> like we're now seeing in Ecuador and other countries.
The protests in Ecuador are about IMF austerity measures. The sort of cruel anti-working class policy we've been seeing peddled by neo-liberals for a long time. The sort of policy that is now seeing a resurgent fascism and socialism.
Everyone loves to blame the austerity measures. Not the people or ideology that got them into the mess in the first place.
I'm sure the government can find better ways to pay the money back but it's still a massive burden put onto an already struggling economy which didn't have to exist.
Things always go great in socialist countries until they run out of other people's money to spend and then the whole thing gets exposed for what it is: an unsustainable system that just makes everyone poorer, all in the name of 'equity' and a bunch of hand-wavy misdirections so they can keep the lie their system is better than capitalism going.
What would you offer them instead? People want better lives. And it’s not as if a revolution caused that- the electorate willingly voted in those leaders.
There are hardly black people deep in the Ural mountains, where I happen live, near the Siberian border.
Anyway. Affinity to classical music (or classical poetry, for that matter) comes not from cultural background, but from a certain level of intellectual sophistication. I don't buy the thesis that some people are born into an oppressed class and can't escape it. In our age education is easily accessible to anyone who has internet. One can learn any language for free, become a developer or a musician or a photographer, all it takes is some will to make yourself learn some marketable skills.
Of course, now you'll likely say that some people are oppressed and conditioned to be unable to escape their caste, but it's just nonsense.
of course the music is learned from an immediate social environment! Precisely because of it, people who are capable to overcome their learned tastes and learn something else are way more valuable to any business.
You see, very few people these days are taught to like Beethoven, most just find him on his own. That is a sign of a capability to think independently, which comes from higher intelligence.
> I missed the memo on when meritocracy became a bad word
When people realized that the guy who starts with a billion dollar dad and a buy in to harvard is being graded on the same scale as the guy who started in a trailer park with a single mom and community college.
You can't have a meritocracy without the same starting point, and you can't have that in real life.
computers don't care whether you grew up in a trailer. the concept of meritocracy doesn't require that everyone has an even start (whatever that looks like). it just requires that people are selected for positions based on who is most likely to do a good job. it's unfair, but the silver spoon kid who graduated from Harvard with a 4.0 is usually a better bet than the kid who dropped out after the eighth grade.
edit: I actually doubt the son of the billionaire gets graded on the same scale as the trailer park kid. my guess is it's pretty hard to fail a course taught in a building named after your dad, but maybe that's overly conspiratorial.
> His [son] can piss away money all day every day and never even make a dent.
His son is 22. Life expectancy right now is about 93 I think, so he has 71 years of life left. Ignoring interest, he could spend $1,000,000 a day every day for the rest of his life.
Yeah, he could spend an awful lot of money. Must be nice!
Christ, I had to actually sit here for a moment and imagine how I could even possibly manage to spend $1M a day. I can only think of two things: 1) hiring people to work on things I know are unprofitable but want done, and 2) giving it away.
