.com
Top