ok, so, speaking of things that kill people:
reading Heart of Darkness, the following occured to me: is it possible that the reason that Europe and parts of Asia were so much more advanced is that they're easier to live in? Africa is terrifying. There are so many natural predators for humans, diseases, etc. On the other hand, Europe, and countries like China and Japan are relatively free of things that eat people. The biggest problem in Europe was most likely climate-- which required innovation to overcome it.
does this make sense? am I explaining this enough?
I think farming is a pretty big contributory factor to the 'advanced' state of an area. In Western Europe, by all standards an 'advanced' place, there is predominantly very good farming land. On the other hand, the Middle East and Asia Minor in general have very fertile farming land, but are not so advanced. But in history, these were affluent places which were certainly more advanced than the tribes of the West. Same goes for North Africa: while today that area may seem slightly backward despite the good farming land (on or near the coast, at least), in the past they were the crux of both the highly advanced Carthaginian and Egyptian states. (Though the Nile is a pretty big factor in Egypt's case, and let us not forget that the Romans sowed salt into the earth around the city of Carthage, rendering great swathes of land in North Africa unfarmable.)
And as for the USA (quite advanced I guess), another interesting factor comes in. The plains in the U.S were once almost impossible to farm and live on; I'm sure most are familiar with the stories of pioneers with no wood, poor soil, very harsh weather, and so forth. But because of things such as the government encouragement and the 'Manifest Destiny' people persevered and 'tamed' the plains for farming, and in turn the newly-fertile soils of America helped feed its people and propel it to the forefront of the world's nations.
As for places like Japan, as far as I know it is a hard place to farm: very mountainous and so forth. But rice is pretty much a great thing to grow if you can, so maybe farming does play a part there. Hmmmm.
And then we have Africa: not an easy place to farm, or hunt for that matter. It is not hard to see why they have had a hard time being as 'advanced' as us. Though of course, 'advanced' can mean a lot of things.
If you read all of that, thankyou. If you can correct me on some of the unfounded statements I have made, thankyou further.
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Topic: I don't want to mock anyone's beliefs (not openly) (Read 11338 times)