My first post from Santiago de Chile. We moved here a few days ago for the summer. My wife is working at the Finnish embassy until the end of August.
First social policy issue I came up with was the problem of air pollution. It’s really heavy here. I haven’t seen such but in Delhi and there they had some natural explanations. But here everything is man-made. This whole 5 million-people city is in a deep valley and nature should show us the andes in all directions. What we see, however, is just “dust” – 360 degrees.
Why do people live here? One Finnish guy I met who came here 4 years ago said you won’t think about it but at the start. His comment made me think are we just so fucking flexible up to stupidity?
My second policy issue is somewhat related: why on earth do the people here produce just ranch and mining products for world markets? What would happen if this place called latin america would really push themselves into those “clean” computer and software industries?
I wrote something related into Open Magazine where I tried to make the case that this part of the world is culturally at the same level as US and Europe – and on the net the culture fundamentally rules. I hope.