This piece is amazing, and highlights one truth: the amount of self-afflicted human misery in Afghanistan is truly astounding.<p>And it raises a lot of questions. Is Afghanistan totally hopeless? Is there something wrong with the Afghans? Is it Islam? The American occupation? Something in the water? Why would anyone choose to live in such conditions, and choose to perpetuate the institutions, behaviors, and beliefs that create such an environment? What indeed is at the root of this misery?<p>I would argue that the key change they need is for the people to be overwhelmingly disapproving of destruction.<p>If you intentionally destroy someone or something, the mob should make sure your ass is grass. You can say what you want, hang out with whoever you want - but as soon as you destroy, you're toast.<p>Now, ideally you let the mob pitch in to hire someone to enforce this one rule, and perhaps even add some overhead to ensure that they enforce it more-or-less fairly. And so you have taxes, police, and courts. (And if you want to be more subtle about what constitutes destruction, you can make laws, but that's optional).<p>Afghan society must start <i>severely</i> punishing destructive people. Leave punishing blasphemy to Allah. Since creation is so much slower and more difficult than destruction, the net effect will be a continually improving infrastructure and society.<p>EDIT: Also, I would like to put up posters denouncing denouncers and see if maybe that would help.
Sounds like a worthwhile effort to support Internet connectivity in Afghanistan. Wish the author would create an indiegogo fundraiser to raise money to pay the fees, so that I could help support it!
@trevore - great to see you on the thread! There are a lot of questions raised here that are hard to answer, but I can share a troubling observation. Of all the US personnel I have met in Afghanistan, fewer than a handful were engineers, makers, creators rather than enforcers, money dispensers, or supervisors. Sure, the military has its own engineers, but very few are outside the wire interacting with people. Where are the civil communication, construction, mechanical, etc. engineers? I think there is a larger role in global peer to peer diplomacy for such a cadre. I've got more stories to tell, so does @trevore, some of them are posted jalalagood.com/ --> more will come out guided by the questions you ask.
I'm really pleased to see n+1 appear on hacker news. This is a great publication. Sometimes the writing can be a little obtuse, but in general I think many hn'ers would enjoy finding out more about them.
Great story. I was expecting the team to win the tournament when a local official with no governing power stepped in and allowed them three chances to score a last-second buzzer beater though...<p>(Hint: 1972 Olympics)<p>As an avid sports fan, and very active basketball player and cyclist, the major shifts in current thinking towards evaluating the world of sports through statistical and business eyes is to me quite unfortunate. To those that make their money through that world, fine, but as a fan, I want to marvel in the achievements of athletes, not be debating whether a pitcher is over-rated because of his exFIB.<p>Basketball is about the battles against racism of Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson, the soaring style of Dr. J, the <i>elan</i> of Magic, the blue collar work of Bird, the competitive viciousness of Michael Jordan, and the physicality of Lebron.<p>Cycling is about the will of Eugene Christophe, the ethics of Gino Bartali, the ferocity of Eddy Merckx, the spirit of Bernard Hinault, the pain of Marco Pantani, and the insanity of Jens Voigt.<p>Even if we can't reach that level ourselves, it is that approach to what makes sports great that allows for events and stories like this article. Without that spirit, there wouldn't be any reason to have amateur sports to begin with. Leave everything else alone.
To one extent or another, most NGOs <i>are</i> "missionary organizations", and are certainly threatening the way of life of the more hidebound Muslims. So I'm less surprised than some here at the conclusion of the story.<p>I think the question to ask is, if you're part of this existing traditionalist social structure, what's the benefit of adopting a more Western way of thinking? It is not obvious to them that Afghanistan was less fucked under Soviet influence, or is less fucked under US and other NGO influence now.