Anonymous A started this discussion 3 weeks ago#133,574
People say that China is putting African countries in debt traps by building infrastructure projects on loans African countries won’t pay back. But if you compare Japan’s debt to GDP ratio to every country in Africa…
Anonymous C replied with this 3 weeks ago, 19 seconds later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,422,627
Honestly given the way things are going in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if China invaded Taiwan. Africa has conflict obviously, but if world war three broke out, it might be better to be in Africa than in Europe, or Asia.
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 3 weeks ago, 12 hours later, 14 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,698
Africa has too many issues to blow up economically. Petrostates and net resource exporters. Kleptocratic elites who siphon foreign aid through Swiss accounts to pay their supporters.
AVeryBlackGuy joined in and replied with this 3 weeks ago, 1 hour later, 16 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,708
@previous (B)
If you want to understand why Africa is poor you should do some research on the demographic transitions nations go through as they develop.
Video explaining the demographic transition model:
Africa was originally made poor due to European colonialism (shocker). Poor people have more children than wealthy people. Because Africa was so exploited for so long, they had conditions that favored higher fertility rates than Europe or Asia or North America. When people have more children, there are proportionally a higher number of children relative to the number of working aged adults. This is called a dependency ratio and as you can see, Africa has the highest dependency ratio of any region in the world. This is what has prevented Africa from developing.
Additionally if you want to understand why Europe dominated Africa, this animation showing the relative populations of continents over time. You’ll notice that Africa for most of history up until the 1990s had a significantly smaller population than Europe. Europe developed more technologies and had more military success simply because there were more Europeans than Africans.
However, I’m optimistic because right now the average age of an African is 19 and the average age of a European is 45, but Africa has a much higher birth rate than Europe. Right now Africa is 18% of the world’s population, but by 2100, it will be closer to 40%. Additionally, as Africa’s birth rate declines over the coming century and as Africa’s population ages, they’ll experience a major demographic advantage over the rest of the world while the rest of the world is experiencing a demographic crisis.
For example, right now the EU has a workforce of 200 million people out of a population of 400 million. Compared to Africa, Africa has a population of 1.5 billion with a workforce of 500 to 600 million people. This means that about half the population of Europe is working while about a third of the population of Africa is working. This isn’t because Africans are lazy, it’s because more Africans are children. However, in 2050, Africa’s workforce will roughly double to over a billion people. This will not happen in Asia, in Europe, or in the Americas. Only the African continent is in a position where their work force can be expected to grow by an amount this large. So I think we should be optimistic about Africa.
AVeryBlackGuy double-posted this 3 weeks ago, 2 minutes later, 16 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,709
The past was that Europe had a much bigger population than Africa, but the future will be the exact opposite. So it would make more sense to assume that say 300 years from now, Africa would be dominant not Europe.
AVeryBlackGuy triple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 12 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,710
Or you can think about it this way:
In 1940 Japan had a population of 73 million people and Nigeria had a population of 17 million people.
Today Japan has 120 million people while Nigeria has 240. This means since the Second World War, Japan got 1.6 times larger while Nigeria got more than 14 times larger. That puts a very different amount of strain on the society. If Japan got 14 times larger in the same amount of time, Japan wouldn’t be developed either.
AVeryBlackGuy quadruple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 5 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,711
Which is also why people are so arrogant towards Africa, they remember winning easily against Africans and they see that there are so many poor Africans today, but people can’t conceptualize how different population sizes were when Africa was colonized and they can’t conceptualize how much Africa grew in such a short time. So people don’t have a concept that Africa is actually a lot less weak than it seems like it is at face value.
Anonymous F joined in and replied with this 3 weeks ago, 6 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,713
@1,422,710 (AVeryBlackGuy)
You're still stuck on this assumption that a large population means the country is powerful or a good place to live. That's not true, and it's often the opposite.
I'll take a less populated country with a high standard of living over an impoverished country packed full of starving idiots.
AVeryBlackGuy replied with this 3 weeks ago, 1 minute later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,714
@previous (F)
Historically, the Chinese and Indian civilizations had the largest economies. Now China has the second largest economy and India is poised to have the third largest.
AVeryBlackGuy triple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 2 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,717
Right now Germany has the 3rd largest economy, India has the 4th largest economy. Germany has a $5 trillion GDP and India has a $4.5 trillion GDP. Except Germany is growing at 1% a year while India is projected to grow 7.6% this year.
Anonymous F replied with this 3 weeks ago, 1 minute later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,719
@1,422,715 (AVeryBlackGuy)
You're trying to predict 74 years in the future, and no one has any idea how rapid technological change, war, and environmental changes will affect that.
Do those models account for the skilled workers migrating to other countries, which keeps wealthy countries wealthy and poor countries poor?
Running a business in India today is a mess of red tape, bribes, and incompetent bureaucracy. If they don't fix that, those companies will move their HQ to a more reliable country, and use India as resource extraction only.
If they manage to overcome all that, a more powerful nation could leverage their strength to just steal whatever India produces too. There's a history of that, this isn't speculation.
AVeryBlackGuy replied with this 3 weeks ago, 3 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,720
If you look at things objectively, you’ll find that wealth is correlated to demographics very strongly, but wealth lags behind changes in demographics. Europe got lucky twice, 500 years ago and 200 years ago. Europe got lucky when they landed in the Americas and the natives died of European diseases rather than the other way around, and Europeans got lucky 200 years ago when they colonized Africa which was enabled by their population advantage and the wealth they extracted from the Americas. But the future is Africa and Asia not Europe.
AVeryBlackGuy double-posted this 3 weeks ago, 58 seconds later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,721
@1,422,719 (F)
Africa will have a population of 4 billion people in 2100. Migration won’t affect Africa’s trajectory. In order for it to, Europeans would have to be willing to let Europe become majority African. Otherwise, most Africans will stay in Africa.
AVeryBlackGuy triple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 2 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,723
Although, on the war point: I actually have that factored in. Empires tend to start wars in a desperate attempt to hold on to power but it usually doesn’t work.
AVeryBlackGuy quadruple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 6 minutes later, 17 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,724
Parts of Europe were actually colonized by Africans for far longer than Europe colonized Africa. European colonization of Africa really took off in the scramble for Africa in the 1800s. Even though Europeans were enslaving Africans for longer than that, Europeans would show up at villages and kidnap Africans, but Europeans were unable to militarily control Africa until after the exploitation of the Americas. Africa was only really colonized for 200 years, but Spain for example was Islamic for 800 years.
People have a myopic view of history. There actually was a time when Africa was strong. The reason why Europeans are so afraid of Islam for example is because during the Middle Ages, Muslims were actually more scientifically advanced than Europeans and tried conquering Europe.
AVeryBlackGuy quintuple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 9 minutes later, 18 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,726
And actually on the point of India, both Arabs and Indians contributed more to the development of mathematics than they’re given credit for. The base 10 numerals we use are Indian and algebra was invented by Arabs. All the scientific and technological achievements done by Europeans in the past 200 years were based on the knowledge of Arabs and Indians at the foundations. Without Arab mathematicians inventing algebra, there would be no moon landing or iPhones or any of that. Europeans actually did not invent everything, that’s a lie.
The most skilled workers emigrating won't change the overall population much, but it affects the class composition.
If the brain drain takes away all the talent, and you have a growing population of 4 billion peasants, you are at the whim of the nations that have a technological edge.
The US has 4% of the world's population and yet is able to kidnap foreign leaders, control the world's oceans, leads in tech, and is the financial capital of the world.
It would be trivial for a few countries (on any continent) to get together and surpass that 4% number, but this wouldn't uproot American hegemony. If it could, it would have been done a long time ago.
AVeryBlackGuy replied with this 3 weeks ago, 4 minutes later, 18 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,728
@previous (F)
The United States doesn’t have a monopoly on power. That stuff is mostly performative. The United States has more aircraft carriers, but if you start comparing submarine fleets, Russia and China both have about the same number of submarines as we do. Russia also has more nuclear weapons, an China is starting to build more advanced aircraft carriers.
AVeryBlackGuy double-posted this 3 weeks ago, 1 minute later, 18 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,729
The United States has been in an interesting position since World War Two where we feel very confident because our economy grows year after year but we failed to notice our economy has been growing slower than the global average growth rate for decades. We used to be almost half the global economy after World War Two, but now we’re closer to 25%. Which is still pretty good, but that means the gap between us and the rest of the world is getting smaller over time not larger. You’re mistaking desperate attempts to prove our worth for genuine strength. None of those actions you described are signs of strength.
AVeryBlackGuy triple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 3 minutes later, 18 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,730
The United States leads in software in particular. Hardware is dominated by Asia and Europe. Asia makes the products but Europe makes the products that make the products but for economic reasons, Europeans won’t accept Asian wages so they won’t make smartphones. But in general, technology is the sort of thing where it’s gotten to the point where technology is so advanced that right now on Earth today, there is not a single country that is capable of making a smartphone without trading with other countries.
AVeryBlackGuy quintuple-posted this 3 weeks ago, 3 minutes later, 18 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,422,732
When it comes down to it, my belief here is pretty simple: I don’t think white people are magically better than everybody else for no reason, so I expect empires will continue to eventually decline just as empires have been falling since the beginning of society. I have complicated explanations, but this should really be blatantly obvious to anyone who isn’t delusional that obviously the west won’t dominate forever, because the west was not always dominant in the past.