South Africa Fights To Keep Phone Networks Up as Lights Go Out (reuters.com) 128
An anonymous reader shares a report: On a recent Friday morning north of Johannesburg, the head of South Africa's largest telecoms company surveyed the arsenal of backup systems keeping just one of his 15,000 network towers online amid the worst power cuts on record. A diesel generator. Solar panels. A bank of expensive backup batteries, theft-proofed within a block of concrete. "Our costs have gone through the roof," lamented Sitho Mdlalose, managing director of Vodacom South Africa. As the national power grid crumbles, leaving Africa's most advanced economy in the dark for up to 10 hours a day, mobile operators including Vodacom, MTN and majority state-owned Telkom are scrambling to ensure their networks stay up and running.
They're spending millions to install solar panels, batteries and are even trialling wind turbines, while targeting deals with independent power producers to supplement struggling state utility Eskom's increasingly unreliable output, three company executives told Reuters. At stake: essential voice and data services in a nation where landlines are rare but nearly 80% of residents have access to mobile internet. Overall, the power crisis and logistical constraints are expected to erase 2 percentage points from economic growth this year, according to the South African Reserve Bank governor. Mary-Jane Mphahlele, an attorney who also runs a small travel agency in the city of Polokwane, experiences that lost economic activity every time the power is cut. "New clients can't call me ... That means no money is going to come into my business," the 29-year-old said. "It's hell." As they battle to simply mitigate the worsening crisis, telecommunications companies have seen operating costs balloon. Vodacom and MTN executives told Reuters they're having to divert capital away from much needed network upgrades and 5G rollouts. Meanwhile, they said government regulations are blocking potential solutions, such as sharing backup power infrastructure with their competitors, and revealed they're lobbying authorities to help ease the pain.
They're spending millions to install solar panels, batteries and are even trialling wind turbines, while targeting deals with independent power producers to supplement struggling state utility Eskom's increasingly unreliable output, three company executives told Reuters. At stake: essential voice and data services in a nation where landlines are rare but nearly 80% of residents have access to mobile internet. Overall, the power crisis and logistical constraints are expected to erase 2 percentage points from economic growth this year, according to the South African Reserve Bank governor. Mary-Jane Mphahlele, an attorney who also runs a small travel agency in the city of Polokwane, experiences that lost economic activity every time the power is cut. "New clients can't call me ... That means no money is going to come into my business," the 29-year-old said. "It's hell." As they battle to simply mitigate the worsening crisis, telecommunications companies have seen operating costs balloon. Vodacom and MTN executives told Reuters they're having to divert capital away from much needed network upgrades and 5G rollouts. Meanwhile, they said government regulations are blocking potential solutions, such as sharing backup power infrastructure with their competitors, and revealed they're lobbying authorities to help ease the pain.
used to be a decent country (Score:5, Insightful)
sort of slid into decrepitude over the past few decades.
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Would you say 30ish years ago was the start of the decline?
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Would you say 30ish years ago was the start of the decline?
Is that you, Elon?
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South Africa was always a tragedy waiting to happen. In Apartheid the future tragedy was contained by another tragedy. The main problem was that the whites did not spend enough on education and better infrastructure for everyone while they had the time. But one doubts if that would have been financially viable.
One thing about South Africa nit very clear to outsiders is that the Apartheid state was in many ways a theocratic dictatorship. The extremely conservative Calvinists did a lot to keep things backward
Re:used to be a decent country (Score:5, Interesting)
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That is around when they signed a trade and military cooperation agreement with Russia, so that could be it. That's what you meant, right?
Their power company used to be the best run (Score:5, Interesting)
Their power company used to be the best run and most reliable in the world.
https://www.news24.com/fin24/e... [news24.com]
How things change..
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Perhaps. But you're ignoring that mobile phone networks in the US tend to go out during disasters in a way that the wired phone lines were never allowed to.
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But you're ignoring that mobile phone networks in the US tend to go out during disasters in a way that the wired phone lines were never allowed to.
It is not about wired phones lines not being "allowed" to go out during disasters. It is just an inherent fact of the mobile networks technology: we replaced physical landlines, able to withstand disasters, and which needed very little energy to operate, with Single Point of Failures called radio towers, each one needing its own energy supply to actually work.
I don't know about the rest of the world, but in France those radio towers have batteries, or sometimes (less and less nowadays) onsite generators. Th
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It's "allowed to". There were design decisions made during the implementation of the systems that were different. To an extent this was inevitable, but not to the extent that it happened. The system is as fragile as it is because it was cheaper to implement it that way.
oh look, racist dutch with modpoints (Score:1)
-1, Clogged
Re:oh look, idiot UK guy with -2 karma. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: used to be a decent country (Score:5, Interesting)
That they were colonized and oppressed?
Botswana is a democratic country in Africa and ranked the least corrupt country in Africa. It managed to transform itself out from under an oppressive colonization.
Botswana is a unique exception (Score:3)
Nowhere else in Africa has had a solid record of democracy since independence. The fact that one example exists makes the failure of the others even more culpable; they could have done better.
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Interesting insight (Score:4, Insightful)
I tend to the theory that there are very few democracies in the world, and the manipulation of the USA by the financially powerful makes its democracy as dubious those of Africa in terms of ensuring that the real interests of the people are being served. Probably not entirely true, but not wholly unconvincing. It is certainly possible to see the removal of Liz Truss as the UK's prime minister as an example of a coup. The only redeeming feature of democracies therefore becomes that there is at least a measure of freedom of speech, although the woke have joined the hard right in seeking to deny us even that...
How depressing!
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I think of the USA as more of a republic then a democracy. Sure, we vote but your 1/330M of a vote means basically nothing. I want to say the number of people each House of Reps actually represents is somewhere in the ballpark of 750k people. So you have 1/750k of influence with your vote.
This leads us back to those who have the gold have the power. Same as it ever was.
USA is all about business (aka making money). Rich people that were tired of taxes started a revolution to avoid paying taxes to England. Sl
No easy solutions (Score:2)
History seems to make it blindingly obvious that free market capitalism is the most effective way to achieve the raising of the poor out of poverty. Unfortunately this also tends to create very wealthy people when they get their bets rights, sometimes because they really do introduce a major breakthrough, though too often they protect themselves and continue to generate excess profits for too long. Unfortunately we've not found a way to prevent the billionaire class wielding excess political power. OTOH all
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Re: Botswana is a unique exception (Score:2)
Plus they were smart enough to just put on the odd suit and pretend to run the country while secretly leaving the whites in charge.
Contrast Botswana to Rhodesia and now SA.
Quite a few of my (black) ex Zim and SA workmates all agree that the last 30 years or so was a mistake and they were better off in the old days.
Their words, not mine. They lived it, they know. Their families are still there and they're slowly getting them out.
They don't need a bunch of privileged white bed wetters sitting behind their iph
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Botswana has a population of 2 million, only one tribe and has one of the biggest diamond mines in the world. This means no tribal conflicts and enough money to pass into things like education. The fact that almost all of the population lives close together makes it easier to build infrastructure
They can afford to be democratic.
Like India then? Which has a space program (Score:2)
And nuclear weapons.
I'm afraid the poor colonised natives trope is proven garbage and simply used as an excuse now.
Re: used to be a decent country (Score:2)
Didn't Haiti exterminate their white "colonisers"?
How are they going these days ?
Asking for a friend.
That's the lie Americans tell themselves (Score:3)
The reality is that their decision to rebel triggered disastrous revolutions of the 19th and 20th century, as well as reducing the strength of the British Empire in resisting the German menace in the World Wars. As well as costing African Americans an extra 30 years of slavery - given that slavery was abolished in the British Empire in the 1830s.
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It's no accident that a major portion of the revolution was related to the culinary of the British Empire (tea).
Thank you (Score:2)
I was in serious need of a laugh and got me laughing a lot. Much appreciated.
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You can't blame them for wanting freedom and self-determination. The blame lies with the British for creating that situation in the first place. The world would be very different without colonialism.
What, like the Southern states wanting freedom? (Score:2)
Should Texas have the right to secede from the USA today? If not, why not? And then there's Scotland, and Catalonia, and Chechnya, and Tibet, and...
Once you start engaging with hard questions like that, the problems rapidly accumulate. ;)
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And the Western Cape in South Africa. https://capexit.org/ [capexit.org]
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New one on me; thank you.
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The difference between America, Australia on the one hand and South Africa on the other? South Africa did not actually exterminate almost all of the native inhabitants.
Re: used to be a decent country (Score:2)
Neither did the Australians.
Any isolated land mass was prey to the infectious diseases carried by late arrivals, but there was NO wholesale deliberate extermination of the locals when the Europeans arrived in OZ and went on to found the best nation to have ever existed.
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Re: used to be a decent country (Score:2)
In they've had 30+ years and have run it into the ground.
You still blaming your life failures when you're 44 on not getting that bike for your 10th birthday ?
There comes a time that you've been at the reins for long enough that it's your fault if everything is off the rails.
Mandela was a terrorist who died drowing in his own filth. A fitting end.
Any SA able to speak up? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Any SA able to speak up? (Score:5, Informative)
Deal with the devil. (Score:2)
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Theynwill not get back in power. They might go and live in a few small self sufficient communities but honestly by far the majority of whites are not nazi boere and do not want to live in a desert town run by a bunch religious fanatics.
It's very obvious why... (Score:2, Interesting)
Because under Apartheid, the economy and state were controlled primarily by people of European or Asian descent. There are no black countries that have ever reached the level of technical, artistic and political capabilities of Europe, the Middle East, Asia or even Central and South America. The closest Africa has ever produced is Ethiopia which is very
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Jared Diamond had an explanation of this. Worth considering. See: "Guns, Germs and Steel". Something about availablility of grains - like wheat or barley
Africa was Rome's breadbasket. They produced wheat.
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Yes; and in the case of South Africa its some very productive farm land - that is why the English and Dutch were there.
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Jared Diamond had an explanation of this. Worth considering. See: "Guns, Germs and Steel". Something about availablility of grains - like wheat or barley
Africa was Rome's breadbasket. They produced wheat.
That was NORTH Africa, in which lived Berbers, not Black Africans.
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Not really. People like to bring up Jared Diamond even though virtually everything in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" has been debunked several times.
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My sister is a vet in South Frica and she has a domesticated Zebra. and a small antelope which lost a leg in a trap as a baby
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Is there a book that covers this debunking? I'd love to read the opposing viewpoints without having to spend forever tracking all the papers down.
Re: It's very obvious why... (Score:2)
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Even before the slave trade
Also remember that more whites were abducted and enslaved than blacks. [osu.edu] This was the cause of the Barbary Wars. [wikipedia.org]. I agree with your comment about Ethiopia. Trouble is, they are a long way from the policies of King Selassie and have embraced a lot of communism, which has held them back.
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Also remember that more whites were abducted and enslaved than blacks. [osu.edu]
That does not actually seem to be the case from the article you link. It talks about up to 1.25 million white Europeans enslaved. 10X that many Africans were enslaved in the Americas alone. Also, this was in North Africa, not sub-Saharan Africa. Making that distinction seems to be very important to others in this discussion, so I thought I should point that out.
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Re:It's very obvious why... (Score:5, Insightful)
As a former South African, let me just add some nuance here.
The biggest crime of colonialism was not colonialism itself, but incomplete colonialism. What I mean by this is colonialism typically destroys the existing leadership in a society and tries to replace it with the colonizers or some variation thereof.
What happened in Africa was particularly bad as the existing leadership was destroyed (even if you think it was tribal and backwards), Sometimes they were at best pushed to ceremonial positions. And the Europeans left before putting in place sustainable new leadership.
Case in point is talking about Ethiopia being 'the best by African standards' Any coincidence that it was also one of few areas NOT colonized. Closer to South Africa, you'll notice much better leadership in Botswana... because the Botswana leadership was less destroyed.
So while you can point to a slice of history and say black societies were 'backwards' or indigenous societies were backwards and it would be a true statement. I think a far more important point as it relates to government is their traditional leadership was often destroyed and left incomplete. They're often a worse spot than they were pre-colonization.
Technology and what not can be adapted to pretty quickly. That's actually the easy part of the equation. Social and leadership structures are much harder.
Re:It's very obvious why... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh look. Someone is wrong on the internets. What to do.
As an actual South African, the issue has far less to do with colonialism or oppression than tribalism. Africa remains infected with Tribalism. The tribe has no use for education, (which, despite fallacious claims above, was provided in Apartheid ZA). The Tribe has no use for progress, development or infrastructure. The Tribe worships autocratic rule and loathes losing members due to opportunities elsewhere. The Tribe is all about subsistence and has no need for future planning. The Tribe is violent, petty and indolent. There is a common phrase most expats would recognise - Africa Time.
Instead of embracing the tribes, they should have been shunted out of the way to permit progress. They were allowed to fester and under ANC rule they were given even greater influence because they represented a guaranteed voting block. Instead of side-lining the slew of dead languages and adopting any single language of international trade, the ANC crowed about how "we have 11 official languages" and then consigned multiple generations of children to zero future because - shocker - nobody speaks their language, has no use for their unskilled and fragmented education status or their inability to apply critical thinking in any meaningful way
The ANC and its supporters are a fantastic example of African Excellence. Credulous. Incompetent. Corrupt. Criminal. Negligent. Delusional. Violent. Everything they touch, everything they attempt, immediately results in tragic failure - something they are almost perpetually surprised by because - they're the Great Liberators.. .right?
Africa fails because Africa cannot solve the Tribe problem. Cultures can't leapfrog over this stage in their development. Western cultures went through the same pain. They just did a better job of it.
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Hey, that's not just in Africa, Europe has it too, for example the Italian time zone, which is CEST + 15-45 minutes.
Or sometimes just domani, which is like the Spanish mañana but without the sense of urgency.
Agree about the tribalism problem though, your primary loyalty is to your tribe, not the government, meaning the rule of law.
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for example the Italian time zone, which is CEST + 15-45 minutes.
Italy never had a timezone CEST+15-45minutes. It had solar mean time (also called local mean time) which was calculated based on the movement of the sun and made perfect sense way back then. That was 49minutes ahead of GMT.
You know what else made sense? That they abandoned that well over 100 years ago. Italy's timezone is CEST recognised in all parts of the country without exception.
Re: It's very obvious why... (Score:2)
My expat SA friends say exactly the same thing.
That's why they're out. It's a basketcase and thank god Botha was smart enough to deny to commie ANC animals the nukes and delivery systems.
Banging each other over the head with a brick and eating the results is more their style.
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Yeah, it's amazing what the minority can accomplish when they treat 90% of their country's population as vassals.
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Except for ancient Egypt, a world leader in its day.
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Yep, the reddish-brown, ochre-colored people of Europe. Spot on.
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That really depends on what century you look at. Personally I blame the tse-tse fly (sleeping sickness) and malaria for a lot of their problems, but, among other things, Africa had one of the first iron working cultures. And somewhere down there (location unknown) was one of Egypt's prized trading partners.
There were decent civilizations in Africa when Northern Europe was entirely uncivilized tribesmen. But most of Africa is...difficult.
I'll grant that this doesn't explain South Africa, but it explains w
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Why describe them as "black" countries though? Why not say "nations blighted by colonialism"?
The point is that those countries have not reached European levels not because they are majority black, but because of the history of European colonialism.
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I know you either think you're being reasonable or at least pretending to be, but what you're saying simply is not true. Consider ancient Egypt, for example. Through large parts of its history, it was a majority black kingdom. Or the Mali empire. The Mali empire is actually a fairly good example of the problem. They reached a high level of technical, artistic and political capabilities. When they were wealthy from the gold trade, that is. The problem they had is that they didn't actually mine the gold thems
Re:Any SA able to speak up? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not from SA, but this is obviously a case of what happens when race not competence decides who is in power, just like Zimbabwe, but not as rapid a decline, even if democratically elected. SA also suffered white flight, losing vast amounts of talent.
One can argue the white flight occurred because they could no longer live on the backs of the slave class, but nevertheless they took their talent with them when they left.
Re: Any SA able to speak up? (Score:2)
SA here. What is the difference between Zimbabwe and South Africa?
25 years
25 years? (Score:2)
Zimbabwe got independence in 1980. Apartheid ended 1993 or so. South Africa remained economically healthy far longer Zimbabwe - though I agree it's looking very bad now.
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To be honest, Rhodesia, Zimbabwes predecessor state, did not have any meaningful industrialization, unlike South Africa. So there was. Ot much to build on. Robert Mugabe was also way more Marxist than the senior ANC leadership. At least the ANC tried to maintain a semblance of being an inclusive somewhat democratic organization. ZANU and ZAPU ( and the MPLA and SWAPO) were little personality cults.
The white South Africans always saw the Rhodesians as a bunch of bush-whacking frontiersmen. Adventurous Englis
Re:Any SA able to speak up? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) The cold war ended - not nearly as much US diplomatic interest and money running around
2) That 'fractiousness' you mentioned. There is a large (mostly white) SA diaspora in the USA. That left in the 1990s and early 2000s it was not because of racism or anything like that if you get to know them. They left because they felt certain persons (not groups) came to power who were more interested in litigating the past and "getting even" than moving the nation forward and running a society that is fair to everyone. Independent of if you believe their is room in the sphere of justice to punish the children for the sins of their fathers; certainly once you become more focused on reparations, redistribution and equity than in productivity problems will ensue.
Re:Any SA able to speak up? (Score:5, Insightful)
certainly once you become more focused on reparations, redistribution and equity than in productivity problems will ensue
Like the USA now. The USA is more focused on reparations, redistribution of wealth and equity than in what goes into running a country.
This varies by state and city, but it's "generally" true.
If Americans don't stop this in the USA right now, USA will be the next country to slowly crumble into dust, leaving China and Putin's New USSR to be the world's Bestest, Most Special Friends.
They'll make the USA look downright benevolent in comparison.
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If it wasn't for r
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Back in the 50s and 60s when we had very high marginal tax rates and a de facto limit on income, we were a very innovative country.
Not exactly. Kennedy cut the highest tax bracket by 20%, and innovation was not unique to this time as it has blossomed in the US from the nineteenth century up until today under both conservative and progressive administrations. Think railroads, cars, planes, radio, etc, etc.
More public spending, more research from government and university labs etc. there were some significant private labs like Bell Labs but they function like a university lab and made a lot of their research available to the public.
Public spending in the US starting increasing substantially in the 1930s. The economy didn’t start taking off until twenty years later.
If it wasn't for racism, the 50s and 60s were pretty good years.
Again, not exactly. The fight against racism started in the early 19th century and continues.
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It's the opposite of that. The US was at the height of its power when productivity gains were enjoyed by workers as well as employers. That hasn't been the case for some decades now, and many of the problems that the US is facing is caused by that decline in people's wealth.
As an example, look at the MAGA guys who tried to stage a coup. They want to make America great *again*, as in back to how it was in the good old days when their productivity gains were enjoyed as increasing wealth. One person with an av
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They left because they felt certain persons (not groups) came to power who were more interested in litigating the past and "getting even"
Whatever happened to Nelson Mandellas Truth And Reconciliation Commission? And the amnesty that TAR was supposed to grant past bad deeds once confessed?
I guess this is something to consider in the face of CRT.
Re: Any SA able to speak up? (Score:2)
Is it not a GRRRREAT thing then that a very loud portion of the political spectrum desperately tries to also get even with the past in the US?
What could possibly go wrong!
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Simple answers: Corruption, incompetence and (in the case of the riots against foreigners) xenophobia.
Some of the incompetence is the legacy of apartheid... Blacks in South Africa were never given the proper tools to create and manage a government. The corruption and xenophobia, though... that's the ANC's own fault.
Re: Any SA able to speak up? (Score:5, Interesting)
They had a long transition period and plenty of whites to show them how to run things. They weren't interested. Like the rest of sub saharan africa all they wanted was to get their hands into the cookie jar and do favours for family and cronies.
A lot of people predicted this is where SA would end up but naturally were dismissed as racists by the usual lefties. Oh well, cant educate pork.
Apartheid (Score:1)
Re:Apartheid (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much. In handing the keys over, they gave it to what's basically a kleptocracy. They didn't just take farms, they took farms, handed to their cronies who didn't have any clue on how to run a farm.
Then, when the farming equipment broke, due to neglect or abuse, they'd accuse the former owners of sabotage.
I mean, who knew that you need to change the oil in tractors occasionally? Keep irrigation lines buried or painted, not to mention patched up?
Etc...
Re: Apartheid (Score:2)
Racist South African soil stubbornly refuses to produce a crop once the new farm owners arrive and stare at it for a year while sitting under a tree drinking hooch and fighting.
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Populist affirmative action and class politics at a national level.
They put kleptomaniac socialists in power who played to their populist special interests at the detriment of societal well-being and, well, societal functioning.
Anyone who could do things and could leave, did. Those who could not leave - farmers - were (and are) systematically attacked and often murdered.
They'll have severe famine and collapse within a year.
Re: Any SA able to speak up? (Score:5, Interesting)
And any attempt to bring in renewables is taken as an offense by the mining unions who control a good chunk of the government.
The SA govt is technically a coalition of the SNC, The Communist Party and COSATU the union conglomerate
Re: Any SA able to speak up? (Score:4, Interesting)
And any attempt to bring in renewables is taken as an offense by the mining unions who control a good chunk of the government.
This is just untrue. Coal/gas actors in general are in favor of renewables, and against nuclear: they know renewables are intermittent, and need reliable baseload power sources like coal (for SA) or gas (take Germany for instance).
There is however a conflict of interest between Eskom and renewables, but it is more related to their debt structure and short-term reimbursments of past investments. Despite that, recent years have seen an increase in solar power in SA, but it brings its own challenge, like the fact that it doesn't help to support the grid during peak demand. You can find an hour-to-hour power generation graph for the day of June 27th, 2022, on this page [wikipedia.org]. You will see that even with their recent investment on solar, it only provides a comparatively small amount of power, and not at times it is most needed. Guess they will have to install more of those "expensive backup batteries" (quoting the article here). Of course, I am sure more optimist people, who don't live in the real world, will chime in to explain how batteries are the ultimate answer to that problem, and how they are so inexpensive and don't face their own set of problems.
We are just seeing what will happen to us too when we don't invest enough in baseload capacity, and we are forced to shutdown those coal/gas plants.
Settle on priorities (Score:3)
As the national power grid crumbles
Why is it "crumbling"? I would think fixing this basic problem would postpone other issues. Lots of money spent to fix things that are a problem because a very basic component (power) is missing.
And it seems that government is a problem there, from what I read.
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Because anytime they repair or replace things, they're stolen. If something is chained down, the chain will be taken along with whatever it's chained to. Unless it's under arm guard, it's only a matter of time before it's stolen. Most of South Africa doesn't have potable water now, either, and power has been unreliable enough that even charging devices has become problematic.
A racially integrated socialist paradise? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whites are moving away in droves from SA, so I guess the ANC got what they wanted. They made their bed, now they get to sleep in it. They got rid of apartheid then put the ANC in control. Now that they are "post-racial", what's wrong? Did Socialism fail spectacularly again? Try stealing more, maybe. That is usually the late-stage strategy for an end-game kleptocracy. At least they are the rape capital of the world,now. So, they aren't backsliding on all international measures.
Re: A racially integrated socialist paradise? (Score:2)
If only it was more diverse.
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Well, I think we can accept a few boers to Sweden now.
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Literally stealing stuff from rich people and giving it to poor people is not socialism.
Sure. As long as you don't pay attention to the part where they literally steal personal income and use the proceeds to bribe voters. Without that thuggish coercive element, the whole system doesn't work.
Socialism is generally ensuring that rich people don't control all basic services (Eg. education, communication, transport and healthcare)
The government does an absolutely terrible job at running all four, despite having control. Private education is far better (best teachers and students with consistently higher test scores). Private communication networks are cheaper and more accessible, and except for a few extreme examples, they are also
How is this the story? (Score:2)
Extreme crime rate (Score:2)
" A bank of expensive backup batteries, theft-proofed within a block of concrete."
This is the same company where you can have flamethowers installed on the sides of your car to stoo carjackings. Like something out of Mad Max.
Power cuts is clearly not their only problem.
Re: Extreme crime rate (Score:2)
"This is the same country where you can have flamethowers installed on the sides of your car by a legitimate company to stop carjackers."
Post will be deleted? (Score:3)
I know quite a few very popular platforms where posts and discussions like these would be deleted within 5-10mins.
Will be interesting to see how long it survives here.
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If the phone companies can spend millions on backups for cell towers, why not spend it to try to keep the electric grid from collapsing?
Because it's not from the same pool of money.
Same as you won't spend a dime to fix stuffs on your neighbour's house, because "it's not your damn problem". Even though having a shitty house next door devaluate yours.
Same as you won't spend a dime to fix climate change on a global scale, because "it's not our damn problem, China should reduce its emissions first", even though climate change is a problem that will/is affecting us in the long run (which is happening now, thanks to all generations before who wer