🚀 go-pugleaf

"Mark Richards" <markrichards8@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"Bob LeChevalier" <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote in
>
>> Or if they lived in a harsh environment that required devoting their
>> full attention to acquiring food and water, they might stagnate
>> developmentally.  The Eskimo's and Laplanders did not invent any
>> advanced civilizations either.
>
>True. But what is the point? Are you saying Africans did not live in a land
>of plenty?

Plenty of desert sands, maybe. Plenty of deadly hot sun that makes it
difficult to grow crops.  Meanwhile not having any good grain crop
like wheat (which was domesticated in the Middle East).  This made it
harder to develop agriculture, not that there is much arable farmland
in Africa.

>> Likewise the Eskimos and the Laplanders.  Likewise all manner of
>> "primitive peoples" of the world.  NONE of them "copy and adapt it to
>> themselves".  Are they all inferior to western European whites?
>
>Well, let's look at that. India and Pakistan built on their English legacy.

As I mention below, there are a couple of African countries with
GNP/per person comparable to those countries.

>Hong Kong and Singapore prosper with native rule.

These are city-states steeped in British culture until recently.  The
hinterland surrounding each of these is not nearly as well off, though
ethnically almost identical.  This suggests that the difference was
the active British presence.

>South America and southern
>Asia are getting by.

Not much better off than Africa in many cases.  They may be a decade
or two ahead at most.

> So I don't see how your statement is true.

That is because, racist that you are, you seen one big black monolith
south of the Sahara.

>Or
>> perhaps they are missing something necessary to taking advantage of
>> it?  (Like "money", i.e. extra resources above and beyond that needed
>> for survival in order to invest in new things at a significant rate).
>
>But they had it already. The colonials built it and turned it over to them.

They typically built a city and a port, and maybe a road or two.  They
added enough schools to train local government clerks.  That is not
enough to build an independent civilization.

>All they had to do was maintain a system that was already in place.

They did, and then some.

>> Do you really think that Nairobi and Lagos are prehistoric villages
>> with 2 million and 12 million people respectively.  Do you know what
>> kind of infrastructure is needed to support a city of 12 million?
>> They couldn't do it in medieval Europe.  The African nations are
>> putting their limited resources into nation-building, which takes
>> time.
>
>I think they're running out of time.

No.  The may have some major depopulation due to AIDS.  Of course they
may end up with African blacks being the only population group with
natural resistance to AIDS, because the ones that live will be the
ones who developed that resistance.

>> But it takes time to build an educated populace and a modern economy
>> starting with few resources other than manpower.  You seem to think
>> that because they haven't done so in the 40 years since British
>> independence, that they cannot do so.
>
>I think they're going backwards.

That is because you are ignorant.

>And they are not without resources, either.
>Zaire in particular has tremendous mineral wealth,

Which is all owned by Europeans.

>and tremendous hydroelectric potential on the Congo River.

How much money does it take to build a dam?  Where does this money
come from?

>> I guess I should remember that if you suffer an injury in an auto
>> accident like a friend of mine (white, if it matters) that leaves you
>> unable to work, or if you get an illness that your insurance doesn't
>> fully cover.  Then we can let you starve to death or depend on the
>> charity of your black, taxpaying, workers.
>
>Exactly. If I do not provide for myself, I will have to rely on the charity
>of others. My family and friends should be there first, but if they cannot
>provide enough, I would have to appeal to the greater community. If my
>situation is sympathetic enough, I will receive the help I need. If not, I
>should not have the legal right to force others to pay my bills for me.

And then we'll leave you starving and rotting on the street, eh?

I don't want to live in your idea of civilization.

>> Really?  That is why they are currently growing at an unsustainably
>> high rate.  Part of the reason that Africa remains mired in such
>> poverty is their population grows as fast as their income.
>
>Right. And the reason they starve is because there are more mouths than
>food.

Obviously.  But most of Africa is not starving.  They grow enough to
feed themselves.  But it does take all they have to subsist.

>> This in turn is because their civilization level has risen to the
>> point where the death rate from starvation and disease no longer keep
>> up with the birth rate, which remains at pre-modern levels (a level
>> that the US was still at in the 19th century).  Birth rates tend to
>> drop when education levels get higher.
>
>And because they don't have enough discipline to create babies they cannot
>feed. We need not fear starvation or disease, either, but we are keeping our
>birth rate at barely replacement level.

That isn't discipline.  That is abortion and the pill.  Medical care
options that cost more than third world countries can afford.

> Around
>> 100 nations of the world provide social security benefits to sick and
>> maternity patients, including most of Europe and Japan.  Around 30
>> countries spend a high percentage of their government income on social
>> protection programs than the US does, including Japan, Germany, and
>> Switzerland.
>
>Yeah, I know. That's why people like me can't move. There's nowhere to move
>to that isn't worse.

I'm so sorry for you.  Not!

lojbab