Why is Brazil such a shithole?

It's a shithole because the British didn't colonize it.

Catholic + overpopulated + corrupt = shithole

Are you ready to hear the truth, OP? Did you come here to race bait or do you really NOT KNOW why?

No one can be that naive.

OP, is R1 your sock puppet? Is this thread going to lead into insulting various races and ethnicities? Is that what you're going for here? Are you one of our tiresome, systemic POC trolls grappling with your feeling of inferiority?

Was this thread below not giving the reaction you were expecting?😂

Brazil's big, huge mistake was to not take advantage of the political instability in Bolivia to buy the Pacific city of Arica from them.

In the late 1800s, Bolivia nominally owned a strip of land across the northern Atacama desert that included the (more potential, than anything) port city of Arica... but couldn't afford to develop Arica into a real port, and couldn't afford to militarily defend it from Peru and Chile. The War of the Pacific was kind of like a schoolyard fight between two bullies (Peru and Chile) over the lunch money they both stole from the wimpy kid (Bolivia). Bolivia had no chance of winning, and everyone knew it (including Bolivia).

Meanwhile... Brazil was beginning to develop transportation links to neighboring countries, but was hurt by its lack of direct access to the Pacific Ocean (though not quite as badly as the US would have been). Brazil could have bought Arica from Bolivia for a relative pittance, as well as a corridor connecting it to Brazil along Bolivia's southern border and over the Andes, built a railroad, and become the unquestioned commercial crossroads of South America through which nearly all commerce flowed. Chile & Peru wouldn't have been HAPPY about Brazil buying Arica from Bolivia... but Brazil could have easily kicked their asses, and neither one would have DARED to try invading Arica with a couple of Brazilian warships docked offshore & a few thousand troops occupying the area.

The US would have grumbled... a bit... but wouldn't really have been able to do much more without looking like a total hypocrite, since that's the exact way the US acquired ownership of today's southwestern US (buying it from a country that knew it was probably going to lose it anyway & figured it could at least cash in before it was too late).

Initially, not much would have changed... Brazil wasn't ready to build a railroad across the Amazon, let alone the Andes... but on the other hand, up to that point, the Andes were effectively a brick wall (with nothing on the other side) at the far end of a very, very deep overgrown vacant lot as far as Brazil was concerned. If Brazil had ownership of Arica and a corridor leading back to Brazil, the equation would have changed completely. By the early 1920s, Brazil would have almost CERTAINLY transformed Arica into a major port city with railroad leading over the Andes into Brazil... and ultimately, connecting it directly to every neighboring country, transforming Brazil into the literal commercial crossroads of South America (Brazil has land borders with every country in South America except Chile and Ecuador).

Brazil wouldn't have been the ONLY country in South America with Pacific and Atlantic ports, of course... but unlike, say, Colombia (whose southern half was (and to a large extent still IS) inaccessible and ungovernable wilderness, Brazil actually HAD major industries and international trade by the early 20th century. Joining the US as a bi-coastal nation wouldn't necessarily have solved Brazil's problems, but it almost certainly WOULD have nudged it along a trajectory closer to that of the US and less like that of its neighbors.

Portugal and Spain just didn't do a good job down there. A shame.

We've lost the Amazon because of their terrible colonial legacy. It could have been like Canada or New Zealand, which are great at preserving wilderness.

Brazil was settled by the Portuguese, but like the Spanish-settled colonies around it, Brazil was never supposed to develop its own identity with its own industries and its own independent economy. The model was that the land would be raped for mineral and agricultural wealth and the proceeds would go to the mother country and the aristocracy there.

Britain's success as a colonizing country lay mostly in the fact that it chartered out lands in new areas to corporations. The corporations took responsibility (and the risk) of developing the new lands - NOT the mother country. Britain did better in North America, where the climate was similar enough to Britain's that similar agricultural products could be grown and British-style architecture could work. Britain's tropical colonies were not as successful.

Over half of Brazil is Amazonia - the watershed of the Amazon river. Much of it was originally impenetrable jungle and swamp. So to think that that size alone would equate to riches is mistaken. Russia comprises 1/8th of the world's land surface, but its economy is roughly the same size as Canada's. - a country which has 37,000,000 vs. Russia's 145,000,000 - partly because much of Russia is too cold to support a larger population and economy. Russia's economy is SMALLER than Brazil's, incidentally. I think Brazil also suffers from being the only country in Latin America which is not Spanish-speaking. That means it cannot easily do business with any of its neighbors.

In word - DRUGS

The quick answer is pervasive corruption.

IQ.

Their inequality is ridiculous. I knew a Brazillian exchange student, during the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, and he couldn't understand why people here thought the inequality was so bad. He came from a rich family that lived in an oceanside villa, with a team of servants. But, he knew that those servants went home to a favela that in his words make most US ghettos look like Beverly Hills. Also, for all their talk of being a rainbow society, they have horrible racism, that exchange student was terribly racist about black people, the most racist person I think I've ever met, and I'm from the South and had a roommate from Boston.

Average IQ is 83. Not bad, actually.

Colonialism

Portugal was one of the worst colonial powers in that it didn't bother investing in its colonies. Former Portuguese colonies in Africa are also pretty shitty compared to their neighbors, although Belgium takes the cake as the single worst colonial power with what it did to the Congo.

R11 I was shocked to find out that nearly every upper middle class family in Brazil employs a servant.

People think looking good on a beach is all you need to do in life. Do you think those speedo-clad Insta-hos are contribution to society? Do you think the uggos drooling after them have any self-esteem to contribute themselves?

Broken priorities = broken shithole country.

Crappy priorities. Soccer is god and they let the National Museum fall into dereliction.

R14 That was true for most Portuguese colonies, but Brazil was a little different. First the Portuguese royal family moved their court to Brazil during Napoleonic times, then Brazil became part of a United Kingdom with Portugal and then became an independent Empire, under a member of the Portuguese royal family.

One thing no one ever wants to discuss is that Brazil, imported more slaves than any other western nation, kept importing them longer, and was the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. Less than 400,000 slaves were brought to the US while over 4,000,000 went to Brazil. The transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in the US in 1808, though a small number were illegally smuggled afterwards, Brazil continued to import slaves legally until the British Navy forcibly shut down the transatlantic trade in the 1850s, though some were still smuggled through until Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, over twenty years after the US. Many people still blame slavery for many of the problems we face in the US, today, so imagine our problems times ten, and you have a partial answer.

there are good and bad parts of every country

It's called the resource curse. (See below))

Brazil was the last nation in the Western world to abolish slavery - in 1888. Slavery was legal in the whole country, not just in one backward portion, as was the case in the US.. It retarded the country's development, Add corruption and political instability to that equation and you get Brazil.

R20, which commodity do your think is a curse to Brazil?

BUT: Carmen Miranda!!!

Gotta give it to the British. Among all the European colonial powers, it did the best job in the New World

UK: Australia, Canada, New Zealand

Spain: Argentina, Mexico, etc.

Portugal: Brazil

How sad all of South America belonged to Portugal and Spain.

R24 You left out a pretty important country that the British birthed, the USA.

Cursed.

Why, r15? It's the same in Mexico. If you can afford it, you have a servant.

The big flaw in your argument, R5, is that, if the last 200 years are anything to go by, looking a total hypocrite internationally has never troubled American politicians and diplomats. US humbuggery has been making foreign diplomats incandescent for centuries.

the argument of british colonial success excludes india and half of west africa

R30, compare New World colonies. I.e., start with largely empty land and see the results. It's a stark contrast.

But, I must say, 83 is actually a pretty normal IQ.

Take a good look at Brazil (and Argentina, and much of the rest of SA), because that is the future of the USA. With skyrocketing inequality, the collapse of economic mobility, the degradation of the educational system, and the rise of populist / identity politics, we are well on our way to becoming a banana republic, and have been since at least the turn of the millennium.

Trump is the bellwether for what's to come.

I wish I weren't so sure of all this.

R32, you're high

And whoever about Canada above..you forgot the French

Is bullfighting a thing in Brazil?

Brazil has nice areas in the south. Lots of models from that area.

Well, R26, you can't win em all.

Lots of sexy whores around Porto Alegre in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Like this Brazilian model.

Import some today!

R26 is correct.

Just look to Canada for your answer. How and why are they better than everyone else in the two continents combined?

It's not about IQ.

asians think black people are stupid

#madeinbrazil

Actually pretty typical of southern Brazil.

Gay paradise.

Blood supply diverted from brain to succulent tits, asses and cocks.

It's actually pricey to live well there.

Yes, Catholicism and racism. Both feed off of each other. No matter what problems USA had or has, separation of church and state kept us from slipping down that slope. Latin America is relentlessly Catholic and there is not much separation from the churches. That’s why they have their problems.

You might have a point. To a point

r33, some experts say that r32 is right. They think it will happen in the US precisely because Americans think it can’t happen here, leaving us very lethargic when faced with serious threats.

R48, go take a nap, hon. You really need us to spell it out for you?

Leaving us, the US, lethargic? Americans lethargic! 😂 Have you met us?

[quote] Oddly, Jonathan Coulton songs almost always sound better when someone else sings them

Ain't that the truth

Find a lot of people here on the DL, especially those of color bewildered as to how environment shapes a people. These POC would go a lot easier on themselves and the rest of the world if they just realized that varying climates produce various "subraces" of humans. There is no shame in it. All have unique gifts in particular to their regions of origin.

Since we're talking South America let us take blacks & whites out of the equation. Focus on the original indigenous population who are the backbone of the New World.

Now with that scenario remind yourself of the indians of brazil. Original population. Think of what you know about those tribes living near or in the jungle. Staying focused on original inhabitants labelled throughout the Americas as INDIGENOUS. Now go back in time about 600 years. See where we're going here?

[quote]The quick answer is pervasive corruption.

Yep. It's a similar answer to Russia Both have the raw tools to be in better shape than they are, but they struggle because of such pervasive widespread corruption that derails progess in the country.

Before European contact place yourself in Brazil. How would the indigenous population differ from other Amerindian populations? Think Inca, Mayan societies in comparison. Think Peruvians. Think NA tribes of the Plains. Sioux. Navigate eastward and consider the Cherokee, Mohawk, general Algonquin. Go north up to the arctic. Quite the different breed of Amerindian, no?

Cold climates produce humans who have their hustle on. No matter race or peoples throughout this world one common denominator stands. Northern equals a tweaked animal descending from hearty, adaptable survivors.

Put that in your peace pipe and relax.

Once you accept the universal law @ R53 you'll be able to focus unhindered in your perceptions. You'll also sleep like a baby again.

"asians think black people are stupid"

R40 Asians think everyone other than themselves are stupid, including whites.

Go away R55. You bring nothing to the table.

And they're right, R55.

r53, your post makes no sense. The Maya, who had one of the most advanced civilizations old world OR new until about 800 AD, were strictly a tribe of the tropics. The Aztecs and Incas were both very advanced mountain tribes who lived in somewhat cool but temperate regions which didn't change in temperature much throughout the year, except for having rainy and dry seasons. The native Amazonian tribes never developed much in the way of technology or the interest in building large cities or infrastructure. Their environment was basically swampy, but provided all that they needed without the necessity of storage buildings. They had various types of boats for fishing and ways to build raised huts so that rising water wouldn't sweep them away. The North American tribes lived in different ways according to their climates and food sources. The natives of the Southwest lived communally in mud brick buildings (pueblos) or in structures built into caves on cliffs like Mesa Verde. In the Northwest, they lived in longhouses and built semi-permanent camps for winter and foraging and fishing camps for summer. Midwestern natives were hunting tribes that followed the great herds of buffalo. In the east were many settled natives who lived in clearings in the forest - they hunted and farmed.

Corruption is seemingly permanent. Could be the US if things continue

Yes, when the people in charge only care about enriching themselves and don't do anything except steal tax dollars...bad things happen.

Brazil has some of the worst schools in the world and very low levels of reading. Few Brazilians speak foreign languages and their mother colony is not an economic powerhouse. Lots of disadvantages in a globalized world.

R55, not true. Asians see some white people as almost as intelligent.

these type of posts fuels race baiting, i think humans evolved differently adapting to the environment, different yes, superior no.

Because they're all WHORES, Darlin'!

R1, India?

R12, 83 is the rock bottom cutoff for the military. Meaning, the military literally cannot even use you to clean toilets.

It makes absolute sense R58 and you just reiterated and backed up my post beautifully. However there's one little fact about the Mayans so sure you're not aware. Most people aren't. Different migration of indigenous peoples from the Arctic. They were originally Inuits. That explains their physical build and why they had their hustle on.

At least the bottoms are clean, right?

Interesting.

R39 another in a long line of bullshit liberal articles on race and intelligence. Full of straw-men, obfuscations, and incomplete arguments. All leading scientists in the field except James Flynn acknowledge race determines intelligence. They have for decades.

There’s still covert slavery going on. Think of the children who “work” for a pittance in order to mine Cobalt for the benefit of companies like Apple.

Because their best and brightest leave to become prostitutes in the US and Europe.

My partner is Brazilian. Came here for undergraduate and never left. Family works in political journalism, father is kinda famous. There was a military dictatorship and everything sucked. Then - like Russia - Brazil made a mess of privatization in the 1980's. and all the oil, telecom, mineral rights, and pretty much all industry fell into the hands of a political elite that was very very corrupt. So much capital flight - it was a part of what made Miami what it is today.

Lula dragged a lot of people out of poverty by investing in education, infrastructure, they handled AID's well, and things were going well for a bit, but when the economy starting hurting the new middle class was super angry as they are slowly sliding back into poverty - they had a taste of middle class comfort and social programs that made their lives better.

HUGE economic inequality and racism is a real problem. Noam Chomsky has a Brazilian wife and he says Brazil is much more racist than the US.

Finally, have you been to Brazil? I think it's a great county, with strengths and weaknesses like any other. I will probably retire there eventually. Probably Brasilia, it's lovely and safe. The USA is not really in a position to judge any country right now.

Please, Brazil is a shithole by every metric. Unless you live in a gated community and manage to fuck the hustlers before they're weathered by years of drug use, it's a dismal place.

r74 You watch too much TV and internet. Get on a plane, go to Brazil. Depending on where you go, you can see some of Oscar Niemeyer's architecture, eat some world class German food, watch the best soccer, or buy some of the most expensive modern furniture on Earth. Maybe a Sergio Rodrigues chair in rosewood and leather. I grew up outside of Philadelphia, and would live in a dozen cities in Brazil over Philadelphia, or most American cities for that matter. The favelas you see in movies and on the news? You don't go there. Why is Kensignton in Philadelphia such a crackhole? You probably don't even have a passport philistine.

r74 Wait, I just reread what you wrote and realized your a degenerate and your talking about sex tourism or something...as in why is Brazil sucky to have sex with younger people for money? I wouldn't know about any of that. Gated communities are gross, some are entire towns and nobody cool in Brazil is gonna live in a gated community. They just live in a safe neighborhood and don't go anywhere stupid at night. There are drug zombies, again - just like many American cities.

Why is most of the USA a total shithole? Lack of education, lack of jobs, no culture, racism, homophobia, religious gun nuts, no mental health care system, economic inequality, unstylish people with no taste, drug addiction, fat people. I could go on and on.

So don't tell me Brazil as a whole is a shithole, because I've seen most of it, and it's not. Brazil is way sexier and smarter if you're sexy. If you go down there to have sex with the ladyboys or something and stay in shit hotels in touristy areas ? I don't anything about that either. I see you people there though. Americans are on a whole very embarrassing with the cargo shorts, flab, cell phone obsession, and lack of cultural literacy.

O país do futuro...e sempre será.

(The country of the future...and always will be.)

1. I've been to 50 countries, thank you.

2. I'm glad that in a country that has the 5th worst gap between rich and poor, it's possible to find the most expensive furniture in the world.

That Brazilian dick clearly has you hypnotized. Every Brazilian with a brain flees for other countries (especially the US), but you're pretending it's some kind of Utopian paradise. I'm sure the daily victims of extreme racism, violence, and poverty appreciate your concern.

R11 nailed it and that will be our future before you know it here in the US. The racism, religion, drug use, homophobia, etc., is not the core problem. They're the symptoms but not the disease.

The disease is class inequality.

That's why the majority in the past had shitty living conditions too, back when there was royalty hoarding most of the power and wealth. We're getting back to that with a minority at the top hoarding wealth again. US became great when it allowed regular people to achieve comfortable living standards; something that's going down the shitter.

Why? Because with comfort, comes greater educational standards for the masses, overall contentment, a feeling of security, health, etc. Everywhere that has greater class inequality experiences side effects in the population like addiction, crime, despair, etc.

Wealth hoarding goes hand in hand with corruption at the top, because it's necessary to keeping the greater population weak and creating infighting to distract. Brazil is well known for huge wealth gaps and we've been on the same pathway for at least 30 years.

R79 The US has never not had a class divide. I don't think it's our future.

It's just what happens when you take a whole bunch of people, make them slaves, stick them in poor neighborhoods, prohibit their education. There's historical mistrust because of all the murders and forced labor.

It would have been so much different had they recruited people, offered jobs and free education but it didn't happen. Evil happened and only good can overcome it.

r78 Any American accusing other countries of being shitholes after Trump and Covid is absurdly laughable. When suicide rates are calculated in a few years, the USA quality of life index will decline out of the first tier. The opioid crisis, the insane societal polarization and the upcoming foreclosure apocalypse is really gonna be the nails in the coffin. The USA you are comparing to other countries doesn't even exist any more.

You are generalizing. Ask anyone on Earth what they think about Americans, and they will also generalize: We are fat religious racist gun nuts, who are too greedy to offer human beings health care, and we wage war for oil. If you have traveled to 50 countries, you know that most Earthlings think the USA is a shithole, since George W. Everyone can generalize and stereotype. Germans are Natzees, Irish are drunken wife beaters, and all Muslim are into Jihad.

If you are talking about income inequality and poverty, Brazil has serious problems. However, I'm telling you that you have watched too many City of God poverty porn movies. There are parts of Brazil that are very middle class and safe. Good food, good art, and friendly communities of people that actually talk to each other and interact.

So the question should be: Why are parts of Brazil so shitty? And I can ask you: Why are parts of the USA so shitty? And the reasons are the same, and Brazil has more excuses for having shitty areas and uneven economic development. We are the richest country on Earth, and don't have basic social services, and incarcerate more people per capita than any country on Earth.

I have better insurance and receive better medical care in Brazil than I do here in the USA. You can still buy beachfront property in safe areas, particularly in the South. My point is the Brazil I know isn't shitty. It's really nice.

It's no more of a shithole than Donald Trump's mouth.

I'm no Papist, but you can't blame Catholicism for Brazil's woes. The military dictatorship that ruled the country for two decades (1964-1985)--supported, one should remember, by the USA--had a major hand in Brazil's lack of development. American Cold War foreign policy facilitated the rise of dictators and kleptocrats in the bogus name of fighting communism.

R81 There are always nice areas in nearly every country. The problems arise from not having same high standard of living apply to the masses.

It's really disturbing that people think certain groups are to be given up on and shoved into ghettos and favelas. Over population is going to be a problem everywhere.

We ought to be thinking of solutions to help the poor but it all comes down to selfishness and greed. People would rather spend on themselves to have material luxuries than work together to provide decent homes for the poor. Remember Brad Pitt's efforts to help Katrina victims and how those homes are in decay now?

I'm more worried about the future of population control and CRISPR eugenic baby trait selection. We could solve the poverty problems, the world has the resources to unite and up the standard of living for people. It starts with free education. People would rather live like the Kardashians in sequestered gated mansion than really giving to government programs that support the people.

It's just a lack of planning and not alot of love for poor people who don't know how to make it in the world.

R29 The US humbuggery was handed to us by the Europeans, specifically the British, who were the biggest buggers of all, so STFU.

[quote]How sad all of South America belonged to Portugal and Spain.

[quote] I think Brazil also suffers from being the only country in Latin America which is not Spanish-speaking.

Does Miss Teen South Carolina post here?

Communism doesn't go far enough and the delusions that it can ever work are rooted in the same white supremacy that enabled Nazism as a response.

[quote]Just look to Canada for your answer. How and why are they better than everyone else in the two continents combined?

Very few blacks and Hispanics. Their largest minority group are Asians. That makes for a much more peaceful country.

That makes for a more peaceful country --for whites Trixie-- but that's who you care about

[quote]Why is Brazil such a shithole?

Because Europeans came here.

R27 Is he wearing flip flops?

Yes indeed U,S, foreign policy in South and Central America is disgraceful. And that IQ by nation site, if the IQ in the U.S. is only 98 I'm way the hell above that. Last time I was tested I came out at 142.

r15 Ever been to California? Nannies and housekeepers galore. In Brazil the maids are treated like family, which is even worse than just being a fucking maid. My partners parents did send one of the maids kids to college. But they still complain about them all the time and won't just pay them more so they can send their own kid to college. No culture is perfect. Labor is cheap in many countries. I was an English teacher in Honduras for three years. I had a huge apartment with a gigantic balcony (like 800 sq feet) and a maid and it was like 550 bucks a month. The maid came with the apartment, but I gave her extra money. I prefer cleaning my own stuff, but I wasn't allowed to fire her. Everywhere has it's norms and culture. Live in a trailer park, F your cousin, eat roadkill and you're real Merican.

Brazil wasn’t like most of the US colonies, which were set up as settlements of people coming to live.

Brazil existed for Portugal to exploit. That’s all they were there for. When they couldn’t slave drive the Indians hard enough they brought in enormous numbers of African slaves. The colony was relentless in gouging resources out of the land.

You might say, well so were the southern US states, and there’d be some truth to that, but it was in overdrive in Brazil, and that’s no foundation for a country. The result was an absolutely enormous, uneducated unskilled poor underclass, with a tiny ruling class of ultra-rich, largely drawn along racial lines. The middle class was too small to stabilize the country’s economy and drive prosperity.

Abs that’s how you get a country with five times the population of Canada having only three quarters of Canada’s GDP.

R94 My understanding was the Catholic leaders thought the slavery and genocide they were doing to the natives was so barbaric they pleaded with them stop and when they complained, suggested using African slaves instead.

Robinson Crusoe casually mentions stopping in Africa to pick up some slaves to make a fortune in Brazil. Like it was nothing. Like they were cool with it.

Case in point.....

r96 Lula was innocent. Or at least not guilty of those specific charges. He is the reason Brazil isn't even worse off than it is, he helped raise millions of people out of poverty. The USA just had four years of Donald Trump, so if you are an American - like me - you might want to be silent on other countries questionable political leaders for about 40 years. Time to look inward USA.

[quote]Why is Brazil such a shithole?

Glenn Greenwald. Thread closed.

Spending all that Russian money on favela boyhole.

The answer is S N O W

Environment. Harsh winters Gotta hustle all year to prepare. Leads to progressive, cohesive societies

Survival, really