Comment on 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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agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

The very next sentences clarify

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.

I brought it up specifically to debunk white supremacy. To point out that any apparent correlation between skin tone and economic development that an actual white supremacist might claim is sufficiently explained by this coincidence. Not because of being smarter, or more industrious, or any other notion of racial superiority. Purely because of certain coincidental environmental conditions.

Not that these conditions are currently relevant, not that they’ve been relevant since the agricultural revolution, simply that those environmental pressures gave people in certain regions a head start in, specifically, the technologies that facilitated the developed West. Not all technologies, not even most. I specifically addressed the main topic of conversation of why Western Europe appears more developed.

I would imagine actual white supremacists would passionately disagree with my claim that that development is due purely to environmental coincidence and not, y’know, supremacy. And yet, thanks to knee-jerk reactions to sloppy reading comprehension, my attempt to debunk white supremacist talking points was misconstrued as support. Because it’s easier to argue against the point you want to debate then the one someone actually made.

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