25 Comments

In a land of tribalism, indolence, corruption and recreational rape as a national sport, Africa needs to embrace the Golden Rule and do some self-help before they go around with their hand out. 60+ years after colonialism ended and no progress. They would do well to look inward. Wouldn't hurt us if we did it too.

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Jan 1Edited
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I am sure there were many good people in Africa wanting to do the right thing and improve things. If they were consistently thwarted, you have to ask why. Too few of them. Society wasn't trusting or cohesive enough for good things to get traction. Tribalism. No trust outside one's clan. And sure, outsiders interfering and even killing the good guys. If enough people wanted good things to happen and worked together, there'd be a better likelihood of progress. But there seems to be no cooperation. A me & mine and screw everybody else culture won't get things done. Witness our own decline.

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I'm torn. I want Africans to be self sufficient, but I do not want them to destroy the great migrations, like we did with the bison. Also, it is not like industrial agriculture has been good for Americans or our land and waters, from a perspective of health, mental, physical or spiritual.

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It seems to me that all of the interventions, whether with foreign aid, or direct controls have been an overall negative for the continent. Perhaps it would be best to let them naturally find their civilizational level instead. That won't happen, of course. Too many other world powers see the untapped resources and all that can be extracted from the land.

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Europe has been bleeding Africa for a long time, China claims to be helping African countries to industrialize, but I assume they will mostly extract as well. I’m dubious too about growth rates. It used to be the UN talked about humanity hitting 12bil before levelling off, but then Covid happened and, with Bill Gates “philanthropy” in Africa, it seems more like a deliberate attempt to reduce population across the board.

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Europe has “bled” Africa of resources that meant nothing at all to Africans. The discourse on this is proven dishonest by the facilitation of a population explosion - simply put, Africans have benefitted from European and western involvement there and that’s why so many are alive today.

That said - you can be dubious all you like. The models are proven by the statistics and unlike in Latin America and SE Asia, Africans do not have less children once infant mortality rates are generously reduced by western interventions. The old models are not working there and unless something radically shifts there will be over 2 billion Africans and not enough food or resources, at which point Europe will have to make difficult choices to ensure its survival.

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that is the thing is that civilization exploded onto Africa all at once. Some coastal areas had extensive contacts with Europeans dating back to the 16th or 17th centuries, but in other areas like much of East Africa Europeans didn't get there at all until the late 19th century, and Africa was directly controlled by Europe for a remarkably short period of time.

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Much of the continent can get absurd yields eclipsing most current industrial ag using permaculture and holistic livestock management. Central African Republic was becoming a poster child for this before the libyan war and the country got wrecked by roving gangs of militant reavers and all that followed. Idk what the current status is.

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What is History but the story of politicians wasting human lives and resources.

Again and again.

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I have been to Africa twice, it is a very polarizing place. Coming from Australia, you can feel the bureaucracy lifted off your shoulders. The government doesn't care if you ride in the back of a pickup with no seat belt. Cigarettes and alcohol are cheap. A thriving informal economy exists which is arguably a lot more pro-free enterprise than the Western alternative.

The obvious flip side is that it's a dangerous place. People die all the time. Often murders are not followed up. Corruption is rife, which is both good and bad: you can get almost anything you want for a price, but they want payoffs for legal things like stamping your passport or providing licenses. Armed conflicts are present in many countries, and the police are rubbish if they even show up at all. The power often goes out, sometimes for weeks at a time.

I think the key to Africa is that it's not as controlled as the rest of the world. This is the source of all its problems and its advantages. If I could give them advice it would be to focus all their efforts on inculcating good values in their children. Forget development for now, it will come if the values are right. Focus on strong family units based around father and mother figures who set a good example. Build resilient communities which are locally based without being xenophobic. Reject foreign interference.

In short, leverage their advantages. Don't partner with the West or the East, be stubbornly non-aligned.

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My take: Africa will be the epicenter of the first “Diaspora War”: a 5GW fight between China and India with some 4GW elements, revolving around the influence of their expat communities and the resources etc that influence can deliver.

Africa is outgunned in every way, and deliberately divided by diversity. All in a world that needs mass labor or even mass soldiery less and less, and will be dominated by civilizations that put far less value on human life than we do. And we were assholes there. Ergo, Africa will be a battleground whose external migration is completely stoppable with any European will.

They still have some options, but this is going to be a tough hand to play. I wish them well… and we need to think about external preservation of their megafauna.

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Yes, a major conflict on the continent seems to be in the cards for the 21st century. That's why it caught me by surprise to see the fumbling of the AFRICOM base in Niger last year. It almost seemed intentional to let it go, but I don't know.

https://www.arthurincali.com/p/realpolitik-in-the-21st-century?r=1a1alz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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Wasn’t intentional. Niger just saw a much better future without Globohomo holding guns to their heads. Essentially, Hamilton’s negative scenario in Federalist Papers 11 lacked appeal.

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"The Africans" is great. He has one on the Middle East I want to read as well.

Incredibly, Africa's already abysmal rate of wage earning is going down, and while I don't remember the exact stat I believe in a lot of countries perhaps 15% of people are in what we call formal employment, and many of them for the government and NGOs etc. Of course this starves the states for taxes, among other things.

What African badly needs are factories- and the costs of manufacturing in China have increased a huge amount. The problem is that all the factories failed after colonialism ended because no one wanted to work for whitey but there weren't a lot of trained Africans to take over the positions. This should be less of a problem now with more people trained and with population growth, but it requires foreign direct investment. For its sins, China is actually the least malign foreign power on the continent, as it just does business and builds useful things etc, even if labor conditions are bad or occasionally you see a video of an overseer whipping someone. [Cheap Chinese goods have also really helped Africa, such as solar panels, or the entire Sahel gold boom being driven by Chinese metal detectors]

The only way for outside powers to help Africa is to end great power competition there and to realize there is plenty of money to be made for everyone who wants to do business and they can just compete with each other for contract projects and industries the normal way.

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We don't need their labor. It's cheaper to build and program a robotic arm.

They are a thousand years behind and there are no selection pressures. This horror show is just getting started.

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This is what everyone here is tiptoing around. Africa sucks because it is full of Africans.

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I know what brush that I will be painted with for pointing out that a continent with an average IQ of around 80 just might not be able to thrive as it overpopulates itself. Unfortunately, mass starvation appears to be on the near horizon.

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The same folks who slander and attack those who point out the horrific end results of the “send food forever” plan will simply shrug their shoulders when the inevitability happens.

“Oh well, at least we tried” will be their response.

There will be no reflection on how the policies they advocated led to the largest mass die-out of the 21st century.

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What a waste of good biomass.

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Africa is not going to add 1 billion people in 25 years, that's sheer fantasy. Every place in the world where the TFR dropped below replacement, it did more quickly in the next place than the last.

Africa is like the middle east and eastern Europe in that even if and when they have an ageing population, they will still have serious problems of poor and corrupt governance and civil conflicts. Russia and Ukraine have declining populations and look at the mess over there. Burma is at replacement rate and has a history of military governments and is currently in a savage civil war.

And generally speaking, where the West intervenes things get worse, where the West ignores the issue it resolves itself. Compare the respective fates of Somalia and Somaliland.

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There's a huge elephant in here.

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Africa will never be self-sufficient because it is both at the mercy of external powers and suffers from continuing brain drain promoted by our migration policies.

Trade in people and resources never ended, it just took on new dimensions.

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Again a example of "corrupt leadership". We have send billions to Africa, ever since Band Aid in the 80's.. what grew? Child armies, diamond smuggle and creatures like Joseph Koni...

When will the millions of good people stop following!?? World wide it seems.

Money is not the goal, happiness and freedom are.

Industry and Military complex are the problem. And greedy politicians... globally.

we were warned.. by many!

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Not to mention the faux-altruism under the auspice of foreign aid. The assistance cannot last forever. And they know this.

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Ending up in blackmail and leverage to force a submission...

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