Last week I got to enjoy a talk by Professor van de Walle about the political development of African countries throughout the past few decades. He focused particularly on the effect of foreign economic aid on these countries. I won’t pretend to be an expert on this topic; in fact, I know almost nothing about it. However, I learned quite a lot from this talk even though it was only an hour long. One of the best things about Cornell is how you can find experts on pretty much everything within a few miles radius of yourself. In this case, all I had to do was walk down the stairs from my room!

I found it particularly interesting how the US tends to give aid to African countries that establish democratic political institutions, and withhold it from countries with dictatorships (with a couple exceptions). I think that’s awesome because it could give incentive for these countries to overthrow their dictatorships, and I’m sure it has played a major role in establishing democracies across Africa in the recent decades. Although there are probably economic benefits involved, I like how the US and other democratic countries are able to look outside their borders and offer aid to those in need even if they live halfway around the globe. On the other hand, our country’s defense budget is probably like a hundred thousand times larger than our foreign aid budget, and that’s really a shame. I think the world should spend less money on destroying other countries and more money on helping out their fellow human beings. If an alien were to visit Earth, I think it would be really perplexed as to why we hate other people simply because of arbitrary borders.