The Impact of FOMO on Poor Nations

There's this recurring theme, whether we talk about crypto, climate issues, or the economy. A powerful country rolls out some "innovative" concept like green energy, digital currencies, or new job models and suddenly, less wealthy nations feel the push to jump on board, even if their situations are totally different. It's like FOMO, but on a global scale. Nobody wants to fall behind, right? When wealthier nations set the trend, poorer ones scramble to keep up, often without the necessary resources to manage the associated risks. Governments promote "green" initiatives, thinking they can benefit from foreign markets. Take Malaysia and Indonesia, for example. They're exporting what they call "used cooking oil" to produce sustainable aviation fuel. But the figures don’t add up. Malaysia reported exporting three times more than it could possibly generate. Much of that wasn't used oil at all, but fresh palm oil being rebranded. Why do that? Because the global market values "used" oil at nearly twice the price of fresh oil. It's basically a money-making scam. In 2024, the EU claimed to use 2 million tonnes of palm oil waste for fuel, but the reality is, the world only produces about 1 million tonnes. This discrepancy shows how the rules created an entire market for deception. A similar situation occurred in Northern Ireland with their renewable heat incentive. They were paying people to burn wood pellets, but the payout was more than the actual cost, leading folks to heat empty buildings just to pocket the easy cash. Ultimately, it cost taxpayers almost £500 million, and it didn’t even make a dent in climate issues. For smaller economies, it’s hard to escape that pressure. People really feel the burden.

The worlds poor? Define that for me. The poor I know are from my childhood, well I was one of them. Nothing though compares to someone poor here, where I happen to live now. Unbanked, unable to count, unable to save, grown up in a neighborhood where crime is the only option to make career.

You have are good point because poor countries imitating rich ones could be counterproductive. It is not wrong for developing nations to copy relevant ideas or technology from developed nations if it is beneficial. But when it is done without considering the peculiarities and diversities of these nations, it becomes a problem. If my country decides to implement green energy policies by promoting electric cars, it will backfire because many people in my country will not be able to afford such cars. Secondly, fuel price is cheap since we produce crude. We might never switch from petrol-powered cars to electric cars.. Sometimes developing nations are forced by developed nations to adopt policies. In some cases, loans, sanctions, and grants are used to coerce poor nations to copy policies from rich nations.

It's not just the industries, ideas and livelihoods that are being imitated by the countries that have smaller economies. But also the policies, they're copying policies from the larger economies thinking that it will be applied to them and will have the same outcome as the bigger ones. It's wrong to be honest, it can be a basis but the need of the people from smaller and larger countries are very different. I agree on this, it shouldn't just all about copying but also have some involvement of what their people actually needs, from resources, to livelihoods and anything related to having a better life. But what we see, it is the people, the citizens that are adjusting. If it's either doing more work and side hustles, they're migrating to a better country.

Copying something is never good in any concept because they never know the impact of the breakthrough. Many countries start racing to create something superior in any context, strive to be the best. But unfortunately, poorer nations lack the resources to follow suit, so copying is not the right solution. It's as if creating FOMO and being followed will ultimately complicate matters. Referring to rich countries with abundant natural resources yet remaining impoverished is strange. How can it be that their abundant natural resources are unable to adapt to current conditions? The reason is simple: they lack the human resources to process natural resources into more useful ones, or they are influenced by a corrupt government that only prioritizes its own interests. My country has abundant natural resources, but its poor population is no less numerous. For years, these resources have been exploited, yet the surrounding communities remain impoverished. Now let's look at individual issues and why economic difficulties remain so difficult to overcome. The answers are varied, and there are many reasons we could discuss. But when it comes to human resource capacity, I believe it's more about the ability of many people, but the opportunities they may not have.

You seem to have some really detached ideas with a poor link between cause and effect. You give 2 real examples with Northern Ireland being one, is this one of your supposedly poor countries? Well, you probably want to recheck that as it's not exactly Zimbabwe. Even politicians and policymakers in the richest countries in the world come up with terrible ideas which take a while to stop. Look at Saudi Arabia, drenched in oil money and pursuing useless projects like "The Line" in inhospitable regions with no necessity beyond being a vanity project of the king. You seem to get mixed up with understanding that there are plenty of people out there who will engage in fraud and cause bizarre distortions in the market due to poorly thought out subsidies, but it should be obvious that used cooking oil is less valuable than fresh cooking oil. Technology is often much harder to access in poorer countries, but it can be revolutionary when it is adopted and if it can do things like bring transparency or cleaner energy then it should be encouraged, but it has to be nurtured on a small scale first.

Poor countries do not have to follow, they just need to do what they do best, and focus on that as much as possible. Like if you are still an agriculture country, in todays world, it would be very tough to be as rich as the big nations, but at the very least, improve that, get better trucks, better machinery, better results, best produce, so that you can be a nation that makes enough for you, and that would be great. You are great at coding? Do that, have better schools, hire the best coding teachers, raise the best coders in the world. You want to be great at finance? Then do that, get the best math teachers for all around the nation, get the best finance education, basically focus on what you can do. Look at Singapore, what the hell did they have? Nothing at all, and now look at them.

I see economic inequality, which is common in several developing countries. They implement policies or more precisely, try to promote economic growth by imitating those of developed countries. This creates income instability. Ultimately instead of catching up with developed countries, more production is neglected. Foreign demand increases, while domestic resources to meet it are limited.

These are acute observations. It's not all FOMO, and it's good that big economies, which often are also the biggest pollutants, are moving toward green energy and other improvements. The ideas aren't bad, but they often don’t match local realities. Especially when the rules are made for the benefit of those already ahead. Real development means working with what you truly have, without copying, and with a clear understanding of what it’s for and who it’s meant to help. Ukraine, for example, tried moving toward a more eco-friendly path, but obviously, the ongoing war requires a lot of oil, a lot of fossil fuel, and brings a lot of destruction. So sometimes, it's also about the circumstances that make it very difficult and even impractical to follow important global trends.

Let's take a look at a big example of what's happening with FOMO, one of which is happening right now is AI, every country wants to have its own for their needs, even spending a lot of money and support so that this industry can stand firmly in their country without involving other countries, besides that, CBDC is still hot, many countries are following this method to digitize their currencies and yes, what's happening today is not finished and perhaps if we examine them, they are not ready in terms of human resources in their country.

Yes, such a situation in the world actually does exist. I recently learned that in fact all these stores that call for preserving the environment are nothing more than a trend designed for buyers and the desire to please them with concern for the environment. Although in fact, if you notice a plastic bag on a cloth bag, then this will very little save the environment. Firstly, it leaves a huge carbon footprint in nature. Secondly, in order for a woven bag to be of any use, it must be used about 200 times.

If it were simply a matter of imitating the experiences of rich countries, we would be fine, as they say in my country. Perhaps this is the least of the problems poor countries suffer from due to the corruption and stupidity of politicians. The corruption prevalent among the ruling elite in poor countries is the worst. When the ruler and the class surrounding him are the ones who steal the country's resources and capabilities, this is the real disaster. Many of the experiments in which poor countries have attempted to imitate rich countries have failed for a simple reason: the leaders responsible for the experiment are corrupt and inexperienced. Their primary goal is publicity to the public and the media, while the real goal is theft.

Convergence or the catch up effect don't work automatically, time, investments, and increase in production rate, assists poor underdevelop nations to, one day, hit similar prosperity with wealthy countries. However, in the creation of infrastructures, and technological facilities it's advisable to imitate already existing designs from rich nations. It's not Fomo they also want to grow.

This problem arises when the politicians are the ones making the decisions instead of experts. They don't even consult real experts, they get some report from some malicious actors and then act on it specially if that makes them "look good" and can get the polls up! In other words the system is broken and needs fixing...

What is wrong here is that politicians should be experts themselves. The governing body has to be full of competent people from different fields ready to share their own expertise in order for the collective to land on a decision that is most beneficial to their country. But nowadays, even if the politician is not credible enough they still win and they do not do their jobs very well.

Unfortunately, this problem has already occurred in several developing and underdeveloped countries. Some countries simply try to follow the trend of developed countries without first examining what developed countries have prepared before jumping in. And this is sometimes simply a matter of prestige or something similar on the part of politicians who genuinely don't understand what they're actually doing. All they care about is looking good and seeming reliable. And this is what happens when non-experts take control of a system they don't truly understand. And again, unfortunately, FOMO is currently very much present in some countries where they don't actually need to follow what developed countries are doing. Rather, they need to meet the needs of their people by utilizing their natural resources or potential. Sometimes, they look too much to other countries, so they lose focus on the needs of their own people. This is similar to how we focus too much on the success of others. Unconsciously, we stop moving forward and lose focus on developing ourselves. It is better to have your own idea and make others follow it, than to be a copycat who doesn't even know the risks they are copying.

The OP is right. We may not realize it and we may consider ourself poor. But having access to internet and a private device to access it makes us among the privileged group of people. We might have our own story, the struggles of our parents and our struggle which has led us to today where we are but almost all of us has some form of formal education and basic health service. Bitcoin and crypto is a solid technology and it has created a value but however decentralized its distribution maybe, it's still a very minute percentage of the world population. I don't have the exact data but what I can say for sure is more than half of the people in the world has never transacted any crypto. Let alone invest it for potential profit in the future.

When you copy someone without knowing why he's doing something and you didn't ask him why or ask a professional in that field, you will not have the ability to bring out the best from it. This does not only apply to countries but also to individuals. You will see a poor man trying to copy what a rich man is doing and forget that he does not have the large resources to meet up with what the rich man is doing. Don't copy to be in a race, so that create unnecessary set backs for yourself or the country you are leading.

Maybe because many resources have now been minded up for example? And then there are now lots of population and pollution. And then there are many parts of the world that are also literally poor. Being poor can have different meaning and apart from what is already said, we can also add what you said there of poor childhood. Again, it may not really be about money but maybe we have a broken family, we are being bullied, etc... I feel sorry for what you had experienced. You are not alone with that but I hope you guys can experience a better life later on if you haven't experienced it yet. If we are unbanked and it is hard for us to approach a real bank, there is always Bitcoin which is said also created for the unbanked.  The last thing that you said is scary but I think this isn't true at all. We only think there is no option but there is actually if we open our minds really well.

No options left for the poor countries though. If their government doesn't go along with these rich countries, it means they are against them. Most probably going to be sanctioned as well. Politicians in the poor countries looks smart when they follow this so called climate change because the media represents them like Environmentalist who will save the earth. In the end, nothing really is helping the climate.