The moderator has issued me a formal warning that racial intelligence differences are not to be discussed in this thread. If they are relevant at all to the state of Africa or how Africa would have done had outsiders not participated in Africa’s history, apparently it is not OK to discuss them here.
For those who hold to my understanding that races differ in ability, it’s a bit like discussing how the NBA would have turned out without the participation of blacks, but outlawing the opportunity to offer an opinion that their superior ability changed the game. Since I’m not interested in participating in debates which artificially constrain posters only to politically correct positions, it would appear your wish to be protected from painful facts has been granted by the moderator. Best wishes with your search for non-race-based Africa’s persistent underperformance. I still don’t think it’s because whites shot up their leaders, though.
When it is an acceptable opinion, the “ignore” button is recommended for posters whose opinion is disliked by others. When it’s an unacceptable opinion, we get warnings?
Feel free to ban me.
It’s probably easier than finding evidence to the contrary for an opinion of which you are sick and tired and wish to label unsupported. But hey, it’s your board and I’m just a freeloader. Perhaps you’d like to view any number of other threads in which the topic of racial ability differences is discussed and enter a rejoinder about why the evidence presented there is “lacking.”
I do apologize if my handful of posts on this thread have ruined it. That was not my intention. It’s not clear to me why what I said is more offensive or less appropriate than sven saying “we (whites) shot them.”
Well, shooting up their most promising up and coming political talent on the eve of independence (which is well documented, and really did happen) certainly couldn’t have helped the whole process now, could it have?
There is a discussion of the warnings in ATMB if you wish to participate, or we can continue talking about it in private. This thread is not the right venue to dispute the warnings or what I said.
Diamond overlooks the genetic changes that accompanied geographic and cultural changes. I’d recommed you consider UC Davis Economist Greg Clark’s book ‘A Farewell to Alms’ (particularly good on the Industrial Revolution) and ‘The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution.’ NY Times science writer Nicholas Wade’s ‘Before the Dawn’ is good too. They build on Diamond’s work but also consider how some traits are favoured in different farming/social environments. Steve Hsu discusses some of Clark’s work here.
That’s an interesting knee jerk. I’m curious about why you might maintain it?
Arab enslavement of blacks, for instance antedates the European-based slave trade, and was eventually abolished (and not until the 19th century) only due to pressure from the West. Black slaves, by some accounts, were treated cruelly by their Arab masters; some speculation around why there is not a greater population of blacks in enslaving countries is that male black slaves were often made eunuchs or treated poorly enough not to be able to maintain a population before they died.
I’m not sure how you missed this, but I’ve explained twice that this thread is not going off into the weeds of genetic inferiority. This exact book was mentioned two or three times. I’m giving you a warning for ignoring staff instructions. This thread is not about genetics and race.
Did you mean to say that, had white imperialism not happened (or had whites not shot their leaders) Africans would have been first to the moon and possibly solved AGW with cold fusion because there is absolutely no evidence they are not equally capable to all other populations? While those comments would have been less supported by your cites, they would fall within the acceptable response range for answers to the OP’s question here. I am also in the middle of this difficult re-education process learning what we can post and what we cannot. This thread is not for disputing Warnings, so check the links for those threads in the Pit and the ATMB.
Much of this infrastructure you speak of was also pushed by former colonists. 1.) It put African nations in debt and 2.) Made it easier to continue to exploit the land’s natural resources while exercising muscles as they forced African lands into economic dependence.
Similarly, why do people speak of “white” imperialism as if it whites are one monolithic group? There were various kinds of colonialism in Africa from a variety of different nations, all of which had their own way of going about it. And as others have said, there was Arab imperialism in Africa as well.
There could have been many reasons why any particular people might not have performed or accomplished specific actions. Since the claim was not made in regards to the inherent capabilities of the people, there was no implied racism in the comment.
Even if there had been such a claim, (as other posters have suggested), the charge of “racism” is still insulting and is still prohibited in this forum.
Debate the facts and the statements and leave insulting speculation about motive out of this forum.
Perhaps we can agree that, to date, no major modern innovation nor pockets of science leadership nor centers of academic excellence driven by sub-saharan Africans have appeared, even in the handful of stable African countries. Several decades on from independence, nations such as India have signs of recovery from whatever the negative effects of colonialism were. Indeed, they have built on the positive aspects such as transportation and communication and educational infrastructure and cast aside the artificial population-based ceilings. Since the same Europeans colonized both India (and the partition of India created as much havoc as any artificial political boundary drawn anywhere else) and some sub-saharan African nations, the evidence that African nations would have developed on their own without white imperialism appears lacking.
India had
a) higher level of development *prior *to colonization
b) a different model of colonization from that practised in most of Africa - market client rather than resource client.
c) a completely different set of geographic conditions
d) benefited from the so-called “green revolution” which was never really widely implemented in SSA
d) Most African countries are 3-4 decades behind India in the independence stakes, and India is only now emerging out of the effects of colonialism. So “wait and see” might be better than declaring Africa a failure in comparison to India.
e) is only one country, so why are you comparing it to a whole continent? And why load the question with India? Why not compare Bangladesh or Nepal or Chile or Indonesia to SSA instead? Or compare India to just post-apartheid South Africa, and see how far that goes, in terms of technological development and academic institutions.
f) the partitioning happened post-independence, so is hardly a factor in the effects of colonialism versus the way Africa was carved up *during *colonization.
Compared to Africa? Not really. Same order of magnitude as Sudan, Chad or South Africa. Not really “Massive” the way Russia or Canada or the US are.
For now.So what? It’s hardly a point in India’s favour, that they are so damn profligate with their resources, and SSA should pass India by 2075 or so, at current rates, anyway. But population size is a basis for comparison, why? When transborder factors and paucity of data make even individual African comparisons difficult at best, all you’re doing is comparing a very smeared-out distribution of already-shoddy data to one point sample. That’s *very *bad statistics.
And as pointed out, all those Indians fall under one government. Compare them to another country, like South Africa, like I suggested. See how they stack up.
I know SA has a higher HDI than India, a *much *higher GDP per capita, lower infant mortality, spends more on education, has higher literacy, but higher murder rate, higher HIV rate…what all that tells you, I don’t know.
You understand the fundamental point that black Africans are mostly farmers, right?
The Bantu expansion - (could we call this the first colonialism in Africa?) - was driven by agriculture.
Seriously. You can’t propose to have discussion about Africa and not get this right.
This is the problem. You and the other resident racists are wrong on so many of the basic facts about Africa, because you don’t care enough to learn anything about it.
