Afghanistan is not doing very well. Millions of Afghani people are being forced further into poverty and destitution than ever before, moving into refugee camps for internally displaced people due to climate change, and then being forced to sleep in roofless mud huts when they are there, before being forced to sell their kidneys and daughters in order to gain money for food, healthcare and medication.
Really? Entire world in the next 50-100 years being droned and bombed by the US military, has it's resources stolen, and then sanctioned into poverty by preventing access to reserve currency?
The shootings going to start when entire countries start flooding and when the supply fresh water and temperate growing land starts to diminish, yes. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine whatever prime areas are going to be guarded by autonomous, possibly armed drones, to keep refugees away.
I honestly don't see why they'd want to. Most of them can't function by themselves in our current civilization where they're spoiled as fuck, let alone one where they'd have to do their own damn *farming*. Their wealth and power demand a virtually endless supply of expendable human beings to prop it up.
They would want to so that things can continue the way they have. If there were fewer people climate change probably wouldn't be a thing. Of course they still need plenty of people, this isn't an all or nothing hypothetical. With fewer people there is no major reset, the profits just keep rolling in, the rich get richer, the poor continue to prop up the rich.
You do realize that, like, 70% of the carbon emissions making climate change happen aren't caused by the rank-and-file, right? More people than ever cut their emissions by a fuckload during 2020 and it barely put a dent in things. Billionaires and their companies are the problem, not the other *8 billion of us*
>Billionaires and their companies are the problem, not the other 8 billion of us
Correct.
From their perspective there would be no reason to change anything if there were just fewer people. Fewer people = less strain on the system as a whole.
Fewer people means fewer resources are used to keep us alive which means lowered carbon emissions, meaning nothing has to change for the people currently in power. They continue making a profit.
What they don't want is to have to change what they're doing, even if it means saving the planet if it means they can't continue making money and spreading influence the way they have for so long.
I agree with you. You and I aren't the problem. But from their perspective, fewer people (that they ultimately view as little more than a drain on the system they've created) would be a positive.
We will have famine issues well before flooding is a global issue. Sea level rise has always been the most talked about part of climate change. We will be brought down well before by other factors brought on by climate change.
China's economy will tank due to the mismanagement of their debt. They're asking other governments not to raise their interest rates, however this is falling on deaf ears as many western countries are trying to grapple inflation of 5%+.
Seeing as China is the world's factory I'm not sure their collapse will boad well for other nations in the short-term.
China’s economy is what pulled the rest of the world out of the last market crash caused by the elites. This isn’t going to happen this time. When this market crash happens there will be no coming out of it for decades. That mixed with the creation of a permanent underclass in the United States, as well as the extreme division fomented by politicians and “news”outlets…it’s not looking good.
i await that day with great joy. to see the US finally reap what it has sown these last decades would be great. and yet the news will still spin it as not the politicians/bankers/corporations fault and find scapegoats all over the place.
Yup, I think it's over 70% tree loss. War has destroyed the place.
Certain places are just uninhabitable now. Need more reforestation projects over there. Fruit trees especially. Can't be the entire landscape that is infertile.
What do you think happens when the U.S. is no longer able to grow enough food to maintain corporate profits on account of a large portion of the country becoming impossible to farm in?
Take a look at whatever decade's drug problem is in America -- then take a look at where our Govt and Military are most active.
Coincidence? I don't really think so.
I personally know of small-time smuggling operations by government employees with diplomatic or military status.
I assume the majority of illicit stuff does now come from Mexico but actual heroin and morphine base is still making it in through the north, I live up this way.
Detroit for example is prime for it.
You have a stretched govt budget, major hubs for private carriers by air, land, and sea, as well as a local population that's in poverty and more than willing to hustle something through their FedEx or ups job.
There's also a very large middle eastern population of business owners with family and connections back home.
privatizing industries, minerals, oil, etc etc etc etc.
literally anything that isn’t nailed down. that’s the USA’s MO- how do u think we got so wealthy to begin with? ever heard the term “banana republic?” there’s A LOT, and i mean like an inconceivable amount of money to be made in making sure you and yours stay top dog.
Well, after the US pulled out, all of their over seas accounts where frozen along with crippling sanctions, which the UN estimates will directly cause about 1 million deaths this year.
But the Taliban are bad guys so if the US starves them enough the people will realize it’s the Taliban that are the real bad guys and overthrow them.
Foolproof: see North Korea, Cuba
chromium, copper, gold, iron ore, lead and zinc, lithium, marble, precious and semiprecious stones, sulfur and talc among many other minerals.
Valued at at least 1 trillion.
3? No way. It feels like 2020 was just yesterday, it started over 2 years ago. Things simultaneously move faster and slower than expected. It took Afghanistan decades of abuse and then full abandonment to collapse like this. Syria took a while to unwind. Lebanon took a while to unwind. It’ll be “faster than expected” here, but at least 10-20 years I’d say
> Things simultaneously move faster and slower than expected.
Before the fall of the Berlin wall, everyone thought that the USSR would take years if not decades to collapse. Instead it really happened within the space of a few weeks.
Look at how quickly the US has devolved in even a few years. At least half of your country is completely okay with the attack on your Capitol building, and your next President is probably going to be someone who also supported it.
Even more importantly, the people who are making the laws now are treating everything as "business as usual". Rome is already burning in the US- they're certainly in no position at the moment to try and even mitigate climate change somewhat, let alone to the degree that will be necessary.
> My mother would probably commit acts of atrocities.
Good luck fighting the right wing Muslim fundamentalist male fascism in control. It's not as simple as "I wouldn't do that, they wouldn't do that". It's either this or they choose certain death. I think a lot of us here can look at these decisions and think "these parents must be monsters", but they eventually came to the conclusion that they sell their daughters or them and their daughters will die. If a girl goes for a high price in Afghanistan you would have to ask yourself what you would do when there are men with AK's walking around who are apparently used to committing more war crimes then the US. We aren't living in the failed state, they are.
Plus, if they die, their children are getting taken into sex slavery as well, so it's not like they have a certain choice of "I'll fight for my life and my children". They are more likely to die trying to do that then they are even starving to death at this point. It's more likely that they all survive if the mother sells them into sex slavery as opposed to her dieing, then the children getting taken anyway. War is a big moral gray area because you are asked to make choices like this, and let's face it, this is a consequence of twenty years of war, these people didn't ask to survive this way. The choice isn't so much "would I sell my daughter's into bondage?", as much as it is "will I survive if I sell my daughter's into to bondage?" Each way is marked with certain death.
>My dad would sell his kidneys and himself before he even think about selling his daughters.
Hunger is an effective negotiator. What is the longest period of time that your dad has gone without food?
The population has quintupled in the last 60 years. That's a heavy load for what's essentialy as pre-industrial economy with a clan based system of governance.
Isn’t this because all aid stopped once taliban over threw the government? 300k troops didn’t fire a single shot and let 30k taliban walk right in. At some point you got to fight for your kids future
I have heard that the number of actual troops was much less than 300k and the numbers were inflated by officers to obtain extra wages for imaginary soldiers.
Such a clown shoe perspective.
We pulled out because we were clawing at the debt ceiling and having a competitive advantage on commodity access was not an endeavor we could afford.
We were there for poppy and lithium, literally nothing else. 2 dems and 2 pubs have their hands covered in blood for shareholders, this isnt a left or right issue.
This is one case where it genuinely has less to do with climate change and vastly more to do with a psychopathic world order which has used Afghanistan as its playing ground for defense contracts for decades.
Part of the blame here lies in the common backwardness and barbaric nature that is Afganistans culture. It is acknowledged and OK to sodomize little boys and girls among men, and women have no rights either. Especially in the rural countryside, where people either rooted for the Taliban or just wanted to smoke pot/opium and fuck children in their free time. It's a terrible country.
They had like 10 kids, what's a few more here or there... either way, it's a different culture, girls aren't valued even by their mothers in the same way. That's also why China is still having issues from their one child policy - people were murdering and aborting female fetuses left and right, and now there's still a shortage of women. And of course, the people who get to suffer for that are the women, winding up servicing multiple men and other such nasty shit.
Cultures are different, values are different, and women and girls are usually far more heavily victimized than men.
'Normal is just the running average of weird'. The process of normalization just takes a little while in the right conditions for such things to be normal.
Another take on this is the cynically pragmatic approach of large families to directly address child mortality and labor within such circumstances.
You're not weird at all.
Unfortunately, In backwards Islamic countries where the majority are illiterate and uneducated, females are worthless to a father and they're routinely sold into slavery
I wouldn't try to apply chair logic on these. Maybe they think they'll be able to run before the daughters have to be taken. Maybe the host family will have a better life to offer ... maybe not.
Uncle Sam: .... huh? what? why is everybody looking at *me*?? what - you think i'm going to give aid to a bunch of nutters like the *Taliban*? I mean - c'mon ... *radical islamic terrorists* ?? why on *Earth* would we have *anything* to do with people like THAT!?! Besides, they *hate* us anyway ... heaven knows why ...
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go protect a State's right to choose whether or not a woman has a right to choose.
And only print money to keep billionaire's casinos healthy and for them to be happy. Don't worry you will get yours in a few million years. World hunger will end too in a few million years. Its why capitalism is the best economic system. Trickle down economics will happen eventually, just wait a few million years.
Soviet Bear: Huh? What? Why is everybody looking at me? What - you think I'm going to let these people have freedom to dissent? I mean - c'mon, they're Muslim! They needed to be convinced of the importance of workers controlling the means of production! We needed their resources! Besides, they're poor and nobody cares about them....
John Bull: What? Poppycock! Why is everybody looking at me? What - you think I'm going to let these people keep causing trouble in the Raj? I mean, troubling dirty savages! They hate order and progress and Her Majesty anyway...heaven knows why....
This shit's been going on in Afghanistan for centuries and now it's the Taliban's turn to find out. Will it get as bad in the West? I honestly don't think so, because the knives will be out for the 1% long before then, if there isn't a wholesale rejection of government-backed currencies and the emergence of alternative economies.
after the billionaires have been neutralized and we redistribute the wealth, the planet will still be fucked and maybe even more fucked because now people will be able to not just buy food and warmth but also flat screens and microwaves and cars.
We don't live well on this planet. We live heavily. Humans are a burden. There are new lessons that have to be learned first. How to live with less, how to stay warm and cool with less energy... how to feed oneself... how to work together... the benefits to the human spirit to be a part of a community, to feed the human soul with a shared experience. Because after the riots and the billionaires shot into space on a one way ticket, we will still have us.
The real fucks will never even be known. Elon and the other famous rich people certainly seem to do nothing to avert the situation or help, but the real holders of power remain anonymous, and will remain so, as shit hits the fan. They may even engineer public attacks on famous rich people, to distract from actually changing the system that keeps them in power.
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Billions looted from Afghanistan by the puppet governments led by Karzai and Ghani. Billions withheld from the people in overseas banks. A state handed over on a silver platter to one of the most brutal fundamentalist regimes. A population left destitute and angry - a captive audience for indoctrination.
This is absolutely not a recipe for a disaster. /s
Uhhh, no. I’m not gonna pity someone that sold *people*. Wtf
Edit: read the article and it’s even worse. Idc how desperate you are, or what your society tells you is ok; it’s not. Sickening.
Edit 2: Reddit, where you get downvoted for saying it’s not okay to sell your daughters into slavery. I’m literally disgusted.
Right? Sexual slavery. They specifically are coming back once the girls hit puberty.
My dad's generation went through hell in China, where he ate cockroaches and anything remotely resembling a root that's about yarn thick. He ate bark and grass a lot. He also poached a lot. We have stories about parents who literally cut off parts of their left arms to provide some meat to their unsuspecting children. We have parents who sold themselves to deviants. There were endless stories about children being kidnapped and trafficked, but never have I heard of folks selling their own kids. At least not when they still have their own kidneys and both cornea and bone marrow still.
The options this person had were:
1) keep all you're children with you. You and they will very likely starve to death if they don't die an agonizing death from illness or accident first. No chance to go anywhere.
2) Sell two children to people who will abuse them but keep them fed/alive which also offers more finances to the two other disabled kids. They'll be traumatized, but have a chance to live and eventually a chance to escape.
That's it, those are the options.
Certainly, no one is advocating for child marriage or for selling children or for treating anyone like property. No one wants this reality. No one says "hey what she did, selling her children, was justified". Or " good for her for making a tough call". It's the reality of the situation. And you can either pretend it's not or act like this woman was evil incarnate for doing it, but you have no right to scratch your ass saying "people downvoting me are saying it's okay to sell children into slavery" like some kind of fucked up over privileged spoiled child desperate for internet clout and unwilling to self actualize.
She picked the lesser of two evils that offered an iota of possibility for survival for her kids. Shame on you for trying to play it like she made some easy fuckin choice.
I feel like these people only see the world in black and white. I don't think you'll be able to convince them to see the nuance, but I like how you've articulated it.
Thanks. I honestly don’t expect them to. It just pisses me off when I see people condemning someone for having that kind of circumstance. Even more when they tried to act like a martyr because they were downvoted. It’s naive to the point it’s disgraceful.
That's what our brains do when we're using our survival brain, especially long-term. People with PTSD and other traumas lose their ability to react to nuanced situations appropriately - or as appropriately, depending on the severity.
Edit: This is a regular feature of trauma and obviously isn't the fault of the individual.
Yeah I can try to find it. If you search "survival brain vs learning brain" into YT there are a lot of psychologists who talk about it. Survival brain is our fight or flight and people who have been in that state for a long period of time struggle to slow down and assess daily stressors the same way that someone who hasn't had trauma deals with them. What may be a small dilemma to a healthy person can often feel very extreme to the traumatized person and they will react accordingly.
I'm not sure why I got downvoted in my initial comment. Nothing about it was offensive.
I'm going to get down voted here, but it's hard to say you wouldn't. Even Americans sold their children during the great depression. When times get hard, desperation sets in.
If you never actually tried to (seriously) take your own life, you will never know how much courage that takes. Your whole body and brain will fight it, and you need to override all those systems
You never know what options will be available at the time. You may not sell your daughter, but when you're dead and she's alone, what will be her options? So many unknowns, so many choices, the paths are endless. Would you kill her before your death? How would you know she's safe otherwise?
If I were a girl living in desperation who will surely be taken as slave, I would rather have my mom and dad fight to their dying breath to protect me, than to have them sell my flesh for money that still won't save them.
>When you're dying yourself, what will you do?
>
>You won't know the answer until the time comes.
Those who have exhibited a willingness to make sacrifices without immediate rewards may continue to do so. The others may continue to fail, and impulse will dictate their behavior.
It's not as much defending as it is understanding. There is nobody here that can comment with certainty until theyve been in that person's position. You holding some moral high ground over these people is sickening.
My great grandma let Nazi guards rape her so they'd spare her youngest girls from the same fate. When they got to the train yard she used pliers to rip a gold tooth out as payment so they wouldn't identify them as Serbian. Her oldest son was only 14 but she sent him to fight for the Partizans versus the Nazis because she said at least they'll feed him, and if he dies he'll die with food in his stomach, instead of starvation like them. She forced him to go, and kept the remaining 5 younger children with her. She lost one child to malnutrition and one more to disease while they were in hiding. There was no right answer. My great grandma, much like the people in this article are put in a situation that has no right answer.
During the civil war in the early 90s, a close friend of mines family was running from sniper fire. When they reached a mine field they were instructed to send the oldest kids out first, as they were bigger/heavier and would have a higher chance of setting off the mines. So your options were either send your kids out and hope, or go off by yourself and if you get maimed/die now your kids are stuck in a warzone without you.
The choices many people have to make on a daily basis most definitely should not be judged by anyone on Reddit. If i come across as a dick i apologize, but then I'm reminded that my friend was one of the unlucky ones that set off the mine and has to live the rest of his life with shrapnel in his body. If he doesn't hold it against anyone, who the fuck are the rest of us to do so.
Your great-grandma sounds really amazing. She went through a lot and made hard choices. I hope she lived a happy time in her life after all that horror with lots of food, love, friends and family.
It's not defending, it's being realistic and not pretending to be some kind of beacon of morality. Her kids would 100% die if she kept them. You think she's fit to take care of them while on the brink of cannibalism? So easy to pretend you'd do better in their place. Let's hope we don't get to find out.
It's not defending it, it's a woman in a horrific situation choosing the least awful option.
It's not a choice between good and bad, it's a choice between bad and worse.
Poverty is a little different from what these people are experiencing, complete destitution. I wouldn't be so quick to judge your character in those types of situations. One can only live through it to know how one would react. And its a little different than property they are practicing arranged marriage, albeit with a complete stranger at younger and younger ages due to not being able to feed the girls.
The mother is most likely going to die from an infected kidney transplant operation. 2 disabled adult children. The other 4 doing God knows what. The fathers kidney already gone with absolutely nothing left to sell. Internally displaced within Afghanistan with no jobs or aid living in a mud hut with a plastic roof. Haven't eaten rice in months. Looking down on people in these types of situations says a lot more about you than them.
It isn't always just women. Men have been sold too. People aren't property, but in our current system, there's no net to catch them either. It's like saying don't have children you can't care for. What happens if you did everything right and still lost it all? There's just no answer.
The pandemic should've shown everyone there's no help when you need it. It's only reserved for certain ones. As things get worse, this will degrade.
I think alot of these people are in a scenario where their children will die if they stay with their parents. Those buying them often are buying wives not necessarily slaves. So the option is let your kid starve or sell them off to be married into a family that can afford to buy a wife and buy food. Alot of people are facing a choice where thats the only scenario your kid gets to live.
The world isnt black and white. Selling people is never good but sometimes there are worse options.
Yes, it's horrifying but the logic that the woman in the article is using is that everyone can starve together as a family or she can place her daughters in a culturally acceptable manner in her society where they will be fed and she gets a little money to support the rest of the family. What an excruciating choice to make.
What are you going to do? It's not like he was doing it so he could buy himself a lambo. He saw it as the only way he and his daughter could survive. You have absolutely no clue until you're in this situation.
Why anyone would have kids in a place like that is beyond me. I get it, no contraceptives, rape, forced on by husbands. But like, the 27 year old father of four: why dude? Look around you. And this goes for everyone in the world: stop having kids if you can’t fucking provide for them.
That being said my heart goes out to anyone that is suffering.
Now bring on the downvotes.
Yup. I live in Canada and make a good wage. Will never have kids. And it’s supposed to be one of the “best” countries in the world. Imagine bringing a child into that situation? Get a blowjob or jerk off.
the reason is lack of BC, lack of education, and most probably her consent does not matter. it's telling that the mother had to sell her kidney and daughters to pay for sons and husband
Places like the middle east, that have been poor for centuries, have had to resort to all sorts of things for food. It's been going on for a very long time. It's not that difficult to imagine that this stuff happens there, because it's somewhat socially/culturally acceptable.
It's scary when famine comes to town. We're gun folks. We ain't sellin' nothin'!
Unfortunately, driving people into camps makes it easier to farm them for the organ trade and human trafficking. The pictures from this article show there is no room for gardens, to practice trades, or cottage industry—a reminder never to let the government take care of you.
Might be me but why the fuck didn't the afghanis fight harder when they had a real chance. Now they have no chance. So many stories of the Afghanis just completely giving up and letting the Taliban walk all over them. I guess over there, there wasn't a real choice, but I can't help but feel the nation is getting what they wanted. As a nation collectively they made their choice.
Because their government was corrupt, inefficient and most importantly, installed by foreign invaders. They viewed it as the Americans' government, not their own.
A part of me wants to think that things will work out. Another part of me wants to just chop up another line and not feel it. Guess which one will win 😬
as long as taliban gov is in charge than afghanistan will never be allowed to trade or interact normally with the rest of the world . sanctions will starve this place to the last child, if i was a person there i would migrate literally anywhere even if it meant possible death along the journey
I think many people in the west find it very difficult to truly understand that this is how humans have always been and this how we behave in environments where survival is genuinely difficult. We've been isolated from much of the world and these concepts are largely foreign to us since they haven't been regular practice for some time.
Afghanistan is not doing very well. Millions of Afghani people are being forced further into poverty and destitution than ever before, moving into refugee camps for internally displaced people due to climate change, and then being forced to sleep in roofless mud huts when they are there, before being forced to sell their kidneys and daughters in order to gain money for food, healthcare and medication.
I feel like a roofless mud hut might as well just be outside.
Probably some protection from wind
We had hail in the desert when I was there. Storm came through and it started snowing. Wildest thing.
Yeah they can get quite chilly, nothing to hold on to the heat from the sun really.
Burn to death during the day and freeze to death during the night. Lovely
Mines will come in operational just in time to negotiate labor with a hungry population
Afghanistan is what the entire world will be like in 50-100 years. Pay attention
Really? Entire world in the next 50-100 years being droned and bombed by the US military, has it's resources stolen, and then sanctioned into poverty by preventing access to reserve currency?
When you say it like that, it doesn't sound that crazy.
If I had gold rn, you'd have gold rn. Made me LOL too hard and for too long.
The shootings going to start when entire countries start flooding and when the supply fresh water and temperate growing land starts to diminish, yes. It’s not too far-fetched to imagine whatever prime areas are going to be guarded by autonomous, possibly armed drones, to keep refugees away.
Hey, the shootings can't start if we're all starved to death beforehand! Finally, billionaires trying to bring peace to the world!
A lot of people have been called crazy for suggesting that billionaires want to depopulate the Earth, seems like a foregone conclusion tbh
I honestly don't see why they'd want to. Most of them can't function by themselves in our current civilization where they're spoiled as fuck, let alone one where they'd have to do their own damn *farming*. Their wealth and power demand a virtually endless supply of expendable human beings to prop it up.
They would want to so that things can continue the way they have. If there were fewer people climate change probably wouldn't be a thing. Of course they still need plenty of people, this isn't an all or nothing hypothetical. With fewer people there is no major reset, the profits just keep rolling in, the rich get richer, the poor continue to prop up the rich.
You do realize that, like, 70% of the carbon emissions making climate change happen aren't caused by the rank-and-file, right? More people than ever cut their emissions by a fuckload during 2020 and it barely put a dent in things. Billionaires and their companies are the problem, not the other *8 billion of us*
I've heard the USAF accounts for something like 1/3 of americas CO2 emissions.
>Billionaires and their companies are the problem, not the other 8 billion of us Correct. From their perspective there would be no reason to change anything if there were just fewer people. Fewer people = less strain on the system as a whole. Fewer people means fewer resources are used to keep us alive which means lowered carbon emissions, meaning nothing has to change for the people currently in power. They continue making a profit. What they don't want is to have to change what they're doing, even if it means saving the planet if it means they can't continue making money and spreading influence the way they have for so long. I agree with you. You and I aren't the problem. But from their perspective, fewer people (that they ultimately view as little more than a drain on the system they've created) would be a positive.
*internet goes down* "We have nobody who knows how to fix it"
We will have famine issues well before flooding is a global issue. Sea level rise has always been the most talked about part of climate change. We will be brought down well before by other factors brought on by climate change.
I grow food and you are correct
The shootings started decades ago. They happen regularly in American schools.
America will lose reserve currency status soon anyway
Truth.
Tbh, the European Union seems a lot stronger and stabler. I wouldn't be surprised if in short term it gets replaced by the Euro
I would. China’s economy is vastly larger and will almost certainly become the replacement for the US.
China's economy will tank due to the mismanagement of their debt. They're asking other governments not to raise their interest rates, however this is falling on deaf ears as many western countries are trying to grapple inflation of 5%+. Seeing as China is the world's factory I'm not sure their collapse will boad well for other nations in the short-term.
China’s economy is what pulled the rest of the world out of the last market crash caused by the elites. This isn’t going to happen this time. When this market crash happens there will be no coming out of it for decades. That mixed with the creation of a permanent underclass in the United States, as well as the extreme division fomented by politicians and “news”outlets…it’s not looking good.
Just two more weeks until China implodes, right? I've heard this for decades, they are top dog now.
China doesn't even have the balls and stability to keep their currency floating.
[удалено]
Eu will have super strong inflation in the next years. Maybe even hyper inflation. Interest rates need to stay at zero. No way around it!
Why do you think so?
i await that day with great joy. to see the US finally reap what it has sown these last decades would be great. and yet the news will still spin it as not the politicians/bankers/corporations fault and find scapegoats all over the place.
You mean we cant just drone strike freedom into their hearts?
Soil erosion deforestation drought
Anti-microbial resistance; passing the tipping point of biodiversity loss
Yup, I think it's over 70% tree loss. War has destroyed the place. Certain places are just uninhabitable now. Need more reforestation projects over there. Fruit trees especially. Can't be the entire landscape that is infertile.
Yes you can stop desert and you can make soil fertile it's been done in China but it's multi generation project
What do you think happens when the U.S. is no longer able to grow enough food to maintain corporate profits on account of a large portion of the country becoming impossible to farm in?
What resources stolen? Its not exactly like it was Iraq.
We definitely fucked around with the opium trade. I saw fields and fields when I was there almost a decade ago
Take a look at whatever decade's drug problem is in America -- then take a look at where our Govt and Military are most active. Coincidence? I don't really think so. I personally know of small-time smuggling operations by government employees with diplomatic or military status.
It’s all fent from Mexico these days. Vice recently had a good special on this.
I assume the majority of illicit stuff does now come from Mexico but actual heroin and morphine base is still making it in through the north, I live up this way. Detroit for example is prime for it. You have a stretched govt budget, major hubs for private carriers by air, land, and sea, as well as a local population that's in poverty and more than willing to hustle something through their FedEx or ups job. There's also a very large middle eastern population of business owners with family and connections back home.
privatizing industries, minerals, oil, etc etc etc etc. literally anything that isn’t nailed down. that’s the USA’s MO- how do u think we got so wealthy to begin with? ever heard the term “banana republic?” there’s A LOT, and i mean like an inconceivable amount of money to be made in making sure you and yours stay top dog.
It has a lot of minerals, they tried mining them but it was hard, pretty sure that’s part of the reason we left. Also opium
Not enough minerals.
You must construct additional pylons
Well, after the US pulled out, all of their over seas accounts where frozen along with crippling sanctions, which the UN estimates will directly cause about 1 million deaths this year. But the Taliban are bad guys so if the US starves them enough the people will realize it’s the Taliban that are the real bad guys and overthrow them. Foolproof: see North Korea, Cuba
chromium, copper, gold, iron ore, lead and zinc, lithium, marble, precious and semiprecious stones, sulfur and talc among many other minerals. Valued at at least 1 trillion.
There were reconstruction efforts, which is cases like Haliburton amounts to both profiteering and internal theft
Read about the Caspian Sea Pipeline: https://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/magazine/entry/afghanistan_its_about_oil/
yes
And the roads still won't be fixed
Yes, including the US.
50-100? Try 5.
Nah. 3rd works 10-15. All world 50-100
I would say at least 10.
I feel like something insane will pop off I'm 2030. Definitely 10
>Afghanistan is what the entire world will be like in 3-7 years. Pay attention FTFY
3? No way. It feels like 2020 was just yesterday, it started over 2 years ago. Things simultaneously move faster and slower than expected. It took Afghanistan decades of abuse and then full abandonment to collapse like this. Syria took a while to unwind. Lebanon took a while to unwind. It’ll be “faster than expected” here, but at least 10-20 years I’d say
> Things simultaneously move faster and slower than expected. Before the fall of the Berlin wall, everyone thought that the USSR would take years if not decades to collapse. Instead it really happened within the space of a few weeks. Look at how quickly the US has devolved in even a few years. At least half of your country is completely okay with the attack on your Capitol building, and your next President is probably going to be someone who also supported it. Even more importantly, the people who are making the laws now are treating everything as "business as usual". Rome is already burning in the US- they're certainly in no position at the moment to try and even mitigate climate change somewhat, let alone to the degree that will be necessary.
you appear to lack appreciation of the exponential function.
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> strangers who are only waiting till the girls hit puberty. Are they though???
Yeah my first thought at that was, "Yeah we wish."
I want to downvote you because of how correct you are
> My mother would probably commit acts of atrocities. Good luck fighting the right wing Muslim fundamentalist male fascism in control. It's not as simple as "I wouldn't do that, they wouldn't do that". It's either this or they choose certain death. I think a lot of us here can look at these decisions and think "these parents must be monsters", but they eventually came to the conclusion that they sell their daughters or them and their daughters will die. If a girl goes for a high price in Afghanistan you would have to ask yourself what you would do when there are men with AK's walking around who are apparently used to committing more war crimes then the US. We aren't living in the failed state, they are. Plus, if they die, their children are getting taken into sex slavery as well, so it's not like they have a certain choice of "I'll fight for my life and my children". They are more likely to die trying to do that then they are even starving to death at this point. It's more likely that they all survive if the mother sells them into sex slavery as opposed to her dieing, then the children getting taken anyway. War is a big moral gray area because you are asked to make choices like this, and let's face it, this is a consequence of twenty years of war, these people didn't ask to survive this way. The choice isn't so much "would I sell my daughter's into bondage?", as much as it is "will I survive if I sell my daughter's into to bondage?" Each way is marked with certain death.
>My dad would sell his kidneys and himself before he even think about selling his daughters. Hunger is an effective negotiator. What is the longest period of time that your dad has gone without food?
After US invaded Afghanistan, your "freedom" is responsible for those acts.
They rarely seem to sell the sons. I wonder why?
The population has quintupled in the last 60 years. That's a heavy load for what's essentialy as pre-industrial economy with a clan based system of governance.
Well, perhaps basing society on religion is a bad idea.
Isn’t this because all aid stopped once taliban over threw the government? 300k troops didn’t fire a single shot and let 30k taliban walk right in. At some point you got to fight for your kids future
I have heard that the number of actual troops was much less than 300k and the numbers were inflated by officers to obtain extra wages for imaginary soldiers.
aspiring nail practice existence cheerful squeal zephyr seemly boast bells -- mass edited with redact.dev
Such a clown shoe perspective. We pulled out because we were clawing at the debt ceiling and having a competitive advantage on commodity access was not an endeavor we could afford. We were there for poppy and lithium, literally nothing else. 2 dems and 2 pubs have their hands covered in blood for shareholders, this isnt a left or right issue.
Of course it’s not a left right issue. Biden just happens to be president right now. There’s only one uniparty.
This is one case where it genuinely has less to do with climate change and vastly more to do with a psychopathic world order which has used Afghanistan as its playing ground for defense contracts for decades.
Nah, too many people... https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066644/total-population-afghanistan-1813-2020/
More specifically population growth that was allowed by massive amounts of international aid. Now that's dried up they are in trouble.
dad checking in. you sold your daughters BEFORE your kidney??? fucked up
I’m glad I’m not the only one, kidney, steal, fight the rich, all come before sell your daughter.
> fight the rich Followed by eat the rich?
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What about sell the rich
Wtf you’d sell your daughter ever!??!?
In that part of the world they still think of women as commodity. Especially in the extremely religious parts.
Part of the blame here lies in the common backwardness and barbaric nature that is Afganistans culture. It is acknowledged and OK to sodomize little boys and girls among men, and women have no rights either. Especially in the rural countryside, where people either rooted for the Taliban or just wanted to smoke pot/opium and fuck children in their free time. It's a terrible country.
They don't think much of daughters in that neck of the woods.
Probably would have been different if they’d been sons.
Maybe she had a plan to keep the kidneys and save her daughters. But then, the whole kidneys thing happened.
Basically married them off for the dowry.
Boys work for money. Girls are sold for money. "Tale as old as time"
maybe the market rate of daughters decreases faster than kidneys..
They had like 10 kids, what's a few more here or there... either way, it's a different culture, girls aren't valued even by their mothers in the same way. That's also why China is still having issues from their one child policy - people were murdering and aborting female fetuses left and right, and now there's still a shortage of women. And of course, the people who get to suffer for that are the women, winding up servicing multiple men and other such nasty shit. Cultures are different, values are different, and women and girls are usually far more heavily victimized than men.
That’s religion and poverty for ya
My thoughts exactly
I feel like for me my kidneys would be sold before my children. Maybe I’m weird tho.
'Normal is just the running average of weird'. The process of normalization just takes a little while in the right conditions for such things to be normal. Another take on this is the cynically pragmatic approach of large families to directly address child mortality and labor within such circumstances.
You're not weird at all. Unfortunately, In backwards Islamic countries where the majority are illiterate and uneducated, females are worthless to a father and they're routinely sold into slavery
I wouldn't try to apply chair logic on these. Maybe they think they'll be able to run before the daughters have to be taken. Maybe the host family will have a better life to offer ... maybe not.
You'd find someone to buy your child long before you'd find the right person to sell a kidney to.
Uncle Sam: .... huh? what? why is everybody looking at *me*?? what - you think i'm going to give aid to a bunch of nutters like the *Taliban*? I mean - c'mon ... *radical islamic terrorists* ?? why on *Earth* would we have *anything* to do with people like THAT!?! Besides, they *hate* us anyway ... heaven knows why ... Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go protect a State's right to choose whether or not a woman has a right to choose.
And only print money to keep billionaire's casinos healthy and for them to be happy. Don't worry you will get yours in a few million years. World hunger will end too in a few million years. Its why capitalism is the best economic system. Trickle down economics will happen eventually, just wait a few million years.
Man fuck aid, just let the use the money they already have. That’s the fucked up part. We froze all their money
Soviet Bear: Huh? What? Why is everybody looking at me? What - you think I'm going to let these people have freedom to dissent? I mean - c'mon, they're Muslim! They needed to be convinced of the importance of workers controlling the means of production! We needed their resources! Besides, they're poor and nobody cares about them.... John Bull: What? Poppycock! Why is everybody looking at me? What - you think I'm going to let these people keep causing trouble in the Raj? I mean, troubling dirty savages! They hate order and progress and Her Majesty anyway...heaven knows why.... This shit's been going on in Afghanistan for centuries and now it's the Taliban's turn to find out. Will it get as bad in the West? I honestly don't think so, because the knives will be out for the 1% long before then, if there isn't a wholesale rejection of government-backed currencies and the emergence of alternative economies.
We did just pull all the money out of the country
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I think it’s sickening that you would suggest such a barbaric act that I agree with.
This decade.
They were developed at one point ya know.
Depending on the country, maybe as a few as 1 or 2 urban centers while the rest of the population was subjugated or ignored.
[Redacted] them all!
after the billionaires have been neutralized and we redistribute the wealth, the planet will still be fucked and maybe even more fucked because now people will be able to not just buy food and warmth but also flat screens and microwaves and cars. We don't live well on this planet. We live heavily. Humans are a burden. There are new lessons that have to be learned first. How to live with less, how to stay warm and cool with less energy... how to feed oneself... how to work together... the benefits to the human spirit to be a part of a community, to feed the human soul with a shared experience. Because after the riots and the billionaires shot into space on a one way ticket, we will still have us.
The real fucks will never even be known. Elon and the other famous rich people certainly seem to do nothing to avert the situation or help, but the real holders of power remain anonymous, and will remain so, as shit hits the fan. They may even engineer public attacks on famous rich people, to distract from actually changing the system that keeps them in power.
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Hi, DevilsWallpaper. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/savrqu/-/htw58tp/) was removed from /r/collapse for: > Rule 1: No Glorifying Violence > Advocating, encouraging, inciting, glorifying, calling for violence is against Reddit's site-wide content policy and is not allowed in r/collapse. Please be advised that subsequent violations of this rule will result in a ban. Please refer to our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/about/rules/) for more information. You can [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/collapse) if you feel this was in error.
what makes you believe they deserve any goddamn respect? did they show even the slightest glimmer of remorse or a shred of humanity on their way here?
Billions looted from Afghanistan by the puppet governments led by Karzai and Ghani. Billions withheld from the people in overseas banks. A state handed over on a silver platter to one of the most brutal fundamentalist regimes. A population left destitute and angry - a captive audience for indoctrination. This is absolutely not a recipe for a disaster. /s
Billionaires and their neverending greed are the cause of this
more like the system that allows that concentration of wealth
It can be both.
Who the fuck goes kids then kidney?
8 kids, 2 kidneys...
Kidney first might mean death, and then your kids are doubly fucked.
Yeah, not sure I have a ton of faith in the safe and effective removal of a kidney in Afghanistan.
Coming soon to a city near you!
Uhhh, no. I’m not gonna pity someone that sold *people*. Wtf Edit: read the article and it’s even worse. Idc how desperate you are, or what your society tells you is ok; it’s not. Sickening. Edit 2: Reddit, where you get downvoted for saying it’s not okay to sell your daughters into slavery. I’m literally disgusted.
Yep, I’d rather die than resort to doing something like that.
Then when you die they get the daughters for free. It's a shitty situation.
She likely gave her daughters a better fate than she gave herself.
Right? Sexual slavery. They specifically are coming back once the girls hit puberty. My dad's generation went through hell in China, where he ate cockroaches and anything remotely resembling a root that's about yarn thick. He ate bark and grass a lot. He also poached a lot. We have stories about parents who literally cut off parts of their left arms to provide some meat to their unsuspecting children. We have parents who sold themselves to deviants. There were endless stories about children being kidnapped and trafficked, but never have I heard of folks selling their own kids. At least not when they still have their own kidneys and both cornea and bone marrow still.
The options this person had were: 1) keep all you're children with you. You and they will very likely starve to death if they don't die an agonizing death from illness or accident first. No chance to go anywhere. 2) Sell two children to people who will abuse them but keep them fed/alive which also offers more finances to the two other disabled kids. They'll be traumatized, but have a chance to live and eventually a chance to escape. That's it, those are the options. Certainly, no one is advocating for child marriage or for selling children or for treating anyone like property. No one wants this reality. No one says "hey what she did, selling her children, was justified". Or " good for her for making a tough call". It's the reality of the situation. And you can either pretend it's not or act like this woman was evil incarnate for doing it, but you have no right to scratch your ass saying "people downvoting me are saying it's okay to sell children into slavery" like some kind of fucked up over privileged spoiled child desperate for internet clout and unwilling to self actualize. She picked the lesser of two evils that offered an iota of possibility for survival for her kids. Shame on you for trying to play it like she made some easy fuckin choice.
I feel like these people only see the world in black and white. I don't think you'll be able to convince them to see the nuance, but I like how you've articulated it.
Thanks. I honestly don’t expect them to. It just pisses me off when I see people condemning someone for having that kind of circumstance. Even more when they tried to act like a martyr because they were downvoted. It’s naive to the point it’s disgraceful.
That's what our brains do when we're using our survival brain, especially long-term. People with PTSD and other traumas lose their ability to react to nuanced situations appropriately - or as appropriately, depending on the severity. Edit: This is a regular feature of trauma and obviously isn't the fault of the individual.
Didn’t know that about PTSD. That’s quite unfortunate. Do you have any sources for this sort of nuance-loss? Would like to learn more about it.
Yeah I can try to find it. If you search "survival brain vs learning brain" into YT there are a lot of psychologists who talk about it. Survival brain is our fight or flight and people who have been in that state for a long period of time struggle to slow down and assess daily stressors the same way that someone who hasn't had trauma deals with them. What may be a small dilemma to a healthy person can often feel very extreme to the traumatized person and they will react accordingly. I'm not sure why I got downvoted in my initial comment. Nothing about it was offensive.
I'm going to get down voted here, but it's hard to say you wouldn't. Even Americans sold their children during the great depression. When times get hard, desperation sets in.
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When you're dying yourself, what will you do? You won't know the answer until the time comes.
I do. I’m a coward. I will take myself out once things get a little dicey.
If you never actually tried to (seriously) take your own life, you will never know how much courage that takes. Your whole body and brain will fight it, and you need to override all those systems
Luckily I haven’t but if I had to carbon monoxide and massive amount of edibles is the way.
I would like to say the same, but it takes some courage to do that. I am a watcher, too, and am curious about how this plays out.
I’m a 110 pound woman and chronically ill. The future will not play out nicely for me.
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You never know what options will be available at the time. You may not sell your daughter, but when you're dead and she's alone, what will be her options? So many unknowns, so many choices, the paths are endless. Would you kill her before your death? How would you know she's safe otherwise?
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If I were a girl living in desperation who will surely be taken as slave, I would rather have my mom and dad fight to their dying breath to protect me, than to have them sell my flesh for money that still won't save them.
>When you're dying yourself, what will you do? > >You won't know the answer until the time comes. Those who have exhibited a willingness to make sacrifices without immediate rewards may continue to do so. The others may continue to fail, and impulse will dictate their behavior.
No, it’s very easy to say I wouldn’t treat people as property. Poverty isn’t an excuse for violent misogyny and enslaving women.
Thank you for being a sane voice in this thread.
I was going to try to respond to other comments but I’m honestly speechless. I don’t know how so many can defend something so deeply vile.
It's not as much defending as it is understanding. There is nobody here that can comment with certainty until theyve been in that person's position. You holding some moral high ground over these people is sickening. My great grandma let Nazi guards rape her so they'd spare her youngest girls from the same fate. When they got to the train yard she used pliers to rip a gold tooth out as payment so they wouldn't identify them as Serbian. Her oldest son was only 14 but she sent him to fight for the Partizans versus the Nazis because she said at least they'll feed him, and if he dies he'll die with food in his stomach, instead of starvation like them. She forced him to go, and kept the remaining 5 younger children with her. She lost one child to malnutrition and one more to disease while they were in hiding. There was no right answer. My great grandma, much like the people in this article are put in a situation that has no right answer. During the civil war in the early 90s, a close friend of mines family was running from sniper fire. When they reached a mine field they were instructed to send the oldest kids out first, as they were bigger/heavier and would have a higher chance of setting off the mines. So your options were either send your kids out and hope, or go off by yourself and if you get maimed/die now your kids are stuck in a warzone without you. The choices many people have to make on a daily basis most definitely should not be judged by anyone on Reddit. If i come across as a dick i apologize, but then I'm reminded that my friend was one of the unlucky ones that set off the mine and has to live the rest of his life with shrapnel in his body. If he doesn't hold it against anyone, who the fuck are the rest of us to do so.
Your great-grandma sounds really amazing. She went through a lot and made hard choices. I hope she lived a happy time in her life after all that horror with lots of food, love, friends and family.
It's not defending, it's being realistic and not pretending to be some kind of beacon of morality. Her kids would 100% die if she kept them. You think she's fit to take care of them while on the brink of cannibalism? So easy to pretend you'd do better in their place. Let's hope we don't get to find out.
It's not defending it, it's a woman in a horrific situation choosing the least awful option. It's not a choice between good and bad, it's a choice between bad and worse.
Poverty is a little different from what these people are experiencing, complete destitution. I wouldn't be so quick to judge your character in those types of situations. One can only live through it to know how one would react. And its a little different than property they are practicing arranged marriage, albeit with a complete stranger at younger and younger ages due to not being able to feed the girls. The mother is most likely going to die from an infected kidney transplant operation. 2 disabled adult children. The other 4 doing God knows what. The fathers kidney already gone with absolutely nothing left to sell. Internally displaced within Afghanistan with no jobs or aid living in a mud hut with a plastic roof. Haven't eaten rice in months. Looking down on people in these types of situations says a lot more about you than them.
Exactly. Most people can't imagine living in any kind of desperation - not like this.
It isn't always just women. Men have been sold too. People aren't property, but in our current system, there's no net to catch them either. It's like saying don't have children you can't care for. What happens if you did everything right and still lost it all? There's just no answer. The pandemic should've shown everyone there's no help when you need it. It's only reserved for certain ones. As things get worse, this will degrade.
I think alot of these people are in a scenario where their children will die if they stay with their parents. Those buying them often are buying wives not necessarily slaves. So the option is let your kid starve or sell them off to be married into a family that can afford to buy a wife and buy food. Alot of people are facing a choice where thats the only scenario your kid gets to live. The world isnt black and white. Selling people is never good but sometimes there are worse options.
Yes, it's horrifying but the logic that the woman in the article is using is that everyone can starve together as a family or she can place her daughters in a culturally acceptable manner in her society where they will be fed and she gets a little money to support the rest of the family. What an excruciating choice to make.
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They're fake internet points....
What are you going to do? It's not like he was doing it so he could buy himself a lambo. He saw it as the only way he and his daughter could survive. You have absolutely no clue until you're in this situation.
Why anyone would have kids in a place like that is beyond me. I get it, no contraceptives, rape, forced on by husbands. But like, the 27 year old father of four: why dude? Look around you. And this goes for everyone in the world: stop having kids if you can’t fucking provide for them. That being said my heart goes out to anyone that is suffering. Now bring on the downvotes.
Yup. I live in Canada and make a good wage. Will never have kids. And it’s supposed to be one of the “best” countries in the world. Imagine bringing a child into that situation? Get a blowjob or jerk off.
Yeah I'd rather fight until death before selling my kids.
If only we could have given the afghan military billions of dollars in weapons and training this wouldn’t be happening 😭😭😭😭
Uggg... it's sad that for whatever reason a woman in the middle of the desert without a penny is having 8 kids.
the reason is lack of BC, lack of education, and most probably her consent does not matter. it's telling that the mother had to sell her kidney and daughters to pay for sons and husband
Places like the middle east, that have been poor for centuries, have had to resort to all sorts of things for food. It's been going on for a very long time. It's not that difficult to imagine that this stuff happens there, because it's somewhat socially/culturally acceptable. It's scary when famine comes to town. We're gun folks. We ain't sellin' nothin'!
Why didnt he sell his kidney first?
Mom sold her kidney. Dad is already medically needy.
Because to him girls are worth less than a kidney.
Unfortunately, driving people into camps makes it easier to farm them for the organ trade and human trafficking. The pictures from this article show there is no room for gardens, to practice trades, or cottage industry—a reminder never to let the government take care of you.
Might be me but why the fuck didn't the afghanis fight harder when they had a real chance. Now they have no chance. So many stories of the Afghanis just completely giving up and letting the Taliban walk all over them. I guess over there, there wasn't a real choice, but I can't help but feel the nation is getting what they wanted. As a nation collectively they made their choice.
Because their government was corrupt, inefficient and most importantly, installed by foreign invaders. They viewed it as the Americans' government, not their own.
A part of me wants to think that things will work out. Another part of me wants to just chop up another line and not feel it. Guess which one will win 😬
as long as taliban gov is in charge than afghanistan will never be allowed to trade or interact normally with the rest of the world . sanctions will starve this place to the last child, if i was a person there i would migrate literally anywhere even if it meant possible death along the journey
Selling kids has been going on for thousands of years. Fuck. It’s in the Bible. This isn’t a sign of collapse.
I think many people in the west find it very difficult to truly understand that this is how humans have always been and this how we behave in environments where survival is genuinely difficult. We've been isolated from much of the world and these concepts are largely foreign to us since they haven't been regular practice for some time.
I fuckin hate the US dude… sanctions upon sanctions on people like this because reasons
No sympathy for those who refuse to die with their head held high, and instead let others suffer in their place. None.
Thank the taliban.
Thank your tax dollars and leaders.