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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 ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

I have always assumed that white people have a leg up because they’re white. 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.

Non-white people lived for an evolutionarily relevant duration of time in places with more consistent sunlight and milder winters, where sun over-exposure was a more pressing threat than under-exposure. That means more forgiving crops and climates, so less pressure to streamline agriculture and subsequently industrialize.

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sparky@lemmy.federate.cc ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I get what this guy is trying to say but the phrasing and unnecessary racialising explains the downvotes. A better and less offensive way to put this could simply have referred to climate: that you suspect the harsher climate in Europe rewarded industrial and penalised agrarian lifestyles in a way that wasn’t true for civilisations near the equator. Being white or not has nothing to do with it - correlation versus causation.

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- agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, correlation is exactly what I’m saying. I’m not saying “white” as a race, I’ve been explicitly saying “white” as skin tone. The same environmental conditions which reward efficient agriculture and the conditions for industrialization also correlate to pressures toward sun-absorbant skin.
  
  My position has nothing to do with “race” and everything to do with coincidentally correlated environmental effects. Was I not sufficiently clear? Even did I even bring up race, distinct from skin tone in-and-of-itself? “White” isn’t even a race, so far as race is even a rational concept.
  
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  - sparky@lemmy.federate.cc ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I do understand the point you’re making actually, but you’re wading into emotionally charged waters here. I would argue “white” is an inherently racial term, but the more importantly, the correlation is not really relevant to the discussion and needlessly muddies your broader point (that climate may inspire or disincentive industrialisation) by injecting it with racial discussion.
    
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    atomicorange@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The fact that they refuse to acknowledge that the skin tone part of their argument is irrelevant leads me to believe that they are being disingenuous about their motivations. You’ve clearly pointed out that climate is a sufficient explanation and that references to skin tone are unnecessary and misleading.
    
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    agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t know how else to specify that my point is purely about melanin levels in the skin being coincidentally correlated, and NOT related in any way to implicit genetic arguments. I explicitly defined “white” by melanin levels, not by race. “White” isn’t even a coherent race.
    
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HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There are several times in history that Europeans would not be considered the peak of human development due to very measurable differences in quality of life.

You’ll also find other pseudoscience bullshit trying to justify the superiority of one group over another from at least Roman times.

The fact of the matter is that several areas had the resources and technical development to start the Industrial Revolution; it just happened to spark in the United Kingdom first and spread through Europe quickly.

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- agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Okay. I dunno if you think I’m saying any group “superior” because I I’m very much not . I thought I was very much exploring saying that their advantage was much more based on incidental environmental conditions than any kind of genetic superiority or anything even remotely close to that. Just brainstorming explanations for history that cut that exact “superiority” bullshit out of the picture
  
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  - HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Romans literally thought they were the best because the people north of them were too emotional due to cold weather and people south of them weren’t hard enough due to hot weather.
    
    And I also brought up that the most developed part of the world shifted over time, something that you’ve talked past rather than addressing to how it affects your theory of vitamin D.
    
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    agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I really don’t understand the source of conflict here. You seem like you agree that Europeans did happen to have the conditions amenable to development, but what’s your alternative? That the cause wasn’t just a coincidence? I’m really confused what your disagreement is.
    
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