Term "Third World" is Anti-Second-Hand Propaganda

How "e-Waste Tragedy" propaganda is imprisoning African Geeks, Nerds, and Technicians.











  1. The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO (with the United States, Western European nations and their allies representing the First World), or the Communist Bloc (with the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and their allies representing the Second World).
  2. Third World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
    Wikipedia

Ok.  So, the number of people who are not aligned with either the Soviets or NATO is... irrelevant.







Now, we all have friends who are overly anxious to impart their trust quickly on the statistic which affirms their bias.   The "bias confirmation" here could be something Eric and I suffer from.

We see that people are being arrested for importing stuff which mostly works.  To us, banning the trade between rich and poor makes as much sense as outlawing the used car market.



If the used car market was outlawed, who would benefit?  Automobile scrap would definitely increase, good news for car shredders.  And new car manufacturers might not complain much.

Does that mean I'm likely committing a "waste crime" if I sell a used car (or used TV) to Eric?

Here's the question - why would Eric, the buyer, and Robin, the seller, engage in a trade which was anything different, or worse, than the chart?  To avoid environmental laws?  Isn't that circular reasoning?

Why would Eric pay me money for a used car or other stuff he wants if it's not reuseable?  Why would he behave other than... than according to the chart?  And as importantly, why would Eric refuse 85% of the stuff we have in Vermont?  No Africans are buying wooden console TVs or Pentium 1, or P2 or dot matrix printer scrap.  Burning devices for copper does NOT pay for shipping costs.

We agree there is an "E-Waste Tragedy".  We just disagree what the tragedy is.

The use of poverty footage as propaganda to support a Charitable-Industrial-Complex, arresting African tinkerers and fixers, and putting them in prison for "waste crime"?  Where have we seen THAT kind of film before?

I would much prefer this horrible BAN.org / Interpol cluster-collision be outed by liberal environmentalists than by Fox News or other climategate deniers.   The calendar is ticking, however.  And if pushed, anyone who gets innocent people out of jail is my friend starting tomorrow.

Liberals are listening too much to old environmental farts who use terms like "third world".  In any urban city, Rio or Lima or Delhi or Karachi or Cairo or Accra or Lagos or Johannesburg, there are neighborhoods with diverse incomes and populations the size of many nations.  The cities are growing because of trade and commerce.

"Third World"?  REALLY?  Are professionals, educated people, really still using the term "third world" to describe six billion people in the "non-OECD"?

Eric now has to think about being put in jail, and as he explains, always politely, he knows hundreds of other geeks who are buying and repurposing and fixing used goods which wealthy people discard.
The silence of the E-Scrap tradespeople is creepy.  They must all have met people like Eric, and either traded or refused to trade with these people.  But they sit around quietly as Joe Benson sits in jail, away from his family, for selling working and repairable second hand goods to commercants in Africa.

Which side were you on?  You only get to protest once.  See August Landmesser, Nazi accused of breeding with half-Jewish Irma Eckler.  And sentenced.  Both were presumed and pronounced dead in 1942 after being sent to the Eastern Front and Borgermoor concentration camp.

Look at the e-waste arrests.  Africans being arrested for buying used mass media equipment for African cities.   Annie Leonard "Story of Stuff", Regolith, and other Abogbloshie films don't really seem like Joseph Goebbels Nazi Propaganda film.  But if the stats are exactly ass-backward, claiming 80% dumping when the seized containers (2009) showed 91% reuse, what is the point.

BE THAT GUY

No comments: