Africa solution

[VetLegion]

Man, Spiffor, you really can type a lot of text

But consider for a moment that you're building on a wrong premise.

(italics mine)

Originally posted by Spiffor
Of course, learning the skills to become a doctor, an administrator or an entrepreneur is a bit more difficult than learning how to use a hammer. The Africans are just as able as whites to learn those skills, but they don't have the heavy educational infrastructure to that effect: this is why educational help from the west can be so important.

Why are you so sure?

[LordShiva]

:groan:

[Heresson]

Originally posted by LordShiva

damn indian pagans

[Heresson]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



Polish adoption of christianity - circa 900 CE (or whatever) Polish industrialization circa 1900 (or so)

You willing to give the africans 1000 years to get things together enough to industrialize?

Polish d.o.ch - 966
Polish industrialisation started in XVIII century I guess.
in XIX century, Congress Poland was the most industrialised part of Russian Empire.

But Africa lives in different conditions, today the changes take place much quicker. How Poland could have become industrialised prior to industrial revolution?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Spiff. love your insight in this thread and others, and I hate to be a grammar nazi (well, not really), but it's expEnsive, not expAnsive. Expansive is actually a different word having totally different meanings.

Thanks .

I'm horrible with those two words, and I know I'll continue to make the mistake. I just can't help, I'm like Oerdin and his "benifets"

[MOBIUS]

Notice no one has mentioned all the corrupt dictatorships that the US and USSR either installed or propped up during the Cold War...

Personally I think that most of the problems of Africa are a hangover from that particular era.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Man, Spiffor, you really can type a lot of text

But consider for a moment that you're building on a wrong premise.

Of course, learning the skills to become a doctor, an administrator or an entrepreneur is a bit more difficult than learning how to use a hammer. The Africans are just as able as whites to learn those skills, but they don't have the heavy educational infrastructure to that effect: this is why educational help from the west can be so important.

Why are you so sure?

Well, you have one country with a sizeable black population that has access to a pretty good education system: I'm talking about the middle-class blacks in the US.

I've never heard of them being underperforming students in comparison to middle-class whites (well, the affirmative action allows some incompetent black students in the uni, whereas they would be rejected if they'd be white, but that doesn't affect the individual performance of the acceptable students).

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Man, Spiffor, you really can type a lot of text

I spent three hours on this thread

[MOBIUS]

What a sad, sad, waste of your life!

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Well, you have one country with a sizeable black population that has access to a pretty good education system: I'm talking about the middle-class blacks in the US.

I've never heard of them being underperforming students in comparison to middle-class whites

It seems that in the US, blacks are consistently performing worse than whites on IQ tests. Asians on the other hand are performing better than whites. This is not obscure pseudoscience, the findings have appeared in so many independent tests that they are now a well known fact.
The reasons for these differences are not completely clear. The intellectual battle is still being fought over whether it's more because of Nature or Nurture. Now, I'm not an expert on the matter, but Nature arguments seem to be winning at the moment.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Spiffor

I spent three hours on this thread

I sometimes spent about that on some threads on Usenet. I hate losing an argument

[Kuciwalker]

Asians do better because there's a selection bias, duh. Blacks probably do worse for cultural reasons.