One reaction people might have to this is 'ugh China'. Another one might be 'ugh rich people'. Article reminded me of the Brazilian banker who ran over a bunch of cyclists a few years ago.
Brazil's homicide rate is like 7x the United States, I find it hard to believe that the occasional opening of a door and looking through your car would be high crime by Brazilian standards where people will literally get stopped by armed gangs and kidnapped out of their car.
There were no murders where I lived, no muggings, no particularly violent crime of any kind - just some people would drive up to the rich neighborhoods at like 2:30 am and go through some cars.
It's awful, but I feel it's not fair to single out China for this. I don't see the rest of the world doing much better of a job, especially in Brazil where Bolsonaro is still going on television to downplay the situation and actively making it harder for state governors to do the right thing (make people stay the fuck home, if you pardon my French).
They were definitely threatened and beat in Brazil several times at the beginning (I don’t recall anyone dying on the news, but I maybe it happened). The difference is that anyone could become a Uber driver, where not everyone could become a tax driver (due to governmental regulations and tight control by the mafia)
> Brazil is an incredibly unequal society, with oligarchical elites who disdain the poor, mourn for a lost military dictatorship, and don’t particularly care for democracy (all attractive traits to the IOC when looking for an Olympic host city)
Well, how's that news. All societies have some inequality and "oligarchical elites who disdain the poor."
" ...This goes way, way beyond a cheap bus ride - although the public transport scene in Brazil’s big cities would star in Dante’s ninth circle of hell. A manual worker, a student, a maid usually spend up to four hours a day back-and-forth in appalling conditions. And these are private transport rackets controlled by a small group of businessmen embedded with local politicians, who they obviously own."
Sadly Brazil is little better than a middle eastern oil state. They rode a massive bull market driven by China's insatiable appetite for commodities. Rather than use that whirlwind to diversify and prepare for the day that slowed down they appear to have done little. It's very sad.
People blame Brazil but I've met people outside Brazil who are like "Oh! Bonds!" "What kinds of bonds?" "High returns!" "Can't be government bonds then. Company bonds?" "Milk companies in Brazil!" Oh, cutting down the Amazon. Two parents I knew, this was like 18 years ago. It's been an emergency since the 1980's, a continual emergency. It's still an emergency.
And I think they got fucked anyway, both of them. They thought it was a good investment because it was such a shitty thing to do to something so beautiful, thought the secret to luxury was cowardice (and it is), but guess what the promise of shitty person heaven where all the shitty people are so shitty to everything except you because you're so special so much in common with them, say the same things, have the same ideas, know the same people, have the same passwords what a coincidence, bump into each other in the strangest places, twins, so that means...uh...nah you know what, it's a better lesson learned the hard way. Getting fucked is critical to learning how not to get fucked. Walkthroughs are uh...well police departments have websites, there's books on the subject. And you can't con an honest John. Well there's a limit to that, you also have to be informed, you need both. And entertain moral dilemmas, moral experiments, or like play-act with friends, that will help out a lot. And good alternatives.
Course the hard part is finding an alternative to that if you are conned. One way is to choose your second best choice. Not your first choice. Second choice. So then if the second choice starts getting shitty, stops whispering when you come around the bend, hey oh shit, guess the second choice school, say we're talking about Harvard 1 Yale 2, so Yale, really was second rank! I thought the 2 meant it was just as good, just another numeral from 1 to 10, like different days of the month! Wow, shit, wouldn't want to have to transfer to Harvard, that would suck, that was my first choice! Say I couldn't make it at Yale, damn!
As a Middle class Brazilian who has lived in Australia half his life and grew up in Rio with a vocal Australian dad I may have something to add.
The case of the car in the hole has a socioeconomic explanation.
There is huge wealth and education disparity within Brazil and specially Rio.
The divide between a blue collar worker fixing the road in Rio and a white collar worker is extreme enough that they are actually from separate cities and I’d suggest different cultures.
The road worker would possibly live in a favela with close to no involvement from the government.
His only interactions with the “rich”, anyone who doesn’t live in a favela, also called “asphalt people” would be in the form of his superiors who pay him little, treat him like a replaceable resource, don’t provide him with adequate training or tools.
There is very little incentive for him to excel at his job or go out of his way to find clever solutions to work problems. There is no career plan here.
Once the clock ticks to 5pm he goes back to his universe. The rich can sort it out themselves.
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