Why Africa/Kenya not developed -from quora

[Dear Mami]

So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers.  In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc).  In today's world there is no time for organic growth.  So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.

Yep! Exactly.

[Nefertiti]

So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers.  In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc).  In today's world there is no time for organic growth.  So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.

I see the postmodern world as largely a positive for the African and the 3rd world. Am unconvinced left to her own devices Africa would be close to civilization. The argument of the pros and cons of colonization comes to mind.

[Dear Mami]

So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers.  In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc).  In today's world there is no time for organic growth.  So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.

I see the postmodern world as largely a positive for the African and the 3rd world. Am unconvinced left to her own devices Africa would be close to civilization. The argument of the pros and cons of colonization comes to mind.

African social evolution was following agriculture same as it has everywhere. Why do you think centralization, large kingdoms, and even proto-parliaments were already happening in the West, the great lakes, and the South but not everywhere on the continent by the time colonialism came by? It's called agriculture, baby. What happens once it starts to take over hunter-gatherer societies is the same everywhere. And I say this as a critique of agriculture. It comes with women-oppression/slavery etc too. It only crossed the Sahara 3,000 years ago and took the rest of those years to spread to Central Africa, the East and the South.; that's 3,000 years after Bazungu, who got it 4,000 years after the Mediterraneans.

[Nefertiti]

Dear Mami i don't think history absolves Africa. Why didn't Africa discover agriculture first for instance? Or any meaningful  evolutional breakthroughs? History is a paradox - at least to me - as in the susceptibility to slavery and other exploitations is an indictment more than an absolution.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

So you think it's because Africans were recently not far removed from hunter gatherers.  In which case the most meaningful comparison that can be made would be between Africans and Central Americans(Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Belize etc).  In today's world there is no time for organic growth.  So they are being forced to adjust to foreign systems and solutions.

I see the postmodern world as largely a positive for the African and the 3rd world. Am unconvinced left to her own devices Africa would be close to civilization. The argument of the pros and cons of colonization comes to mind.

It's possible.  But that would not be because of intelligence.  Most of human history, over a hundred thousand years, has been hunter-gatherer, so we should not be shocked, or even think it reveals something unusual, if it continued a few more thousand years in areas not touched by the modern world.

[Dear Mami]

Dear Mami i don't think history absolves Africa. Why didn't Africa discover agriculture first for instance? Or any meaningful  evolutional breakthroughs? History is a paradox - at least to me - as in the susceptibility to slavery and other exploitations is an indictment more than an absolution.

Agriculture was discovered only once in Saudi Arabia, then China some years later, most probably by accident. From Saudi Arabia it spread to everyone, slowly, with migration. The Sahara was prohibitive. So I don't see how you ask Africans why they didn't stumble onto agriculture like the other 99% of human beings who were all apparently 'waiting' for it to be brought to them.

[Nefertiti]

It's possible.  But that would not be because of intelligence.  Most of human history, over a hundred thousand years, has been hunter-gatherer, so we should not be shocked, or even think it reveals something unusual, if it continued a few more thousand years in areas not touched by the modern world.

This is almost my whole point... why significant modernity sprung up elsewhere but Africa.

[Dear Mami]

It's possible.  But that would not be because of intelligence.  Most of human history, over a hundred thousand years, has been hunter-gatherer, so we should not be shocked, or even think it reveals something unusual, if it continued a few more thousand years in areas not touched by the modern world.

This is almost my whole point... why significant modernity sprung up elsewhere but Africa.

What you call 'modernity' sprung up with agriculture, everywhere.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

It's possible.  But that would not be because of intelligence.  Most of human history, over a hundred thousand years, has been hunter-gatherer, so we should not be shocked, or even think it reveals something unusual, if it continued a few more thousand years in areas not touched by the modern world.

This is almost my whole point... why significant modernity sprung up elsewhere but Africa.

To be fair, the "modern world" sprung in tiny England and spread from there.  It did not arise anywhere else, in spite of exposure to the same ideas in Germany(Prussia), France, Russia etc.

An argument can be made that modernity is not a guaranteed outcome of evolution.  It's a rare accident. 

[Nefertiti]

Agriculture was discovered only once in Saudi Arabia, then China some years later, most probably by accident. From Saudi Arabia it spread to everyone, slowly, with migration. The Sahara was prohibitive. So I don't see how you ask Africans why they didn't stumble onto agriculture like the other 99% of human beings who were all apparently 'waiting' for it to be brought to them.

I see your point and am quite happy to be schooled. Agriculture, domestication of animals, writing, printing, the enlightenment age in Europe, etc - Africa seemed to miss out on most evolutional windfalls.

[Nefertiti]

To be fair, the "modern world" sprung in tiny England and spread from there.  It did not arise anywhere else, in spite of exposure to the same ideas in Germany(Prussia), France, Russia etc.

An argument can be made that modernity is not a guaranteed outcome of evolution.  It's a rare accident.

The glaring imperfection called modernity will be laughed off as a babaric age in future. It's both accidental and a stalling of evolution.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

To be fair, the "modern world" sprung in tiny England and spread from there.  It did not arise anywhere else, in spite of exposure to the same ideas in Germany(Prussia), France, Russia etc.

An argument can be made that modernity is not a guaranteed outcome of evolution.  It's a rare accident.

The glaring imperfection called modernity will be laughed off as a babaric age in future. It's both accidental and a stalling of evolution.

Possible.  Or the golden age.  You never know.  The collapse of Roman empire led Europe straight into the dark ages of serfdom.

[Dear Mami]

Agriculture was discovered only once in Saudi Arabia, then China some years later, most probably by accident. From Saudi Arabia it spread to everyone, slowly, with migration. The Sahara was prohibitive. So I don't see how you ask Africans why they didn't stumble onto agriculture like the other 99% of human beings who were all apparently 'waiting' for it to be brought to them.

I see your point and am quite happy to be schooled. Agriculture, domestication of animals, writing, printing, the enlightenment age in Europe, etc - Africa seemed to miss out on most evolutional windfalls.

Nah, Robina. I think you still don't see what I'm trying to say, because all those 'evolution windfalls' you mention came well after agriculture and as a result of it. Unless you are arguing Africans should've been different from all other humans and had all those things from pre-agricultural society. But no one had those things pre-agriculture and the African is among the last to find agriculture, merely because of ancient migration patterns. Every other society that did not come into contact with agriculture is a hunter-gatherer to this day. Again, I just don't see how adding to that list, that depends on agriculture in the first place, strengthens the idea that the African is uniquely innately incapacitated. Just doesn't add up.

It seems clear to me that the African, like absolutely everyone else on the planet, was a happy hunter-gatherer until he found this strange thing some people were doing with the land, called agriculture, 3,000 years ago, and it began revolutionalizing his society like it had every other human society it had crawled its way into in pretty much the same ways: making it more and more complex and centralized: They began looking more and more like what we would recognize as proto-states. This stuff is not because of intelligence but because agriculture creates a permanent attachment to land, the need for controlled labour, and enables a population boom, all of which leads to more and more complexity/the need for central organization over time.