Reasons for so big undevelopment in Africa (discution on this isue...)

[Ramo]

It's a combination of many issues, but it boils down to these:

1. Colonialism. It of course is responsible for the general economic exploitation of Africa's people and resources, which affects events today. It created extremely inegalitarian distributions of wealth. It has destroyed communal solidarities, and has saddled people with no common bonds together (leading to point two).

2. Basically due to the crazy borders that were created, you've got constant nationalism-based military conflicts and assorted atrocities propagating them in African states, as well as economic conflicts (i.e. trade barriers between each other).

3. Protectionism on the part of developed states, which includes various sorts of trade barriers, silly loans often to dictatorial gov't's that their democratic successors have to deal with, your occasional military/economic intervention to back some brutal dictator, etc.

4. Of course, most of this was due to the fauna and flora (and climate) in Africa, which was relatively inhospitable to farming, ending up with not only Africans unable to defend themselves from Arabs and later Europeans, but an extremely culturally heterogenous place (relative to most other areas of the world), also helping towards point two.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Rothy
Wernazuma , you are indeed being quite foolish. The Race theory has been given it's +'s and -'s for the people here to consider, and everyone has the right to express thier opinion, so long as, on a sensative issue such as this they give Justification. My guess is that you are one of these hypocritical lefties, who likes to tell people what to think (take Mr Blair for an example of this).

Matt: There were no +s and -s of the theory given here (esp. by mr. rasslin), just blatant open racism without ANY foundation or argument (if you find one, quote it in your reply).
Just like Locutus has written, there was a number of important African civilizations in the past. Timbuktu was a global intellectual center in its heyday. (being situated in those areas of which you say that they make mentally lazy...)
So, does this mean that in the 13th century, black people were genetically wittier than Europeans?
Don't come here and think you can judge me by reading two posts. Read Rasslin's post first and then tell me again that I am a hypocrit. Racial theories don't have much credit in science for quite a bit of time, so you'll forgive that I don't repeat all the arguments against racial assumptions in response to a guy who did nothing else here than saying: "Blacks are dumb."

BTW., you didn't notice that Africa has quite a bit more than one climate? It's quite diverse, you know. Earlier european agricultural peoples didn't have to work less than African ones, except for a very few extreme areas maybe. Malnutrition was very common among Germanic tribes e.g., as archaeologists have proven. Civilization didn't develop where people had to "work less hard", but especially where they had to organize themselves in bigger communities in order to survive. (one example? Right, Egypt in Africa...) "Overcoming" problems is rather a driving force for civilazatory development. People living in abundance don't have a necessity to change anything - "abundance" is a characteristic of utopic concepts of the "first society" as European thinkers in the 16th and 17th century imagined it. Scarce resources lead to envy, envy to violence, violence to the need of better weapons (basically). Anyway, I could go on for much longer.
You don't know much about history, do you? Otherwise you might have notived that "invention" is not a European monopoly, nor that European history was a constant linear "evolution". If a hot climate is so adversary to "mental activity", why then wereKairo and other North African universities the creme de la creme in the Middle Ages.
History is much more complex than any racist or other singular theory (climate) could explain.

[Ramo]

I really don't want to get into yet another "race" debate, but some assertions in this thread just have to be refuted.

but the theory does have credit. The climite lends for people to concentrate on physical attributes rather than mental ones

Total and utter bull****. Living in a rainforest would require a great deal of mental prowess, where your life depends on your ability to keep track of your surroundings, the nature of the various plants, etc. Given your absurd assertion, I have to wonder whether such an environment would select out your genes.

In Europe where the Climate was very good, people did not have to work so hard to make basic ends meet,

Riiiiiight. Europe was pretty damn cold until 15,000 or so years ago. You know, there was an ice age and all that. It's not "very good" weather by any means. Europeans were just as busy as Africans.

and hence were able to concentrate on other things such as invention.

And a great capacity for invention has never been a selective pressure by an means (and even if it were, it couldn't possibly be to the extent of being able to make any appreciable change in mental capacities in the given time frame) in late human civilization (when Europeans have had "free time" relative to beforehand).

Asian countries like China developed fast and and powerful because Asians are naturally very intellegent people. Indians have absolutely sick math skills!

1. The sample is biased. Most Asians (particularly recent immigrants) in the US are unusally intelligent or affluent.
2. There are cultural differences that help to promote education.

If Asians aren't the strongest race, then explain how 2/3 people are Asian.

Natural resources and geography, in terms of domesticatable plants and animals, major rivers, large areas of similar climate, etc. have enabled Asians to develop civilization early and in many areas, and this combined with the fact that their societies still have high birth-rates (excluding China now) means that they now comprise most of the world. Give the Latin Americans a century or so, and their population would be far greater than Europeans. Do you think that means anything?

[Wernazuma III]

Indians have absolutely sick math skills!

That's probably the reason why thousands of Indian computer experts are hunted by industrialized European countries and the USA to go there...

[Ramo]

Given his general "Asians are ubermensch" theme, I think he means Indians have good math skills (sick being slang for good).

[Viking Berserk]

I think that racial theory is stupid!
We are more developed than the Asians.
Race does not effect your brain, only your look.

[NY Hoya]

colonialism and race. Guns, Germs and Steel is a pile of rubbish.

[Urban Ranger]

Natural resources and geography, in terms of domesticatable plants and animals, major rivers, large areas of similar climate, etc.

It helps to be big, too.

[Worthingtons]

Right, Wernazuma , Looking at Raslin's post you are probably right to be a little unhappy. 'Blacks are stupid' is no way to go about. I do not seek to judge you, but i dont people telling others what they must and must not think.

One thing that you do admit though, is that Indians can have better math skills, which is cleary a brain function related to race , so it surely possibly black people's brains work *differently* to white people's??? no?

Ramo, you make good points about Europe and living in a Rainforest, however, it is no mistake, that the Romans, who were one of the most sucessful Empires of all time (but not as good as the English of course) making legendary achievements, prospered in a very good climate. Their math/engineering skills thier people would have learnt to construct thier good buildings, will have no dought embedded themselves in the brains of future generations.

Cheers
Matt

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by Rothy

One thing that you do admit though, is that Indians can have better math skills, which is cleary a brain function related to race , so it surely possibly black people's brains work *differently* to white people's??? no?

It is clearly a function related to culture. I can't give you facts about India, but China was a civilization whose entire ruling gentry was selected based on scholarly prowess. That had an impact on culture, not genetics.

Ramo, you make good points about Europe and living in a Rainforest, however, it is no mistake, that the Romans, who were one of the most sucessful Empires of all time (but not as good as the English of course) making legendary achievements, prospered in a very good climate. Their math/engineering skills thier people would have learnt to construct thier good buildings, will have no dought embedded themselves in the brains of future generations.

Cheers
Matt

uh... no. Scientific advancements do not get embedded into DNA.

Also, the Romans were not impressive in Math anyway.

[Worthingtons]

Also, the Romans were not impressive in Math anyway

Hmm.... They cant have been poor, to have built colloseums in that time!!

[Urban Ranger]

The Roman numerals are very good for additions but suck completely for multiplications.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by Rothy


Hmm.... They cant have been poor, to have built colloseums in that time!!

Those were architectural achievements, and yes, they were pretty amazing.

but math... they pretty much ripped it off the Greeks.

Anyway, back to the topic: race, if it ever can be a factor, is not proven, and can hardly be proven given current science and technology. Since the scepter of power shifts periodically from race to race (Egyptians to Romans, Turks to Europeans, etc), that would also suggest that race is not an important determinant.

[Sikander]

Racist a-go-go!

Carver and Seeker's posts are closest to my opinion generally. I think that where a people were developmentally when they colonized has a huge impact on where they get to right afterward. Thus many Asian countries are doing quite well, while the Indians in (the future) United States were all but wiped out, and the sub-saharan (ie primitive) Africans are having a terrible time trying to leap from the BC's to the AD's in very short order. I honestly don't blame colonialism much at all. It would have taken a very long time for sub-saharan Africa to develop by osmosis, and they surely would have been subjugated by someone in the meantime. Large swaths of Africa were already controlled by Arabs before serious colonization was even considered by the Europeans.

[Saras]

Do the ones citing colonialism as the main reason think that Africa now would have been a much better developed country had it not been colonised by the Europeans?