In the last week, I got into a discussion over Panama, and I eventually suggested that everyone in the US ought to go and spend a full year in some full-up third-world country....to appreciate reality.
Panama was this oddball place, where you could exist on base or in the Canal Zone...in the first world. Then you'd go a mile or so....reaching some third-world zone. Then you travel a couple of miles to find some second-world zone.
Having a 6-hour power outage....you got used to the idea. Throughout a week, you'd have three or four two-hour outages, and maybe once a month....a whole evening or afternoon with the power out.
Having some stop-light intersection in town where lights were out for six weeks because of lacking bulbs? You got used to the idea.
Going to a restaurant where everything was cooked on a char-coal grill....because of no power in the place? Drinking warm Pepsi? You accepted that.
In the 3rd world, you don't really worry about hate-speech....you got better things to worry about.
I would imagine today, with cellphone towers....there's probably several hours a day in the Panama region where an outage occurs. Telling some American teenager that his Tik Tok was going to be out for the whole morning? He'd go nuts.
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