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The Mercator system for projecting a globe onto a 2-dimensional paper map biases us into assuming that Western Europe is quite capacious and Africa not all that big. As you can see on a globe, however, Africa is immense:
@Jack DTrue for many other places too sport. Australia is 90% desert. Canada is mostly uninhabitable. So is much of Russia. The southwest of the USA is largely barren as well. Only Africans seem to feel they can just invite themselves to Europe and elsewhere.Replies: @LFM
@Jack DMaybe a lot more of it could be habitable, if Europeans were living there and making it into habitable land. In fact, given Modern European (and Euro-descended) peoples tremendous capacity for technological development, scientific advancement, benevolence towards humanity, etc- and the stark contrast to African peoples' lack of these traits, instead of discussing African immigration to the rest of the world, we should shut down aid to Africa, let their numbers dwindle back down to the naturally low levels they manage by their own efforts, and start efforts to encourage Europeans to have more children and establish colonies in Africa.
@Jack DUnfortunately if you look for data on arable land, the definition for which it is easy to find good data for cross country comparison defines ‘arable’ as land currently being used for crops, rather than land which could potentially be used for crops.
Some quick Googling,
Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal—a centre collaborating with the United Nations Environment Programme—gives 300 million potential hectares of land for ‘rain fed’ crops. This ‘excludes forests’.
According to www.tradingeconomics.com, which Google highlights in its results, the amount of arable land in the US is ~160 million hectares (and has been falling). This definition of ‘arable’ is land currently being used for crops (presumably including irrigated, not just rain fed), temporarily fallow, or pasture.
Used to be they held Rand McNally as part of the international conspiracy against the dignity of black bodies for compromising in the face of the physical impossibility of reproducing the surface of a sphere in two dimensions. Now they oughtta thank them for psychologically preparing Westerners to accept an invasion from Africa. You owe cartographers an apology, race-hustlers.
By the way, I always wondered why no one theorized Mercator projection is the product of Greenland-centrism. That island is frickin’ yuge on maps.
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
yes the usa, east euro, italy parts north but the rest is yuuge. keep: africans in africa!
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
Yeah, yeah,…..let’s keep the growth rate maxed out until the entire continent is packed like the densest slums of Calcutta. It will be interesting to see how folks get by living in the desert or in the swamps of the Congo. And too bad, so sad for all the lions, zebras and elephants. At least multinationals will be able to sell more soda and smart phones. There are bound to a few geniuses within the future billions who will show us how to colonize other planets…..Julian Simon & Ben Wattenberg promised it would be so! The Ultimate Resource after all.
Madagascar is the same size as Britain, has a third of the population, and is one of the biggest biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It’s almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It’s almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.
Because "First I look at The Purse" - An old J Geils tune
It’s a little larger than Russia and Canada combined. I have a feeling that they are using up the land an a fairly rapid pace. Africa has the world’s highest rate of deforestation.
@AnonUsing China and India as benchmarks, and which also have extensive deserts (China in particular) I think Africa could probably sustain 4 billion humans. Of course, it would also require killing off a lot of its biodiversity, as well as leading to the kind of population densities that one finds in Asia. Not something to look forward to.Replies: @newrouter, @newrouter
@HodagIt would appear that Americans really were more intelligent and knowledgeable a half century ago and expected more of the MSM than they do now. By comparison, today's MSM are buffoons performing for an audience of self-satisfied morons.
Another sad observation: Biafran = Igbo = "Jews of Africa".
Madagascar is the same size as Britain, has a third of the population, and is one of the biggest biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It's almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.Replies: @SPMoore8, @Clyde, @athEIst
The natives are also endangering their biodiversity but cutting down all the forests.
@SPMoore8We just went to see Madagascar, Island of the Lemurs in 3D. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, of course. It was really beautiful and the lemurs are fascinating little critters but the Africans are burning up their forests and the lemurs are losing habitat. It was quite amusing to me how the movie did its darndest to be good environmentalist human-haters and yet be nice to the clearly destructive Africans. don't say anything bad about Africans!
The people looked like all Africans: poor, dirty, and supremely happy.
It's a little larger than Russia and Canada combined. I have a feeling that they are using up the land an a fairly rapid pace. Africa has the world's highest rate of deforestation.Replies: @SPMoore8, @newrouter
Using China and India as benchmarks, and which also have extensive deserts (China in particular) I think Africa could probably sustain 4 billion humans. Of course, it would also require killing off a lot of its biodiversity, as well as leading to the kind of population densities that one finds in Asia. Not something to look forward to.
It's a little larger than Russia and Canada combined. I have a feeling that they are using up the land an a fairly rapid pace. Africa has the world's highest rate of deforestation.Replies: @SPMoore8, @newrouter
> Africa has the world’s highest rate of deforestation.<
Madagascar is the same size as Britain, has a third of the population, and is one of the biggest biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It's almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.Replies: @SPMoore8, @Clyde, @athEIst
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It’s almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.
Because “First I look at The Purse” – An old J Geils tune
@AnonUsing China and India as benchmarks, and which also have extensive deserts (China in particular) I think Africa could probably sustain 4 billion humans. Of course, it would also require killing off a lot of its biodiversity, as well as leading to the kind of population densities that one finds in Asia. Not something to look forward to.Replies: @newrouter, @newrouter
> Of course, it would also require killing off a lot of its biodiversity,<
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
True for many other places too sport. Australia is 90% desert. Canada is mostly uninhabitable. So is much of Russia. The southwest of the USA is largely barren as well. Only Africans seem to feel they can just invite themselves to Europe and elsewhere.
@AnonUsing China and India as benchmarks, and which also have extensive deserts (China in particular) I think Africa could probably sustain 4 billion humans. Of course, it would also require killing off a lot of its biodiversity, as well as leading to the kind of population densities that one finds in Asia. Not something to look forward to.Replies: @newrouter, @newrouter
@newrouterOkay, why don't you tell us your plan to reduce Africa's birth rate and/or reduce their rate of emigration. We're all ears.Replies: @Brutusale
Africans have made a mess out of the (potentially vastly rich) continent of Africa. Now they want to invite themselves to Europe where they will once more make a mess out of a continent. Then there will be nowhere for ANYBODY to go and there will be two ruined continents instead of just one.
Steve:. Back in the 90s, Rand McNally had a few retail stores, one was around Wacker and Monroe in the Loop.
They should have had cocktail hours. I spent so much time there…one Christmas everyone on the list got something mappy. I even bought a throw rug there.
Africa is about 20.4% of the land of the Earth. if you were to just take into account temperate habitable areas, Africa would probably be in the mid 40% range.
Uh-Oh! Offence warning! Warning! There is a lesson here somewhere, don’t get tricked or your spouse might come home with re-education training. Be careful!
Somebody flag this piece to save yourself. You can’t imagine a thing like “why do they come here”, or the dreaded thought “They have an entire continent to live on!”.
Steve:. Back in the 90s, Rand McNally had a few retail stores, one was around Wacker and Monroe in the Loop.
They should have had cocktail hours. I spent so much time there...one Christmas everyone on the list got something mappy. I even bought a throw rug there.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @ATX Hipster
I used to hang out in the Rand McNally shop in the Loop too.
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
A big chunk of China is hardly fit for human habitation as well. Nearly half of their territory is freezing mountain ranges or barren desert.
@wren"Are there still a million recent Chinese immigrants in Africa?
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?"
Why would anybody from the BRIC nations want to immigrate to Africa, when according to Libertarian voodoo economists the BRIC nations are on the cusp of becoming 1st World nations.Replies: @Karl
@SPMoore8I only want to hear plans to limit Africans' ability to leave their continent. Their birth and death rates are SO not our problem, and I resent the implication that they are. Tea-Sneezy Genius wants YT off of black bodies, and I agree whole-heartedly.
Heh, I made the same point and linked to the exact same infographic in a comment many moons ago. (Yes, I used a different identity. This was before I knew how Ron hates this.)
Incidentally, one thing that struck me in the infographic was the tidbit about the American schoolkids. When asked how many people live in the USA majority of them apparently selected “1-2 billion.” So when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, “Huh? Isn’t it a billion already?”
So when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, “Huh? Isn’t it a billion already?”
The Zeroth Amendment people probably think that being the most populated country in the world is our manifest destiny. Goes with being the greatest country in the world. Or something.
... when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, “Huh? Isn’t it a billion already?”
Yeah, but to be fair, they probably won't know the difference between a million and a billion, either.
Steve:. Back in the 90s, Rand McNally had a few retail stores, one was around Wacker and Monroe in the Loop.
They should have had cocktail hours. I spent so much time there...one Christmas everyone on the list got something mappy. I even bought a throw rug there.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @ATX Hipster
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
@Father O'HaraYou would be surprised how depopulated the really bad neighborhoods of the South and West sides of Chicago are. Steve bangs on about Austin but check out North Lawndale. (South Lawndale is now called Little Village, an entirely Mexican enclave, with the charms of a large town in Mexico.).
North Lawndale never recovered from Fair Housing Act and the riots after MLK was murdered. Peak population was 124k, now 34k. Western Electric had a giant factory there, now empty. About 2/3 of the buildings are gone. There are not even liquor stores. Driving through is spooky.
Heh, I made the same point and linked to the exact same infographic in a comment many moons ago. (Yes, I used a different identity. This was before I knew how Ron hates this.)
Incidentally, one thing that struck me in the infographic was the tidbit about the American schoolkids. When asked how many people live in the USA majority of them apparently selected "1-2 billion." So when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, "Huh? Isn't it a billion already?"Replies: @PiltdownMan, @Daniel Williams
So when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, “Huh? Isn’t it a billion already?”
The Zeroth Amendment people probably think that being the most populated country in the world is our manifest destiny. Goes with being the greatest country in the world. Or something.
I remember globes being present in most school classrooms. I even got one for Christmas one year. Still have it. One problem though is they show the world as it was. Former British Empire territory is colored pink ( except for the US) and my globe still shows a prosperous land known as Rhodesia that has disappeared.
“It will be interesting to see how folks get by living in the desert or in the swamps of the Congo.”
Europe had a lot of swamps (and malaria in places like Italy) until the Cistercians and others spent a very long time, hundreds of years, working to drain them:
“…in relation to fields such as agriculture, hydraulic engineering and metallurgy, the Cistercians became the main force of technological diffusion in medieval Europe.”
“…Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the technological advances in Europe were made in the monasteries…
…”Every monastery had a model factory, often as large as the church and only several feet away, and waterpower drove the machinery of the various industries located on its floor.”…
…Waterpower was used for crushing wheat, sieving flour, fulling cloth and tanning – a “level of technological achievement [that] could have been observed in practically all” of the Cistercian monasteries…
…The Cistercian order was innovative in developing techniques of hydraulic engineering…”
A lot of those places with a rolling mix of forest and farmland that looks so pretty were made that way by sustained effort over a very long time.
“The loss of low-lying farmland to marshes and swamps was a striking phenomenon in Italy and other regions of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Throughout the Middle Ages extensive fertile agricultural lands were abandoned due to increased marshiness and the risk of the spread of malaria diffusion. In economic and social terms, this was a further source of decline. In this scenario of progressive abandonment which supported the spread of disease, Benedictine and Cistercian monks performed extensive land reclamation (relying on channels, dams and embankments), leading to a progressive control of seasonal flooding by rivers and basins. Inside the abbeys monastic medicine flourished, which in some regions often represented the main reference point for health care for all residents (whether the common people, nobles or clergy), in the “Dark Ages”. Many monks paid with their own lives: malaria and malnutrition were the most frequent causes of morbidity and mortality. Benedictine and Cistercian monks, who had embraced the Benedictine rule, today deserve high consideration, as the major supporters of Europe’s recovery, which took place on the continent from the 13 th century onward. Their mottos, “Pray and work” (Ora et labora) and “That God may be glorified in all things” (Ut in omnibus glorificatur Deus) supported their daily life and action. For centuries inside abbeys and fortified farm-steads known as grande monks added prayers to work, in their attempt to reclaim land. Nature often treated them badly, but despite such difficulties, the monks never shrank from danger.”
@anonymousYeah, but you've got to remember that Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel is Holy Writ in the School of P.C.
And according to him, unlike anywhere else on earth, Europe was the land of milk and honey where everything was easily achieved without any effort whatsoever. Toss a seed into the ground and up sprang an orchard, that kind of thing. Tons of easily exploited natural resources. It all fell into the Europeans' laps.
All other continents, by contrast, were hard-scrabble places without any natural resources whatsoever.
That's why the notoriously lazy and stupid white people were able to take over the world. Q.E.D.Replies: @Hippopotamusdrome, @Simple Pseudonymic Handle
Solomon's Temple was the center of the YHWH-cultic rituals of course, but it also served as a Mint, Fort Knox, Central Bank, Dept of Agriculture, and other important miscellaneous civil functions
It was the midaeivil Japan worship centers which produced the first de-facto Commercial Letters of Credit, based on receipts for the Emperor's tax on rice harvests.
It was the Dutch a coupla hundred years afterwards, who formalized the system, the foundation stone of Trade Finance even today.
@anonymousGreat post. The amount of husbandry that the Monks did is incredible.
One interesting thing I read recently about St. Benedict, the Father of Europe, was that in addition to his famous 3 rules of Poverty, Chastity, & Obedience, there was a 4th rule, of Locality. A Benedictine had to also stay in one place for 13 or 15 years and improve the land. Hugely important.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Brutusale
The Mercator system for projecting a globe onto a 2-dimensional paper map biases us into assuming that Western Europe is quite capacious and Africa not all that big. As you can see on a globe, however, Africa is immense:
Even more, it highlights how tiny Europe is, compared to Africa.
But that’s an opportunity, because it makes the activity depicted below no longer the privilege of white people.
Wait… India is only twice the size of Somalia, but has 120 times the population? Africa doesn’t sound overcrowded to me. Except for Nigeria, and the Nile.
@Reg CæsarIt will be in 2050 or 2100, due to our self-centred, sheerly egoistic (or rather egotistic) "help", if it isn't again us to prevent their destructive population growth (of course deluding them. I don't think the 70 thousand Ethiopian Jews that were sterilized by Israel understood what was done to them at all).
This is what happens when ill-advised species meddle with other ecosystems.Replies: @Anonymous
"It will be interesting to see how folks get by living in the desert or in the swamps of the Congo."
Europe had a lot of swamps (and malaria in places like Italy) until the Cistercians and others spent a very long time, hundreds of years, working to drain them:
"...in relation to fields such as agriculture, hydraulic engineering and metallurgy, the Cistercians became the main force of technological diffusion in medieval Europe."
"...Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the technological advances in Europe were made in the monasteries...
..."Every monastery had a model factory, often as large as the church and only several feet away, and waterpower drove the machinery of the various industries located on its floor."...
...Waterpower was used for crushing wheat, sieving flour, fulling cloth and tanning – a "level of technological achievement [that] could have been observed in practically all" of the Cistercian monasteries...
...The Cistercian order was innovative in developing techniques of hydraulic engineering..."
A lot of those places with a rolling mix of forest and farmland that looks so pretty were made that way by sustained effort over a very long time.
"The loss of low-lying farmland to marshes and swamps was a striking phenomenon in Italy and other regions of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Throughout the Middle Ages extensive fertile agricultural lands were abandoned due to increased marshiness and the risk of the spread of malaria diffusion. In economic and social terms, this was a further source of decline. In this scenario of progressive abandonment which supported the spread of disease, Benedictine and Cistercian monks performed extensive land reclamation (relying on channels, dams and embankments), leading to a progressive control of seasonal flooding by rivers and basins. Inside the abbeys monastic medicine flourished, which in some regions often represented the main reference point for health care for all residents (whether the common people, nobles or clergy), in the "Dark Ages". Many monks paid with their own lives: malaria and malnutrition were the most frequent causes of morbidity and mortality. Benedictine and Cistercian monks, who had embraced the Benedictine rule, today deserve high consideration, as the major supporters of Europe's recovery, which took place on the continent from the 13 th century onward. Their mottos, "Pray and work" (Ora et labora) and "That God may be glorified in all things" (Ut in omnibus glorificatur Deus) supported their daily life and action. For centuries inside abbeys and fortified farm-steads known as grande monks added prayers to work, in their attempt to reclaim land. Nature often treated them badly, but despite such difficulties, the monks never shrank from danger."
Replies: @celt darnell, @Karl, @Je Suis Charlie Martel
Yeah, but you’ve got to remember that Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel is Holy Writ in the School of P.C.
And according to him, unlike anywhere else on earth, Europe was the land of milk and honey where everything was easily achieved without any effort whatsoever. Toss a seed into the ground and up sprang an orchard, that kind of thing. Tons of easily exploited natural resources. It all fell into the Europeans’ laps.
All other continents, by contrast, were hard-scrabble places without any natural resources whatsoever.
That’s why the notoriously lazy and stupid white people were able to take over the world. Q.E.D.
I read GGS for fun and had a completely different interpretation. I wonder how they teach it. It is absolutely true he throws in some awful SJW claptrap (his Papuan buddy is smarter than Einstein, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were filled with genocidalists) but overall I think that the "geography is destiny" argument is valid. Humboldt and List said the same. He does not take this to its logical conclusion - that this would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits, but still I think the premise is sound.
The advantage Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians had living on a super-continent with relatively easy latitudinal movement simply could not be matched by the climate and resources of longitudinal Africa. Africa is widest at its most inhabitable places. They had no chance.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @celt darnell
The immigration shills will say that Africa is land-rich but resource-poor.And by "resource-poor" they mean there are inadequate geological prospects for mining the pockets of white people.Replies: @Anonym
Are there still a million recent Chinese immigrants in Africa?
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?Replies: @Jefferson
“Are there still a million recent Chinese immigrants in Africa?
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?”
Why would anybody from the BRIC nations want to immigrate to Africa, when according to Libertarian voodoo economists the BRIC nations are on the cusp of becoming 1st World nations.
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
It’s not like USA and China have large deserts and mountains or anything
Rationally speaking, one might think it insane that massive immigration is promoted from low population density nations to high population nations.
But, alas, rationality has never got in the way of The Economist magazine or the hard left.
For example, London, England, a terribly overcrowded place, is expected to swell to over 10 million in population within the next decade entirely due to overseas immigration.
Yet, at the same time the ancient historic nation of Lithuania, with its tiny and dwindling population is encouraged by the EU to ship its best and brightest to London, leaving Lithuania a ghost town.
@AnonymousThey're not sending their best people to the U.K., as Trump would say. Mostly it's lower-class folks from the countryside who couldn't succeed in Lithuania, or students on temporary summer jobs looking to make some money and perfect their English skills. Lithuania is quite happy to offload the left tail of the curve to the U.K., and the host country is better off having them displace some of the diverse alternatives as immigrants.
Other recent emigrants from Lithuania: Syrian (or "Syrian") refugees, who complained about the meager benefits given to migrants in Lithuania and high-tailed it to Germany or Sweden after a few months of not having their every need and want catered to. I guess living in a peaceful, tidy, highly developed country wasn't good enough for these "war refugees". It's Germany, Sweden, or death!
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
Well, changing the environment into an habitable one of the functions of intelligence…
Give Africa to the Ashkenazi/Japanese/Caucasian/Chinese and see.
Give North America and Europe to the African and see, too.
Antiracists love this “how big Africa really is” comparisons. They think it shows how social constructions like the mapping of the world influences the perception, and that in reality Africa is and should be the most important place in the world and everybody should be awe.
What they don´t get it that its pure size makes Africas failure even more ridiculous. This is no small, fringe, resourceless area, but a huge, geographically diverse continent with plenty of possibilities – you only have to use them
Wait… India is only twice the size of Somalia, but has 120 times the population? Africa doesn't sound overcrowded to me. Except for Nigeria, and the Nile.Replies: @Anonymous
It will be in 2050 or 2100, due to our self-centred, sheerly egoistic (or rather egotistic) “help”, if it isn’t again us to prevent their destructive population growth (of course deluding them. I don’t think the 70 thousand Ethiopian Jews that were sterilized by Israel understood what was done to them at all).
This is what happens when ill-advised species meddle with other ecosystems.
@AnonymousI had never even heard that they forced long-term birth control on Ethiopians, but some quick checking online shows its verified from credible sources. It really shows you the selectiveness of the media.Could you imagine the outcry if the US or another western country were doing this to 'undesired' immigrants to here? The double standards are deafening.
To answer the question in the title: no, there is not enough room in Africa for the Africans of the near future if they keep breeding like rabbits. However, since the ecumene proportion of Africa is not significantly higher than that of most other regions of the world save Europe (which is already VERY densely populated) that just gets back to saying that there is not enough room anywhere in the world for Africans.
"It will be interesting to see how folks get by living in the desert or in the swamps of the Congo."
Europe had a lot of swamps (and malaria in places like Italy) until the Cistercians and others spent a very long time, hundreds of years, working to drain them:
"...in relation to fields such as agriculture, hydraulic engineering and metallurgy, the Cistercians became the main force of technological diffusion in medieval Europe."
"...Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the technological advances in Europe were made in the monasteries...
..."Every monastery had a model factory, often as large as the church and only several feet away, and waterpower drove the machinery of the various industries located on its floor."...
...Waterpower was used for crushing wheat, sieving flour, fulling cloth and tanning – a "level of technological achievement [that] could have been observed in practically all" of the Cistercian monasteries...
...The Cistercian order was innovative in developing techniques of hydraulic engineering..."
A lot of those places with a rolling mix of forest and farmland that looks so pretty were made that way by sustained effort over a very long time.
"The loss of low-lying farmland to marshes and swamps was a striking phenomenon in Italy and other regions of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Throughout the Middle Ages extensive fertile agricultural lands were abandoned due to increased marshiness and the risk of the spread of malaria diffusion. In economic and social terms, this was a further source of decline. In this scenario of progressive abandonment which supported the spread of disease, Benedictine and Cistercian monks performed extensive land reclamation (relying on channels, dams and embankments), leading to a progressive control of seasonal flooding by rivers and basins. Inside the abbeys monastic medicine flourished, which in some regions often represented the main reference point for health care for all residents (whether the common people, nobles or clergy), in the "Dark Ages". Many monks paid with their own lives: malaria and malnutrition were the most frequent causes of morbidity and mortality. Benedictine and Cistercian monks, who had embraced the Benedictine rule, today deserve high consideration, as the major supporters of Europe's recovery, which took place on the continent from the 13 th century onward. Their mottos, "Pray and work" (Ora et labora) and "That God may be glorified in all things" (Ut in omnibus glorificatur Deus) supported their daily life and action. For centuries inside abbeys and fortified farm-steads known as grande monks added prayers to work, in their attempt to reclaim land. Nature often treated them badly, but despite such difficulties, the monks never shrank from danger."
Replies: @celt darnell, @Karl, @Je Suis Charlie Martel
> ”Every monastery had a model factory
You ought to read
Temples Tithes and Taxes
by this wonderful shiksa scholar, Marty Stevens.
Solomon’s Temple was the center of the YHWH-cultic rituals of course, but it also served as a Mint, Fort Knox, Central Bank, Dept of Agriculture, and other important miscellaneous civil functions
It was the midaeivil Japan worship centers which produced the first de-facto Commercial Letters of Credit, based on receipts for the Emperor’s tax on rice harvests.
It was the Dutch a coupla hundred years afterwards, who formalized the system, the foundation stone of Trade Finance even today.
@wren"Are there still a million recent Chinese immigrants in Africa?
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?"
Why would anybody from the BRIC nations want to immigrate to Africa, when according to Libertarian voodoo economists the BRIC nations are on the cusp of becoming 1st World nations.Replies: @Karl
> Why would anybody from the BRIC nations want to immigrate to Africa
cheaper pussy. A middle-level Chinese mining engineer, is as a God in Africa, harem-of-college-student-girls -wise
And no one bothers you about shtupping the 14 year old housemaid.
@Jack DSame could be said of the South Side of Chicago.Replies: @Jefferson, @Hodag
You would be surprised how depopulated the really bad neighborhoods of the South and West sides of Chicago are. Steve bangs on about Austin but check out North Lawndale. (South Lawndale is now called Little Village, an entirely Mexican enclave, with the charms of a large town in Mexico.).
North Lawndale never recovered from Fair Housing Act and the riots after MLK was murdered. Peak population was 124k, now 34k. Western Electric had a giant factory there, now empty. About 2/3 of the buildings are gone. There are not even liquor stores. Driving through is spooky.
A straightforward description of the Biafran War. From 60 Minutes.
So I am not crazy. 60 Minutes was a deadpan documentary series in my youth.
What went wrong?
(Yes, the dude from the Dead Kennedys is named after the guts of the starving children of Biafra.)Replies: @ATX Hipster, @Jus' Sayin'...
It would appear that Americans really were more intelligent and knowledgeable a half century ago and expected more of the MSM than they do now. By comparison, today’s MSM are buffoons performing for an audience of self-satisfied morons.
Another sad observation: Biafran = Igbo = “Jews of Africa”.
@anonymousYeah, but you've got to remember that Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel is Holy Writ in the School of P.C.
And according to him, unlike anywhere else on earth, Europe was the land of milk and honey where everything was easily achieved without any effort whatsoever. Toss a seed into the ground and up sprang an orchard, that kind of thing. Tons of easily exploited natural resources. It all fell into the Europeans' laps.
All other continents, by contrast, were hard-scrabble places without any natural resources whatsoever.
That's why the notoriously lazy and stupid white people were able to take over the world. Q.E.D.Replies: @Hippopotamusdrome, @Simple Pseudonymic Handle
Plus Europe is far to the north and has snow covering the ground in winter that is not the case in regions close to the equator.
@anonymousYeah, but you've got to remember that Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel is Holy Writ in the School of P.C.
And according to him, unlike anywhere else on earth, Europe was the land of milk and honey where everything was easily achieved without any effort whatsoever. Toss a seed into the ground and up sprang an orchard, that kind of thing. Tons of easily exploited natural resources. It all fell into the Europeans' laps.
All other continents, by contrast, were hard-scrabble places without any natural resources whatsoever.
That's why the notoriously lazy and stupid white people were able to take over the world. Q.E.D.Replies: @Hippopotamusdrome, @Simple Pseudonymic Handle
Hi Celt,
I read GGS for fun and had a completely different interpretation. I wonder how they teach it. It is absolutely true he throws in some awful SJW claptrap (his Papuan buddy is smarter than Einstein, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were filled with genocidalists) but overall I think that the “geography is destiny” argument is valid. Humboldt and List said the same. He does not take this to its logical conclusion – that this would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits, but still I think the premise is sound.
The advantage Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians had living on a super-continent with relatively easy latitudinal movement simply could not be matched by the climate and resources of longitudinal Africa. Africa is widest at its most inhabitable places. They had no chance.
@Simple Pseudonymic HandleDiamond's SJW claptrap is persistent throughout the book and his failure to acknowledge the logical conclusion -- that geography "would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits," is a pretty serious omission. Especially given what his book purports to explain.
Nor are his descriptions of each regions' geography particularly accurate.
@Flinders PetrieThe natives are also endangering their biodiversity but cutting down all the forests.Replies: @Hodag, @stillCARealist
We just went to see Madagascar, Island of the Lemurs in 3D. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, of course. It was really beautiful and the lemurs are fascinating little critters but the Africans are burning up their forests and the lemurs are losing habitat. It was quite amusing to me how the movie did its darndest to be good environmentalist human-haters and yet be nice to the clearly destructive Africans. don’t say anything bad about Africans!
The people looked like all Africans: poor, dirty, and supremely happy.
Rationally speaking, one might think it insane that massive immigration is promoted from low population density nations to high population nations.
But, alas, rationality has never got in the way of The Economist magazine or the hard left.
For example, London, England, a terribly overcrowded place, is expected to swell to over 10 million in population within the next decade entirely due to overseas immigration.
Yet, at the same time the ancient historic nation of Lithuania, with its tiny and dwindling population is encouraged by the EU to ship its best and brightest to London, leaving Lithuania a ghost town.Replies: @anon, @bomag
They’re not sending their best people to the U.K., as Trump would say. Mostly it’s lower-class folks from the countryside who couldn’t succeed in Lithuania, or students on temporary summer jobs looking to make some money and perfect their English skills. Lithuania is quite happy to offload the left tail of the curve to the U.K., and the host country is better off having them displace some of the diverse alternatives as immigrants.
Other recent emigrants from Lithuania: Syrian (or “Syrian”) refugees, who complained about the meager benefits given to migrants in Lithuania and high-tailed it to Germany or Sweden after a few months of not having their every need and want catered to. I guess living in a peaceful, tidy, highly developed country wasn’t good enough for these “war refugees”. It’s Germany, Sweden, or death!
Libya: 562 Nigerians Return From Libya Within 3 Months – Nema
He said that one of the returnees, Miss Omogui Happiness, commended the Federal Government and IOM for facilitating her return after a harrowing experience in the quest to enter Europe through Libya.
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
Your point is???
There’s more then enough room for them to stay the hell there.
MM
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
Jack is totally right about this one- not suited for human habitation.
I mean,it would be like settling more than half million superhumans ,or even opening wineries(!), in places such as the Negev Dese…..oh,wait.
Rationally speaking, one might think it insane that massive immigration is promoted from low population density nations to high population nations.
But, alas, rationality has never got in the way of The Economist magazine or the hard left.
For example, London, England, a terribly overcrowded place, is expected to swell to over 10 million in population within the next decade entirely due to overseas immigration.
Yet, at the same time the ancient historic nation of Lithuania, with its tiny and dwindling population is encouraged by the EU to ship its best and brightest to London, leaving Lithuania a ghost town.Replies: @anon, @bomag
has never got in the way of The Economist magazine
I often wonder if economics really works.
I ask the usual suspects why Africa doesn’t develop if they have all the incentives and information of other countries.
I’m told that their governments are corrupt, and won’t let the people develop.
So I guess economics gets its ass kicked by a battalion of government officials on the take.
Heh, I made the same point and linked to the exact same infographic in a comment many moons ago. (Yes, I used a different identity. This was before I knew how Ron hates this.)
Incidentally, one thing that struck me in the infographic was the tidbit about the American schoolkids. When asked how many people live in the USA majority of them apparently selected "1-2 billion." So when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, "Huh? Isn't it a billion already?"Replies: @PiltdownMan, @Daniel Williams
… when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, “Huh? Isn’t it a billion already?”
Yeah, but to be fair, they probably won’t know the difference between a million and a billion, either.
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
Maybe a lot more of it could be habitable, if Europeans were living there and making it into habitable land. In fact, given Modern European (and Euro-descended) peoples tremendous capacity for technological development, scientific advancement, benevolence towards humanity, etc- and the stark contrast to African peoples’ lack of these traits, instead of discussing African immigration to the rest of the world, we should shut down aid to Africa, let their numbers dwindle back down to the naturally low levels they manage by their own efforts, and start efforts to encourage Europeans to have more children and establish colonies in Africa.
@Reg CæsarIt will be in 2050 or 2100, due to our self-centred, sheerly egoistic (or rather egotistic) "help", if it isn't again us to prevent their destructive population growth (of course deluding them. I don't think the 70 thousand Ethiopian Jews that were sterilized by Israel understood what was done to them at all).
This is what happens when ill-advised species meddle with other ecosystems.Replies: @Anonymous
I had never even heard that they forced long-term birth control on Ethiopians, but some quick checking online shows its verified from credible sources. It really shows you the selectiveness of the media.
Could you imagine the outcry if the US or another western country were doing this to ‘undesired’ immigrants to here? The double standards are deafening.
I read GGS for fun and had a completely different interpretation. I wonder how they teach it. It is absolutely true he throws in some awful SJW claptrap (his Papuan buddy is smarter than Einstein, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were filled with genocidalists) but overall I think that the "geography is destiny" argument is valid. Humboldt and List said the same. He does not take this to its logical conclusion - that this would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits, but still I think the premise is sound.
The advantage Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians had living on a super-continent with relatively easy latitudinal movement simply could not be matched by the climate and resources of longitudinal Africa. Africa is widest at its most inhabitable places. They had no chance.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @celt darnell
Actually, Africa is extremely wide south of the Sahara too.
One of the most tragic outcomes of the Cold War, apart from the eventual triumph of cultural Marxism, was decolonization , which put a stop to the development and stability of some parts of the world, like Africa south of the Sahara, badly in need of European guidance.
Not only that, but the end of colonialism was an economic disaster for Europe and world trade at large.
"It will be interesting to see how folks get by living in the desert or in the swamps of the Congo."
Europe had a lot of swamps (and malaria in places like Italy) until the Cistercians and others spent a very long time, hundreds of years, working to drain them:
"...in relation to fields such as agriculture, hydraulic engineering and metallurgy, the Cistercians became the main force of technological diffusion in medieval Europe."
"...Until the Industrial Revolution, most of the technological advances in Europe were made in the monasteries...
..."Every monastery had a model factory, often as large as the church and only several feet away, and waterpower drove the machinery of the various industries located on its floor."...
...Waterpower was used for crushing wheat, sieving flour, fulling cloth and tanning – a "level of technological achievement [that] could have been observed in practically all" of the Cistercian monasteries...
...The Cistercian order was innovative in developing techniques of hydraulic engineering..."
A lot of those places with a rolling mix of forest and farmland that looks so pretty were made that way by sustained effort over a very long time.
"The loss of low-lying farmland to marshes and swamps was a striking phenomenon in Italy and other regions of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Throughout the Middle Ages extensive fertile agricultural lands were abandoned due to increased marshiness and the risk of the spread of malaria diffusion. In economic and social terms, this was a further source of decline. In this scenario of progressive abandonment which supported the spread of disease, Benedictine and Cistercian monks performed extensive land reclamation (relying on channels, dams and embankments), leading to a progressive control of seasonal flooding by rivers and basins. Inside the abbeys monastic medicine flourished, which in some regions often represented the main reference point for health care for all residents (whether the common people, nobles or clergy), in the "Dark Ages". Many monks paid with their own lives: malaria and malnutrition were the most frequent causes of morbidity and mortality. Benedictine and Cistercian monks, who had embraced the Benedictine rule, today deserve high consideration, as the major supporters of Europe's recovery, which took place on the continent from the 13 th century onward. Their mottos, "Pray and work" (Ora et labora) and "That God may be glorified in all things" (Ut in omnibus glorificatur Deus) supported their daily life and action. For centuries inside abbeys and fortified farm-steads known as grande monks added prayers to work, in their attempt to reclaim land. Nature often treated them badly, but despite such difficulties, the monks never shrank from danger."
Replies: @celt darnell, @Karl, @Je Suis Charlie Martel
Great post. The amount of husbandry that the Monks did is incredible.
One interesting thing I read recently about St. Benedict, the Father of Europe, was that in addition to his famous 3 rules of Poverty, Chastity, & Obedience, there was a 4th rule, of Locality. A Benedictine had to also stay in one place for 13 or 15 years and improve the land. Hugely important.
Great post. The amount of husbandry that the Monks did is incredible.
HBD owes a lot to one monk– Gregor Mendel.
He was probably quite smart, but I've seen the claim that his discoveries didn't require great intelligence. They did take patience. Nobody does that better than a monk.Replies: @Je Suis Charlie Martel
I read GGS for fun and had a completely different interpretation. I wonder how they teach it. It is absolutely true he throws in some awful SJW claptrap (his Papuan buddy is smarter than Einstein, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were filled with genocidalists) but overall I think that the "geography is destiny" argument is valid. Humboldt and List said the same. He does not take this to its logical conclusion - that this would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits, but still I think the premise is sound.
The advantage Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians had living on a super-continent with relatively easy latitudinal movement simply could not be matched by the climate and resources of longitudinal Africa. Africa is widest at its most inhabitable places. They had no chance.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @celt darnell
Diamond’s SJW claptrap is persistent throughout the book and his failure to acknowledge the logical conclusion — that geography “would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits,” is a pretty serious omission. Especially given what his book purports to explain.
Nor are his descriptions of each regions’ geography particularly accurate.
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
One third of the world’s land is sparsely populated desert.
Although water is scarce in the desert, many deserts are near the sea.
The cost of desalinating seawater for personal use is low: It costs one dollar to desalinate 100 gallons of seawater.
Most of the cost of desalination (forcing seawater under high pressure through a membrane) is energy.
@Pittsburgh ThatcheriteIt's only in the last few very recent years - 5 years at the most - that the possibility of using solar power from massed 'farms' of solar cells to desalinate water has become economically viable. Apparently, the production cost of solar cells has dropped precipitously.
The only pity is that the viable locations of solar powered desalination plants all tend to be governed by some pretty horrible, backward regimes.Replies: @Pittsburgh Thatcherite
@anonymousGreat post. The amount of husbandry that the Monks did is incredible.
One interesting thing I read recently about St. Benedict, the Father of Europe, was that in addition to his famous 3 rules of Poverty, Chastity, & Obedience, there was a 4th rule, of Locality. A Benedictine had to also stay in one place for 13 or 15 years and improve the land. Hugely important.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Brutusale
Great post. The amount of husbandry that the Monks did is incredible.
HBD owes a lot to one monk– Gregor Mendel.
He was probably quite smart, but I’ve seen the claim that his discoveries didn’t require great intelligence. They did take patience. Nobody does that better than a monk.
@Jack DOne third of the world’s land is sparsely populated desert.
Although water is scarce in the desert, many deserts are near the sea.
The cost of desalinating seawater for personal use is low: It costs one dollar to desalinate 100 gallons of seawater.
Most of the cost of desalination (forcing seawater under high pressure through a membrane) is energy.
Many deserts have large amounts of solar energy.Replies: @Anonymous
It’s only in the last few very recent years – 5 years at the most – that the possibility of using solar power from massed ‘farms’ of solar cells to desalinate water has become economically viable. Apparently, the production cost of solar cells has dropped precipitously.
The only pity is that the viable locations of solar powered desalination plants all tend to be governed by some pretty horrible, backward regimes.
Great post. The amount of husbandry that the Monks did is incredible.
HBD owes a lot to one monk– Gregor Mendel.
He was probably quite smart, but I've seen the claim that his discoveries didn't require great intelligence. They did take patience. Nobody does that better than a monk.Replies: @Je Suis Charlie Martel
Mendel grew up on a farm and was in charge of the beekeeping as well as the family garden IIRC
Good intro to hands-on science!
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
Unfortunately if you look for data on arable land, the definition for which it is easy to find good data for cross country comparison defines ‘arable’ as land currently being used for crops, rather than land which could potentially be used for crops.
Some quick Googling,
Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal—a centre collaborating with the United Nations Environment Programme—gives 300 million potential hectares of land for ‘rain fed’ crops. This ‘excludes forests’.
According to http://www.tradingeconomics.com, which Google highlights in its results, the amount of arable land in the US is ~160 million hectares (and has been falling). This definition of ‘arable’ is land currently being used for crops (presumably including irrigated, not just rain fed), temporarily fallow, or pasture.
@Pittsburgh ThatcheriteIt's only in the last few very recent years - 5 years at the most - that the possibility of using solar power from massed 'farms' of solar cells to desalinate water has become economically viable. Apparently, the production cost of solar cells has dropped precipitously.
The only pity is that the viable locations of solar powered desalination plants all tend to be governed by some pretty horrible, backward regimes.Replies: @Pittsburgh Thatcherite
Dozens of new city-states could be created in the vast unpopulated deserts of Namibia.
Namibia has a 976-mile coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.
Desalination is an excellent use of an intermittent energy source, such as solar energy.
When solar energy is available during the day, seawater can be desalinated, and the resulting drinking water can be elevated into water towers.
The drinking water can then be consumed day or night.
The Turegs in the Sahara may have done pretty well compared to the rest of Africa… and that there might be quite a lot of fresh water under parts of the Sahara…
“…an advanced civilization in ancient southwestern Libya. They used an elaborate underground irrigation system, and founded prosperous Berber kingdoms or city-states in the Fezzan area of Libya, in the Sahara desert. They were a local power between 500 BC and 700 AD.
…written language was “…a still nearly indecipherable proto-Tifaniq, the script of modern-day Tuaregs.”…
…Available information comes mainly from Greek and Roman sources, as well as archaeological… though large areas in ruins remain unexcavated. Another important source of information is the abundant rock art…
…quarried amazonite…
…ruins include numerous tombs, forts, and cemeteries. The Garamantes constructed a network of underground tunnels and shafts to mine the fossil water from under the limestone layer under the desert sand. The dating of these foggara is disputed, they appear between 200 BC to 200 AD but continued to be in use until at least the 7th century and perhaps later. The network of tunnels is known to Berbers as Foggaras. The network allowed agriculture to flourish, but used a system of slave labor to keep it maintained…
…Romans eventually grew tired of Garamantian raiding and Lucius Cornelius Balbus captured 15 of their settlements in 19 BC. In 202, Septimius Severus captured the capital city of Garama..”
“…foggara extending for hundreds of miles in the Garamantes area near Germa in Libya: “The channels were generally very narrow – less than 2 feet wide and 5 high – but some were several miles long, and in total some 600 foggara extended for hundreds of miles underground. The channels were dug out and maintained using a series of regularly spaced vertical shafts, one every 30 feet or so, 100,000 in total, averaging 30 feet in depth, but sometimes reaching 130.”…”
Also
“…The black berbers (haratin) of the south were the hereditary class of… diggers in Morocco who build and repair these systems. Their work was hazardous.”
There are modern efforts (and talk) to build similar systems, but situations are often too chaotic for large-scale infrastructure projects.
“…the world’s largest known fossil water aquifer system. It is located underground in the Eastern end of the Sahara Desert and spans the political boundaries of four countries in north-eastern Africa. NSAS covers a land area spanning just over two million km2, including north-western Sudan, north-eastern Chad, south-eastern Libya, and most of Egypt. Containing an estimated 150,000 km3 of groundwater, the significance of the NSAS as a potential water resource for future development programs in these countries is extraordinary.”
This water seems to be accumulated rain water, over a very long period. The wells are in southern Libya, in the Sahara, though most of the water is being delivered to people who live on the coast (Libyan water grid, [2]). It is cheaper to use wells in the Sahara than to use desalinization.
“…a network of pipes that supplies water to the Sahara in Libya, from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System… It is the world’s largest irrigation project. …
…the largest underground network of pipes… more than 1,300 wells, most more than 500 m deep, and supplies 6,500,000 m3 of fresh water per day to the cities of Tripoli, Benghazi, Sirte and elsewhere…
…was funded by the Gaddafi government. The primary contractor for the first phases was Dong Ah Consortium…
…Oil exploration in the 1950s had revealed vast aquifers beneath Libya’s southern desert. …
…some of the water in the aquifers was 40,000 years old. Libyans call it “fossil water”. …
…”The water changed lives. For the first time in our history, there was water in the tap for washing, shaving and showering,”…
…130,000 hectares of land will be irrigated for new farms. Some land will be given to small farmers who will grow produce for the domestic market. Large farms, run at first with foreign help, will concentrate on the crops that Libya currently has to import: wheat, oats, corn and barley.”
Optimism springs eternal. A message from the BBC through time from 2006:
“…Libya is now a world leader in hydrological engineering, and it wants to export its expertise to other African and Middle-Eastern countries facing the same problems…
…Through its agriculture, Libya hopes to gain a foothold in Europe’s consumer market…”
“He was probably quite smart, but I’ve seen the claim that his discoveries didn’t require great intelligence. They did take patience. Nobody does that better than a monk.”
Unassisted intelligence alone might be overrated and even an obstacle to doing well in empirical science. Or it might be necessary, but insufficient. Some intelligent people get bored easily once they grok things and hit the limit as to what can be achieved analytically. What did that man say? “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”?
“A vast water supply stored deep beneath the Sahara Desert thought to be a relic of ancient times is actually being resupplied each year, according to a new study published in the the journal Geophysical Research Letters. But the rate of resupply does not meet or exceed water demand, which poses long-term water challenges…
…The northern Sahara aquifer system extends across an area nearly double that of mainland France and is thought to hold more than 30,000 cubic kilometers of water accumulated during wet periods that occurred over the last 1 million years…
…scientists at the French Institute for Research and Development (IRD) estimated the variations in the volume of water… suspect the rate of recharge is an average of 1.4 cubic kilometers per year for the years 2003 – 2010. The estimated recharge represents 40 percent of the withdrawals from the water bank…
…means that… could be managed sustainably…
…water from the northern Sahara aquifer system was thought to be “fossil,”… recent research shows that the aquifer is recharging, and now researches have empirical data to account for how much…
…data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission and data from the German aerospace center… measure variations in Earth’s field of gravity…
…withdrawal… likely to increase as demand for more water continues to increase and population in the region grows and the economy expands, generating a further demand for water.”
So, if the area could manage this right, they might be on to something good.
This seems somewhat like the situation with the deep water under California’s Central Valley, where they’ve been pumping deeper and deeper, in particular of late during the drought (and you can detect the drop of the ground surface from space).
That same GRACE satellite looked at the Central Valley (much of which would be desert without irrigation… the Mojave, Death Valley, etc…)
“Data from the GRACE satellites allow scientists to see how fresh water is being redistributed across the continents over time.
…The Central Valley’s fertile soil and extended growing season make it one of the major agricultural regions in the United States…
…the southerly parts of the region are dry and categorized as desert.
Agriculture is the primary industry in much of the Central Valley, with its irrigated valleys accounting for a large share of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States.”
Africa wil always be Africa. Europe is becoming a northern extension of Africa, a sort of Nigeria with castles and cathedrals. Thanks to the bastard Msrxists and their infernal social engineering programmes.
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
@newrouterOkay, why don't you tell us your plan to reduce Africa's birth rate and/or reduce their rate of emigration. We're all ears.Replies: @Brutusale
I only want to hear plans to limit Africans’ ability to leave their continent. Their birth and death rates are SO not our problem, and I resent the implication that they are. Tea-Sneezy Genius wants YT off of black bodies, and I agree whole-heartedly.
@anonymousGreat post. The amount of husbandry that the Monks did is incredible.
One interesting thing I read recently about St. Benedict, the Father of Europe, was that in addition to his famous 3 rules of Poverty, Chastity, & Obedience, there was a 4th rule, of Locality. A Benedictine had to also stay in one place for 13 or 15 years and improve the land. Hugely important.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Brutusale
They did one Hell of a job improving the beer, too!
@Jack DTrue for many other places too sport. Australia is 90% desert. Canada is mostly uninhabitable. So is much of Russia. The southwest of the USA is largely barren as well. Only Africans seem to feel they can just invite themselves to Europe and elsewhere.Replies: @LFM
Well, in fairness, Africans have been invited to settle in Europe by a small but highly influential group of Europeans.
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.Replies: @newrouter, @Almost Missouri, @anon, @Hapalong Cassidy, @Father O'Hara, @Difference maker, @Anonymous, @MMinLamesa, @bored identity, @Anonymous, @Pittsburgh Thatcherite, @Harold, @Millie_Woods, @athEIst
It’s not 4,000,000,000 large.
4Billion.
Yes, that’s 000,000,000 nine zeroes 4,000million
Madagascar is the same size as Britain, has a third of the population, and is one of the biggest biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It's almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.Replies: @SPMoore8, @Clyde, @athEIst
Yes Africa is very big but large parts of it are not suited for human habitation.
Give Africa to the Ashkenazi/Japanese/Caucasian/Chinese and see.
Give North America and Europe to the African and see, too.
There's more then enough room for them to stay the hell there.
MM
I mean,it would be like settling more than half million superhumans ,or even opening wineries(!), in places such as the Negev Dese.....oh,wait.
http://yatirwinery.com/
Although water is scarce in the desert, many deserts are near the sea.
The cost of desalinating seawater for personal use is low: It costs one dollar to desalinate 100 gallons of seawater.
Most of the cost of desalination (forcing seawater under high pressure through a membrane) is energy.
Many deserts have large amounts of solar energy.Replies: @Anonymous
Some quick Googling,
Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal—a centre collaborating with the United Nations Environment Programme—gives 300 million potential hectares of land for ‘rain fed’ crops. This ‘excludes forests’.
According to www.tradingeconomics.com, which Google highlights in its results, the amount of arable land in the US is ~160 million hectares (and has been falling). This definition of ‘arable’ is land currently being used for crops (presumably including irrigated, not just rain fed), temporarily fallow, or pasture.
Who knows how comparable these numbers are.
4Billion.
Yes, that's 000,000,000 nine zeroes 4,000million
Used to be they held Rand McNally as part of the international conspiracy against the dignity of black bodies for compromising in the face of the physical impossibility of reproducing the surface of a sphere in two dimensions. Now they oughtta thank them for psychologically preparing Westerners to accept an invasion from Africa. You owe cartographers an apology, race-hustlers.
By the way, I always wondered why no one theorized Mercator projection is the product of Greenland-centrism. That island is frickin’ yuge on maps.
yes the usa, east euro, italy parts north but the rest is yuuge. keep: africans in africa!
Ditto every other continent.
living in a western city makes you vulnerable to malthusian propaganda.
The immigration shills will say that Africa is land-rich but resource-poor.
And by “resource-poor” they mean there are inadequate geological prospects for mining the pockets of white people.
Yeah, yeah,…..let’s keep the growth rate maxed out until the entire continent is packed like the densest slums of Calcutta. It will be interesting to see how folks get by living in the desert or in the swamps of the Congo. And too bad, so sad for all the lions, zebras and elephants. At least multinationals will be able to sell more soda and smart phones. There are bound to a few geniuses within the future billions who will show us how to colonize other planets…..Julian Simon & Ben Wattenberg promised it would be so! The Ultimate Resource after all.
Madagascar is the same size as Britain, has a third of the population, and is one of the biggest biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It’s almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.
Africa gave America the greatest immigrant in the world, that ‘I Am The Captain Now” actor.
It’s a little larger than Russia and Canada combined. I have a feeling that they are using up the land an a fairly rapid pace. Africa has the world’s highest rate of deforestation.
good lord that is funny and stupid!
A straightforward description of the Biafran War. From 60 Minutes.
So I am not crazy. 60 Minutes was a deadpan documentary series in my youth.
What went wrong?
(Yes, the dude from the Dead Kennedys is named after the guts of the starving children of Biafra.)
Another sad observation: Biafran = Igbo = "Jews of Africa".
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It's almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.Replies: @SPMoore8, @Clyde, @athEIst
The natives are also endangering their biodiversity but cutting down all the forests.
The people looked like all Africans: poor, dirty, and supremely happy.
Using China and India as benchmarks, and which also have extensive deserts (China in particular) I think Africa could probably sustain 4 billion humans. Of course, it would also require killing off a lot of its biodiversity, as well as leading to the kind of population densities that one finds in Asia. Not something to look forward to.
well darwin no? see buffalo.
> Africa has the world’s highest rate of deforestation.<
good lord that is funny and stupid!
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It's almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.Replies: @SPMoore8, @Clyde, @athEIst
Because “First I look at The Purse” – An old J Geils tune
I have one word for people agonizing over the carrying capacity of Africa: Malthus!
> Of course, it would also require killing off a lot of its biodiversity,<
well darwin no? see buffalo.
True for many other places too sport. Australia is 90% desert. Canada is mostly uninhabitable. So is much of Russia. The southwest of the USA is largely barren as well. Only Africans seem to feel they can just invite themselves to Europe and elsewhere.
armchair globalist like you are disgusting.
Africans have made a mess out of the (potentially vastly rich) continent of Africa. Now they want to invite themselves to Europe where they will once more make a mess out of a continent. Then there will be nowhere for ANYBODY to go and there will be two ruined continents instead of just one.
Steve:. Back in the 90s, Rand McNally had a few retail stores, one was around Wacker and Monroe in the Loop.
They should have had cocktail hours. I spent so much time there…one Christmas everyone on the list got something mappy. I even bought a throw rug there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rb9ZV_eFd3I#t=17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=v44uRyx03UM#t=25
Africa is about 20.4% of the land of the Earth. if you were to just take into account temperate habitable areas, Africa would probably be in the mid 40% range.
Uh-Oh! Offence warning! Warning! There is a lesson here somewhere, don’t get tricked or your spouse might come home with re-education training. Be careful!
Somebody flag this piece to save yourself. You can’t imagine a thing like “why do they come here”, or the dreaded thought “They have an entire continent to live on!”.
They should have had cocktail hours. I spent so much time there...one Christmas everyone on the list got something mappy. I even bought a throw rug there.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @ATX Hipster
I used to hang out in the Rand McNally shop in the Loop too.
A big chunk of China is hardly fit for human habitation as well. Nearly half of their territory is freezing mountain ranges or barren desert.
and Russia is huge and has only 143 million people.
Are there still a million recent Chinese immigrants in Africa?
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?"
Why would anybody from the BRIC nations want to immigrate to Africa, when according to Libertarian voodoo economists the BRIC nations are on the cusp of becoming 1st World nations.Replies: @Karl
Okay, why don’t you tell us your plan to reduce Africa’s birth rate and/or reduce their rate of emigration. We’re all ears.
Yet with all of that, they’ve accomplished nothing.
I went ahead and stated the obvious, because I am now a permanently-pissed, white, gentile deplorable.
I’m not alone.
Note to British readers: No, I’m not permanently drunk, but I wish I were.
Heh, I made the same point and linked to the exact same infographic in a comment many moons ago. (Yes, I used a different identity. This was before I knew how Ron hates this.)
Incidentally, one thing that struck me in the infographic was the tidbit about the American schoolkids. When asked how many people live in the USA majority of them apparently selected “1-2 billion.” So when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, “Huh? Isn’t it a billion already?”
A straightforward description of the Biafran War. From 60 Minutes.
So I am not crazy. 60 Minutes was a deadpan documentary series in my youth.
What went wrong?
(Yes, the dude from the Dead Kennedys is named after the guts of the starving children of Biafra.)Replies: @ATX Hipster, @Jus' Sayin'...
TIL.
They should have had cocktail hours. I spent so much time there...one Christmas everyone on the list got something mappy. I even bought a throw rug there.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @ATX Hipster
Looks like they still have some stores: https://www.hoursinfo.com/rand-mcnally/
Same could be said of the South Side of Chicago.
Just ask Lee Roy Brown who looks like a jigsaw puzzle.
North Lawndale never recovered from Fair Housing Act and the riots after MLK was murdered. Peak population was 124k, now 34k. Western Electric had a giant factory there, now empty. About 2/3 of the buildings are gone. There are not even liquor stores. Driving through is spooky.
Incidentally, one thing that struck me in the infographic was the tidbit about the American schoolkids. When asked how many people live in the USA majority of them apparently selected "1-2 billion." So when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, "Huh? Isn't it a billion already?"Replies: @PiltdownMan, @Daniel Williams
The Zeroth Amendment people probably think that being the most populated country in the world is our manifest destiny. Goes with being the greatest country in the world. Or something.
I remember globes being present in most school classrooms. I even got one for Christmas one year. Still have it. One problem though is they show the world as it was. Former British Empire territory is colored pink ( except for the US) and my globe still shows a prosperous land known as Rhodesia that has disappeared.
“It will be interesting to see how folks get by living in the desert or in the swamps of the Congo.”
Europe had a lot of swamps (and malaria in places like Italy) until the Cistercians and others spent a very long time, hundreds of years, working to drain them:
Widespread waterpower was also a big breakthrough (Commercial enterprise and technological diffusion):
A lot of those places with a rolling mix of forest and farmland that looks so pretty were made that way by sustained effort over a very long time.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16397424 and “Attempts to fight paludism and malaria in the Middle Ages: Role of Benedictine and Cistercian monks in the rise of Monastic Medicine and in land reclamation during the Middle Ages”:
And according to him, unlike anywhere else on earth, Europe was the land of milk and honey where everything was easily achieved without any effort whatsoever. Toss a seed into the ground and up sprang an orchard, that kind of thing. Tons of easily exploited natural resources. It all fell into the Europeans' laps.
All other continents, by contrast, were hard-scrabble places without any natural resources whatsoever.
That's why the notoriously lazy and stupid white people were able to take over the world. Q.E.D.Replies: @Hippopotamusdrome, @Simple Pseudonymic Handle
You ought to read
Temples Tithes and Taxes
by this wonderful shiksa scholar, Marty Stevens.
Solomon's Temple was the center of the YHWH-cultic rituals of course, but it also served as a Mint, Fort Knox, Central Bank, Dept of Agriculture, and other important miscellaneous civil functions
It was the midaeivil Japan worship centers which produced the first de-facto Commercial Letters of Credit, based on receipts for the Emperor's tax on rice harvests.
It was the Dutch a coupla hundred years afterwards, who formalized the system, the foundation stone of Trade Finance even today.
One interesting thing I read recently about St. Benedict, the Father of Europe, was that in addition to his famous 3 rules of Poverty, Chastity, & Obedience, there was a 4th rule, of Locality. A Benedictine had to also stay in one place for 13 or 15 years and improve the land. Hugely important.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Brutusale
Even more, it highlights how tiny Europe is, compared to Africa.
But that’s an opportunity, because it makes the activity depicted below no longer the privilege of white people.

The Peters Projection isn’t seen much these days. I guess they wised up to the fact that it bolsters our case, not theirs.
It is striking that Minneapolis is nearer to the coast of Senegal than its sister city Bosaso is. That’s one wide continent.
Yet another African problem requiring an African solution.
Wait… India is only twice the size of Somalia, but has 120 times the population? Africa doesn’t sound overcrowded to me. Except for Nigeria, and the Nile.
This is what happens when ill-advised species meddle with other ecosystems.Replies: @Anonymous
Europe had a lot of swamps (and malaria in places like Italy) until the Cistercians and others spent a very long time, hundreds of years, working to drain them:Widespread waterpower was also a big breakthrough (Commercial enterprise and technological diffusion):A lot of those places with a rolling mix of forest and farmland that looks so pretty were made that way by sustained effort over a very long time.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16397424 and "Attempts to fight paludism and malaria in the Middle Ages: Role of Benedictine and Cistercian monks in the rise of Monastic Medicine and in land reclamation during the Middle Ages":Replies: @celt darnell, @Karl, @Je Suis Charlie Martel
Yeah, but you’ve got to remember that Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel is Holy Writ in the School of P.C.
And according to him, unlike anywhere else on earth, Europe was the land of milk and honey where everything was easily achieved without any effort whatsoever. Toss a seed into the ground and up sprang an orchard, that kind of thing. Tons of easily exploited natural resources. It all fell into the Europeans’ laps.
All other continents, by contrast, were hard-scrabble places without any natural resources whatsoever.
That’s why the notoriously lazy and stupid white people were able to take over the world. Q.E.D.
Ice skating on Dutch canal, Hendrick Avercamp
Thrills of the frost fair: Fascinating paintings and memorabilia show how Londoners celebrated when the River Thames froze over
I read GGS for fun and had a completely different interpretation. I wonder how they teach it. It is absolutely true he throws in some awful SJW claptrap (his Papuan buddy is smarter than Einstein, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were filled with genocidalists) but overall I think that the "geography is destiny" argument is valid. Humboldt and List said the same. He does not take this to its logical conclusion - that this would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits, but still I think the premise is sound.
The advantage Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians had living on a super-continent with relatively easy latitudinal movement simply could not be matched by the climate and resources of longitudinal Africa. Africa is widest at its most inhabitable places. They had no chance.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @celt darnell
What is needed is an arable percentage of countries fitting in the arable part of Africa map.
Africa is human capital poor.
“Same could be said of the South Side of Chicago.”
Just ask Lee Roy Brown who looks like a jigsaw puzzle.
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?Replies: @Jefferson
“Are there still a million recent Chinese immigrants in Africa?
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?”
Why would anybody from the BRIC nations want to immigrate to Africa, when according to Libertarian voodoo economists the BRIC nations are on the cusp of becoming 1st World nations.
cheaper pussy. A middle-level Chinese mining engineer, is as a God in Africa, harem-of-college-student-girls -wise
And no one bothers you about shtupping the 14 year old housemaid.Replies: @PiltdownMan
It’s not like USA and China have large deserts and mountains or anything
Rationally speaking, one might think it insane that massive immigration is promoted from low population density nations to high population nations.
But, alas, rationality has never got in the way of The Economist magazine or the hard left.
For example, London, England, a terribly overcrowded place, is expected to swell to over 10 million in population within the next decade entirely due to overseas immigration.
Yet, at the same time the ancient historic nation of Lithuania, with its tiny and dwindling population is encouraged by the EU to ship its best and brightest to London, leaving Lithuania a ghost town.
Other recent emigrants from Lithuania: Syrian (or "Syrian") refugees, who complained about the meager benefits given to migrants in Lithuania and high-tailed it to Germany or Sweden after a few months of not having their every need and want catered to. I guess living in a peaceful, tidy, highly developed country wasn't good enough for these "war refugees". It's Germany, Sweden, or death!
I ask the usual suspects why Africa doesn't develop if they have all the incentives and information of other countries.
I'm told that their governments are corrupt, and won't let the people develop.
So I guess economics gets its ass kicked by a battalion of government officials on the take.
Well, changing the environment into an habitable one of the functions of intelligence…
Give Africa to the Ashkenazi/Japanese/Caucasian/Chinese and see.
Give North America and Europe to the African and see, too.
Antiracists love this “how big Africa really is” comparisons. They think it shows how social constructions like the mapping of the world influences the perception, and that in reality Africa is and should be the most important place in the world and everybody should be awe.
What they don´t get it that its pure size makes Africas failure even more ridiculous. This is no small, fringe, resourceless area, but a huge, geographically diverse continent with plenty of possibilities – you only have to use them
It will be in 2050 or 2100, due to our self-centred, sheerly egoistic (or rather egotistic) “help”, if it isn’t again us to prevent their destructive population growth (of course deluding them. I don’t think the 70 thousand Ethiopian Jews that were sterilized by Israel understood what was done to them at all).
This is what happens when ill-advised species meddle with other ecosystems.
To answer the question in the title: no, there is not enough room in Africa for the Africans of the near future if they keep breeding like rabbits. However, since the ecumene proportion of Africa is not significantly higher than that of most other regions of the world save Europe (which is already VERY densely populated) that just gets back to saying that there is not enough room anywhere in the world for Africans.
Let’s not make their problem ours.
Europe had a lot of swamps (and malaria in places like Italy) until the Cistercians and others spent a very long time, hundreds of years, working to drain them:Widespread waterpower was also a big breakthrough (Commercial enterprise and technological diffusion):A lot of those places with a rolling mix of forest and farmland that looks so pretty were made that way by sustained effort over a very long time.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16397424 and "Attempts to fight paludism and malaria in the Middle Ages: Role of Benedictine and Cistercian monks in the rise of Monastic Medicine and in land reclamation during the Middle Ages":Replies: @celt darnell, @Karl, @Je Suis Charlie Martel
> ”Every monastery had a model factory
You ought to read
Temples Tithes and Taxes
by this wonderful shiksa scholar, Marty Stevens.
Solomon’s Temple was the center of the YHWH-cultic rituals of course, but it also served as a Mint, Fort Knox, Central Bank, Dept of Agriculture, and other important miscellaneous civil functions
It was the midaeivil Japan worship centers which produced the first de-facto Commercial Letters of Credit, based on receipts for the Emperor’s tax on rice harvests.
It was the Dutch a coupla hundred years afterwards, who formalized the system, the foundation stone of Trade Finance even today.
Are they still moving there, or are they heading back home?"
Why would anybody from the BRIC nations want to immigrate to Africa, when according to Libertarian voodoo economists the BRIC nations are on the cusp of becoming 1st World nations.Replies: @Karl
> Why would anybody from the BRIC nations want to immigrate to Africa
cheaper pussy. A middle-level Chinese mining engineer, is as a God in Africa, harem-of-college-student-girls -wise
And no one bothers you about shtupping the 14 year old housemaid.
They sure as heck aren't going to take the trouble to emigrate for that reason.
cheaper pussy. A middle-level Chinese mining engineer, is as a God in Africa, harem-of-college-student-girls -wise
And no one bothers you about shtupping the 14 year old housemaid.Replies: @PiltdownMan
Not credible at all, if one has any acquaintance at all with how Chinese guys in China think about Africans at a…uh…interpersonal level.
They sure as heck aren’t going to take the trouble to emigrate for that reason.
And by eating the Pygmies.
You would be surprised how depopulated the really bad neighborhoods of the South and West sides of Chicago are. Steve bangs on about Austin but check out North Lawndale. (South Lawndale is now called Little Village, an entirely Mexican enclave, with the charms of a large town in Mexico.).
North Lawndale never recovered from Fair Housing Act and the riots after MLK was murdered. Peak population was 124k, now 34k. Western Electric had a giant factory there, now empty. About 2/3 of the buildings are gone. There are not even liquor stores. Driving through is spooky.
A straightforward description of the Biafran War. From 60 Minutes.
So I am not crazy. 60 Minutes was a deadpan documentary series in my youth.
What went wrong?
(Yes, the dude from the Dead Kennedys is named after the guts of the starving children of Biafra.)Replies: @ATX Hipster, @Jus' Sayin'...
It would appear that Americans really were more intelligent and knowledgeable a half century ago and expected more of the MSM than they do now. By comparison, today’s MSM are buffoons performing for an audience of self-satisfied morons.
Another sad observation: Biafran = Igbo = “Jews of Africa”.
And according to him, unlike anywhere else on earth, Europe was the land of milk and honey where everything was easily achieved without any effort whatsoever. Toss a seed into the ground and up sprang an orchard, that kind of thing. Tons of easily exploited natural resources. It all fell into the Europeans' laps.
All other continents, by contrast, were hard-scrabble places without any natural resources whatsoever.
That's why the notoriously lazy and stupid white people were able to take over the world. Q.E.D.Replies: @Hippopotamusdrome, @Simple Pseudonymic Handle
Plus Europe is far to the north and has snow covering the ground in winter that is not the case in regions close to the equator.
Ice skating on Dutch canal, Hendrick Avercamp
Thrills of the frost fair: Fascinating paintings and memorabilia show how Londoners celebrated when the River Thames froze over
And according to him, unlike anywhere else on earth, Europe was the land of milk and honey where everything was easily achieved without any effort whatsoever. Toss a seed into the ground and up sprang an orchard, that kind of thing. Tons of easily exploited natural resources. It all fell into the Europeans' laps.
All other continents, by contrast, were hard-scrabble places without any natural resources whatsoever.
That's why the notoriously lazy and stupid white people were able to take over the world. Q.E.D.Replies: @Hippopotamusdrome, @Simple Pseudonymic Handle
Hi Celt,
I read GGS for fun and had a completely different interpretation. I wonder how they teach it. It is absolutely true he throws in some awful SJW claptrap (his Papuan buddy is smarter than Einstein, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were filled with genocidalists) but overall I think that the “geography is destiny” argument is valid. Humboldt and List said the same. He does not take this to its logical conclusion – that this would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits, but still I think the premise is sound.
The advantage Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians had living on a super-continent with relatively easy latitudinal movement simply could not be matched by the climate and resources of longitudinal Africa. Africa is widest at its most inhabitable places. They had no chance.
Nor are his descriptions of each regions' geography particularly accurate.
We just went to see Madagascar, Island of the Lemurs in 3D. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, of course. It was really beautiful and the lemurs are fascinating little critters but the Africans are burning up their forests and the lemurs are losing habitat. It was quite amusing to me how the movie did its darndest to be good environmentalist human-haters and yet be nice to the clearly destructive Africans. don’t say anything bad about Africans!
The people looked like all Africans: poor, dirty, and supremely happy.
But, alas, rationality has never got in the way of The Economist magazine or the hard left.
For example, London, England, a terribly overcrowded place, is expected to swell to over 10 million in population within the next decade entirely due to overseas immigration.
Yet, at the same time the ancient historic nation of Lithuania, with its tiny and dwindling population is encouraged by the EU to ship its best and brightest to London, leaving Lithuania a ghost town.Replies: @anon, @bomag
They’re not sending their best people to the U.K., as Trump would say. Mostly it’s lower-class folks from the countryside who couldn’t succeed in Lithuania, or students on temporary summer jobs looking to make some money and perfect their English skills. Lithuania is quite happy to offload the left tail of the curve to the U.K., and the host country is better off having them displace some of the diverse alternatives as immigrants.
Other recent emigrants from Lithuania: Syrian (or “Syrian”) refugees, who complained about the meager benefits given to migrants in Lithuania and high-tailed it to Germany or Sweden after a few months of not having their every need and want catered to. I guess living in a peaceful, tidy, highly developed country wasn’t good enough for these “war refugees”. It’s Germany, Sweden, or death!
Libya: 562 Nigerians Return From Libya Within 3 Months – Nema
He said that one of the returnees, Miss Omogui Happiness, commended the Federal Government and IOM for facilitating her return after a harrowing experience in the quest to enter Europe through Libya.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201610140765.html
More of African land is inhabitable than is land in Russia or China, but no small part of that is only inhabitable by Negroes.
Your point is???
There’s more then enough room for them to stay the hell there.
MM
Jack is totally right about this one- not suited for human habitation.
I mean,it would be like settling more than half million superhumans ,or even opening wineries(!), in places such as the Negev Dese…..oh,wait.
http://yatirwinery.com/
But, alas, rationality has never got in the way of The Economist magazine or the hard left.
For example, London, England, a terribly overcrowded place, is expected to swell to over 10 million in population within the next decade entirely due to overseas immigration.
Yet, at the same time the ancient historic nation of Lithuania, with its tiny and dwindling population is encouraged by the EU to ship its best and brightest to London, leaving Lithuania a ghost town.Replies: @anon, @bomag
I often wonder if economics really works.
I ask the usual suspects why Africa doesn’t develop if they have all the incentives and information of other countries.
I’m told that their governments are corrupt, and won’t let the people develop.
So I guess economics gets its ass kicked by a battalion of government officials on the take.
Incidentally, one thing that struck me in the infographic was the tidbit about the American schoolkids. When asked how many people live in the USA majority of them apparently selected "1-2 billion." So when you say that if immigration continues unchecked the US population will grow to a billion, the products of the American educational system probably go, "Huh? Isn't it a billion already?"Replies: @PiltdownMan, @Daniel Williams
Yeah, but to be fair, they probably won’t know the difference between a million and a billion, either.
Maybe a lot more of it could be habitable, if Europeans were living there and making it into habitable land. In fact, given Modern European (and Euro-descended) peoples tremendous capacity for technological development, scientific advancement, benevolence towards humanity, etc- and the stark contrast to African peoples’ lack of these traits, instead of discussing African immigration to the rest of the world, we should shut down aid to Africa, let their numbers dwindle back down to the naturally low levels they manage by their own efforts, and start efforts to encourage Europeans to have more children and establish colonies in Africa.
This is what happens when ill-advised species meddle with other ecosystems.Replies: @Anonymous
I had never even heard that they forced long-term birth control on Ethiopians, but some quick checking online shows its verified from credible sources. It really shows you the selectiveness of the media.
Could you imagine the outcry if the US or another western country were doing this to ‘undesired’ immigrants to here? The double standards are deafening.
I read GGS for fun and had a completely different interpretation. I wonder how they teach it. It is absolutely true he throws in some awful SJW claptrap (his Papuan buddy is smarter than Einstein, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were filled with genocidalists) but overall I think that the "geography is destiny" argument is valid. Humboldt and List said the same. He does not take this to its logical conclusion - that this would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits, but still I think the premise is sound.
The advantage Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians had living on a super-continent with relatively easy latitudinal movement simply could not be matched by the climate and resources of longitudinal Africa. Africa is widest at its most inhabitable places. They had no chance.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @celt darnell
Actually, Africa is extremely wide south of the Sahara too.
One of the most tragic outcomes of the Cold War, apart from the eventual triumph of cultural Marxism, was decolonization , which put a stop to the development and stability of some parts of the world, like Africa south of the Sahara, badly in need of European guidance.
Not only that, but the end of colonialism was an economic disaster for Europe and world trade at large.
Europe had a lot of swamps (and malaria in places like Italy) until the Cistercians and others spent a very long time, hundreds of years, working to drain them:Widespread waterpower was also a big breakthrough (Commercial enterprise and technological diffusion):A lot of those places with a rolling mix of forest and farmland that looks so pretty were made that way by sustained effort over a very long time.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16397424 and "Attempts to fight paludism and malaria in the Middle Ages: Role of Benedictine and Cistercian monks in the rise of Monastic Medicine and in land reclamation during the Middle Ages":Replies: @celt darnell, @Karl, @Je Suis Charlie Martel
Great post. The amount of husbandry that the Monks did is incredible.
One interesting thing I read recently about St. Benedict, the Father of Europe, was that in addition to his famous 3 rules of Poverty, Chastity, & Obedience, there was a 4th rule, of Locality. A Benedictine had to also stay in one place for 13 or 15 years and improve the land. Hugely important.
He was probably quite smart, but I've seen the claim that his discoveries didn't require great intelligence. They did take patience. Nobody does that better than a monk.Replies: @Je Suis Charlie Martel
I read GGS for fun and had a completely different interpretation. I wonder how they teach it. It is absolutely true he throws in some awful SJW claptrap (his Papuan buddy is smarter than Einstein, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were filled with genocidalists) but overall I think that the "geography is destiny" argument is valid. Humboldt and List said the same. He does not take this to its logical conclusion - that this would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits, but still I think the premise is sound.
The advantage Europeans, Middle Easterners and Asians had living on a super-continent with relatively easy latitudinal movement simply could not be matched by the climate and resources of longitudinal Africa. Africa is widest at its most inhabitable places. They had no chance.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @celt darnell
Diamond’s SJW claptrap is persistent throughout the book and his failure to acknowledge the logical conclusion — that geography “would affect human intelligence and other heritable traits,” is a pretty serious omission. Especially given what his book purports to explain.
Nor are his descriptions of each regions’ geography particularly accurate.
One third of the world’s land is sparsely populated desert.
Although water is scarce in the desert, many deserts are near the sea.
The cost of desalinating seawater for personal use is low: It costs one dollar to desalinate 100 gallons of seawater.
Most of the cost of desalination (forcing seawater under high pressure through a membrane) is energy.
Many deserts have large amounts of solar energy.
The only pity is that the viable locations of solar powered desalination plants all tend to be governed by some pretty horrible, backward regimes.Replies: @Pittsburgh Thatcherite
One interesting thing I read recently about St. Benedict, the Father of Europe, was that in addition to his famous 3 rules of Poverty, Chastity, & Obedience, there was a 4th rule, of Locality. A Benedictine had to also stay in one place for 13 or 15 years and improve the land. Hugely important.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Brutusale
HBD owes a lot to one monk– Gregor Mendel.
He was probably quite smart, but I’ve seen the claim that his discoveries didn’t require great intelligence. They did take patience. Nobody does that better than a monk.
Good intro to hands-on science!
Although water is scarce in the desert, many deserts are near the sea.
The cost of desalinating seawater for personal use is low: It costs one dollar to desalinate 100 gallons of seawater.
Most of the cost of desalination (forcing seawater under high pressure through a membrane) is energy.
Many deserts have large amounts of solar energy.Replies: @Anonymous
It’s only in the last few very recent years – 5 years at the most – that the possibility of using solar power from massed ‘farms’ of solar cells to desalinate water has become economically viable. Apparently, the production cost of solar cells has dropped precipitously.
The only pity is that the viable locations of solar powered desalination plants all tend to be governed by some pretty horrible, backward regimes.
Namibia has a 976-mile coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.
Desalination is an excellent use of an intermittent energy source, such as solar energy.
When solar energy is available during the day, seawater can be desalinated, and the resulting drinking water can be elevated into water towers.
The drinking water can then be consumed day or night.
He was probably quite smart, but I've seen the claim that his discoveries didn't require great intelligence. They did take patience. Nobody does that better than a monk.Replies: @Je Suis Charlie Martel
Mendel grew up on a farm and was in charge of the beekeeping as well as the family garden IIRC
Good intro to hands-on science!
Unfortunately if you look for data on arable land, the definition for which it is easy to find good data for cross country comparison defines ‘arable’ as land currently being used for crops, rather than land which could potentially be used for crops.
Some quick Googling,
Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal—a centre collaborating with the United Nations Environment Programme—gives 300 million potential hectares of land for ‘rain fed’ crops. This ‘excludes forests’.
According to http://www.tradingeconomics.com, which Google highlights in its results, the amount of arable land in the US is ~160 million hectares (and has been falling). This definition of ‘arable’ is land currently being used for crops (presumably including irrigated, not just rain fed), temporarily fallow, or pasture.
Who knows how comparable these numbers are.
The only pity is that the viable locations of solar powered desalination plants all tend to be governed by some pretty horrible, backward regimes.Replies: @Pittsburgh Thatcherite
Dozens of new city-states could be created in the vast unpopulated deserts of Namibia.
Namibia has a 976-mile coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.
Desalination is an excellent use of an intermittent energy source, such as solar energy.
When solar energy is available during the day, seawater can be desalinated, and the resulting drinking water can be elevated into water towers.
The drinking water can then be consumed day or night.
The Turegs in the Sahara may have done pretty well compared to the rest of Africa… and that there might be quite a lot of fresh water under parts of the Sahara…
Garamantes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat:
Also
There are modern efforts (and talk) to build similar systems, but situations are often too chaotic for large-scale infrastructure projects.
Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System:
This water seems to be accumulated rain water, over a very long period. The wells are in southern Libya, in the Sahara, though most of the water is being delivered to people who live on the coast (Libyan water grid, [2]). It is cheaper to use wells in the Sahara than to use desalinization.
Great Manmade River:
“Libya’s thirst for ‘fossil water’”, John Watkins, BBC, 18 March 2006:
Optimism springs eternal. A message from the BBC through time from 2006:
“He was probably quite smart, but I’ve seen the claim that his discoveries didn’t require great intelligence. They did take patience. Nobody does that better than a monk.”
Unassisted intelligence alone might be overrated and even an obstacle to doing well in empirical science. Or it might be necessary, but insufficient. Some intelligent people get bored easily once they grok things and hit the limit as to what can be achieved analytically. What did that man say? “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”?
“Vast ‘Fossil’ Aquifer Beneath Sahara Desert is Slowly Refilling”, James A. Foley,
Nature World News, James A. Foley, Jul 22, 2013:
So, if the area could manage this right, they might be on to something good.
This seems somewhat like the situation with the deep water under California’s Central Valley, where they’ve been pumping deeper and deeper, in particular of late during the drought (and you can detect the drop of the ground surface from space).
That same GRACE satellite looked at the Central Valley (much of which would be desert without irrigation… the Mojave, Death Valley, etc…)
“GRACE: California Central Valley”:
Africa wil always be Africa. Europe is becoming a northern extension of Africa, a sort of Nigeria with castles and cathedrals. Thanks to the bastard Msrxists and their infernal social engineering programmes.
Ya, that happens wherever they go.
I only want to hear plans to limit Africans’ ability to leave their continent. Their birth and death rates are SO not our problem, and I resent the implication that they are. Tea-Sneezy Genius wants YT off of black bodies, and I agree whole-heartedly.
One interesting thing I read recently about St. Benedict, the Father of Europe, was that in addition to his famous 3 rules of Poverty, Chastity, & Obedience, there was a 4th rule, of Locality. A Benedictine had to also stay in one place for 13 or 15 years and improve the land. Hugely important.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Brutusale
They did one Hell of a job improving the beer, too!
Well, in fairness, Africans have been invited to settle in Europe by a small but highly influential group of Europeans.
It’s not 4,000,000,000 large.
4Billion.
Yes, that’s 000,000,000 nine zeroes 4,000million
Yet Africans are still making the long journey to the rainy and often gloomy Britain. It's almost as if they are attracted to something besides space and resources.Replies: @SPMoore8, @Clyde, @athEIst
No, they are being attracted by the resources.
I went ahead and stated the obvious, because I am now a permanently-pissed, white, gentile deplorable.
I'm not alone.
Note to British readers: No, I'm not permanently drunk, but I wish I were.Replies: @random observer
Aw, c’mon. The kraal at Great Zimbabwe is totally as impressive as Augustan Rome or Notre Dame.