Roots

[Okeefenokee]

Orly?



Shoguns, most Chinese dynasties, and certainly the Ottomans/Turks (of the 13th-18th centuries) would beg to differ.

The Enlightenment project turned out far better.

Child labor and Boss Tweed. Keep swinging.

You can say that western civilization has been superior for, say, the last century or so, but that's only if you choose to ignore the creation of the third world, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Western culture created the third world in the last century!

That's pretty rich.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The Enlightenment project turned out far better.

Child labor and Boss Tweed. Keep swinging.

You can say that western civilization has been superior for, say, the last century or so, but that's only if you choose to ignore the creation of the third world, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Western culture created the third world in the last century!

That's pretty rich.

Name me some desolate, crime-ridden areas that existed before 1900.

Mongolia would count for a while, and perhaps some portions of Russia. That's about it.

[Montegriffo]

Child labor and Boss Tweed. Keep swinging.

You can say that western civilization has been superior for, say, the last century or so, but that's only if you choose to ignore the creation of the third world, and the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Western culture created the third world in the last century!

That's pretty rich.

Name me some desolate, crime-ridden areas that existed before 1900.

Mongolia would count for a while, and perhaps some portions of Russia. That's about it.

It's safe to say that the colonial carving up of Africa taking no account of tribal regions has contributed to many of the problems seen there today.

[TheReal_ND]

Uh, no lol. Watch Empire of Dust or study any first hand accounts you come across that detail what happened after the end of Rhodesia or apartheid SA.

[katarn]

Western culture created the third world in the last century!

That's pretty rich.

Name me some desolate, crime-ridden areas that existed before 1900.

Mongolia would count for a while, and perhaps some portions of Russia. That's about it.

It's safe to say that the colonial carving up of Africa taking no account of tribal regions has contributed to many of the problems seen there today.

Many of the problems in their current form, absolutely. But the very root of saying that the problems exist b/c Europeans paid no heed to tribal boundaires means there was tribal tension in the past. The Zulu didn't just fight Britain, they fought other Africans before that. The problems there are slightly changed b/c being in a country relights the conflicts as civil strife, but it really is more of a tribal/national struggle that is just continuing as it has for (usually) centuries or even longer in some cases.

But saying Europeans created the third world is pretty laughable. They didn't destroy too much in the economies of colonies that they didn't replace in some way (except in the Americas, but disease had the larger role).

[SuburbanFarmer]

Name me some desolate, crime-ridden areas that existed before 1900.

Mongolia would count for a while, and perhaps some portions of Russia. That's about it.

It's safe to say that the colonial carving up of Africa taking no account of tribal regions has contributed to many of the problems seen there today.

Many of the problems in their current form, absolutely. But the very root of saying that the problems exist b/c Europeans paid no heed to tribal boundaires means there was tribal tension in the past. The Zulu didn't just fight Britain, they fought other Africans before that. The problems there are slightly changed b/c being in a country relights the conflicts as civil strife, but it really is more of a tribal/national struggle that is just continuing as it has for (usually) centuries or even longer in some cases.

But saying Europeans created the third world is pretty laughable. They didn't destroy too much in the economies of colonies that they didn't replace in some way (except in the Americas, but disease had the larger role).

I'm not proposing that there was some kind of utopian society before that, but they were not poverty-stricken wastelands. Those were little empires and tribes of proud people. Human dignity was the norm, not desolation. And you know very well that the landscape was mostly intact, not slashed and burned for cash crops.

[katarn]

It's safe to say that the colonial carving up of Africa taking no account of tribal regions has contributed to many of the problems seen there today.

Many of the problems in their current form, absolutely. But the very root of saying that the problems exist b/c Europeans paid no heed to tribal boundaires means there was tribal tension in the past. The Zulu didn't just fight Britain, they fought other Africans before that. The problems there are slightly changed b/c being in a country relights the conflicts as civil strife, but it really is more of a tribal/national struggle that is just continuing as it has for (usually) centuries or even longer in some cases.

But saying Europeans created the third world is pretty laughable. They didn't destroy too much in the economies of colonies that they didn't replace in some way (except in the Americas, but disease had the larger role).

I'm not proposing that there was some kind of utopian society before that, but they were not poverty-stricken wastelands. Those were little empires and tribes of proud people. Human dignity was the norm, not desolation. And you know very well that the landscape was mostly intact, not slashed and burned for cash crops.

True, landscape intact, but 'human dignity' might require more stipulation. They were gender egalitarians compared to everyone else to be sure, but Europeans didn't start enslaving Africans. They just bought slaves from the Africans who'd been selling each other for centuries.

[Montegriffo]

I'm not proposing that there was some kind of utopian society before that, but they were not poverty-stricken wastelands. Those were little empires and tribes of proud people. Human dignity was the norm, not desolation. And you know very well that the landscape was mostly intact, not slashed and burned for cash crops.

There were some successful trading kingdoms speaking the Bantu language spread over large areas.

Kingdoms
The Bantu Kingdom of Kongo ca. 1630.

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, Bantu states began to emerge in the Great Lakes region in the savanna south of the Central African rain-forest. In Southern Africa on the Zambezi river, the Monomatapa kings built the famous Great Zimbabwe complex, the largest of over 200 such sites in Southern Africa, such as Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique. From the 16th century onward, the processes of state formation among Bantu peoples increased in frequency. Some examples of such Bantu states include: in Central Africa, the Kingdom of Kongo,[21] Lunda Empire,[22] and Luba Empire[23] of Angola, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; in the Great Lakes Region, the Buganda[24] and Karagwe[24] Kingdoms of Uganda and Tanzania; and in Southern Africa, the Mutapa Empire,[25] Rozwi Empire,[26] and the Danamombe, Khami, and Naletale Kingdoms of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.[25]

[SuburbanFarmer]

Many of the problems in their current form, absolutely. But the very root of saying that the problems exist b/c Europeans paid no heed to tribal boundaires means there was tribal tension in the past. The Zulu didn't just fight Britain, they fought other Africans before that. The problems there are slightly changed b/c being in a country relights the conflicts as civil strife, but it really is more of a tribal/national struggle that is just continuing as it has for (usually) centuries or even longer in some cases.

But saying Europeans created the third world is pretty laughable. They didn't destroy too much in the economies of colonies that they didn't replace in some way (except in the Americas, but disease had the larger role).

I'm not proposing that there was some kind of utopian society before that, but they were not poverty-stricken wastelands. Those were little empires and tribes of proud people. Human dignity was the norm, not desolation. And you know very well that the landscape was mostly intact, not slashed and burned for cash crops.

True, landscape intact, but 'human dignity' might require more stipulation. They were gender egalitarians compared to everyone else to be sure, but Europeans didn't start enslaving Africans. They just bought slaves from the Africans who'd been selling each other for centuries.

Sure, slavery was a thing in Africa, as well as everywhere else during centuries past.

My point is simply that there was no "third-world" prior to the industrial revolution, or even WWI.

There were some shitty colonies, and some areas were more developed than others, but no mass regions relegated to poverty and destruction.

[Okeefenokee]

All of these nations that you are talking about were far more poor a hundred years ago than they are today.

Ethiopia,


Nigeria,


Zambia,


South Africa,


Brasilia,


Argentina,


Vietnam,


These people have internet now. The advances of the west dragged the rest of the world into the modern age. None of them invented automobiles, airplanes, the electric grid, microchips, television, satellite communication. Everything that makes the modern world what it is came from the west, and almost the entire rest of the world enjoys these things despite having created none of it.

And guess what? They aren't clamoring to go back to the nineteenth century either.