Today's false trichotomy is bought to you by the number 2 and the letter Q.

[andrewducker]

[Poll #1416969]

Comments

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

That is so oversimplified it boggles my mind to the point I can't frame an adequate rebuttal at the moment.

-- Steve'll try to address this in more detail later, but for now will simply register his emphatic disagreement.

PS: for the record, I'm more in line with James Nicoll's "nightmarish future of prosperity" thinking... and have been ever since I saw The Population Bomb's predictions fizzle.

[andrewducker]

Of course it's an incredible simplification. Which doesn't mean, for instance, that there isn't enough food in Zimbabwe, for instance, if government corruption didn't stop it getting to the right places.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Fixing government corruption in Zimbabwe without a request from the majority of Zimbabwe's population is paternalistic colonialism. We don't know better and shouldn't pretend that we do. Zimbabwe will fix its problems in time.

[andrewducker]

How would we tell if the majority of Zimbabwe's population wanted us in there? How would they know that they had to ask?

Certainly, we should respect people's wishes, but I'd wager that very few people _want_ to labour under corrupt military dictatorships.

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

Well, conventional peacekeeping would suggest intervention if a civil war were to break out so that we would keep the sides from killing each other. This has had a good record. Other interventions have had a less good record, at least on the government-to-government level.