Notice: Home alone tonight?
Topic: Theory about African poverty
+Anonymous A — 9 months ago #67,081
So I’m black and I’ve heard a lot of racist stuff about Africans on the internet. But I did my own research and looked into it, and I have my own theory about it. I’m part Nigerian and racists will often compare Nigeria to Japan and say that Japan is wealthy because they have a superior culture. I decided to not ignore the question and look into it, and I actually have an idea about it that I think explains why one country is poor and the other is rich that doesn’t involve culture.
My theory is that the reason is due to population size and oil resources.
In the 1940s, Nigeria had about 30 million people, Japan had about 70 million people, and Britain had about 40 million people. Today, Nigeria has about 200 million people, Japan has about 100 million, and Britain has about 60 million. So between World War Two and today, the UK and Japan doubled in population. During that time, Nigeria’s population increased from half the population of Japan to twice the population of Japan, even though Japan’s population has doubled. If hundreds of years ago, during the transatlantic slave trade, Nigeria had a significantly lower population than Britain, then why would it be surprising that it would be much easier for the Nigerians to lose a war to the British rather than the other way around, when the British had more human lives they could throw at the Nigerians than the other way around?
Nigeria is poor and Japan is rich. Nigeria has a lot of oil, Japan has almost no oil. Nigeria has almost no industry, Japan has a lot of industry. Japan had a large empire, Nigeria did not. What if that’s not a coincidence? In order for Japan to defend their island from Europeans, they needed a navy. In order to build those ships and to power them, they needed industry, but they didn’t have oil. Where would they get the oil from? China. Then Japan invaded China. Was that a coincidence then? Of course not. Japan needs to have industry in order to generate wealth because they can’t sell the oil that they don’t have. Nigeria on the other hand doesn’t need industry because they can just sell oil so there is no incentive to become industrialized. For Japan, it was existential that they needed to develop industry for their economy and their military, so they did.
Although, there is some hope to this. I think that Africa is poor because they have not had time to recover from European colonialism yet. And Europe and America are still wealthy because they built up so much technology and industry and military might during colonialism. But, if you look at birth rates, Nigeria will surpass the United States in terms of population this century, and by the end of the century, if China does not reverse their demographic trends of couples mostly only having one child, it is possible that Nigeria could have a larger population than China. So it might be that in 100 to 200 years, if climate change doesn’t make Africa uninhabitable, Africa could become more powerful than western countries. But it doesn’t matter because I’ll be dead.
·Anonymous A (OP) — 9 months ago, 5 minutes later[T] [B] #667,011
Although, climate change could actually help if countries switch to renewable energy because that will make oil less profitable which will force diversification of the Nigerian economy which combined with China switching from a manufacturing based economy to a more developed service based economy and western decoupling from China, could result in more companies shipping manufacturing to Africa. Which could lead to something similar to what happened with China’s economy.
+Anonymous B — 9 months ago, 1 minute later, 7 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,012
I think you hit on something with birthrates, and that may end up being the export they need (young folks to help other aging nations). Sound like a good time for the kids to train up for healthcare industry or something.
+Anonymous C — 9 months ago, 8 minutes later, 15 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,013
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria#Economy
@OP
Thanks for the topic that contains Nigeria. I am so out of date with how your country has overcome the past political corruption.
Besides all that Oil there is this for its future.
Nigeria also has an abundant supply of under-exploited natural resources, including coal, bauxite, tantalite, gold, tin, iron ore, limestone, niobium, lead and zinc. The country's gold production in 2015 was 8 metric tons. Despite huge deposits of these natural resources, the mining industry in Nigeria is still in its infancy.
+Anonymous D — 9 months ago, 23 minutes later, 39 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,014
@previous (C)
(I’m OP but I cleared my cookies.) I’m American but my ancestors were Nigerian. I was just looking into it because I was curious about it. I think the Chinese governments attempts to invest in Africa is because the CCP sees that China’s population will decline in the 21st century, but then the century after that, they’re hoping their investments in Africa will pay off. But that’s a bit concerning because since the west can be xenophobic against Africans, there are right wing movements that are anti-African. But if it does by some chance end up that in the 22nd century, Africa becomes successful, and they’re aligned ideologically and politically with China instead of the west, that could be a dangerous thing for the world.
(Edited 27 seconds later.)
·Anonymous D — 9 months ago, 2 minutes later, 42 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,015
@previous (D)
Especially since Russia has been trying (and has unfortunately been somewhat successful at) installing pro Russian military dictatorships in African countries.
+Gavin !!FuSdYgg+0e — 9 months ago, 59 seconds later, 43 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,016
I was watching some African cam girls for a bit and they just sat on their phones!
·Anonymous B — 9 months ago, 9 minutes later, 52 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,018
@previous (Gavin !!FuSdYgg+0e)
Sure! Porn's a job! But we ain't paying them to play candy crush or tiktok. I don't think they get how this works.
·Anonymous C — 9 months ago, 33 seconds later, 53 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,019
@667,014 (D)
Now with the Trump policy of NO Foreign aid - China will jump far ahead and probably profit greatly on the minerals and such in Africa.
+ᏧᏟ ᏓᏩᏙ — 9 months ago, 5 minutes later, 58 minutes after the original post[T] [B] #667,022
@667,014 (D)
China will extract resources and then abandon the mess without cleaning it up. The Wagner mercenaries are just there to destabilize, much like the royal trading companies did when they built castles along the slave coast for breeding purposes before packing the final product for shipment, or what they did to India by the crown claiming it outright, but the U.S. rebuilt Japan in its own image after nuking it. There are a lot of reasons for this pattern but I won't go into a history lesson. I just think it's weird the paypal mafia used ideological colonization to bring apartheid here.
+Anonymous G — 9 months ago, 21 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[T] [B] #667,027
@previous (ᏧᏟ ᏓᏩᏙ)
I don’t support China or anything, but I think they’re smarter than that. For example, I have no idea what the link to the video is, but I was watching some videos from YouTubers in Nigeria, and I remember one guy was on a train in Lagos, and there were little Chinese flags inside the train because it was a "gift" from China. Obviously, China would have exploitative ventures, but I think they’re also worried about the long term success of China. So they do create infrastructure in Africa in order to "win over" African countries and promote economic development. Obviously that comes with a cost, but China isn’t stupid. They’re not going to burn Africa to the ground like the Europeans did (literally if you look into the city of Benin). Also, Chinese propaganda isn’t stupid either. They aren’t doing the thing the Europeans did of "the Africans are inferior and we must enslave them." I’ve met Chinese people IRL who associate anti-racism with being pro CCP. I’m not saying that the CCP has a genuine desire to help Africans, I’m just saying, their propaganda is a lot smarter than past colonial empires. The CCP’s goal is to make Africans think that China is their friend and to make Chinese people think that China is helping Africa out of the goodness of their hearts, basically. China isn’t good, but they’re not stupid either.
·Anonymous G — 9 months ago, 1 minute later, 1 hour after the original post[T] [B] #667,028
Russia is worse though, Russia is just militaristic and violent.
·ᏧᏟ ᏓᏩᏙ — 9 months ago, 28 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[T] [B] #667,034
@667,027 (G)
I think the Chinese are looking to forge alliances but not to be good neighbors. The belt and road initiative is a dangerous idea which will meet resistance but it's funded by their banks as a way to extract interest and revenue from abroad since the value of their money isn't dependent on the bond markets here like our money is.
·ᏧᏟ ᏓᏩᏙ — 9 months ago, 5 hours later, 6 hours after the original post[T] [B] #667,055
On second thought, Nigeria may become very prosperous because of the fall of the former western powers. A good education and proper nourishment is necessary for growing a middle class and if they implement a progressive tax with safeguards in place they could be self-sufficient as long as they avoid our errors. I guess our new rulers despise the Constitution and the American people since it looks like they just declared war on all of us. In the coming days and months you will understand more fully.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxrfna843jY