Sub-Saharan techgroup is now only +60%!

[petertel123]

Ok, thats also one solution, though "Muslim techgroup" sounds a bit weird for Christian Nubians and Ethiopians.

parhaps it should be renamed "middle eastern" or something

 

[Holbenilord]

Guns, Germs and Steel is not a scientific textbook, and it is decidedly not accepted as gospel by the people who actually study these sorts of things for a living. That isn't to say it's worthless, but unless you know of the many, many critiques levelled at it by scientific experts on the subject, it is extremely misleading to call it any sort of last word.

This. Many parts are outdated or at the very least overly simplistic. Surprisingly, though his field is biochemistry (pathology?) he states that many diseases which predate the native american/asian split are due to domestication?

My primary criticism is that he goes too far with his deterministic hypothesis. Trying to distil the reasons Europe "won" into single factors was never really going to work. The fact is that human societies are blind, groping, chaotic things, but they have a lot of momentum. The smallest events and changes can have colossal implications, and the reasons why the world is not a global hegemony under Java or the Caribbean are not as obvious as domestication, climate, and metal; they are a huge writhing mass of history, context, and luck.

 

[petertel123]

The Inca Empire was as large as the Roman Empire at its fullest extent.

land area says absolutely nothing about the strength of the country or of population. I doubt it had as large a population or as strong an army as the romans

Please stop posting horrible colonialist stereotypes as if they're facts.

sub-saharan africa has more failed states than any other region in the world, that's a fact. I dont think that has anything to do with the people living there though

 

[beckermt]

So now Africans are now only 40% less intelegent than europeans in Paradox's eyes?
A very small step in the right direction but tech groups based on race should be removed.

I think you might be misunderstanding the idea behind tech groups.

 

[Evie HJ]

sub-saharan africa has more failed states than any other region in the world, that's a fact. I dont think that has anything to do with the people living there though

Considering that the states that are there today are largely the result of arbitrary colonial border-making followed by very poor if not inexistent attempt at nation-building, it hardly seems reasonable to associate the failure of modern African states with the African themselves. Essentially, westerners - not Africans - created completely arbitrary states that had no local resonance, divided people that were used to being part of the same state, united people who were used to being enemy states, and generally just drew haphazard lines on the map without a single clue what they were doing.

Prior to the colonial era and the sheer imbecility of European leaders, Africa was no more a land of failed states than anywhere else on the planet.

 

[Squirrelloid]

I hate when there is a discussion obviously about SUB SAHARAN BLACK AFRICA and everyone on the word 'Africa' instantly starts spamming Ancient Egypt, Carthago, Maghreb etc as the way of showing 'hey black Africans were so advanced This is like discussing about European countries to someone suddenly adding Mongols to the discussion because hey technically this is also EURASIAN LANDMASS!


Honestly, in my opinion - and in the opinion/mentality of many North Africans from what have I read - North Africa is so extremely different from Subsaharan Africa in terms of culture, history, geography and ethnicity that it could be simply named other continent in the same way Europe is distincted from Asia despite being - again - technically the same landmass.

North Africa, like all the lands bordering the Mediterranean, is part of Europe until the rise of Islam. Sure, plate tectonically there's different continents there, but in terms of communication, culture, etc... stuff north of the Alps is more remote from Rome than North Africa was for most of history. It was only the severe religious divide between Christianity and Islam - both of whom were more concerned with eliminating heathens than any other religions in earth's history - which divided the Mediterranean culturally.

 

[petertel123]

Considering that the states that are there today are largely the result of arbitrary colonial border-making followed by very poor if not inexistent attempt at nation-building, it hardly seems reasonable to associate the failure of modern African states with the African themselves. Essentially, westerners - not Africans - created completely arbitrary states that had no local resonance, divided people that were used to being part of the same state, united people who were used to being enemy states, and generally just drew haphazard lines on the map without a single clue what they were doing.

Prior to the colonial era and the sheer imbecility of European leaders, Africa was no more a land of failed states than anywhere else on the planet.

You did notice I said that I didn't think the number of failed states had anything to do with the africans themselves right?
The european leaders weren't imbeciles, they just didn't care at all about the natives. They divided africa between themselves for profit. They knew exactly what they were doing.

 

[rulethechaos]

So now Africans are now only 40% less intelegent than europeans in Paradox's eyes?
A very small step in the right direction but tech groups based on race should be removed.

@dvandyke lets assume Paradox thinks Africans are less intelligent than europeans.
In that case you could argue that they think they are 37,5% less intelligent but surely not 40%.

You really have to explain your math to me. Did you subtract 60 from 100 to get to your 40%?

 

[PhroX]

This. Many parts are outdated or at the very least overly simplistic. Surprisingly, though his field is biochemistry (pathology?) he states that many diseases which predate the native american/asian split are due to domestication?

My primary criticism is that he goes too far with his deterministic hypothesis. Trying to distil the reasons Europe "won" into single factors was never really going to work. The fact is that human societies are blind, groping, chaotic things, but they have a lot of momentum. The smallest events and changes can have colossal implications, and the reasons why the world is not a global hegemony under Java or the Caribbean are not as obvious as domestication, climate, and metal; they are a huge writhing mass of history, context, and luck.

Yeah, GGS does raise some interesting points, and to completely toss the entire thing out would be stupid, but Diamond massively over-extrapolates said ideas into a attempt to explain a hugely complex situation using single factors. Unfortunately, because it does seem like a nice coherent explanation to the uninitiated, and it's written in a readable format, GGS gotten far more traction than it really deserves. It's worth a read, but not in isolation.

(Diamond's later work Collapse of the other hand is not worth reading. It makes the same mistake of over-extrapolating as GGS, but this time the orignial points don't even have any validity, being based on a mix of outdated archaeology and outright fabrication)

 

[Kyoumen]

North Africa, like all the lands bordering the Mediterranean, is part of Europe until the rise of Islam.

No it wasn't, because for most of history, "Europe" was not a thing that existed in any meaningful sense. As you said yourself, stuff north of the alps was more remote from Rome than North Africa.

And for most of that history, the "European" part wasn't the most important part, so calling North Africa "part of Europe" is nonsensical.

Also, people underestimate both how connected Subsaharan Africa was to North Africa throughout history, and how incredibly huge and varied Africa as a whole is.

 

[uishax]

Considering that the states that are there today are largely the result of arbitrary colonial border-making followed by very poor if not inexistent attempt at nation-building, it hardly seems reasonable to associate the failure of modern African states with the African themselves. Essentially, westerners - not Africans - created completely arbitrary states that had no local resonance, divided people that were used to being part of the same state, united people who were used to being enemy states, and generally just drew haphazard lines on the map without a single clue what they were doing.

Prior to the colonial era and the sheer imbecility of European leaders, Africa was no more a land of failed states than anywhere else on the planet.

Isn't Somalia one general 'culture'? Isn't Ethiopia one general culture? Even smaller states like Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Rwanda or Swaziland are very troubled one way or another.
If modern african states can't administer large territory due to cultural differences (by your assumption), its only reasonable to assume 15th century african states to be even more incapable. What do you propose? Make all west african countries basket cases incapable of expanding beyond their own cultural group?

 

[VampireBoot]

I like how every discussion on tech groups inevitably derails into bad history, racism, and GG&S.

 

[Arilou]

t European diseases? I know the problem of colonization very well but I have never ever encountered any descriptions of European diseases destroying Africa (as opposed to poor Americas). Furthermore, it were rather Europeans travelling to Africa - especially in pre - industrial era - who were suffering very much from diseases and climate.

While largely true, there were exceptions: The khoi peoples of South Africa lacked immunity to certain european diseases (mainly smalpox) but they were locaed literally as far from Europe as you could get.

 

[Evie HJ]

Isn't Somalia one general 'culture'? Isn't Ethiopia one general culture? Even smaller states like Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Rwanda or Swaziland are very troubled one way or another.
If modern african states can't administer large territory due to cultural differences (by your assumption), its only reasonable to assume 15th century african states to be even more incapable. What do you propose? Make all west african countries basket cases incapable of expanding beyond their own cultural group?

Please read up on Afrian history before you make an even bigger fool of yourself with more statements like that.

 

[uishax]

Please read up on Afrian history before you make an even bigger fool of yourself with more statements like that.

Care to educate the folly me beyond telling others to read more?

 

[Evie HJ]

Simply put, African states of the EU era were just as extensive as any other. Songhai ruled from Niger to Senegal for a century ; Mali had ruled a sensibly similar area for a century or more as well earlier. Kanem-Bornu's rule at its greatest extent stretched over an area as large as if not larger than modern Chad (And the empire, despite a few crisis, existed for several hundred years), and the Sokoto Caliphate ruled over much of niger and present day nigeria. Ashante and Dahomey successfully ruled over modern Ghana and Benin for a long time in both cases, and

All of those states had complex government with ministries, bureaucracies and the whole work (And many, like Europe at the start of the game, relied on various forms of overlord/vassal relations). And very few of these states collapsed on their own or "failed": by and large it was foreign attacks that did them in (Morocco destroyed Songhai ; Sokoto killed Kanem-Bornu, the British in turn conquered Sokoto).

The problem of modern states in Africa are a problem of modern Africa, and find no echoes in the history of the continent before colonialism.

You can also look up Dev Diary III, because I don't feel like repeating here everything I've already said in there.

 

[Darkath]

Sub-Saharan is only West Africa in AoW, East Africa is Muslim/Indian tech (with African units).

Alleluia !

(or rather allahu akbar )

 

[oblio-]

The problem of modern states in Africa are a problem of modern Africa, and find no echoes in the history of the continent before colonialism.

I'd like to add something to this, since I see this echoed on this forum in various forms: wealth in contemporary times versus wealth in before the Industrial Age.

Most sedentary societies, especially overall stable countries (Mali, Persia, France, etc) were quite comparable in terms of overall wealth. The disparity noticed today between a poor country with a GDP per capita of $500 per year and another one with $50k per year wasn't there in 1500.
The main reason: the huge disparity now is caused by automation and availability of knowledge about automation. 10 people can produce as much value as 10000 today. Back then, everything came from manual labor: agriculture, crafts, mining. Sure, there were differences in efficiency between different countries, but overall in the Old World these inventions were quite well known and well distributed, so difference in efficiency was not that big (definitely not several orders of magnitude, as can be today).
So, basically to have a very wealthy state you needed a large population to power all those activities. If you had a large population and decent bureaucracy - which most of these successful countries had, you could generate decent wealth.
Of course, there's also trade - but as far as I know there were no huge regional differences regarding trade efficiency. The Dutch were not necessarily more efficient than Malian or Omani traders.

Some regions were relatively poor compared to the others (again: no differences like we have today of 100:1), but most of the time it was because they:
a) were depopulated by diseases, raids and wars
b) the wealth was siphoned outside of the country (various forms of tributes)
c) they had a series of bad rulers - but this is an universal rule and no country is exempt from it (Hello Louis XV & XVI!, Hello Charles I)

Of course, this all started to change slowly after the Enlightenment and the Industrial Age.

And since all this is better presented through an image:

Source. As a side note, once Japan, India and China have begun the industrialization process their figures have skyrocketed, but that's past 1950, the end date for the graph.

 

[uishax]

Simply put, African states of the EU era were just as extensive as any other. Songhai ruled from Niger to Senegal for a century ; Mali had ruled a sensibly similar area for a century or more as well earlier. Kanem-Bornu's rule at its greatest extent stretched over an area as large as if not larger than modern Chad (And the empire, despite a few crisis, existed for several hundred years), and the Sokoto Caliphate ruled over much of niger and present day nigeria. Ashante and Dahomey successfully ruled over modern Ghana and Benin for a long time in both cases, and

All of those states had complex government with ministries, bureaucracies and the whole work (And many, like Europe at the start of the game, relied on various forms of overlord/vassal relations). And very few of these states collapsed on their own or "failed": by and large it was foreign attacks that did them in (Morocco destroyed Songhai ; Sokoto killed Kanem-Bornu, the British in turn conquered Sokoto).

The problem of modern states in Africa are a problem of modern Africa, and find no echoes in the history of the continent before colonialism.

You can also look up Dev Diary III, because I don't feel like repeating here everything I've already said in there.

'The problem of modern states in Africa are a problem of modern Africa, and find no echoes in the history of the continent before colonialism. '
What a convenient excuse, but the effects of culture are never erased with one or two centuries, why is modern East Asia so successful? Has it nothing to do with its Confucian respect for education and bureaucracy or the nurturing of national identity over the millennium?
China had extremely expansive bureaucracies and a meritocratic imperial examination, did nothing to stop Qing's complete implosion. Japan was insulated from invasions yet able to trade in goods and ideas, a perfect birthplace for a modern nation, and even then it took them two centuries to wake up.
East Asian countries had extreme struggles in adapting modern institutions and technology, and they weren't interfered by the west bar a few trade wars. But somehow African countries (which one would prudently assume to be far behind the capabilities of those 100 million strong states) would have been able to establish modern states with ease if not for colonialism? That is trivialising the struggles of modernisation.

Ethiopia had resisted colonialism successfully, didn't prevent it from lagging so far behind that they only started now. Somalia is smaller and more ethnically singular than India is, didn't prevent it imploding, the only stable state in Somalia is claiming legitimacy as the successor of British Somaliland. SS-Africa’s failure is so uniform and prevalent (bar 3, 4 minor successes like Botswana or Ghana) that it’s ridiculous to insinuate colonialism is the sole cause of a continent wide tragedy. It was much behind the rest of the developing world in terms of national identity, its states never as centralised nor influential as the ones in Eurasia, causing the tribalistic collapses of numerous african states (somalia, Rwanda to name a few). It is still burdened by an extreme disease burden today, and it can only be worse before malaria medicine got brought in. The reactionary zeal against eurocentric change is still alive, evident by the mutual destruction of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, and the slow decline of south africa.

Africans can be as noble as any other race on Earth, there are still heroes trying (and currently succeeding) in leading their respective countries to prosperity. Most East African countries have patched themselves up and on stable high economic growth. But this came from terrifying lessons: decades of bloodshed and poverty. Rwandans only embraced a respect for authority (and Kagame) because of the horrors of the genocide, Ethiopia only committed to capitalism after experiencing a massive famine first hand.
SS Africa was far behind Eurasia in development, with colonisation or not. To deny this, is to deny the massive sacrifices people have made to develop a state. South Asia and East Asia had learnt their brutal lessons in their path to modernisation, please don’t suggest Africa somehow would have become some land of prosperity with a measly century if only they were left to themselves. Their struggles can only be greater, and only some African countries have passed the lessons, even in 2014.

And back to the topic of the game, the major disadvantage for SS-africa is completely justified, and the process of westernisation very trivial.

 

[Evie HJ]

Ah, yes, "I reject your reality and substitute my own".

Mind, yes, the tech penalty make sense. It's historically demonstrable that African technology wasn't as advanced as Europe during the Europa era. That part, sure.

But the notion that there is any kind of link between post-1950 African state failure and pre-colonial states's tech progress, let alone something intriseque to Africa that explains it, when the solid evidence is that pre-colonial Africa was NOT a land of failed states...you're clutching at straws to defend your indefensible theory.