₦airaland Forum

DeepSight:
Honestly TV01 is the most comical of the lot. Only he has ever argued that blacks have never achieved anything and also never will.

The guy baffles me because he doesn't know how small he is.

Oga, I am not just small, but miniscule . I am the runt of the family litter, and my family is barely noteworthy in our hamlet .

Please stop strawmanning and artfully tapping out. The question was never about "blacK achievement". It was as follows;

What will Nigeria et al (most African, Arab and Asian people groups) do to shift their cultural milieu to enable full sustainable modern societies

I maintain, I don't personally see anything to suggest they will. If your position is tenable, it should be easy to articulate - regardless of what anyone else thinks or says. I know you hope, but you do not see. As the Bible says, "one does not hope for what one sees"

The floor is yours.


TV

^{Ekemefune flees his homeland, rocks up in the west. Now wants it to burn because he is teaming up with a supposed kashmiri hottie . You will convert sha. Bilal sounds about right . All good - reformed ee.slam suggests you can "beat her lightly" .}

DeepSight:
You know, in spite of myself, I had to smile at this. Viciously written.
Anyway, it was saved by the red.

It's all cold, hard, truth. Spoken in the clear light of a bright day .
What I wrote collectively about Nigeria, applies to the constituent tribes (nations if one prefers).

Native west African sold their brethren for beads and mirrors. That at least is suggestive of the level of natal tech that existed amongst them in that age. It also raises questions about the sanctity\value placed on human life?

What artefacts are there to demonstrate that pre-slavery or colonialism, native Africans were developing technologically in any meaningful sense? Would we have developed the same or, a parallel scientific\technological milieu? With the best "benefit of the doubt", the most we can say is that "possibly, but it would have come later".

Now it is with us. Grab it, copy, imitate, advance it. Nobody cares. Just do it - native, foreign, alien - please! And not just technology, what about institutions, liberties, rights and freedoms. What about notions of patriotism, commonwealth, meritocracy, competency hierarchies? And at scale.

If you can't invent, imitate, if you can't create, copy. Please running water is not that hard. Underground sewage is not the purview of brainiac aliens .

Please stop mentioning or quoting me unless you have answers or the 'nads for a real debate.

Otherwise, I will show you vicious .


TV

DeepSight:
In that case the climate, geography, flora and fauna to mention a few of the factors I have pointed to must also be white?

All of these have been conquered by mankind. They are no longer limiting factors - stop with the excuses bro'

DeepSight:
I said "much of" and "middle America" for reasons.

How do you know? Do you imagine "much of white\middle America" care or obsess about BO . And on what basis. If they found a black presidency objectionable, they have their votes. Why do northern Nigerians find a non-northern presidency objectionable. Or Nigerians more generally an Igbo one? Please take the advice from my previous response - what ails you requires attention!

DeepSight:
That said, whats your own grounds for your hatred of black people?

No grounds for hatred here sir. Race is not a lead indicator or reference for me. All men are created the image of God, and all came from one blood.

Some have developed backward and regressive cultures. I say it like it is. You can reference a far-away, unrelated past, and point to an unfathomable distant future. But can't make sense of the present.

If I said "what" at work, but could not explain the "how" and "when", I'd be sacked. Please forget discussion\debate for a while, perhaps take some time out to reflect.


TV

RodgersAkpafu:
How does a colonised person benefit from speaking the language of the coloniser?

Man, this brain washing is deep.

So speaking a language introduced to you via colonisation is a benefit ?

Oluwa ooooo

Ekemefune, you are back...missed you .
The only person I enjoy trolling more than ShallowVision is you.

Please sir, what is Igbo for "mitosis", or Yoruba for "chromosomes"? How about the Ijaw word for "Autophagy"? What native Nigerian language had a scientific lexicon? How would speakers of native Nigerian languages have engaged in scientific discourse?

In the absence of "misadventure" from the west. or the use of their language, what scientific engagement did African tribes have, or could have in their native tongues?

If English had not come to us by way of colonisation, to even begin to partake of the technological advancement of the more developed nations we would have had to use their language? How would Nigeria develop a common language? I see Fula may be on the cards .

Colonisation was damaging, but not wholesale without benefit. Keep using it as a reason for not advancing.

How's the market in vibranium (sorry I forget its indigenous name) . Wakanda ko, Zamunda ni.


TV

DeepSight:
That it can be so open, so in-their-faces, so boldfaced and without tangible resistance is what really fascinates me.
Somewhere in the belly of much of white and middle America, I cant help feeling, rests the willingness to allow Trump any atrocity in compensation for what was the greatest abomination they could ever imagine - the fact that a black man ever became their president with a black first lady to boot.

Your hatred of Juice is untrammelled and unblinking. Now your hatred of white people is on full view. Your real problem - one of them anyway - is that you can't explain why your nation is in the position it's in, or how to work through it. Viewing things through your "colour lens", leaves only one way out, one coping mechanism - to hate white people and ascribe all black issues to them.

At a minimum 40% of white people had to vote for Barack Obama to become president. It's likely that 40-50% actually did. You would be doing yourself a great service if you could for once drop the colour lens and the attendant hate framing.


TV

Zero questions addressed

What will Nigeria et al (most African, Arab and Asian people groups) do to shift their cultural milieu to enable full sustainable modern societies - that's all.


TV

DeepSight:
Please don't be disingenuous. I did not misascribe anything to you. You specifically demanded that I point to any progress made by black Africans. Not only does that infer clearly that you don't believe there are any, but you also dismissed the progress on education and economics I pointed to. You went further to answer that you don't envisage black Africans achieving anything in the next one hundred years. You said very clearly that they would stagnate or regress. Indeed you have more than hinted that such regression will be to something primitive (the "Kraal" ).

What can anyone deduce from this. No one needs to interpret this. It is clear what you are saying, namely that you don't believe blacks have ever achieved anything or ever will.

Not to mention your jibe that there must be a Rene before a sance, basically saying that there cannot be an African Renaissance since there was nothing previously.

You have also said verbatim that you have no problem using the word "inferior."

So please if nothing else, at least be honest and bold enough to own what you have said.

The fact that what you have said is extremist, self hating and shameful is not my handiwork. It is yours.

And excuse me, I did not breach the deal. Show me where. I for example said that SA blacks are not barbaric and that was somehow supposed to be an insult to you?

And for Pete's sake, if you say that blacks have never achieved anything and never will, how is it wrong for me to say that that's clearly a racist position. My deal with you was not to point out such things.

I just can't see what there is to discuss further when you are adamant that blacks have never and will never achieve anything.

Please what on earth can I argue further from such a point of view, you tell me? It's an absurd extreme.
Bemeruca, if you agree with TV01 that black Africans have never achieved anything and never will, say so.

bemeruca:
My problem is with you is that you bring up history, climate, and colonialism mostly to explain failure away from internal responsibility.

But when I bring up greed, corruption, tribalism, poor leadership, disunity, and destructive culture, suddenly you say, greed is common to humanity. Of course greed is common to humanity.

That is exactly why strong institutions, accountability, values, and leadership matter.

Saying greed is common does not answer why some societies control it better than others, while others allow it to destroy public institutions.

And this your Trump deflection don tire person. If Trump is corrupt, condemn him. I that's your shtick, condemning corruption anywhere no problem.

But Trump does not explain Emefiele. Trump does not explain African leaders stealing the oil money.

Trump does not explain tribal voting. Trump does not explain why Nigeria with massive resources still cannot provide basic electricity, roads, security, or clean governance.

So yes, there are many factors. But you cannot list external factors forever and then become offended when internal failures are added to the list. Even your external factors are outdated. Colonialism helped us in many ways.

My argument is not education alone does not fix everything because I think you named only one factor.

My argument is that education, history, colonialism, and climate still do not remove responsibility from people, leaders, cultures, and institutions today.

Why can't you understand this basic thing?

Realisation sets in. DeepSight does not answer questions , explain or go granular. A "prefered" hypothesis is put together, inference - no matter how skewed - is drawn and stuck too.

Counters and interlocutors are challenged in 2 main ways; derided as not scholarly or mischaracterised to claim responses are extreme (introducing words like "savage", "barbaric", and mis-ascribing positions like "black people have never achieved anything good ever".

There is no meaningful debate to be had. Not sure debate is what is sought - more like agreement or validation.

What will Nigeria et al (most African, Arab and Asian people groups) do to shift their cultural milieu to enable full sustainable modern societies - that's all.

Man traduces his own treaty, taps out of his own challenge .


TV

DeepSight:
There are mischaracterizations here, but I don't see the point in debating a position that says black people have never done anything positive and never will.

That is too extremist a position to debate.

The debate pivots on cultural milieu and how it will shift to drive the necessary transition to a fully-fledged, sustainable modernity. The extremity is all yours - which I cautioned against in my very first rejoinder.

I am gracious enough to allow your reverse ferret without crowing .

Godspeed


TV

DeepSight:
Well, thus closes our conversation. I take away from it the understanding that your position is that the black African has never done anything positive and never will. This is well noted for posterity.

PS: Enjoy the bold caricature of what i have argued. I have said enough.

The convo ended when you repeatedly broke terms. More pertinently when you were unable to evidence what was being done to move Nigeria et al closer to what we would expect in a modern nation state.

All you could do was refer to unrelated empires and civilisations of the past and assume on that basis that Nigeria et al had to flourish in the (distant) future - just because

Further, you rightly introduced the FD concept, and were subsequently unable to show how this had measurably improved enough for Nigeria et al to progress towards full-fledged modernity.

Bemeruca amongst others has repeatedly shown you that education and even a burgeoning middle class are not enough on their own or necessarily evidence of long-term sustainability, if the cultural milieu does not radically alter.

Quite naturally, post colonialism, Nigeria et al reverted to their natal cultural mindset. That is to be expected. The question is, how many of the negative aspects can they shed and how many of the requisite morés can they adopt, to create the cultural consciousness required for the transition to fully-fledged modernity?

What mostly obtains now are colonial artefacts atop a legacy cultural consciousness. A major organ transplant gone wrong? Can it be fixed? Is there the will, the wherewithal? Evidence please.

And if you subscribe to the notion that white supremacy and racism continue to play a determinative role - which Nigeria et al are unable to surmount - why bother? Why have this discussion at all - other than to troll you of course

You haven't rested your case my learned friend, you have simply failed to make it .


TV

^{...and for what it is worth, I believe the west is now on a downward trajectory. Having lost sight of how they advanced and flourished. The question for them is can they turn it around or what will the pace of decline look like and where will it bottom out?}

bemeruca:
You are mixing two different things. And budaatum also has this issue.

When I say education is already there, I am talking about formal education and access to information.

People know corruption is bad. They know tribalism, greed, selfishness, and disunity destroy societies.

This is not some hidden secret that only a university professor can explain.

The problem is not that people have never heard the truth. The problem is that many people know the truth and still choose the wrong thing when money, power, tribe, religion, or personal interest is involved.

See Emefiele as an example. He is not an illiterate man. He is educated, experienced, and had access to every economic expert, etc.

Yet what did that education produce when character, accountability, and national interest were missing?

So no, I am not contradicting myself.

Education can expose wrong thinking, but education alone does not fix character.

You can educate a greedy person and simply produce a smarter thief.

You can educate a tribalist and simply produce someone who justifies tribalism with better grammar.

My point is this - the deeper problem is mindset, culture, values, accountability, and unity.

Education helps, yes, but pretending education alone is the magic solution is shallow.

And when I push back on Deepsight blaming everything on white people, colonialism, or climate, that is also a form of education. I am challenging excuses, exposing weak arguments, and forcing him to confront internal failures.

So the issue is not left or right. The issue is whether we are honest enough to admit that our own choices, leaders, culture, greed, and disunity are major reasons for our problems.

So we have a culture of greed and selfishness in the country.

...thank you and hello wherever you are.

Until anyone or any group of people are able to take a hard look at themselves in the cold harsh light of day and take unilateral and unwavering action for their own flourishing, nothing happens. How much more when you believe there are supremacists and racists looking to do you in?

I will always acknowledge the Israel' resoluteness. They continue to chart their own path to progress and prosperity whatever anyone else thinks, says or does - even the US. That's how it should be. Keep whining about deserts being sandy and the sun emanating heat . And of course water being too wet


TV

DeepSight:
Wait a minute, before I even address anything here, are you Israeli? What is "that's how we do?"

Am Yisrael Chai.
It's in quotes. Don't deflect jor .

Israel are battering the hayrab\moose.slm hordes with one hand whilst pioneering tech advance, leading scientific enquiry and making barren lands fruitful with the other - in barely 3 generations, whilst shrugging off aunty sem.ee.tism. You are hoping for clement weather, wailing against "raycism" and asking for a few more centuries - before you can lay a passable road or roll out flushing loos at scale. Abeg, leave off .


TV

DeepSight:
Israel has had a long and complicated 3000 year history of suffering in which they have only bounced back in the last 70 years. So how can you say this? For a good two thousand years these people were scattered across the world and the subject of every kind of persecution. The mere fact that you live in the period of their home coming and resurgence is no reason to dismiss the last 2000 years. And what makes you reason as though the upward swing of every group must happen in the same period?

So 3'000 years of slavery, persecution, pogroms, holocausts, wars ongong and they still throw down a modern leading edge liberal democracy like no big deal. Like, that's how we do. Whilst your SA are shaka zuluing and your Fulani are geehardiciding . Your Somalis are turning grand larceny into an export grade commodity and you are opening the "excuse exchange". Brother please !

DeepSight:
Are you for real?

Okay, lets take one obvious one. Education. In 1960, circa 10-15% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa was educated. Today, circa 70 per cent are.

But its gratingly painful that I would have to piont out something as basic as this.

The literacy numbers are not moving your cultural milieu in any meaningful way. Some of your most educated are the most corrupt. Grift and lawlessness it seems are not easily educated out.

DeepSight:
Because you are effectively saying nothing good has happened at all in sub-Saharan Africa post-colonialism! How anyone can make such a blanket claim is utterly beyond me.

Nope, I am saying we have seen no meaningful change to the civilisational aspirations or outworkings. And the artefacts of colonialism have not been maintained or improved upon. You present a hypothesis for an unevidenced future based on unrelated events from the past. I merely present reality as it is .

DeepSight:
This is just absurd even if one looks at the general evolution which is natural to the process of societies - movement from predominant military government to predominant democracies, technological advancement applicable to the whole world, greater infrastructure across board, and many more things to point at.

There are still African people groups who insert objects into their bodies, who live primitive lives. Modernity does not necessarily reach everywhere, or embed in equal measure. I have touched on this repeatedly. Natal inclinations means it often rests lightly and is just a thin veneer over more chaotic persuasions.

DeepSight:
The black middle class has boomed as opposed to the position bequeathed by years of apartheid obviously.

Again, its gratingly painful that I have to point out something like this.
Because it shows how closed you are even to the most obvious changes.
Sadly this just shows how deep your prejudice goes.
It is now obvious that even if I were to stretch the marker to 1000 years from now, you will say Africans will achieve nothing.
I am sorry to say, but tell me how this is not a racist and prejudiced view of Africans?

It would be useless to discuss the glories of some past African Kingdoms in light of what you are saying here.

I say it as I see it. I present it as it is apparent to all who care to look. I'm not hypothesising or theorising. It's not conjecture, assertion r claim. Natal inclinations will surface, Inherency will out. Truth is, external intervention may be what is required.

The lauded SA "middle class" is still relatively small and it's a chasm between them and the everyday SA. Past African Kingdoms? Without slavery, VAWA, secret societies, equal opportunity, ritual killings, tribalism and clannishness. Show us.



TV

DeepSight:
I grant that certain things tend to be like a recurring decimal among certain people. If I mention the history of Israel and how they are still stuck in violent cycles you will not want to hear that one will you?

But that has not stopped Israel, leading in scientific and technological advancement. It did not stop Israel greening the Negev and becoming a net exporting of foodstuffs. In the face of incessant belligerance from their Hay.rab\moose.slim neighbours who hate them for it. Your cultural milieu either can or it can't. Location, geography and climate non-withstanding .

DeepSight:
Nonetheless it doesnt make sense to claim that you cannot see progress in black African nations even within your lifetime.

What I have witnessed is wholescale regression. Please provide metrics to show long-term progress on key social metrics as a starter for 10

DeepSight:
Happily, you dont have to admit it. It will occur regardless of your opinion. And even if it didnt occur, your lifetime is too small to be the judge of the matter. How many people lived and died through the stagnant middle ages of Europe?

I am watching real-time. As are we all. Falsify away if you can. How is Nigeria better for the everyday man than 1, 2, 3 or 6 decades ago. How is SA better for your average SA since majority rule?

DeepSight:
There can and will be an African Renaissance.

The has to be "sance" for there to be a "rene" . What would Africans be rediscovering?


TV

DeepSight:
Thats absolutely unfair, my epistles have noted the issues we have such as corruption - which are simply not unique to us. By contrast, you lot pick those issues and act as though they are genetic flaws unique to black people as created by God.

Now, now .

Why are the Fulani still exhibiting the same backwardness they purveyed 200 years ago? Yet you ask me to look 100 years into the future and refuse too countenance the fact that it may be same 'ole, same 'ole, or worse. Why are the Zulu reporting to the methods of Shaka to resolve modern day immigration issues .


TV

raumdeuter:
You have blamed climate, blamed God, blamed white men, blamed soil, blamed water already

Everyone but...


TV

DeepSight:
The Fulani are not the only tribe in Nigeria and even within the Fulani the reprobate and violent tendency is not the only tendency.

It is a prevailing tendency of theirs. A large part of the Fulani cultural makeup and FD. Animating bloodshed and wholescale slaughter and you would rather it ignored - even as your people are dying

DeepSight:
I asked you a question about where black Africans will be in a century, its not sufficient to point to one violent tendency in one tribe and end your analysis there, concluding that on that account, the entirety of black Africa will either stagnate or regress.

Used metaphorically to show how the FD of most of these peoples and nations will not change without some great impetus. It has take them millenia to arrive at, and solidify their culture as it exists. I have already pointed out the SA donning their animal skins and chasing other Africans with their assegais . What of the wretched mess that is Somalia? And their FD being exported worldwide .

DeepSight:
There is progress everywhere if only you are not prejudiced to see it.

Really? You asked how things would be in a 100 years. Two hundred years ago the foula gee.hard had to be stopped by the Yoruba forcibly. At Osogbo. They are now attempting the very same thing again - albeit on a national scale. https://www.nairaland.com/4325932/termination-fulani-jihad-yorubas-1840.

In the interim period, the world has advanced tremendously. The foula themselves have witnessed it, yet this - gee.hard.? Could you please explain why things will be any different in a 100 years time? Unless they are subdued? Why do you anticipate their FD changing in 100 years when it has remained steady for 200? Despite the tremendous pace of modernity - on view to all?


TV

DeepSight:
Look, if you can tell me these two statements are false, then good enough.

1. Environment influences lifestyle and culture over time.

2. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Just say these are lies, and let us rest.

1. But environment and climate are not wholly determinative and have largely been overcome. And neither of these limit how civilised a peoples can become

2. Not necessarily. And certainly not at all in many cases. Why did we need trains? Or Space travel. This saying which you repeat often is not science or fact.


TV

DeepSight:
You are essentially saying that black people are good for nothing and will end up in a rotten regressive mess even given long stretches of time such as centuries to build up.

Do you understand that this is your conclusion?

Nope. I am saying the FD of the fuoola peoples means they will not achieve your desired state of modernity under their own steam.

And, unless you can show otherwise, I see nothing natal that will cause the fuoola FD to incline towards what is required to advance to modernity under it's own steam. Simply citing time does not cut it. External intervention perhaps...hmmm...let's not go there.

Please note, the expansionist mindset of the fuoola was extant prior to colonialism. The Yoruba have had to fight them off prior and the emirate of Ilorin stands as testament to their gee.hard.eest mindset. Does the fact that hundreds of years later, despite all the advances and global visibility of what modernity could look like, the fuoola, still insist on the medieval ways - spreading across the sahel as we speak.


TV

tctrills:
Don't mind them.
Deepsight is even blaming God.

The one he doesn't believe in .

TV

Thanks for capturing my post in full. It's been banned, as was I.

DeepSight:
Your concern about the Fulani is well founded. I cannot resist pointing out that it was not black people that joined us at the hip with them. The mistake of 1914 thus haunts us and by your prediction will haunt us for a century more. Thus, you yourself concede to the over arching negative effects that sometimes can be seen from Colonialism!

There is no gainsaying the forced alliance of the Nigerian nations was always going to prove problematic and almost certainly cause long-term harm.

However, likewise, you have to admit, the level of FD or civilisational quality (that would lend itself to driving a modern state) has nothing to do with the colonial invaders? Indeed, ill-thought out amalgamation apart, they would have left some artefacts that could aid that drive forward, no?

Plus, I used the word "recommence", to point to the fact that this gee.hard existed prior to colonialism. They are acting true to type, their inherent behavioural patterns or to use your phrase "FD". Centuries later and in an era of modernity that is on full view for all to see. Can't you see they actually don't want or subscribe to your utopian vision of modern nation states everywhere?

DeepSight:
Nonetheless it is ludicruous to imagine that we will only either stagnate or regress a hundred years from now.

This is not a user case or journey experience. Just another claim. Why is it ludicrous, what evidence or data (apart references to long ago empires ), can you furnish to predict otherwise? Is there a blueprint we are tracking too? Signs of significant change that cannot be denied?

DeepSight:
Such a pessimistic view point is not rooted in any reasonable view of how the world is evolving. That sounds more like deep seated prejudice against all things African. Like Mrs. Gates saying that Africa would be full of corpses on the streets during COVID.

The world does not "evolve" in lockstep. And as I noted, there are trickledown, and crossover effects from the developed to the less developed. That does not remove real obstacles to development in certain regions.

The only solutions are one, a resolute defence. But by whom and on the basis of what? To what aim, other than survival and perhaps the chance to disaggregate, which would be most welcome and certainly make modern statehood more achievable for some of the constituents. The other is foreign intervention, which would hopefully reduce casualties and fallout, and hasten any split. But who wants that? Even as the foola issue is currently spreading across the Sahel.

DeepSight:
What is 10 above?

"Starter for 10". A phrase from the UK quiz show "university challenge". Used as an entry\warm-up question.


TV

DeepSight:
Thank you again. All said and done, let me ask you what your expectation is of African nations one hundred years from now.

Not so fast. I'm not that easy. You will yield first - I prefer the left knee .


TV

DeepSight:
Many thanks for your considered response.

As my responses always are

DeepSight:
My apologies, it was not meant that way in this instance.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but given it persists, perhaps naive me should not have. My main thrust is the civilisational levels arising from different cultural milieux - not race, ethnicity or colour. I don't actually believe in those things as markers in any meaningful way. Or a basis for explaining anything that is not peripheral at best. I understand that some ideologies, worldviews or belief systems may make a thing of them, but mine does not, and I don't. I consider use of terms such as "white people" to be strawmanning.

DeepSight:
Well, interesting. Nevertheless, surely you agree that the logic stands. The logic of isolated groups developing uniquely or differently.

Of course, to a degree. Just as long distance runners will develop differently to weight-lifters. But the differences will be peripheral in a sense, as at core they remain built of the same stuff. Culturally, it's can be different to several orders magnitude - not due to colour or ethnicity.

DeepSight:
As an aside, ToE is not necessarily mutually exclusive with Creationism. The Catholic Church for example, seems happy to believe it.

Some may try and fuse the two. But it fall's apart when you factor in the the Biblical narrative regards sin and death. Hopefully God is just after faith in Christ and this can be a 2nd order matter - although it can damage the underpinnings of faith. But we digress.

DeepSight:
I am glad to see an acceptance that climate plays a role, that is only rational. This does not mean one adopts it as an excuse for backwardness of any sort and this is a suitable juncture for me to clear something up.

My take on the role of climate differs from yours - whatever climatic, or other hinderances men faced, they should serve as spurs for development, hurdles to scale, not reasons for failing to develop.

DeepSight:
People of your school of thought - both here and offline, always seem to think that when one offers these explanations as to the way the different races have turned out developmentally, one is making excuses. Bemeruca, Tctrills, raumdeuter, each seem to think this way as well. Nothing could be further from the truth. You guys also conclude that it is an avoidance of responsibility. It is not.

As noted, I see this as strawmanning, I don't see it as the development of different races, more the outworking of different cultural milieux. Including historical events and experiences, tradition, custom, religion, mythology, and all the other things that feed into a people' or nations culture and consciousness.

DeepSight:
What is scientifically and anthropologically true cannot be waved aside - that does not imply that anyone is making excuses or avoiding any responsibility. Responsibility, at all events, CANNOT be avoided - no one is coming to fix life for anyone else - each must "work out his salvation with fear and trembling" if I may borrow that phrase from scripture. And indeed as tumultuous as our situation is in Africa, the truth is that we are on the way.

On the way to where. One of the underpinning assertions of your thesis is that all roads lead to development. On what basis? Indeed, you reference to historical eras and empires cuts both ways, as firstly, they all crumbled eventually and secondly, there would have been many we don't know of, or refer to, that were never able to establish themselves as nations or independent people groups.

The bible says "if you say you see and say you have no sin, then your sin remains". Now that all nations can "see" what development looks like, there are no excuses. What the laggard nations have repeatedly shown is that they don't have the will or the wherewithal to outwork their antecedents. They always revert to type.

DeepSight:
We just tend not to see it so well because of the ups and downs and the madness and the scattered nature of our progress. The hideous corruption, the waste, the illiteracy and all that. But think about it. What do you realistically expect? Newly independent nations with borrowed systems (ways of doing things) shoddily clamped into incompatible unions (such as Nigeria) naturally prone to suspicion and strife and conflict - and you expect a smooth ride to efficient systems? Never gonna happen sorry. It was ALWAYS gonna be a rough ride.

What I expect is that they will revert to what is inherent. Newly independant nations have navigated their way to success. A plan can be forged, a pathway determined, a blueprint drawn up. I admit that, ethnic and sectarian differences, literacy levels and other things can all serve to hinder, but if the will and vision (and pre-cursor civilisational levels) are there it will come to pass. Even if it's a long road.

DeepSight:
It was a rough ride everywhere else and you have to understand that there is nothing we are going through that developed nations have not also experienced.

It doesn't matter, it's the cultural and consciousness response - regardless of the events, which may well be similar.

DeepSight:
And let me say something. Don't underestimate what conflict and suspicion do to retard development. The natural patriotism being absent, everyone in government is therefore prone to be there to better his lot without a care for the country. Because many do not in fact identify with the country! Barring our love of football, Nigerians are rarely to be seen with a united patriotic fervor for Nigeria the way many homogenous nations or nations which have blended well tend to have.

You continue to make the case against your own hypothesis? Notions of individual freedoms, rights, liberties and association, merit, based hierarchies, patriotism, a sense of commonwealth, strong institutions and the rule of law to which all are equally subject cannot arise sustainably and at scale from the majority, if not all, of cultural milieux that exist in Africa, not just BA.

DeepSight:
Yes, white men are more adventurous but again there is a reason! You really underestimate the extent to which environment conditions culture and the mind! You really really do! Before the age of exploration, Europe had become agriculturally saturated in many ways, if it is right for me to use that expression, but I trust you get what I mean. There became a need to move outwards. I hope you know Europe as it appears on world maps relative to other continents is larger on the maps than it is in reality. It is a small tight space. And then coupled with the wars and conflicts and strife and competition, the need to push outwards was inevitable. This is also a result of very limited resources in Europe as it began to develop more actively.

Answered this above. And please note, wars, strife and conflict are not necessarily drivers for advance or development.

DeepSight:
Having said that there are a number of historical seaward journeys undertaken by Africans, but not many enough for me to make heavy weather of. The same way the Chinese actually set out with one one the mightiest exploratory fleets at one time somewhere at the tail end of the middle ages but it returned without much success. The African expedition I refer to was commissioned by a Songhai or Malian King if I remember correctly.

Screams paucity.

DeepSight:
But aside from this, what hidden secrets are resting in deep history? Because have you ever looked at the Olmec statues in Meso-America? Notice their unmistakably African features - wide noses and think lips - which make it clear that somewhere in the unrecorded past, Africans must have reached the Americas! I attach images of these statues below.

Or an African looking people group could have. They could also have been favoured as human sacrifices by the other locals

DeepSight:
Finally I trust you are aware that all the peoples of the world at all events migrated out of Africa?

I'm a creationist. I believe all mankind originated from Adam via Noah. Probably somewhere Africa'ish, but to me it's a moot point.

DeepSight:
Time, events, chaos, ripple effects.

Doesn't follow that ultimately a fully functioning nation will evolve. Time and chance happen to all men. Because all go to school, doesn't mean all will graduate or advance to higher education, or take masters or doctorate degrees.

DeepSight:
I am sorry I have already told you that development cannot be "cut and paste."

But yet at least one other natoion has cut and paste rapid development. Thus falsifying your arguement.

DeepSight:
Look at democracy for example. It is a painstaking process that has to be a lived experience and become a natural disposition and culture. That will take decades to imbibe and perfect, that is after the chaos of wars and coups of course! And after societies have imbibed them, long periods of peace and patriotism will be required. Long, long, long periods of educational improvement and output.

The old "billions and billions" . Apart the fact that "democracy" is not the only way to govern or run societies, neither is it the only way to do so successfully., even if it's the best? It doesn't mean that it is the obligatory outcome for every people group or nation. Kraal life baybay .

Do the feudal Fula look like they will ever take to democracy? Or not corrupt it beyond recognition. Perhaps you see the Somali with VAWA legislation and full LGBTQ&^%$£ representation . Oga, get use to my term "inherency", you can't escape it. Those tribes travelled to where they are culturally over millenia, and that path is not the way to the enlightenment or modernity your describe. What you portray is somewhere between a hard cope and a fantasy.

DeepSight:
One does not catch up overnight with countries that have had universities for a millennium okay?

But boko is haram ? They are killing and willing to be killed for that. But oh yeah, but after billions and billions...

Let's be honest, where there has been development and advance, it has been foisted upon! And as certain parts of the world continue to progress technologically, some things will travel just because. Afterall, mobile phones made it to Africa, as have a host of other gadgets
But you can have modern appurtenances in a backward society. There will always be flows now e have conquered climate, distance and to a degree time. But what makes a people place high on the civilisational hierarchy is "inhenrency" .

There will always be civilisation, it's just to what degree. To form and sustainably maintain a modern western style democracy or something that closely mimics it, especially at scale, requires a certain cultural milieu, or FD as you would say . Only a few nations\peoples have acquired it. So whether it is foisted upon those that don't, they attempt to imitate it or, they move in large numbers to a ready made one, it cannot hold,

Let me leave you with this, Jeremiah 17:9 - “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?


TV

^{...last edited at 23.35 GMT. Please do not respond to any cuts prior to that time. Danke!}

DeepSight:
TV01, I thank you for this. True to the deal, you have taken your time and gone through with a fine comb and made detailed responses in a scholarly manner. This does not mean I agree, but I am delighted that you have kept to the spirit. And you have invested and delivered more thought than could be said for basilico (even though in another post i was surprised to see him acknowledge the role of climate in development, something which you seem to have always dismissed lightly

The historic depth and breadth of your posts whilst commendable, tend to not address specific points. I'll try and respond thematically. Some housekeeping first.

I only deploy acronyms which have been used previously, or, to mirror phrases\expressions in the post I am responding to. I am happy to be corrected on definitions if the originator feels I am incorrectly applying them.

I see your positions as mostly large, swirling assertions. Not necessarily tied to anything factual or empirical. And in many instances, easily falsifiable.

I feel your use of words like savage and barbaric are incendiary, against the spirit of the treaty, and can silently ascribe things to me which I have not stated or implied.

First up - Evolution. I do not subscribe to he TOE. I believe men (and all living) were created. And fully formed at that, regardless of the stage in the life-cycle.

Secondly - Climate. On the map you used to illustrate, most of Australia and SA are shown as temperate zones. What happened there? I am happy to agree that climate, topography, and the like all play a role. But understanding human beings as created with advanced consciousness and capabilities, these "limiting factors" are too spur advance and development, not be used as an excuse for backwardness.

Thirdly - Travel. You mentioned how travel and intermingling aided development. Yes, but the impetus "to develop" has to be natal. Men have gone from riding horses to launching rockets. We could have done perfectly well - and did - without trains, automobiles or aeroplanes. Why did one milieu deliver all of this and the other not - excuse the pun - so much as get off the ground?

When did native BA cross seas or deserts? or even travel by land far away from their homesteads. The spirit of adventure and pioneering went missing with it's cousins, curiosity and innovation.

Fourthly - through time and history, eras and epochs, empires and civilisations, humans have advanced and created complex societies governed by the main underpinnings of economics, politics, ethics and technology. It's all known now. We have conquered climate and distance.

I am not presenting Fukuyama here and feel there can be variations on how we order things and there will still be incremental and even transformational change, bit the essentials of modern day societies are with us. All available and should be readily replicated by those with even minimal levels of FD and the will.

Does not having first-hand knowledge of what others have achieved, are doing or aspire too, provide sufficient impetus for local development? You have made all the excuses, but there are glaring reasons. Nothing has to be invented or imagined. It's simply a cut and past of what is already extant. And with stupendous oil wealth, it could simply be bought in.

Your high claims do not address why Nigeria which had a functioning infrastructure and proper governance during the colonial era is now mostly a mess. From borders to building control (it's not that there aren't building regs, you just choose to ignore them or bribe your way around them, hence buildings collapse). What happened to the functioning railways or the utilities?

What about the climate, or the topography, stops Nigeria solving for open defecation? or the worlds highest rate of VVF? How long exactly do BA nations require to be able to perform the civilisational equivalent of changing a lightbulb - building roads that last beyond the next rainy season?

Corruption, lawlessness and degeneracy are why the empires and civilisations of the past fell. That appears to me to be the starting point for many BA nations. Were to from there? Talk about long past civilisations or natural conditions do not tell us the solutions or how. Greed, self-aggrandisement and lawlessness wrapped in parochiality are writ large in the consciousness of BA. These at least are the first instance reasons why they cannot only not invent or innovate, but they can't even re-imagine, recreate, or outright copy.


TV

You have said a lot. However, there is little to nothing that speaks to when or how BA nations in particular will develop in any meaningful or comparable way to WN at this point in time

A retrospective of ancient civilisations and empires that are no more, speaks nothing to say the Nigerian situation, and why it is effectively arrested in terms of development.

The reasons for, and the lessons from, their rise and fall are not necessarily pointers. Each one rose and fell, advanced and developed, due to a unique set of circumstances. Too unique individually and too broad as a whole to be applicable or overlay on the situations in view.

DeepSight:
However this is still a little beside the point, even if it explains the immediate causes. The real point is that the peoples of that part of the world have had a completely different history and development trajectory from the peoples of black Africa . Therefore temporary set backs are not enough to imagine that both started the race from the same line. It would be like asking why African countries are not at a par with China and Japan since both countries had to start developing again post WW2. THAT would fail to take cognizance of the fact that these countries have a deep developed history reaching into antiquity and merely destroying their cities does not erase that at all! The mind has reached a certain form and disposition and that is the real development - physical structures will follow!

The points in bold speak to positions I have repeated often. The 1st - A different history means a different development trajectory. What in the history, traditions, customs, culture or mythology or religion of BA suggests that in time they would have developed along the lines of WN? You seem to believe that left alone, in due course the Fula pastoralists would have been launching satellites or Nomadic Hutus would have invented the automobile? On what basis can you validly make that assumption.

The 2nd - Exactly which is why white SA move and build Orania which replicates the FD their roots\people have historically achieved. While black SA receive an intact WN like country and immediately start the inexorable drive to what their FD could achieve and maintain before Boer settlers arrived - Kraal Life!

DeepSight:
A homogenous society has advantages such as natural patriotism and an easier path to peaceful coexistence and these two factors, peace and patriotism are absolutely indispensable for development.

Agreed for the most part. Homogeniety has to help. However patriotic fervour can be cultivated, whatever the ethnic composition. BA are unlikely to overcome tribal affiliation and clannishness to commence that journey. Somalia is ethnically homogenous bar a small Bantu demographic - who are culturally and linguistically identical - but are serially war-torn?

Has there been, could there be civilisational development? Sure, and of course. But could it advance and scale to the level of basic, not even advanced WN? There is nothing to suggest this.

DeepSight:
Look at Europe. There is a country called England and there is a language called English. German, Germany. Poland, Polish. France, French. Spain, Spanish. Portugal, Portuguese. Italy, Italian. Greece, Greek.

But there is a country called Nigeria and no language called Nigerian.

And we know why.

Because it is a cobbled together entity which has more languages than the whole of Europe put together.

In fact, most European languages are really just dialects of two main sets of languages - the Latin set and the Germanic set. That is how close they are. And yet to achieve the peace and patriotism necessary for development, they have had to battle it out for a millennium.

Again, pertinent. But it doesn't excuse the fact that even for the individual tribes, the FD as you term it, had never developed to the degree that WN model development, especially scientific advancement and technological progress were ever in view.

Don't forget, prior to WN intervention, the tribes effectively existed as separate nations. And I believe there would have been further development, more advancement. But to what degree? And I see nothing to suggest great scientific or technological strides. The prevalent superstitions for one, would have been too a great hinderance.

DeepSight:
TV01, basilico, hear this well: development is a path that must be lived and made local in mindset. It is not words on paper that can be photocopied. Institutions and traditions require lived experience. Nothing can substitute it. Not globalization, not the internet and not AI.

Again to my point. It's why the vestiges of colonialism or apartheid cannot be maintained or improved upon. It's why SA under black majority rule, with it's natal F& can only journey back to where it came. It is exactly that "local mindset", not ethnicity, not skin colour that determines this.

If you were to create a nation of ethnically black people with a critical mass of inhabitants with a WN type FD then a WN type society would emerge. Otherwise what I term "inherency" prevails. Hence why I shudder at the thought of immigration at scale from countries from a non-WN FD. We see the outworking already in the UK, as the historical FD starts to be compromised and eroded, by people from what I make no bones abut calling an inferior FD.

DeepSight:
Nonetheless this does not mean that non-homogenous societies do not develop, of course they do, simply with more tumult thats all. And we have seen the unique example of America which is a nation of immigrants and has profited massively from the ideas and industry that people from ALL OVER THE WORLD have brought to it. A nation such as America therefore has a unique trajectory and I dare say that it is actually un-American to be anti-immigration because realistically, except native Americans everyone else there can be called an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants. This is, of course not to go so far back in human history that we will have to call even the native Americans immigrants as well.

I agree that non-homogenous societies can make strides, but even then, there must be a central or dominant FD. Or at most a few FD nodes, which must be of a high enough level of development to drive advance. Not sure we have much evidence for this though. And per my earlier point about the UK, it can easily go wrong with the wrong FD introduced at scale.

@bold, I see your take here as wrong - a nation of immigrants yes, but overlaid on a FD that is clearly of the WN milieu. As I noted, it's not about the ethnicity, skin colour or origins, its about the prevailing FD. Everyone that arrives in America has to buy into that, or arrive with FD that is a close facsimile.

DeepSight:
South Africa is another unique case on account of Apartheid. Even tctrills your co-traveler admitted that its silly to expect black South Africa to emerge developed in 30 years. As I have explained above, they will have to battle their conflicts, internal inconsistencies, prejudices, inequalities and social psychology and melt into an even paste that will permit gradual peace and a sense of oneness sufficient to ground and pursue true development. Not all the advancement of steel and industry brought by the white man can magically do it. It has to be lived.

And there is nothing strange about this. It does not make them savage or inferior. It is just the natural path of all human societies.

SA was already developed! It's why Nigerians were flocking there. I spoken to this above. Not about savagery, but the prevailing FD. The FD that is taking hold now, is not the one that built modern-day SA. And it's true form and level will out.

Whatever the rightness or wrongness of black SA issues with non-SA blacks, they are dealing with it true to their natal FD. Not the structures or institutions that arose from the Boer FD. Even though they are right there - supposedly in effect.

DeepSight:
You have to bear in mind, finally, that at all ages of time, different societies had different stages of development. Its like a cycle, and so it is not wise to look at one race and laugh them off because at a particular point in the cycle, they are lagging behind. Where were the Caucasians when Persia, Babylon and Egypt ruled the world? Where were Britain and Germany when Rome and Greece ruled (and yet these were people of the same race in the same area? The answer rests in the geography that TV01 so lightly dismisses).

Stages of development yes. It does not mean that all societies ultimately morph into modern libera democracies. We haven't had these before. Hypotheses about such things as climate, fauna, etc. are just that. They cannot be falsified or empirically proven. I don't buy them.

DeepSight:
Time and empires are in cycles.

Kindly evidence or expatiate on this assertion.

DeepSight:
When Europeans found the major cities of meso-America, they recorded that not even the biggest cities of Europe at the time could compare with their splendor and grandeur.

Yet a few factors decided the day. Mainly guns and disease.

Splendour and grandeur are relative, and, not the sole or even necessarily a hallmark of true civilisation. With ritual sacrifices into the tens of thousands every year? Cannabalsm, Incessant tribal warfare and only basic technological advance? These were not modern-day liberal democracies, with the attendant rights, liberties and freedoms. Let alone scientific inquiry and technological advancement or capital market economies.


TV

LordReed:
Exposure to Racism and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes for Black Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10903-024-01641-2

Published in 2024 updated in 2025

Excerpt:
A total of 32 studies were included in the review. Significant pooled effects of exposure to systemic racism were observed for preterm birth 0.30 (95% CI 0.12–0.48), small for gestational age 0.31 (95% CI 0.05–0.58), and low birth weight 0.24 (95% CI 0.11–0.37). Among studies that compared results by race, exposure to systemic racism had a significant and rather large effect on preterm birth for Black women (ds = 0.62; 95% CI 0.06–0.41). Exposure to systemic racism has a significant effect on preterm birth, small for gestational age, and low birth weight for Black women.

The study is behind a paywall. But the Abstract clearly states "suggestive". It would be interesting to know - In simple terms - the following,

- how is "black" defined here?
- what constitutes "racism" for the purpose of this study
- what is the percentage effect of "racism" on adverse pregnancy outcomes for black women?
- are there other factors - apart racism - that contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes for black women?
- are there contributing factors directly controllable by black women? In part or in whole?
- are relative and\or absolute numbers available for these claims and\or factors?


TV

DeepSight:
Deal?

...something tells me I'll regret this, but deal!


TV

DeepSight:
I enjoin you to join the treaty I have signed with basilico for reasonableness for one week, because I want to go exhaustive on this topic.

...I am always reasonable . Plus I am unable to commit to being or not being here for any length of time. I can commit to bursting your bubble when I come across you plaintive victim wailing and racism\supremacist mewling .


TV

DeepSight:
Probably also imagines they invented gun powder or mathematics including algebra and calculus. For sure TV01 will imagine all that.

Whether WDN invented gunpowder or not does not matter. Nor who invented it first. Gunpowder was not a pivotal invention. The inherent consciousness of WDN means they would have got there under their own steam eventually. It takes a certain kind of dullness to claim invention for math


TV