Why are the 10 Poorest Cities in the World all From Black Africa???

[The Rabbi]

Why would you claim that societies which "have it easy" would not be innovative? It makes very little sense. When hands (and minds) are freed of the need to labor for subsistence, they are put to use in other ways. What, I wonder, would prevent the Polynesian cultures from experiencing an industrial revolution?

That's like the Nancy Pelosi school of economics. IN reality necessity is the mother of invention.
The polynesians lacked metallurgical skills and probably access to cheap energy. I would wager their mathemtatics was not strong either.

They lacked metallurgical skills? How simple of you. Did they, in fact, have any metal ore?

I dont know. Why don't you report on ore deposits in Polynesia?

 

[MrMax]

The hot sun makes them lazy.

 

[MACAULAY]

It is generally agreed now that Humanity first emerged in Central Africa. So, it seems fair to ask why, after all this time, can they still not feed themselves over there?

And also, why, after a half century of the Great Society and the War on Poverty, can they still not feed themselves in Detroit and Chicago?

I realize that just asking such questions will draw the race card, but don't they deserve to be asked and what is the answer?

 

[Londoner]

African countries tend to elect people who are more concerned with enriching themselves rather than moving the nation forward. Perhaps tribal loyalties? Something like America is fast becoming.

I agree with this to some extent, but I think Africa, like so many quasi-colonial regions, are merely bit players in the global economy, much like the middle east, which is an energy chess piece for powerful nations.

Consider this. Our economy depends heavily on raw material and labor from all over the 3rd world. We depend on Africa for strategic minerals like chromium, cobalt, manganese and platinum (to name only 4) - as do other powerful nations.

Our goal is to have easy access to these resources. The biggest threat, for the USA, is when a particular leader wants to nationalize resources (meaning: he wants to use the resources for his own country's enrichment as opposed to giving them to foreign investors). To understand this look at Mosaddegh in Iran. He was democratically elected and wildly popular, but he refused to play ball with Western energy needs. He wanted his country to control their resources without foreign influence. So the USA, whose economy depends on middle east petroleum, took part in a coup to remove him. He was replaced by the brutal Shaw of Iran, who turned over his country's oil resources to the west (mostly UK and USA). [I can't complain since my lifestyle has been enriched by cheap energy]

So in reality, we don't want strong democratic leaders who are inclined to put their nation's needs ahead of ours. We look for corruptible leaders who are willing to do our bidding with their resources. This is why Reagan initially poured so much money and weapons into the Hussein regime - because Hussein was a corrupt leader willing to be a chess piece for our needs. Unfortunately, like most corrupt leaders, he outlived his utility.

Also study how we used IMF Loans in the 80s. We would get poor nations, mostly from the global south, to take out large loans for "structural improvement". This tended to work only with corrupt dictators because honest leaders were often hesitant to mortgage their nation's future to foreign powers. After taking out the loan, the corrupt leader would predictably default (but get very generously rewarded). This default would put the nation into technical receivership and give western powers the ability to seize control over necessary assets like raw material, trade laws and anything else that allowed us to insert them into a global economy which primarily served the more powerful nations.

That is, our largest corporations, the one's who own many of our congressmen, benefit immensely from Taiwanese sweatshops. Remember: the whole point of capitalism is to get a higher return on investment - meaning cheap labor is key. In order to get ultra cheap sweatshop labor, you need to invest in freedom-hating dictators who keep their people living in hovels, making $5/day. The biggest threat to capital accumulation is when a freedom-loving, politically literate middle class sprouts up near a supply chain. These people drive up labor costs and they snoop around your smoke stakes and the chemicals you're dumping in the river. When this happens, you have to ship the jobs to communist China. Of course, in the front of the house you scare the serfs with stories about evil communists, but in the back of the house you set up a conveyor belt from communist China to Walmart (so you can get your TVs and toasters made for pennies). The point of political news coverage is to obscure this stuff with disinformation, and to keep people anesthetized with the culture war.

 

[LoneLaugher]

That's like the Nancy Pelosi school of economics. IN reality necessity is the mother of invention.
The polynesians lacked metallurgical skills and probably access to cheap energy. I would wager their mathemtatics was not strong either.

They lacked metallurgical skills? How simple of you. Did they, in fact, have any metal ore?

I dont know. Why don't you report on ore deposits in Polynesia?

Yeah. You don't know.

That should be an option on your keyboard, dummy.

 

[Roudy]

Margaret Sanger ring a bell? Margaret Sanger was a Leftist Democrat Progressive who wanted to do just that, not only in Africa, but also in America to purify and improve the black race. She was honored recently at a Democratic forum.

And they call republicans racists.

Ayn Rand was a nazi. So was Charles Lindbergh. But both are heroes to the right.

For all her faults, Sanger did enormous good for the poor. You can't say that for any rw hero.

Ayn Rand was a Nazi?! You realize what you just uttered? Wow.

 

[MrMax]

It is generally agreed now that Humanity first emerged in Central Africa. So, it seems fair to ask why, after all this time, can they still not feed themselves over there?

And also, why, after a half century of the Great Society and the War on Poverty, can they still not feed themselves in Detroit and Chicago?

I realize that just asking such questions will draw the race card, but don't they deserve to be asked and what is the answer?

There's nothing to hunt and gather in Detroit or Chicago. Well, except drugs.

 

[Billy000]

1. Monrovia, Liberia - TheRichest

Has to be the white man! Or the JJJOOOOSSS. Never taking responsibility for their situation!

It's not something I like acknowledging, but there is no denying that Africans have significantly lower IQs. I second what Matthew said on the first page. They just don't have the culture of advancement. However, IQ is only one factor for this.

All this being said, this thread was obviously created out of a bigotry.

 

[norwegen]

Yes, it is based in imperialism. European imperialsim destroyed most of the African cultures. In the same way Europeans destroyed the Native American cultures. We will never know what might have been if they'd all been left alone to evolve on their own.

They would be the same as the day Europeans first found them.

American civilization evolved, slowly though it may have been. From hunting to extinction some of the larger prey animals (mastodons, mammoths, giant beavers) to developing weaponry to pursue more elusive animals, the Paleo-Americans, after thousands of years, began living in more permanent settlements, engaging in agriculture while in season, even developing corn (from maize and other native grasses), but not much else (the dog was the only animal they had domesticated by the time they encountered Europeans). Given time, they even started becoming imperialistic.

By the fifteenth century, the Aztecs, for example, were exacting tribute and labor from subject peoples over hundreds of square miles (tributes included sacrifices to their gods). And the Five Nation Iroquois were a formidable people who plundered their enemies for scalps and prisoners, and occasionally engaged in the cannibalism of their foes after a "mourning war."

I don't know anything about African history, but certainly they were so easily subdued because they were also in conflict with each other and lacked the technology that the Europeans had. Did they even have the wheel? The Americans didn't. At any rate, though centuries behind the Europeans in technology and culture (written languages, for example), other peoples of the world were not frozen in time.

 

[Avatar4321]

Because Africa was the last of the world to be colonized by westerners, Africa had the least contact with the principles of western civilization that create wealth and prosperity.

What an idiotic and misguided statement.

The people of Africa.....and for that matter China, India, Asia, and the Middle East.....all had functioning and vibrant civilizations before the Europeans invaded and destroyed their way of life.

Basically, enslaving the people and stealing their natural resources.

And forcing the indigenous people into poverty and servitude to their European colonial masters for centuries. ..

And yet, which are the nations that are thriving? Those who have had prolonged contact with western ideas. Those we are struggling the most the ones that had the shortest contact with colonial powers. Their prior civilizations don't have relevance to their current prosperity.

 

[Roudy]

It is generally agreed now that Humanity first emerged in Central Africa. So, it seems fair to ask why, after all this time, can they still not feed themselves over there?

And also, why, after a half century of the Great Society and the War on Poverty, can they still not feed themselves in Detroit and Chicago?

I realize that just asking such questions will draw the race card, but don't they deserve to be asked and what is the answer?

There's nothing to hunt and gather in Detroit or Chicago. Well, except drugs.

Detroit is another story. It's called Liberalism Gone Wild. What happens when Democrats get everything they want. Obama is about to do the same to the US.

 

[LoneLaugher]

It is generally agreed now that Humanity first emerged in Central Africa. So, it seems fair to ask why, after all this time, can they still not feed themselves over there?

And also, why, after a half century of the Great Society and the War on Poverty, can they still not feed themselves in Detroit and Chicago?

I realize that just asking such questions will draw the race card, but don't they deserve to be asked and what is the answer?

There's nothing to hunt and gather in Detroit or Chicago. Well, except drugs.

Detroit is another story. It's called Liberalism Gone Wild. What happens when Democrats get everything they want. Obama is about to do the same to the US.

Yeah. That was a measured and thoughtful comment. So glad you took the time.

 

[westwall]

Just a note on #1

Making a living was not so much easy as it was time consuming and labor intensive. Hunter/gatherers need to spend a huge portion of their lives actually hunting and gathering. There was no time for much else.

Where agriculture takes hold, there is free time. That free time is applied to pursuits other than subsistence. Science, art, commerce.

It's the same issue as in Polynesia, hunter/gatherer societies in certain areas actually have it very easy. It really is as easy as walking along and eating as you go, year round.
Thus, there is no pressure. Pressure drives innovation.

Look at evolutionary biology as a guide. 90+% of all evolution occurs in the temperate zones, the Arctic and equatorial see virtually none because there is no climactic stress.

Why would you claim that societies which "have it easy" would not be innovative? It makes very little sense. When hands (and minds) are freed of the need to labor for subsistence, they are put to use in other ways. What, I wonder, would prevent the Polynesian cultures from experiencing an industrial revolution?

Because historically it is true. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a very old saying.
It's roots lay in fact. If there is no need to do anything why bother. We see this every day here in the US. So long as people are getting their unemployment benefits they don't seek out work. There was a Danish study several years ago that pointed out the very same thing, so long as benefits are received there is no need to look for work.

 

[LoneLaugher]

It's the same issue as in Polynesia, hunter/gatherer societies in certain areas actually have it very easy. It really is as easy as walking along and eating as you go, year round.
Thus, there is no pressure. Pressure drives innovation.

Look at evolutionary biology as a guide. 90+% of all evolution occurs in the temperate zones, the Arctic and equatorial see virtually none because there is no climactic stress.

Why would you claim that societies which "have it easy" would not be innovative? It makes very little sense. When hands (and minds) are freed of the need to labor for subsistence, they are put to use in other ways. What, I wonder, would prevent the Polynesian cultures from experiencing an industrial revolution?

Because historically it is true. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a very old saying.
It's roots lay in fact. If there is no need to do anything why bother. We see this every day here in the US. So long as people are getting their unemployment benefits they don't seek out work. There was a Danish study several years ago that pointed out the very same thing, so long as benefits are received there is no need to look for work.

Sorry. I thought you wanted a serious discussion. You were practically begging for one earlier. Now this?

****.

 

[The Rabbi]

They lacked metallurgical skills? How simple of you. Did they, in fact, have any metal ore?

I dont know. Why don't you report on ore deposits in Polynesia?

Yeah. You don't know.

That should be an option on your keyboard, dummy.

Right. I dont know. Am I suddenly your personal librarian, you lazy retard?

 

[The Rabbi]

Why would you claim that societies which "have it easy" would not be innovative? It makes very little sense. When hands (and minds) are freed of the need to labor for subsistence, they are put to use in other ways. What, I wonder, would prevent the Polynesian cultures from experiencing an industrial revolution?

Because historically it is true. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a very old saying.
It's roots lay in fact. If there is no need to do anything why bother. We see this every day here in the US. So long as people are getting their unemployment benefits they don't seek out work. There was a Danish study several years ago that pointed out the very same thing, so long as benefits are received there is no need to look for work.

Sorry. I thought you wanted a serious discussion. You were practically begging for one earlier. Now this?

****.

A serious discussion with you is an oxymoron. You lack both the knowledge base and the intellectual heft to carry one off on any topic. You simply post what you imagine the truth to be, based maybe on Disney cartoons.

 

[Moonglow]

1. Monrovia, Liberia - TheRichest

Has to be the white man! Or the JJJOOOOSSS. Never taking responsibility for their situation!

Overpopulation, tribal warfare...

 

[Londoner]

Jimmy Carter has a higher IQ than Ronald Reagan. He did his graduate work in reactor technology and nuclear physics. But he couldn't motivate people like Reagan. Jimmy Carter also got much better grades than George W. Bush, but nobody on the right would say Carter is smarter than Bush

IQ tests and SAT tests are not only flawed predictors, but intelligence and genes are often politicized by the doctrinal systems, to benefit those in power. It's harder to justify making someone a slave, or seizing the land of indigenous populations without first claiming that these people are lowly beasts.

The system always justifies the hierarchies it creates. In the 1800s it was believed that women were far less rational then men. This was a justification for why they could not hold public office. This belief was supported in the prevailing medical texts of the time, the same texts that claimed blacks had thick skulls and were therefore taxonomically closer to animals on the biological spectrum. This was used as a justification to enslave them.

The belief in the inferiority of women also fit with scripture, which claimed that the man was king of the home, and women, built from his rib, existed to be his domestic helper. The Bible was one of the earliest mechanisms for creating the social glue needed to put people into convenient hierarchies for those in power.

Of course, when women and blacks were given the same opportunities as white men, they proved that they had the intellectual equipment to thrive.

I am not saying that there are no racially-based traits that play a role in survival, i'm merely suggesting that there are a whole bunch of secondary traits which are supplied by environment that can easily override these primary traits and genetic differences. That is, I think Obama's children will end up with a lot more wealth and success than a white person who is currently being born in a trailer park to a crack mother.

 

[Pete7469]

What an idiotic and misguided statement.

The people of Africa.....and for that matter China, India, Asia, and the Middle East.....all had functioning and vibrant civilizations before the Europeans invaded and destroyed their way of life.

Basically, enslaving the people and stealing their natural resources.

And forcing the indigenous people into poverty and servitude to their European colonial masters for centuries. ..

The European exploitation of colonial lands still negatively impacts these regions.

They left behind despotic regimes, political vacuums, and chaos.

The bed wetters just think it's Bush's fault though.

That's utter bullshit. How do you explain Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, which were all colonies?

HMMM... fair enough, but I've been to Hong Kong. It still seemed 3rd world to me. I haven't been to Singapore or Malaysia, but from what I've come to understand there are many backwards and fucked up laws there.

 

[Two Thumbs]

It is generally agreed now that Humanity first emerged in Central Africa. So, it seems fair to ask why, after all this time, can they still not feed themselves over there?

And also, why, after a half century of the Great Society and the War on Poverty, can they still not feed themselves in Detroit and Chicago?

I realize that just asking such questions will draw the race card, but don't they deserve to be asked and what is the answer?

my guess is that like canine mutts tend to be smarted than pure breads, other races have an edge.