No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world labbbb @thelemmy.club 10 mo. ago

Why are so many countries in the world “developing” and poor, while essentially only Western countries have a high standard of living?

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Everyone seems to be focusing on colonialism, but that really only brought Europe to a standard of living near India and China.

The real major thing that happened was that "the West" started industrializing before the rest of the world did. Some of the wealth came from colonial holdings that industrial countries had, but a lot of it came from having citizens who were more than a order of magnitude more economically productive than citizens of other countries for over a century.

Why the Indian subcontinent and China didn't industrialize at the time is up to debate, but some theories are related to lower labor costs not sparking the positive feedback engine of industrialization until it was too late to compete against the West and going into periods of relative decline that Western countries could take advantage of.

The West was able to make itself the factory of the world, pushing the rest of the world into resource extraction.

It wasn't until after World War II that other parts of the world were able to industrialize.
- I have always assumed that ~~white~~ light-skinned people have a leg up because they're ~~white~~ light-skinned. That is, they've lived for an evolutionarily relevant duration of time in places where you need low melanin to get sufficient vitamin D to survive. Places with low sunlight and harsh winters, which means places where failing to develop efficient agriculture, food preservation/storage, insulated shelters, and textiles meant starving or freezing to death.
  
  Non-~~white~~ light-skinned people lived for an evolutionarily relevant duration of time in places with more consistent sunlight and milder winters, where sun over-exposure was a more pressing threat than under-exposure. That means more forgiving crops and climates, so less pressure to streamline agriculture and subsequently industrialize.
  
  Edit: I feel the need to specify that I am not talking about "white people" as a coherent race, but as a loose term to describe light-skinned people from harsher climates in general. Don't read any racial commentary here, I'm not making any.
  
  I get what this guy is trying to say but the phrasing and unnecessary racialising explains the downvotes. A better and less offensive way to put this could simply have referred to climate: that you suspect the harsher climate in Europe rewarded industrial and penalised agrarian lifestyles in a way that wasn’t true for civilisations near the equator. Being white or not has nothing to do with it - correlation versus causation.
  
  There's something to say about winters leading to social orders around food storage and planning ahead, but then England didn't really need to do that that much (it's quite mild there, gulf stream and all) and they were the first to really start the industrialisation game. It was plain and simple pure capitalism. The Nordic countries, where those climatic conditions are very much real, are way more naturally Socdem than the Anglos.
  
  Another geographic, not so much climatic, factor is the availability of water power: Europe is blessed with a metric fuckton of small streams large enough to build a mill on. Wheat and rye are also quite easy to deal with, you can use a scythe to harvest, etc. That meant a comparatively productive agriculture, which meant more tradespeople, traders, and with that finally a bourgeoisie which could do that capitalism and industrialisation thing and exploit the serfs harder than the nobles ever managed to do, being stuck in age-old social relations which didn't allow for ordering people around like that. Then a ton of other small factors, including things like Luther lobbying nobles to institute public schools so that people would learn to read -- so they could read the Bible, but they could of course also now read an Almanach and do some maths.
  
  Yes, correlation is exactly what I'm saying. I'm not saying "white" as a race, I've been explicitly saying "white" as skin tone. The same environmental conditions which reward efficient agriculture and the conditions for industrialization also correlate to pressures toward sun-absorbant skin.
  
  My position has nothing to do with "race" and everything to do with coincidentally correlated environmental effects. Was I not sufficiently clear? When did I even bring up race, distinct from skin tone in-and-of-itself? "White" isn't even a race, so far as race is even a rational concept.
  
  I do understand the point you’re making actually, but you’re wading into emotionally charged waters here. I would argue “white” is an inherently racial term, but the more importantly, the correlation is not really relevant to the discussion and needlessly muddies your broader point (that climate may inspire or disincentive industrialisation) by injecting it with racial discussion.
  
  The fact that they refuse to acknowledge that the skin tone part of their argument is irrelevant leads me to believe that they are being disingenuous about their motivations. You’ve clearly pointed out that climate is a sufficient explanation and that references to skin tone are unnecessary and misleading.
  
  What are you talking about? I have multiple times clearly pointed out that climate is the explanation, and skin color is just another result of climate. I'm trying to explain a correlation, not imply causation.
  
  Why are you trying to explain this correlation? Nobody else had mentioned skin tone, so you weren’t correcting anyone. You just brought up a completely unrelated correlation out of the blue for no reason? And you’re defending it in comment after comment instead of just saying “sorry that was a non-sequitur, my bad”.
  
  Because it's not a non-sequitur? The whole post is about the observed development of Western Europe. I didn't realize no one was allowed to make comments unless they correct people, I guess I'm using outdated discussion modalities. I forgot that now we over-simplify everything to place ideas into simple, emotionally-directed groupthink boxes
  
  All I said was the development in Western Europe was jump-started by the environmental pressures to develop the technologies that lead to it (seasonal variation, low sunlight, cold climate), and that the same environmental pressures also selects for paler skin. People like you started twisting that into some bullshit about "evolutionary racial advantage", in comment after comment even after I repeated that that has nothing to do with my point.
  
  Not everything has to be racially charged, but since you insist, I'm done. Bully someone else with your emotionally reductive bullshit.
  
  People are just trying to point out why you’re getting shit my dude. You don’t want to hear it. If you want to be part of conversations in the future, learning to accept criticism is a skill you might want to work on developing.
  
  There's no criticism of anything I've said here, only a series of emotionally twisted straw men. If you want to be part of conversations, be a part of them. Don't make up your own imaginary conversations to criticize. I'm done with your nonsense
  
  I don't know how else to specify that my point is purely about melanin levels in the skin being coincidentally correlated, and NOT related in any way to implicit genetic arguments. I explicitly defined "white" by melanin levels, not by race. "White" isn't even a coherent race.
  
  You could easily have used geographical notions, and not bothered with the melatonin point. It even took a stretch to pull in colour into your point. If you drag evolutionary advantages of being white into a conversation, then you might be a racist.
  
  Again, nothing to do with race. Western Europeans, Persians, Chinese, Turks, and various other races/ethnicities all have light skin. Again, not an evolutionary advantage, just coincidental effects of geographical pressures of regions with low light and greater seasonal causing.
  
  I feel like twisting what I'm saying into having anything to do with race, especially after repeatedly clarifying, is in bad faith. I'm specifically trying to explain the relative technological advancement of lighter-skinned people in a way that completely nullifies the notion of evolutionary advantage. I'm specifically trying to counter any notion of racial advantage. Why are you trying to flip that around to the exact opposite of what I'm saying?
  
  with little benefit of the doubt after the first sentence and just a bit confusing explanation, you're labeled quickly. So glad to be back on the internet.
  
  There are several times in history that Europeans would not be considered the peak of human development due to very measurable differences in quality of life.
  
  You'll also find other pseudoscience bullshit trying to justify the superiority of one group over another from at least Roman times.
  
  The fact of the matter is that several areas had the resources and technical development to start the Industrial Revolution; it just happened to spark in the United Kingdom first and spread through Europe quickly.
  
  Okay. I dunno if you think I'm saying any group is "superior" because I'm very much not . I thought I was very much explicitly saying that their advantage was much more based on incidental environmental conditions than any kind of genetic superiority, or anything remotely close to that. Just brainstorming explanations for history that cut that exact "superiority" bullshit out of the picture
  
  Romans literally thought they were the best because the people north of them were too emotional due to cold weather and people south of them weren't hard enough due to hot weather.
  
  And I also brought up that the most developed part of the world shifted over time, something that you've talked past rather than addressing to how it affects your theory of vitamin D.
  
  I really don't understand the source of conflict here. You seem like you agree that Europeans did happen to have the conditions amenable to development, but what's your alternative? That the cause wasn't just a coincidence? I'm really confused what your disagreement is.
  
  I also mentioned India and China. You probably could have included parts of the Middle East as well if they weren't as wrecked by the Mongol invasions as they were.
  
  The vitamin D hypothesis doesn't play out when looking at those areas.
  
  Nothing I said conflicts with any of that? Han, Mongol, Turkic, Persian, and many other "ethnicities" across the continent play out just fine when taking light skin tone into consideration. Again, explicitly not race. I am talking about "white" as a skin tone, potentially correlated with harsher climates.
  
  Also you're too focused on trying to defend yourself from that one accusation, as if that's the only thing challenging your argument? What about that point someone made that in some points of history, regions of relatively high development change over time? Like at this point in time, Europe is the one with high development, but back then, it was in warmer areas, with cold areas not being as developed. You know, like the Mediterranean? Known for mild winters? Which Greece and Rome were located in?
  
  All I'm saying is that regions with harsher winters experienced early consistent pressures to develop specific technologies: agriculture, food storage, preservation, textiles, and weatherproof shelters. Early development of those technologies helped push them toward industrialization earlier. Not that they're the only regions that were ever developed, especially after the establishment of wider trade routes. I don't understand the enthusiasm of everyone to turn this into a race thing.
  
  I mean, not many people would call Eastern Asians "white people"
  
  Okay. I am, in the context of skin tone, witch is the only thing relevant to my point. I don't subscribe to racist ideology. "White" isn't even a coherent race.

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