Africa: Encompasses all of the countries pictured above, including the entire continent of Europe. This landmass is the home of a little over 14% of the human population on the planet.
The African continent accounts for less than 3% of the world’s GDP. Those countries that make the greatest contribution to this number are either Muslim, have a significant number of Whites, or in the case of Nigeria have oil or a similarly-valuable resource… That’s exploited by non-Africans. You remove the Muslim nations and South Africa from the equation and you barely have a percent of world GDP. This, despite untold billions in foreign aid.
The population of Africa is likely to double within a generation. The region is witnessing a major increase in its share of young people and with a median age of 19, Africa is the world’s “youngest” region. Until the arrival of Europeans there was no literate civilization in sub-Saharan Africa. There was no written language, no numerals, no calendar, no system of measurement. The wheel or plow was never developed, neither was an animal domesticated. With the rarest exceptions, nothing more elaborate than mud huts and thatched stockades were built.
Liberals are excited about the future of Africa. Oh the places you will go, oh the people you will see. -- Bulbasaur | The Right StuffPosted by gerardvanderleun at October 15, 2013 4:11 PM
One nitpick: Ethiopia (formerly known as Abyssinia) has an ancient civilization, a written Semitic language (Amharic) that goes back at least to the Middle Ages, and a record of contact with outsiders dating from Old Testament times (think Queen of Sheba and Song of Solomon). While Ethiopia has had some hard times in the last few centuries, at least it can say it's a "real" country, with its own distinct culture and history, not an afterthought conjured up by European diplomats on the margins of some conference.
Posted by: waltj at October 15, 2013 8:05 PMI lived there for two years. It is hot; very hot; very very hot. Malaria and various arbor virii abound.
Sex with beautiful women is plentiful and requires nothing more than sitting in one place for a few minutes. The palm trees are filled with wine. Subsistence living isn't particularly difficult. The rivers are full of fish; the rain forests, fruit.
It's not that life is easy, it's that life saps your energy, and you expect you will die of something fairly quickly.
Our ancestors got out of Africa for a reason. But it's beautiful -- go and live there for a while.
It is both the best and worst place I have ever visited. It has natural resources aplenty. There's fertile land, big rivers and lakes, amazing wildlife, and the most wrenching poverty I have seen.
It's their governments that keep them down. Mostly kleptocracies with tribal angles. The people are like people everywhere. Some wonderful, some not so much. Until they can figure a way to decent governance or let the white devils (or Chinese) come back to develop the place, it will remain under the shadow of poverty.
Posted by: Jimmy J. at October 15, 2013 10:32 PMCan we conclude that a couple hundred millenia ago, those in Africa who had any get up and go got up and went?
Posted by: BillH at October 16, 2013 7:36 AMHey, all that is just objective fact, historical record, and empirical observation.
Who gives a rat's rear end for any of that in this day and age?
Posted by: TmjUtah at October 16, 2013 6:12 PM
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