I must admit I was confused to see xeer being posted to HN. Its interesting to contemplate the unique history of Somalia and the Somali people and how it fits into the greater African jigsaw puzzle.
I think the article is slightly misinformed however, the Sharia legal and judicial instrument which was adopted by the Somali people after the growth of the Muslim faith in the region was another system of justice and social order that arrived well before attempted European colonisation.
On a tangent, interesting things are happening with the Somali federal government now with respect to the telecommunications industry. Not only does Somalia now have its own top down domain (.so) but fiber optic lines are slowly being rolled out in the capital.
I find it ironic to think that in Australia the government is singing praises for copper network lines (after repealing the NBN) yet war torn anarchic Somali is pushing in the other direction. Somalia and Africas future really does look interesting.
> I find it ironic to think that in Australia the government is singing praises for copper network lines [...] yet war torn anarchic Somalia is pushing in the other direction.
Yeah, that is the point. It is not an apples to apples comparison between copper and fiber or wireless. Fiber and wireless do not require hanging dollar bills from wooden poles in impoverished war torn countries. Even if copper were a superior technology it would be hard to recommend investing in infrastructure that is going to be torn down and sold for scrap metal in order to feed someone's family.
"I must admit I was confused to see xeer being posted to HN."
Social media / web blog / MMORPG code of conduct / Karma scheme / online digital currency / standards of behavior all belong here?
If, today, on eveonline, or any other mmorpg, enough people wanted to roll a system out for conflict resolution, well, here's a historical system thats known to work and be stable and well documented, or documented well enough anyway. It might actually transplant successfully.
Much as most social media is essentially workforce automation for grade school girl playground scale interpersonal relations, there are obvious startup opportunities to provide distributed worldwide mediation services using proven stable and successful historical techniques with a thin patina of CRUD web app and mobile phone data harvesting app smeared over it. Although this paragraph is hyper sarcastic its also serious, there are obvious startup opportunities for a proven stable and workable mediation system. Other than having problems educating the participants, I see no particular reason it couldn't scale worldwide for mediation. MaaS is Mediation as a Service? I suppose the startup would base their support call center in .so for obvious reasons? Its a very interesting idea and I'm almost sorry to state it publicly because I'd almost want to roll it out myself.
If I were to start a private mediation system in the West I'd probably want my brand image associated more with sophisticated private mediation systems that already help resolve disputes within Western law, and less towards village elders deciding the level of blood money a clan must pay to forestall future family feuds
Oh, I may not have made that clear. I'd roll out outside the West and maybe enter the general US market, maybe not. The GDP of Africa as a continent is about $2T and growing relatively fast.
Interestingly, my understanding is that Somalia also has a fairly ubiqutious mobile payments system, which operates over SMS.
It's not perfect - it seems to rely on individual companies to remain honest, for instance - but one can go to a local market and add funds to their account with cash, then send those funds to others via a text message.
Seeing that such a system has still yet to take off in many industrialized countries, I find that pretty amazing :)
Why is it ironic that Australia is singing the praises of copper? Can you imagine anyone thinking it would be a good idea to hang dollar bills from wooden poles in a war torn country? After looking at Australia and Somalia's history, geography and current economic development why would anyone think what is good for one country would necessarily work for the other.
Starting off a low base means that African countries could protentially leapfrog developed countries technologically, at least. I remember similar points being made in the 1990s when we adopted "cutting-edge" (at the time) GSM in South Africa, because there were no entrenched network interests.
As an aside, in South Africa, there's a palpable sense of anxiety in the business press that we could be, in a few decades, overtaken by our neighbours to the north. We have entrenched interests, and inflexible and poorly educated labour force and a business world that has historically been dominated by monopolists.
Yes, leap frogging has always been the silver lining to playing catch up. Regardless of any technical arguments for or against copper, hanging dollars from wooden poles has never been a good idea in impoverished war torn countries.
I do not know much about the anxiety in SA. What competitive advantages do people fear from the northern neighbors?
Here's my opinion of why there's anxiety - although objective analysis and introspection are quite rare:
South Africa's school education system is dismal. The black education system was horrific, and designed to create a permanent underclass. The white education system, while far better, emphasised conformism, rather than innovation. Still it produced Elon Musk, so it couldn't have been that bad. Today, limited resources, poor planning, and stupid teachers (protected by a powerful union) have led to our near-bottom position in world rankings.
It was recently revealed that the dominant teachers' union has been selling posts in some provinces (in black schools). Bizzarely, parents in School Governing Bodies, who would presumably be expected to look after their childrens' interests, were in on this scam. The rest of Africa seems to have less dysfunctional education systems.
A more sensitive point is that South Africa also has a small middle class (largely white), with a huge amount of wealth, but diminishing brain power due to emigration. Their self-preservation instincts mean that development is often stifled because of their needs. Want to build a high-density development close to a city centre, or a rapid-transit system? Not near these NIMBYs (they delayed a much-needed Bus Rapid Transit link between central Johannesburg and Sandton for years because it passed their leafy suburbs, it was finally rerouted last year). Want to build a high speed train service, for these same people - one that they have come to love? Their political representatives tried to kill it. Want to improve the freeways funded by electronic tolling to eliminate multi-hour traffic delays? - they try their utmost to sabotage it. Social solidarity is dead, and many are utterly opposed to transformation - many white government school governing bodies have managed to create a situation akin to apartheid, by cheating on admissions, and co-opting a few government officials by allowing their children in. I expect this sort of attitude to backfire quite badly, which is why I am heading for the exits myself.
South African business is dominated by monpollists, and the government lacks the skill to rein them in. Our dominant cellphone networks have been ripping consumers off for years, and use the judicial system to stymie remedies.
Yes. The rest of Africa seems to offer a "clean slate" and a decent attitude. An SA school principal told me a story: a Cameroonian technician was installing a security system at his school's computer centre. The Cameroonian was contemptuous of South Africa - he said no one would steal from a school in Cameroon, since it was a place of learning. Whether or not he was blowing smoke, it seems to sum up the perceived differences between SA and the rest of Africa.
Another way to look at it is that white South Africans jealously guard their piece of the pie. Black South Africans are trying to get a bigger slice of the same pie. Other countries in Africa are focused on growing their pies. Oh, and the South African stock market is booming because South African companies find it more profitable to help the rest of Africa bake pies.
Right next door to Cameroon there is an issue where non-South Africans have not just stolen equipment from a school, but hundreds of actual students. The Cameroonian in that anecdote does not paint an accurate picture of the sanctity of schools in a "South Africa vs Rest of Africa" sense. It may be the case in his own locality (and many others), but that doesn't mean the rest of the continent follows the same rules apart from SA.
Speaking of geography, .au has at least some copper mines, and they're a reasonably advanced nation, so they can likely supply locally made copper cables, which might be more economic than shipping fiber and fiber gear from "somewhere" to .au. Maybe it would be more economical to export large diameter power cables to "somewhere" while importing fiber, but its not a total no-brainer and requires at least some research to determine the optimum.
.so doesn't have much for resources other than pirates and hungry people, so if they're going to have to import everything, may as well be the new stuff.
Another way to look at .au vs .so is .au is very sparsely populated other than coasts so "most people" will likely end up using wireless for everything, and copper only in unusual areas, and perhaps not so in .so where a very substantial fiber investment might be required to pepper the entire country with wireless towers.
Inherently fiber "should be" much cheaper tech that copper, but due to existing infrastructure and historical economic conditions, its currently applied the other way around, so expensive fiber is for big cities and cell towers, but copper is for providing DSL to that cattle ranch 100 miles from civilization. If .so only serves the rich in the big cities, they have no use for copper to feed the rural poor who won't be getting service, as a theoretical example.
Another way to look at .au vs .so is .au is very sparsely populated other than coasts so "most people" will likely end up using wireless for everything, and copper only in unusual areas
Australia has a 90% urbanisation rate, which is one of the highest of all non-city-state nations[1], though our cities are quite spread out. It's a total myth that we're all comfortable in the Outback, one that most of us seem to believe ourselves. We're suburbanites and urbanites, as a rule of thumb.
Regarding the costs, laying new fiber is more expensive than not laying new copper, but the copper circuits we have are so old that maintenance costs are ballooning. There's not really a serious cost argument for or against the NBN, it's really about politics.
copper is for providing DSL to that cattle ranch 100 miles from civilization
DSL doesn't stretch that far, by an order of magnitude (perhaps two orders) :)
> which is one of the highest of all non-city-state nations
This is somewhat misleading. One of the "highest" non-city-state and non-micro-island nations behind South Korea, Japan, Argentina, Iceland, Israel, Uruguay, Venezeula, Belgium, Kuwait, Qatar and tied with Chile.
Yes, I think that being in the top 5% is a requirement for being one of the highest. To be honest I would prefer to restrict "one of the highest" to the top 2.3%
Top 2.3% it is, then. However, the central theme of my point was that everyone (including ourselves) sees us as a rural nation, focusing on the outback, when we're actually a society of [sub]urbanites, despite the landmass.
Perhaps you have some facts to support the Australian argument; but generally older tech is supported and propped up by entrenched interests, focused on their own profit margins, public good be damned.
Perhaps you can explain why you think I support the Australian argument? My question about OP's concept of irony is not an endorsement of Australia's policy. Or perhaps you can explain why you think Somalia and Australia have a lot in common?
He's not saying the irony is coming from Somalia's shunning of copper, but from Australia's shunning of fiber in favor of an older technology. The irony is that the poorer country has the superior tech. You simply seem like someone who wants to point out that running copper is like hanging dollar bills because, you know, the Poors.
> seem like someone who wants to point out that running copper is
> like hanging dollar bills because, you know, the Poors.
I do not not know what this means. What kind of person is that?
I have never seen a civil society / NGO telecom development project that did not rule out running copper in an impoverished country with a weak government. Have you? The problem is not "the poors." The problem is a failed economy and no rule of law.
>The problem is a failed economy and no rule of law.
You obviously have no clue about the real happenings of Somalia. The standards of living, core metrics like life expectancy, all of them really except school enrollment, have increased despite being anarchic for the last 20+ years. In comparison to neighbors like Ethiopia, Somalia is doing well. If you look at mobile adoption and access to tech, the improvement in Somalia outshadows most other African countries.
There is the rule of law where Xeer is used. Xeer is suppressed only in the area of the south where war is being waged between UN insurgents and al-Shabaab fighters. The rest of the country beyond Galkayo (Puntland and Somaliland) is not a "failed economy" by any measure besides the faulty assumption that an economy requires strict intervention in a western-progressive style.
> The standards of living, core metrics like life expectancy, all of
> them really except school enrollment, have increased despite being
> anarchic for the last 20+ years.
Can you provide any of these statistics?
I am genuinely interested in seeing these statistics because the picture you paint of Somalia is much rosier than the picture painted by the people at the Somali-Bantu Community Center in my county. I am trying to keep an open mind but I have to admit my skepticism about the situation in somalia meant that I read your comment as:
"All of the core metrics [except education but everyone knows education is a useless metric for judging living conditions] in Somalia have increased [from zero] because it has been hellish in Somalia for twenty years.
There is a functioning economy and rule of law in Somalia [if you exclude the south where there is not a lot of positive things to talk about except that the government official targeted in yesterdays car bombing was not among the 11 people killed]."
>Imagine any part of the globe not being dominated by a central government and the people there surviving, even prospering. If such were to happen and the idea spread to other parts of Africa or other parts of the world, the mystique of the necessity of the state might be irreparably damaged, and many politicians and bureaucrats might find themselves walking about looking for work.
>If the expectation was that Somalia would plunge into an abyss of chaos, what is the reality? A number of recent studies address this question, including one by economist Peter Leeson drawing on statistical data from the United Nations Development Project, World Bank, CIA, and World Health Organization. Comparing the last five years under the central government (1985–1990) with the most recent five years of anarchy (2000–2005), Leeson finds these welfare changes:
- Life expectancy increased from 46 to 48.5 years. This is a poor expectancy as compared with developed countries. But in any measurement of welfare, what is important to observe is not where a population stands at a given time, but what is the trend. Is the trend positive, or is it the reverse?
- Number of one-year-olds fully immunized against measles rose from 30 to 40 percent.
- Number of physicians per 100,000 population rose from 3.4 to 4.
- Number of infants with low birth weight fell from 16 per thousand to 0.3 — almost none.
- Infant mortality per 1,000 births fell from 152 to 114.9.
- Maternal mortality per 100,000 births fell from 1,600 to 1,100.
- Percent of population with access to sanitation rose from 18 to 26.
- Percent of population with access to at least one health facility rose from 28 to 54.8.
- Percent of population in extreme poverty (i.e., less than $1 per day) fell from 60 to 43.2.
- Radios per thousand population rose from 4 to 98.5.
- Telephones per thousand population rose from 1.9 to 14.9.
- TVs per 1,000 population rose from 1.2 to 3.7.
- Fatalities due to measles fell from 8,000 to 5,600.
>I am genuinely interested in seeing these statistics because the picture you paint of Somalia is much rosier than the picture painted by the people at the Somali-Bantu Community Center in my county. I am trying to keep an open mind but I have to admit my skepticism about the situation in somalia meant that I read your comment as:
>"All of the core metrics [except education but everyone knows education is a useless metric for judging living conditions] in Somalia have increased [from zero] because it has been hellish in Somalia for twenty years.
>There is a functioning economy and rule of law in Somalia [if you exclude the south where there is not a lot of positive things to talk about except that the government official targeted in yesterdays car bombing was not among the 11 people killed]."
Bantu in Somalia are part of the chaotic southwest. The southwestern provinces such as Bay and Bakool have recently either declared autonomy from Mogadishu or have started to discuss it.
The port city of Kismayo had been a pivotal stronghold for al-Shabaab who held it for the past few years. Al-Shabaab has lost a ton of ground in the past year whereas it had controlled the majority of south Somalia for the three years or so prior.
There was a shit ton of military action and natural disasters such as the drought affecting this area, so certainly this part of the country is no utopia.
The other parts of the country is like another world. As al-Shabaab has lost ground in the south, they have moved some operations to the divided city of Galkayo. 1/3 of the city is controlled by the south and whatever Transitional Government is ruling now while the other 2/3 of the city is part of Puntland. This is about the extent of violence in Somalia. Coincidentally, the 2/3 of the geographical area of Somalia besides south of Galkayo.. the Horn and Somaliland, are relatively peaceful with only a dash of violence spreading from the UN conflict zone.
Education matters, I was just mentioning the truth that all metrics have improved besides schools. You can make of that what you want. There was no real widespread schooling system before and there isn't one still. The UN-backed Transitional Government is having a hard time keeping terrorist bombings out of Mogadishu, so it isn't anywhere near spreading schools around the country.
Is the 2007 blog post titled "The Rule of Law without the State" from a well known libertarian organization your only source for these statistics?
> verify any of these statistics yourself
Do you define verify any of these statistics as 25% of these statistics? Because I could only find the following on the CIA page. (The UNDP and the IMF list Somalia as data deficient.)
- Physicians per 100,000:4 (this is tenth lowest and FYI the CIA uses per 1k)
- Infant mortality: 3rd highest 100 Afghanistan highest at 114.
- Maternal morbidity: 1,000 3rd behind South Sudan (2,000) and Chad (1,100)
>Is the 2007 blog post titled "The Rule of Law without the State" from a well known libertarian organization your only source for these statistics?
The article is using the following sources as mentioned therein: "statistical data from the United Nations Development Project, World Bank, CIA, and World Health Organization"
You obviously have some sort of state apologist agenda by your intellectually dishonest statements here.
If you are going to start spitting out statistics, you better provide a source as well.
"Physicians per 100,000:4 (this is tenth lowest and FYI the CIA uses per 1k)"
Where are you getting 4 per 100K from? The CIA factbook says 4 per 1,000.
"Infant mortality: 3rd highest 100 Afghanistan highest at 114."
"Maternal morbidity: 1,000 3rd behind South Sudan (2,000) and Chad (1,100)"
Meanwhile the the facts are: 'Infant mortality per 1,000 births fell from 152 to 114.9' and 'Maternal mortality per 100,000 births fell from 1,600 to 1,100'
The point is there was improvement, not that Somalia is a great place to live based on first-world country standards, so saying, "Oh that is still the 3rd worst in the world!" is utterly irrelevant.
"Sanitation Down to 23%"
After an increase in the period discussed, the first 5 years of anarchy. The CIA Factbook currently says 23.6% for improved sanitation facilities, versus 26% mentioned in the article. Is this 3 percentage points of decrease that important?
The fact remains that things have generally gotten better for Somalia despite the terrible military and economic intervention.
I thought I had provided a source when I started spitting out sentences and statistics like: "Because I could only
find the following on the CIA page." But I can make it even easier for you if you would like:
>> "Physicians per 100k:4 (this is 10th lowest...)"
> Where are you getting 4 per 100K from?
> The CIA factbook says 4 per 1,000.
Or do you need a source for the math? I do not think converting 0.04/1,000 to 4/100,000 is part of the proprietary math instruction I received at the state-apologist reeducation camp.
> The CIA Factbook currently says 23.6% for improved
> sanitation facilities, versus 26% mentioned in the
> article. Is this 3 percentage points of decrease that
> important?
I was not making a judgement about the merits of the 3% drop, merely reporting what I found when I could only verify 25% of the stats that you said I could verify any of. You thought that an 8% increase was noteworthy, why is a 3% move the other way so inconsequential? I just noticed that you emphasized improved this is getting to bee too much, did you read the definition of improved?
> Meanwhile the the facts are: 'Infant mortality per 1,000 births fell from 152 to 114.9' and 'Maternal mortality per 100,000 births fell from 1,600 to 1,100'
> The point is there was improvement, not that Somalia
> is a great place to live based on first-world country
> standards, so saying, "Oh that is still the 3rd worst
> in the world!" is utterly irrelevant.
When I said the problem in Somalia was "failed economy and no rule of law" you replied that I "obviously have no
clue about the real happenings of Somalia." Nothing you have presented points to the conclusion that the economy has not failed or that Somalia is reaping the benefits of the rule of law. "Things have improved, Somalia is no longer the absolute worst place to live on earth" is not the same as "functional economy and effective national government."
The current government is in it's first term and didn't win the election, the other major party lost it. The current government's electoral platform was a naive "we oppose everything those other guys do", which included the FTTH internet.
Now in power, they've realised what a stupid platform they've run on, since anything they do is breaking a "we won't do that" promise they made earlier. Abandoning the NBN is a relatively minor pledge that they can keep so it doesn't look like a total rout. Their Communications minister certainly doesn't give the impression that he thinks it's the right thing to do.
I find articles like this quite useful for developing my thoughts on algorithms I use - my first reaction when reading was 'could this be applicable to machine learning?'.
My thought is that it may be applicable if you're looking to find points of convergence, which classification of data by multiple classifiers may seek to do.
Would be a fun experiment. Do different classifiers who have been taught with different data sets tend to classify data points similarly? I'm unsure of an exciting real-world problem you could use where this would be beneficial over teaching one classifier with all of the data, but I'm also not super familiar with the math behind many of the classification algorithms out there.
Interesting. For example, with temporal data, like stock market data, some models might be "elders" in the sense that they are trained on longer spans of data, whereas, other models might be estimated just from the last few weeks.
I think the article is slightly misinformed however, the Sharia legal and judicial instrument which was adopted by the Somali people after the growth of the Muslim faith in the region was another system of justice and social order that arrived well before attempted European colonisation.
On a tangent, interesting things are happening with the Somali federal government now with respect to the telecommunications industry. Not only does Somalia now have its own top down domain (.so) but fiber optic lines are slowly being rolled out in the capital.
I find it ironic to think that in Australia the government is singing praises for copper network lines (after repealing the NBN) yet war torn anarchic Somali is pushing in the other direction. Somalia and Africas future really does look interesting.