It seems that Cuba is slowly but surely liberalising. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future, apparently they're having a referendum in February for a new constitution that's somewhat more free-market friendly, as well as LGBT friendly.
The USA reimposing embargoes on Cuba seems like the worst thing it can do to try and force liberalisation. 50 years of sanctions has proven to be a complete failure.
Well, to ignore it would be to appear complacent on the issue, given our past record with Cuban relations.
It's hard to fix a country when Communists run it and can just murder opposition without consequence.
But something is better than nothing otherwise we'd just be ignoring it.
Cuban people are the greatest hope for Cuba. The inhabitants of any Communist nation will inevitably reach a point of disenchantment with communism and decide that life would probably be better if they could vote and have a political say without being murdered.
LGBT is a weird, rather irrelevant point but it does share the same analog that people will see it and realize that no matter how repulsive the behavior, freedom to engage in it must surely be preferable to a Communist prescription of their daily lives and inner lives.
Cuba will fix itself. They just need more Cubans who want to help do so.
Saudi Arabia does all the above things but the US and most of the western world is fine with it. Your statement is hypocrisy at its best. The problem is Cuba doesn’t have enough money.
Cuba is treated different because Cuba is close to HOME. The only time US was close to a nuclear war and main-land invasion was when Cuba gave their enemy a foot hold.
I would be mad, if US civilian and military did not treat Cuba or any other Caribbean Island differently from the countries on Eurasian land mass.
And Japan did Pearl Harbour, so what? The idea that you apply sanctions for historical reasons is absurd. Further, the US actually tried to invade Cuba (but of course Cuba has no right to feel threatened by the US...)
Japan did Pearl Harbour .. but you left out Hiroshima and Nagasaki!
>> The idea that you apply sanctions for historical reasons is absurd.
Cuba was 90 miles away from mainland US in 1960s and in 2018 too. Its not historical, its geographic and geo-political with historic context.
US has a harsh embargo on Cuba because it is too close to US. If Cuba was adversarial and is 1000 miles away, the relationship would have been different.
"but the US and most of the western world is fine with it."
This is nonsense. Canada is literally right now in a big huff/dispute with Saudi, and issues of oppression in Saudi Arabia are a constant political issue.
Arms sales to Saudi Arabia from Western nations are always contested, always a hot topic.
Literally in the Swedish election right now - arms sales to Saudi Arabia are an issue.
Saudis can use 'most' of the internet, the country has wealth (luckily) and if they want to they can leave.
The oppression in Saudi is hugely based on super social conservative values, which many citizens, even women, actually support in many ways.
How is that statement hypocrisy, at its best, wow, when it doesn't mention Saudi Arabia at all?
A person could read that comment and have any independent feeling about Saudi Arabia, including wanting sanctions to also exist against Saudi Arabia. So I'm not seeing how hypocrisy is an immediate prerequisite to the comment.
It seems more like you wanted to invalidate the comment by bringing up another country that isn't part of the discussion right now and claim hypocrisy.
At the same time the USA was imposing its embargo on Cuba, it was propping up right-wing dictatorships in Latin America.
They funded rebels and coups to overthrow democratically elected governments on the whims of fruit companies. They supported Pinochet in Chile while he was throwing people out of helicopters. In practically every Latin American country the USA was systematically involved in brutal repression of the leftists and anything vaguely pro-Soviet [1], without any regard to human rights or democracy.
The USA also did almost nothing in response to the atrocities of the Duvaliers in Haiti, despite being orders of magnitude worse than Castro.
To say that the USA embargoes Cuba due to human rights concerns is completely and utterly laughable. The USA didn't give a toss about human rights in Cuba under Batista, who was incidentally another brutal dictator propped up by the USA.
The USA has never cared about human rights and freedoms in its neighbours.
I'm a little bothered by the flagging of this comment. What guideline has he broken? He engaged with the parent comment, was not uncivil, and while the content of his post is surely contentious, the topic of this submission is inherently contentious.
Are people not allowed to express the opinion that Communism is problematic on a discussion on the state of freedom in one of the few remaining communist countries? Should we just say "yay Cuba" and move on?
You certainly don't have to yay Cuba or yay communism, but the discussions people get into when topic becomes this generic and this divisive usually end up in flames. That's what we're trying to avoid here. Notice how it went straight to Saudi Arabia? That's a flamewar move, not a substantive one. And then we get https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17763463, and so on and so on.
We moderate HN this way because the site has a clear mandate: thoughtful conversation on topics of intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). At this point we have over 10 years' experience with where the community's limits are in terms of what can be discussed that way versus what spills over into flames. When the needle starts to go into the red, that's when we moderate. I assume that the users who flagged that comment were doing much the same.
I was there a couple of years ago, and it seemed the country was already in the late-communism early-capitalism phase that Eastern European countries went through around 1990. This was especially visible in the tourism industry, i.e. with 'casas', apartments/rooms rented to foreigners. In this market, people were already getting separated into economic winners and losers, as often happens in this quick transition to capitalism. It seemed that people had a feeling what was happening, everybody seemed in a rush to get as much of the tourist currency that's pegged to the dollar, rather than the locals' currency.
> It is impossible to find a dozen people for whom the word freedom means the same thing, in the same way.
Not being tricked out of your ancestral land by a serial rapist who then goes on to rob your country blind for decades and play dice with your nuclear neighbor is a start, maybe.
What exactly did I do? I was noting that an improvement in the freedom of Cubans is hardly subjective, given the effects of the ongoing Castro period. Almost any country is freer than one which decides who can and can not communicate with the outside world, or own the product of their labour.
Where in the guidelines does it say that I have to use the driest, dullest language to describe anything or make any point?
You posted a flamey political rant. That drags down discussion quality in its own right and leads to worse from others. If that's the game you want to play, please play it somewhere else.
There are probably contexts where it's possible to have a high-quality discussion with that sort of rhetoric in it, but the open internet is certainly not one of them. It just sets things on fire, and scorched earth is boring.
Maybe it's time for an unmoderated hackernews where there is everyone, including downvotes expect this flagging thing which should only be for promotional stuff.
Lately, i am tried of moderators shutting down a thread, comments and banning users.
Here's an incredible case study of "El Paquete" an ad hoc sneaker net that developed in Cuba to trade news and media in the absence of widely available internet connections.
Really cool talk by two guys who flesh out internet connectivity in Cuba (one of them is a Cuban engineering major at a Cuban university), apparently citizens there may well operate the largest mesh network in the world.
Yep. They even have hacked video game consoles to play multiplayer games with each other on. I got to have a go with an Xbox (the original haha) in Havana last year — was a lot of fun!
As a descendant of Cuban refugees I have to thank fate that my grandfather had the foresight and conviction to abandon everything and come to the United States. Just the thought that through a few twists of fate I could have been born in some totalitarian nightmare state is enough to give me chills.
I must urge everyone that is against the US taking in refugees to consider that by banning refugees we are trapping people in places most of us would consider to be Hell.
I've not heard of any hospital taking a person's house to pay a medical bill. Typically it goes into collections and on your credit report. Now a lowered credit score will affect the ability to get loans, possibly needed to effect repairs on a home, but that is a bit more of a stretch. And if it goes to court then wages can be garnished, affecting your ability to pay a mortgage -- but I believe that garnished wages are limited.
Oh, and if you pay almost any amount on a monthly basis towards a medical bill, then that can keep it out of collections too.
>Just the thought that through a few twists of fate I could have been born in some totalitarian nightmare state is enough to give me chills.
I'm curious about this line of thinking. Do you think your specific consciousness was being held in reserve somewhere, and it would have been placed into a mortal body regardless of when you were due to come into being? Plus if your grandfather had stayed in Cuba, who's to say your parents would have still met, started a relationship, and conceived a child?
The way I see it, I only exist because of the exact series of events leading up to that one moment where I was conceived. I exist because of a combination of a specific sperm and a specific egg. All sorts of factors contributed to all of us getting extremely lucky, even up to the final hours, minutes, and seconds before fertilization. We won, and we denied a countless number of other potential minds the privilege of existence.
There's no way to prove it of course, but I feel like a different sperm being responsible for fertilization would have meant I would have never existed at all. My parents would have had a different child with a different consciousness. Even if a specific consciousness is tied to the egg itself, that gives a window based on the menstrual cycle.
I really don't think he means it in the deep philosophical sense of unique personal identity but more the fact that if the situation has been different whoever his grandfathers descents were (if any) would have radically different options in life.
>I'm curious about this line of thinking. Do you think your specific consciousness was being held in reserve somewhere, and it would have been placed into a mortal body regardless of when it happened?
Perhaps I am being a bit obtuse, but I think while I personally agree with your line of thought, the original thought is a hypothetical that could never happen anyway (we can't wind back time), so it's kind of a moot point in either case, as I'm fairly sure the OP didn't mean it like that and was just using it as a contrast to demonstrate to people how immigrants benefit from migration and are thankful and feel lucky to be in a country such as the US.
Quite a lot of people who support unbridled refugees come from the same end of the political spectrum where could be found most of the apologists for the regime your grandfather fled.
You're conflating support for communist economic systems with humanitarian leanings. There's certainly overlap between diehard communists and strong humanitarians, but especially with an anti-human rights state like Cuba, anyone holding both ideas simultaneously is undergoing some serious cognitive dissonance. The point you're trying to make is very shoddily constructed.
I lived in Brazil. I would say that after visiting Cuba and comparing it to Brazil, Cubans seem much less desperate than poor Brazilians, and the violence is incomparable. Cubans "enjoy" a decent educational system and while there are zero opportunities outside the state run fiascos, there are worse places to be, like I imagine Haiti would be.
It was a dictatorship until 1986 and the first elected leader to actually serve a full term without getting overthrown in a coup was Rene Preval (2006-11). Their most recent elections were a mess as well.
Cuba’s overall quality of life is impressive considering it is a small poor country with few natural resources (e.g. most of the forests were cleared by European slaver plantation owners) which was in the 1950s a quasi-feudal society with a one-crop economy, lacking infrastructure, and weak institutions, and has been battered by decades of economic attack by its obvious large trading partner.
Compared to every country in Latin America where US allies had control from the mid-20th century onward, the Cuban people have done very well. They have cheap housing, a cheap and effective healthcare system, cheap transportation, cheap and effective education, etc. Most importantly, they haven’t been subjected to decades of widespread terror by fascist autocrats or bloody civil war, the way many Latin American countries were. In a counterfactual world where Batista was left in charge 60 years ago, it’s hard to imagine the Cuban people would be doing as well as they are.
If US foreign policy in the immediate aftermath of the Cuban Revolution had not been so overtly hostile, and if US policymakers for decades afterward had not been so paranoid and short-sighted, it is quite possible that the Cuban political system would have turned out significantly differently. US attempted invasion, attempted assassinations, crippling embargoes, constant threats, etc. forced the Cuban government into a very defensive posture (both internally and externally), just for self preservation.
I’m not a big fan of the political leadership of Cuba, or the lack of political rights there, but objectively it is a pretty okay place to live (being poor in Cuba is probably better than being poor in the USA). The GP’s characterization as “hell” is likely colored by decades of US (and Cuban-American) propaganda bordering on outright lies.
The US has historically accepted more refugees than every other country in the world put together [0].
Some of people's criticisms about refugees are totally valid. Unless a person is willing to integrate with their host country's society and accept their culture, you won't be welcomed in. I think that's a very reasonable bar to hold people to.
I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman. Having some kind of limit seems reasonable, and other countries can help to balance things out. I'm not sufficiently educated on the subject to comment on the factors which might've influenced us to reduce our cap. Maybe the number of refugees we accept should be different, I genuinely don't know. But ultimately, not everyone has to come to the US. Why aren't you criticizing all these other countries that barely take in refugees? The US is still accepting a very large number of refugees relative to the rest of the world.
>Some of people's criticisms about refugees are totally valid.
What are the valid criticisms? I don't know of any.
>Unless a person is willing to integrate with their host country's society and accept their culture, you won't be welcomed in. I think that's a very reasonable bar to hold people to.
This argument is not convincing to me at all.
I've lived in California, New York, and Florida and if your requirement for refugees is to learn the culture of all these different places I would say it's impossible.
How does people coming to the United States, speaking a different language, eating different food, and holding different beliefs affect your life in any way?
>I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman.
I think this is dishonest. Many people are calling for an outright ban on refugees.
>Why aren't you criticizing all these other countries
that barely take in refugees?
Because I'm not a citizen of other countries and I actually believe refugees and immigrants in general are good for this country.
>How does people coming to the United States, speaking a different language, eating different food, and holding different beliefs affect your life in any way?
Eventually it becomes South Miami where there are parts where workers don't speak English. Kind of sucks when you try to order from a butcher shop and have to point at the meat and then the grinder.
>>I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman.
>I think this is dishonest. Many people are calling for an outright ban on refugees.
Yea it's impossible to really argue this. Some do yes. Many just want increased vetting.
Language is all I really care about. I don't understand how you can mesh with a society at all if you can't even speak to them. Eat and do whatever the hell you want, at the very least know English though.
> Eventually it becomes South Miami where there are parts where workers don't speak English. Kind of sucks when you try to order from a butcher shop and have to point at the meat and then the grinder.
Yeah, that would be kinda annoying.
Leaving innocent people to die in a totalitarian hellhole ought to demand a slightly higher bar than "kinda annoying."
No. Immigration should be at the pleasure of and to the benefit of the host population. Every population should have the right to control who enters their land.
And we can't save them all, anyways. If everyone living in a totalitarian regime showed up in the US they would vastly outnumber the current Americans.
> Every population should have the right to control who enters their land.
Obviously nations have the right to do that. I don't think anyone has said otherwise. Saying "your right to not be tortured and killed by a tyrannical government is less important than my right to prompt convenience at the grocery store" is still a dick move.
I never said that. See my reply to ApolloFortyNine.
> You seem eager to give away other people’s country.
It's my country too, thanks.
Just want to point out, again, that right now you are specifically arguing that convenience at the butcher's is more important than human life. Are you really making your point effectively and convincingly?
We're being realistic, you can't save everyone. There's billions of people who have a quality of life magnitudes below yours and mine. It's naive to think we can simply allow them all into our country without consequence.
In that case shouldn't the U.S allow in the vast majority of Africa?
Where do you draw the line? There's only 300 million people in the U.S. A quick search reveals that 780 million people don't have access to clean water. What do you do?
As someone who came to the US as a refugee, the differences are far more nuanced than the food you eat or the language you speak. An insular community may legitimately feel threatened by the influx of outsiders. I've witnessed first-hand industries that have been rendered inaccessible to native-born folks through immigration (construction trades). I consider myself lucky to have had the chance to move across continents, but I also think that it's completely natural and rational to keep the door of your home shut to strangers.
> The US is still accepting a very large number of refugees relative to the rest of the world.
Your number only includes resettled refugees, i.e. it doesn’t include asylum seekers who came to the country by their own means. That number would look completely different.
While it’s great that the USA still accepts tens of thousands of resettled refugees, the number per capita is low: only 102 per 1 million residents. There would be room for much more. These resettled people are all thoroughly vetted, and they’ve waited for years in camps in the worst areas of the world. Canada takes in seven times more.
Neighboring countries in conflict regions tend to be most heavily affected by migration as conflict is a primary cause.
Some numbers (also available in the link above) to give perspective:
Country or territory of asylum Refugees per 1 million USD (GDP) Refugees to 1,000 inhabitants
Lebanon 19.48 169.16
Turkey 3.35 36.04
Germany 0.19 8.3
Denmark 0.11 5.89
Canada 0.06 2.68
United States 0.01 0.84
> The US has historically accepted more refugees than every other country in the world put together
This sounds like the case for, not the case against. Yes, we have this proud tradition and it's yet another thing that makes the US exceptional.
From 'The New Colossus' (1883):
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Salvadoran refugees are nothing if not "tempest-tost." And it's likely that the gang warfare over running their country is due in no small part to our countless interventions into central American politics.
A citizen of any country would be well advised to first and foremost guard their self-interest. One might argue that accepting immigrants is against the self-interest of the native born/legal resident majority. Speaking as a refugee from what you consider to be Hell (USSR).
My Great Great Grandfather left czarist Russia around 1904 (today it is part of Belarus). He was dodging conscription into the Russo-Japanese war. He saved up and was then able to pay for my Great Grandfather to come over at age 13. My Great Grandfather barely missed out on the Bolshevik Revolution. A few years after that Hitler wiped the whole Shetl off the map.
I've been in the states long enough that when someone asks my ancestry "American" is the most reasonable answer. Yet you won't see me succumbing to the vulgar fashion of the nativist nationalists with their anti-refugee, anti-immigrant rhetoric. Unless you're native American, you're a boat person. If I can still see it despite several generations between me and the boat, then others must be purposefully obtuse.
As someone that arguably stands to gain from the redefining of American identity in terms of ancestry, I just got to say these blood and soil people are un-American.
It's weird how the US and USSR fought an ideological battle for 70 years, where both systems claimed to have overcome the retrograde link to "blood and soil" that European nations insisted on... and now the fight is over, they've both reverted to the most tribal nationalistic instincts.
I love the freedom of the internet, but today it is led by just a few companies that control information for profit and some sketchy things.
I'm afraid that the internet is not as free as it used to be as it reinforces and "locks" you on a culture of individual consumerism over communal well-being.
I can only hope that the internet won't erase from memory what the Cuban revolution was all about.
The internet is just if not more free than it ever has been.
Maybe the way you choose to use it has changed?
For me, I have more access to free information, than I ever have.
Im trying to not let this fall into a snarky "use Facebook less" reply but it's pretty hard not to when you're making claims like "the internet is not as free as it used to be."
The fact the mainstream signed on and wanted centralised services over many decentralized and democratized services isn't a suprise nor is it an indicator the internet is less free. Simply that it's got some new citizens and they happen to want to do things a different way than you would like.
Don't get me wrong Google, Amazon, Facebook etc having such dominance is frightening and worrying for their own respective and distinct reasons but let's not lazily frame it as the internet being less free.
Your point is valid and, in the sense of TCP exchanges, true. However for most people "the Internet" is the experience of the services that are available to them via that medium. For the general non-technical, it has always been centralized services, and there seem to be larger more centralized services now than there were in the earlier times. The ability of companies to customize the user Internet experience into a reinforced echo chamber has unquestionably arisen.
But back to TCP. Governments have certainly improved their ability to monitor, restrict, and even manipulate that traffic flow. Is the Internet more free? I'm not sure.
>The internet is just if not more free than it ever has been.
Maybe for you - not so for most [1].
But I get your point. There is indeed much more amazing content out there now than there was 15 years ago. If you can squint your eyes just right and focus in between the billboards..
I visited Cuba in 2009. One of the places I went was a communist museum. It was mostly full of what you'd expect. But in the gift shop (yes even in communist countries the museums have them) they were selling a used VB programming book.
Unrelated to the topic, but if there is a frontend developer with reuters.com reading: please consider fixing that replacement of the url in the address bar once the user scrolls to the end of the current article (not the start of the new one strangely) ... with fixing being removing the "feature".
Aw, that's a shame. Cuba is a really cool place, and a lot of what makes it special is the lack of internet.
It's disconnected in a way that you really can't experience anywhere else in the world. Want to change your flight? Too bad. Can't do that. Want to research the next town? Pull out a book or ask somebody.
Going there is like travelling was back in the 90s. You take a bus to the next town, then walk around with your bag asking at various houses if they have any rooms available. The lady at one may direct you a block down to her friend, and it all works itself out.
Better still, go to a restaurant at night, drink a beer and watch the amazing local band playing. And talk to people because nobody is engrossed in their phone. They can't be, because there is no internet. Other places, I can't remember the last time I was able to strike up a conversation with travelers through the barrier of their phone. In Cuba, I was talking to random people every single night. Because that's all there was to do.
It really drives home how much connectivity can wreck things. And it'd be a shame if we lost the last place in the world that still works like that.
Sadly, I suspect that opening up to the rest of the world will actually make things worse for the average Cuban. Take a stroll through old town Havana and look at all the amazing old buildings that would be converted into million dollar condos during the first six months that rich Americans were allowed to buy property there.
There is a lot of Carribbean around to compare the place to, and frankly, it doesn't compare well to present day Cuba as far as quality of life for the average citizen.
As to your personal attack, I don't know... I don't really see anything wrong with enjoying visiting a place. Or with being nostalgic for what a place used to be. I also, for example, think it's a shame that Belltown in Seattle replaced its cool dive bars with trendy restaurants and condos. But it would be a bit silly to blame me for those dive bars having been there in the first place.
Suppose an American buys a beautiful old property in the middle of Havana for $1M USD. Your claim is that this is harmful to Cubans because renovating this property will cause it to lose some of its charm. But you're forgetting about half of that transaction: all of a sudden the Cuban or Cubans who sold the property (perhaps the government?) have an additional $1M in cash to purchase whatever they like. This could be things that are far more of a premium than old houses, such as cars, electronics, and other modern necessities they are currently missing. I don't see Cubans losing in that deal
If you're worried about the visual appearance of Havana and, just pass NIMBY laws until you're satisfied they can't screw up the "neighborhood feel" too much. These are all solvable problems. Nothing here is reason to keep Cubans impoverished in exile from the world economy.
Sounds like you misunderstood my point. The cool thing about Havana is that regular people can afford to live in one of those buildings. 5 years from now, no Cubans will be there anymore, and it will just be another of the dozens of charming old colonial cities that Expats live in. The displaced locals will have a generation or two worth of cash to spend at the new Walgreens and KFCs out in the suburbs, but down the line they'll be back to being poor folk instead of middle class where they are currently.
There already exists a city with rich Americans living in it, buying overpriced Cuban sandwiches from Cuban people. Using that as a handy comparison, I contend that the median Cuban in Havana currently lives a nicer life than the median Cuban in Miami.
They're going to exchange one for the other regardless of how either of us feel about it, because that's how progress always works. But my suspicion is that a few generations down the line the people concerned will regret it.
Those buildings are literally falling apart, no wonder "regular people" can afford to live there. You seem not to realize that your romantic feelings towards this backwardness is only possible because you come there as a rich (compared to locals) tourist, not as restricted in your rights as they are.
> There already exists a city with rich Americans living in it, buying overpriced Cuban sandwiches from Cuban people. Using that as a handy comparison, I contend that the median Cuban in Havana currently lives a nicer life than the median Cuban in Miami.
Have you considered asking them? Their answers might allow you to know their opinions, rather than presuming.
It is inevitable. "We" have no right to deny anybody else the chance to develop the same way "we" did, if they so choose - which they will, inevitably, since "we" slap our wealth in their face every day. It's the same with pollution in China.
Maybe the answer is finding a way to reconnect networks and physical proximity, like having location-based chatrooms that are somehow automatically joined as you step into a room. This would let people keep control but also give everyone a chance to start conversations.
It is an impression easily taken from your comment. Just because we have the "privilege" (often considered a loaded word, I know, but applicable here, IMHO) to visit a place like Cuba and enjoy its disconnectedness, the audacity it takes to desire to force that on a country of people that has never had any other choice is repugnant to me.
"it shouldn't change because I had a good time there" feels pretty slimy
Yes, technological progress/development will potentially bring what you consider downsides with it, which might be the crux of your point, but that's being unable to see the forest for the trees, IMHO
Keep in mind that you added that part yourself, then perhaps you'll understand my sentiment better.
Lots of places in the world are nice now, while simultaneously not being perfect. Pointing out the first bit doesn't imply actively working in opposition of the second part.
93 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 166 ms ] threadThe USA reimposing embargoes on Cuba seems like the worst thing it can do to try and force liberalisation. 50 years of sanctions has proven to be a complete failure.
It's hard to fix a country when Communists run it and can just murder opposition without consequence.
But something is better than nothing otherwise we'd just be ignoring it.
Cuban people are the greatest hope for Cuba. The inhabitants of any Communist nation will inevitably reach a point of disenchantment with communism and decide that life would probably be better if they could vote and have a political say without being murdered.
LGBT is a weird, rather irrelevant point but it does share the same analog that people will see it and realize that no matter how repulsive the behavior, freedom to engage in it must surely be preferable to a Communist prescription of their daily lives and inner lives.
Cuba will fix itself. They just need more Cubans who want to help do so.
Saudi politics are possibly more detestable than Cuba. Id have said as much if I figured some clueless HN user would pigeon hole my argument.
They've had an Internet for years with no wifi. They have mechanics that can reliably work on cars from a half century ago.
Cuba is a wealth of intelligent engineering minds, plagued by reprehensible Communist rule. Money has never stopped the cuban spirit.
It's a disgrace to compare the Cuban spirit to Saudi Arabia.
I would be mad, if US civilian and military did not treat Cuba or any other Caribbean Island differently from the countries on Eurasian land mass.
Japan did Pearl Harbour .. but you left out Hiroshima and Nagasaki!
>> The idea that you apply sanctions for historical reasons is absurd.
Cuba was 90 miles away from mainland US in 1960s and in 2018 too. Its not historical, its geographic and geo-political with historic context.
US has a harsh embargo on Cuba because it is too close to US. If Cuba was adversarial and is 1000 miles away, the relationship would have been different.
This is nonsense. Canada is literally right now in a big huff/dispute with Saudi, and issues of oppression in Saudi Arabia are a constant political issue.
Arms sales to Saudi Arabia from Western nations are always contested, always a hot topic.
Literally in the Swedish election right now - arms sales to Saudi Arabia are an issue.
Saudis can use 'most' of the internet, the country has wealth (luckily) and if they want to they can leave.
The oppression in Saudi is hugely based on super social conservative values, which many citizens, even women, actually support in many ways.
Unless you are a woman and don't have the permission of your father or your husband. Or a migrant labourer who's had their passport confiscated.
A person could read that comment and have any independent feeling about Saudi Arabia, including wanting sanctions to also exist against Saudi Arabia. So I'm not seeing how hypocrisy is an immediate prerequisite to the comment.
It seems more like you wanted to invalidate the comment by bringing up another country that isn't part of the discussion right now and claim hypocrisy.
They funded rebels and coups to overthrow democratically elected governments on the whims of fruit companies. They supported Pinochet in Chile while he was throwing people out of helicopters. In practically every Latin American country the USA was systematically involved in brutal repression of the leftists and anything vaguely pro-Soviet [1], without any regard to human rights or democracy.
The USA also did almost nothing in response to the atrocities of the Duvaliers in Haiti, despite being orders of magnitude worse than Castro.
To say that the USA embargoes Cuba due to human rights concerns is completely and utterly laughable. The USA didn't give a toss about human rights in Cuba under Batista, who was incidentally another brutal dictator propped up by the USA.
The USA has never cared about human rights and freedoms in its neighbours.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Are people not allowed to express the opinion that Communism is problematic on a discussion on the state of freedom in one of the few remaining communist countries? Should we just say "yay Cuba" and move on?
We moderate HN this way because the site has a clear mandate: thoughtful conversation on topics of intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). At this point we have over 10 years' experience with where the community's limits are in terms of what can be discussed that way versus what spills over into flames. When the needle starts to go into the red, that's when we moderate. I assume that the users who flagged that comment were doing much the same.
It is impossible to find a dozen people for whom the word freedom means the same thing, in the same way.
I just hope they achieve freedom in their lives.
Not being tricked out of your ancestral land by a serial rapist who then goes on to rob your country blind for decades and play dice with your nuclear neighbor is a start, maybe.
Where in the guidelines does it say that I have to use the driest, dullest language to describe anything or make any point?
There are probably contexts where it's possible to have a high-quality discussion with that sort of rhetoric in it, but the open internet is certainly not one of them. It just sets things on fire, and scorched earth is boring.
Lately, i am tried of moderators shutting down a thread, comments and banning users.
Measuring Internet Censorship in Cuba's ParkNets https://ooni.torproject.org/post/cuba-internet-censorship-20...
ParkNet: Short Documentary on Internet Censorship in Cuba https://ooni.torproject.org/post/parknet-short-documentary-c...
https://michaelannedye.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/el-paquet...
Really cool talk by two guys who flesh out internet connectivity in Cuba (one of them is a Cuban engineering major at a Cuban university), apparently citizens there may well operate the largest mesh network in the world.
I must urge everyone that is against the US taking in refugees to consider that by banning refugees we are trapping people in places most of us would consider to be Hell.
Oh, and if you pay almost any amount on a monthly basis towards a medical bill, then that can keep it out of collections too.
I'm curious about this line of thinking. Do you think your specific consciousness was being held in reserve somewhere, and it would have been placed into a mortal body regardless of when you were due to come into being? Plus if your grandfather had stayed in Cuba, who's to say your parents would have still met, started a relationship, and conceived a child?
The way I see it, I only exist because of the exact series of events leading up to that one moment where I was conceived. I exist because of a combination of a specific sperm and a specific egg. All sorts of factors contributed to all of us getting extremely lucky, even up to the final hours, minutes, and seconds before fertilization. We won, and we denied a countless number of other potential minds the privilege of existence.
There's no way to prove it of course, but I feel like a different sperm being responsible for fertilization would have meant I would have never existed at all. My parents would have had a different child with a different consciousness. Even if a specific consciousness is tied to the egg itself, that gives a window based on the menstrual cycle.
No I don't.
It was a dictatorship until 1986 and the first elected leader to actually serve a full term without getting overthrown in a coup was Rene Preval (2006-11). Their most recent elections were a mess as well.
At best they're starting to become a democracy.
Compared to every country in Latin America where US allies had control from the mid-20th century onward, the Cuban people have done very well. They have cheap housing, a cheap and effective healthcare system, cheap transportation, cheap and effective education, etc. Most importantly, they haven’t been subjected to decades of widespread terror by fascist autocrats or bloody civil war, the way many Latin American countries were. In a counterfactual world where Batista was left in charge 60 years ago, it’s hard to imagine the Cuban people would be doing as well as they are.
If US foreign policy in the immediate aftermath of the Cuban Revolution had not been so overtly hostile, and if US policymakers for decades afterward had not been so paranoid and short-sighted, it is quite possible that the Cuban political system would have turned out significantly differently. US attempted invasion, attempted assassinations, crippling embargoes, constant threats, etc. forced the Cuban government into a very defensive posture (both internally and externally), just for self preservation.
I’m not a big fan of the political leadership of Cuba, or the lack of political rights there, but objectively it is a pretty okay place to live (being poor in Cuba is probably better than being poor in the USA). The GP’s characterization as “hell” is likely colored by decades of US (and Cuban-American) propaganda bordering on outright lies.
Some of people's criticisms about refugees are totally valid. Unless a person is willing to integrate with their host country's society and accept their culture, you won't be welcomed in. I think that's a very reasonable bar to hold people to.
I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman. Having some kind of limit seems reasonable, and other countries can help to balance things out. I'm not sufficiently educated on the subject to comment on the factors which might've influenced us to reduce our cap. Maybe the number of refugees we accept should be different, I genuinely don't know. But ultimately, not everyone has to come to the US. Why aren't you criticizing all these other countries that barely take in refugees? The US is still accepting a very large number of refugees relative to the rest of the world.
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
What are the valid criticisms? I don't know of any.
>Unless a person is willing to integrate with their host country's society and accept their culture, you won't be welcomed in. I think that's a very reasonable bar to hold people to.
This argument is not convincing to me at all.
I've lived in California, New York, and Florida and if your requirement for refugees is to learn the culture of all these different places I would say it's impossible.
How does people coming to the United States, speaking a different language, eating different food, and holding different beliefs affect your life in any way?
>I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman.
I think this is dishonest. Many people are calling for an outright ban on refugees.
>Why aren't you criticizing all these other countries that barely take in refugees?
Because I'm not a citizen of other countries and I actually believe refugees and immigrants in general are good for this country.
Eventually it becomes South Miami where there are parts where workers don't speak English. Kind of sucks when you try to order from a butcher shop and have to point at the meat and then the grinder.
>>I haven't seen anyone seriously calling for an outright ban of all refugees, so that seems like a bit of a strawman.
>I think this is dishonest. Many people are calling for an outright ban on refugees.
Yea it's impossible to really argue this. Some do yes. Many just want increased vetting.
Language is all I really care about. I don't understand how you can mesh with a society at all if you can't even speak to them. Eat and do whatever the hell you want, at the very least know English though.
Yeah, that would be kinda annoying.
Leaving innocent people to die in a totalitarian hellhole ought to demand a slightly higher bar than "kinda annoying."
And we can't save them all, anyways. If everyone living in a totalitarian regime showed up in the US they would vastly outnumber the current Americans.
Obviously nations have the right to do that. I don't think anyone has said otherwise. Saying "your right to not be tortured and killed by a tyrannical government is less important than my right to prompt convenience at the grocery store" is still a dick move.
I never said that. See my reply to ApolloFortyNine.
> You seem eager to give away other people’s country.
It's my country too, thanks.
Just want to point out, again, that right now you are specifically arguing that convenience at the butcher's is more important than human life. Are you really making your point effectively and convincingly?
Where do you draw the line? There's only 300 million people in the U.S. A quick search reveals that 780 million people don't have access to clean water. What do you do?
Your number only includes resettled refugees, i.e. it doesn’t include asylum seekers who came to the country by their own means. That number would look completely different.
While it’s great that the USA still accepts tens of thousands of resettled refugees, the number per capita is low: only 102 per 1 million residents. There would be room for much more. These resettled people are all thoroughly vetted, and they’ve waited for years in camps in the worst areas of the world. Canada takes in seven times more.
Neighboring countries in conflict regions tend to be most heavily affected by migration as conflict is a primary cause.
Some numbers (also available in the link above) to give perspective:
This sounds like the case for, not the case against. Yes, we have this proud tradition and it's yet another thing that makes the US exceptional.
From 'The New Colossus' (1883):
"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Salvadoran refugees are nothing if not "tempest-tost." And it's likely that the gang warfare over running their country is due in no small part to our countless interventions into central American politics.
My Great Great Grandfather left czarist Russia around 1904 (today it is part of Belarus). He was dodging conscription into the Russo-Japanese war. He saved up and was then able to pay for my Great Grandfather to come over at age 13. My Great Grandfather barely missed out on the Bolshevik Revolution. A few years after that Hitler wiped the whole Shetl off the map.
I've been in the states long enough that when someone asks my ancestry "American" is the most reasonable answer. Yet you won't see me succumbing to the vulgar fashion of the nativist nationalists with their anti-refugee, anti-immigrant rhetoric. Unless you're native American, you're a boat person. If I can still see it despite several generations between me and the boat, then others must be purposefully obtuse.
As someone that arguably stands to gain from the redefining of American identity in terms of ancestry, I just got to say these blood and soil people are un-American.
Sometimes it feels like Man will never learn.
I'm afraid that the internet is not as free as it used to be as it reinforces and "locks" you on a culture of individual consumerism over communal well-being.
I can only hope that the internet won't erase from memory what the Cuban revolution was all about.
Maybe the way you choose to use it has changed?
For me, I have more access to free information, than I ever have.
Im trying to not let this fall into a snarky "use Facebook less" reply but it's pretty hard not to when you're making claims like "the internet is not as free as it used to be."
The fact the mainstream signed on and wanted centralised services over many decentralized and democratized services isn't a suprise nor is it an indicator the internet is less free. Simply that it's got some new citizens and they happen to want to do things a different way than you would like.
Don't get me wrong Google, Amazon, Facebook etc having such dominance is frightening and worrying for their own respective and distinct reasons but let's not lazily frame it as the internet being less free.
But back to TCP. Governments have certainly improved their ability to monitor, restrict, and even manipulate that traffic flow. Is the Internet more free? I'm not sure.
Maybe for you - not so for most [1].
But I get your point. There is indeed much more amazing content out there now than there was 15 years ago. If you can squint your eyes just right and focus in between the billboards..
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_and_survei...
It's disconnected in a way that you really can't experience anywhere else in the world. Want to change your flight? Too bad. Can't do that. Want to research the next town? Pull out a book or ask somebody.
Going there is like travelling was back in the 90s. You take a bus to the next town, then walk around with your bag asking at various houses if they have any rooms available. The lady at one may direct you a block down to her friend, and it all works itself out.
Better still, go to a restaurant at night, drink a beer and watch the amazing local band playing. And talk to people because nobody is engrossed in their phone. They can't be, because there is no internet. Other places, I can't remember the last time I was able to strike up a conversation with travelers through the barrier of their phone. In Cuba, I was talking to random people every single night. Because that's all there was to do.
It really drives home how much connectivity can wreck things. And it'd be a shame if we lost the last place in the world that still works like that.
There is a lot of Carribbean around to compare the place to, and frankly, it doesn't compare well to present day Cuba as far as quality of life for the average citizen.
As to your personal attack, I don't know... I don't really see anything wrong with enjoying visiting a place. Or with being nostalgic for what a place used to be. I also, for example, think it's a shame that Belltown in Seattle replaced its cool dive bars with trendy restaurants and condos. But it would be a bit silly to blame me for those dive bars having been there in the first place.
If you're worried about the visual appearance of Havana and, just pass NIMBY laws until you're satisfied they can't screw up the "neighborhood feel" too much. These are all solvable problems. Nothing here is reason to keep Cubans impoverished in exile from the world economy.
There already exists a city with rich Americans living in it, buying overpriced Cuban sandwiches from Cuban people. Using that as a handy comparison, I contend that the median Cuban in Havana currently lives a nicer life than the median Cuban in Miami.
They're going to exchange one for the other regardless of how either of us feel about it, because that's how progress always works. But my suspicion is that a few generations down the line the people concerned will regret it.
Have you considered asking them? Their answers might allow you to know their opinions, rather than presuming.
Maybe the answer is finding a way to reconnect networks and physical proximity, like having location-based chatrooms that are somehow automatically joined as you step into a room. This would let people keep control but also give everyone a chance to start conversations.
Things will open themselves up regardless, and that's fine.
But it's also true that it's really nice there today. I'd recommend going to check it out while there's still time.
"it shouldn't change because I had a good time there" feels pretty slimy
Yes, technological progress/development will potentially bring what you consider downsides with it, which might be the crux of your point, but that's being unable to see the forest for the trees, IMHO
Keep in mind that you added that part yourself, then perhaps you'll understand my sentiment better.
Lots of places in the world are nice now, while simultaneously not being perfect. Pointing out the first bit doesn't imply actively working in opposition of the second part.