This creates a devastating cycle: Rich resources can't efficiently reach markets, limiting development, which in turn prevents infrastructure improvements that could overcome geographic barriers.
================
These are of course totally unresolvable issues and colonialism and crippling foreign debts imposed upon conquered natives have absolutely nothing to do with the lack of programs controlling tsetse flies or developing farmland or building roads through those nasty natural barriers or anything like that, just pure geographical determinism as as result of the world materializing as it currently is 72 hours ago
Unfortunately due to a quirk of evolution any time you try to build a train in Africa it gets attacked by lions, just an unavoidable thing that happens and a perfectly good reason why there's less infrastructure
The minute African nations start building a pan African railway, the crackers are going to swarm out of the woodwork with overwhelming concern for the "pristine natural environments of the African continent" mark my words
There might be some small merit to analyzing "why, 500 years ago, was sub-saharan africa not as built up as Europe, China, or India were at the same point in time" where you could point to environmental factors making large scale, bureaucratic, agricultural states with long range logistics and trade more difficult but even that relies on the incorrect assumption that Africa didn't also have that, which it did. It may not have been the same as those systems were on the Asian continent (including Europe, despite Europe being a relative backwater) and the Indian subcontinent, but there were still large scale trade networks and large agricultural civilizations mining iron and forging steel.
And of course everything after that is explained by "European imperial powers did it, with guns and/or the threat of guns and/or local comprador fucks collaborating with European empires for personal gain at everyone else's expense."
The thing is 500 years ago northern Africa was arguably more developed than Europe was at the time, had thriving mineral trades, and African goods were regarded as being of exceptionally high quality
Remember that the richest man in recorded history was an African king
According to a comment:
========= Summary:
Sahara Desert blocks north-south connection
Smooth coasts lack natural harbors
Rivers blocked by rapids/waterfalls near coasts
No deep-water ports
No ocean-navigable rivers
Most landlocked countries globally (16)
Only continent fully spanning tropics
Tsetse fly prevents livestock use
Limited, fragmented farmland
World's richest mineral deposits
Highest transport costs globally
Geography prevents efficient resource use
This creates a devastating cycle: Rich resources can't efficiently reach markets, limiting development, which in turn prevents infrastructure improvements that could overcome geographic barriers.
================
These are of course totally unresolvable issues and colonialism and crippling foreign debts imposed upon conquered natives have absolutely nothing to do with the lack of programs controlling tsetse flies or developing farmland or building roads through those nasty natural barriers or anything like that, just pure geographical determinism as as result of the world materializing as it currently is 72 hours ago
Cool, some Jared Diamond style geographic determinism.
It's so easy to imagine an alt history version of this explaining why Europe is so underdeveloped:
Unfortunately due to a quirk of evolution any time you try to build a train in Africa it gets attacked by lions, just an unavoidable thing that happens and a perfectly good reason why there's less infrastructure
The minute African nations start building a pan African railway, the crackers are going to swarm out of the woodwork with overwhelming concern for the "pristine natural environments of the African continent" mark my words
There might be some small merit to analyzing "why, 500 years ago, was sub-saharan africa not as built up as Europe, China, or India were at the same point in time" where you could point to environmental factors making large scale, bureaucratic, agricultural states with long range logistics and trade more difficult but even that relies on the incorrect assumption that Africa didn't also have that, which it did. It may not have been the same as those systems were on the Asian continent (including Europe, despite Europe being a relative backwater) and the Indian subcontinent, but there were still large scale trade networks and large agricultural civilizations mining iron and forging steel.
And of course everything after that is explained by "European imperial powers did it, with guns and/or the threat of guns and/or local comprador fucks collaborating with European empires for personal gain at everyone else's expense."
The thing is 500 years ago northern Africa was arguably more developed than Europe was at the time, had thriving mineral trades, and African goods were regarded as being of exceptionally high quality
Remember that the richest man in recorded history was an African king
just a quirk of plate tectonics, really
He mentions colonization and exploitation at the beginning of the video
For like 15 seconds, never actually analyzing it before launching into an hour-long video about how it's just geography, maaaaaan