<story><title>Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serenata_de_Amor</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>diego_moita</author><text>Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms &amp;quot;vira-lata&amp;quot; (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes.&lt;p&gt;This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if you allow me to explain such disease bluntly, here it is: the Brazilian voter is astonishingly stupid. Brazilians vote very, very badly. Politicians with a long and explicit history of corruption are routinely re-elected and remain very popular (e.g: Maluf, Sarney, Calheiros, Collor, Lula and almost everyone in the 3 big parties: PMDB, PSDB and PT).&lt;p&gt;There is even a standard justification for this behaviour, people say &amp;quot;rouba mas faz&amp;quot; (he steals but gets things done).&lt;p&gt;Like in most of the 3rd world and countries with authoritarian history, the overwhelming majority of the Brazilian voters don&amp;#x27;t understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. I bet Turkey, Russia, Poland and Hungary are the same. Democracy goes far beyond the formal institutions, you need a civic heart, a belief within every citizen&amp;#x27;s mind that the public good matters a lot and affects everyone. In most 3rd world countries people just don&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;get&amp;quot; this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>binthere</author><text>I could probably be considered a &amp;quot;vira-lata&amp;quot; too as probably many other Brazilians that lost hope at their countries. But I welcome any initiative from people that did not. I think that a &amp;quot;better diagnosis&amp;quot; is a step forward to a better &amp;quot;treatment&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;I think that the stupid voter behavior is not part of the DNA of Brazilians. It is something that can change even if it looks very hard to do it. A lot of Brazilians are actually very tired of corruption, they know pretty well how bad things can get when politicians steal public money regardless of their level of education. They know it is that bad. Teachers don&amp;#x27;t get paid, policemen going on strikes, bridges falling, economy in shambles, etc. It affects their daily lives and it keeps getting worse.&lt;p&gt;I think that the &amp;quot;Rouba mas faz&amp;quot; might be true in some places but not everywhere. Now, think about it: you feel hopeless when you know that it&amp;#x27;s a problem but you don&amp;#x27;t know any better how to vote. How could you know? How can you trust 100% on someone else&amp;#x27;s integrity to represent you, specially in Brazil? It is at this point that the problem needs to be tackled from multiple angles. One of them being this initiative. Changing legislation, which happened, in regards to how campaign are run and who is eligible to become a candidate, punishing those who stole public money (Maluf is still in jail, Cabral is in jail, no everyone is in jail but justice is working now).</text></comment>
<story><title>Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Serenata_de_Amor</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>diego_moita</author><text>Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms &amp;quot;vira-lata&amp;quot; (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes.&lt;p&gt;This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if you allow me to explain such disease bluntly, here it is: the Brazilian voter is astonishingly stupid. Brazilians vote very, very badly. Politicians with a long and explicit history of corruption are routinely re-elected and remain very popular (e.g: Maluf, Sarney, Calheiros, Collor, Lula and almost everyone in the 3 big parties: PMDB, PSDB and PT).&lt;p&gt;There is even a standard justification for this behaviour, people say &amp;quot;rouba mas faz&amp;quot; (he steals but gets things done).&lt;p&gt;Like in most of the 3rd world and countries with authoritarian history, the overwhelming majority of the Brazilian voters don&amp;#x27;t understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. I bet Turkey, Russia, Poland and Hungary are the same. Democracy goes far beyond the formal institutions, you need a civic heart, a belief within every citizen&amp;#x27;s mind that the public good matters a lot and affects everyone. In most 3rd world countries people just don&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;get&amp;quot; this.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>onetimemanytime</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;Like in most of the 3rd world ...voters don&amp;#x27;t understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them.&lt;/i&gt;
All the above in US is called &amp;quot;lobbying&amp;quot; and it&amp;#x27;s legal, so you really can&amp;#x27;t jail anyone for it.&lt;p&gt;USA voters don&amp;#x27;t do much better, don&amp;#x27;t worry. We just have a printing machine that churns out new dollars at record pace so we face no debt deadlines.</text></comment>