Comment by sangnoir | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sangnoir | Hacker News Reader

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> I don't mean to sound patronizing and teach you about your own continent

Thanks for your self-awareness, you are mostly wrong. It's not entirely your fault though, since gp generalized by saying "here in Africa" as if 1 billion people in 54 countries are a single amorphous blob.

> Those resources are mined, extracted and sold but profits go to a small caste of wealthy warlords and/or corrupt leaders.

There are probably less than 20 "warlords" in only 2-3 countries out of a billion Africans, and they likely control a region less than 1% of the total landmass. You are right there are corrupt leaders, but most of the profits do not go to them (as they are small-fry); they go to Western (or Chinese) multinationals, and perhaps even to your retirement fund.

> And yes the climate is harsh. Especially the heat literally makes thinking hard.

You are overgeneralizing to the point of being wrong - you probably are thinking of the Sahara. I have no idea where this "Africa is hot" trope originates, but most of sub-saharan africa has moderate temperatures[1]. Some regions receive snow every winter[2]

> In a way Africa is similar to Russian Federation.

In a way, Africa is dissimilar to the Russian Federation. It's 54 countries, has 2000 languages and is far larger. Larger than China, India, US, and most of Europe - combined![3]

edit: more ranting

I am continually surprised by HNers commenting authoritatively on Africa without first interrogating the source of their knowledge. Imagine a guy in Italy declaring all that's wrong with Silicon Valley based on what they've heard in the news and seen in pity-party ads by SV NGOs. "It's the existential fear of earthquakes that makes them short-sighted. The gentrification is real bad too"

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-Saharan_Africa#/media/File...

2. https://www.ceres.org.za/see-do/winter-snow.html

3. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/africa-is-...

> I have no idea where this "Africa is hot" trope originates

More than 25 percent of Africa is desert. Sahara is not the only desert in Africa.

Checked the forecasts of 10 largest cities in Africa, lowest avg. daily temperatures in Jan/July in Celsius.

Lagos: 30/26

Kinshasa: 27/29

Cairo: 18/34

Johannesburg: 24/14

Khartoum: 29/35

Dar es Salaam: 30/24

Alexandria: 16/26

Abidjan: 29/25

Algiers: 13/28

Kano: 21/26

The 4 sub-20 cities are either coastal cities or very close to the coast, those away from seas/oceans are what can be accurately described as "hot".

> most of sub-saharan africa has moderate temperatures

That climate map is deceptive. It may lead you to believe that "blue" areas are very cool, yet Kinshasa is in Congo, the country with the most blue/deep blue color on that climate map.

Kindu, a 172 000 town closest to the deep blue area on that map is 24/28, not the coolest place on Earth.

Maybe you can help me out and point out which temperatures you listed can be described as be "harsh"? The American south has summer averages hotter than all of them but I'm yet to hear anyone call Austin's climate "harsh"

I reread my message and I see that I misspoke and can easily be interpreted the way you say.

Also, the "method" I used is neither very sound nor in any way scientific. Just a very subjective level of comfort for me.

Allow me to add some clarity: I listed the lowest daytime temperature of ANY day of Jan/July, not avg temperature in a month.

According to that method Austin is 9/35.

Sub-25 Celsius is a temperature I find comfortable enough. And looking through the data Austin looks like it's good enough from late October through mid-April, so that's about 5.5 months of nice enough weather in my opinion. But a very hot summer is not something I like.

I'll be spending this winter in Vietnam, not so much for the comfort of it, but to travel and catch up with a few friends that relocated there.

People call Texas' climate harsh all the time, it's pretty darn hot there in the summer.

Your definition may differ, or maybe mines is skewed from living in Australia, but I would consider most of those temperate, the only exceptions being Cairo and Khartoum.

> More than 25 percent of Africa is desert. Sahara is not the only desert in Africa.

Deserts also get extremely cold.

Deserts get extremely cold because there's too little vegetation. Vegetation holds water. Water is amazing for storing warmth. Without humidity, it's up to the Sun, so very hot in day and cold at night.

Why there's no vegetation ? Because there's hot during the day.

You might be right, mine's skewed too.

This is where I grew up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novosibirsk#Climate

Them deserts got nothing on Siberia.

I'm all too familiar with +30 Summer, -30 Winter swings, and those are far from pleasant.

This doesn't surprise me. Africa hosted the biggest war since WW II starting in 1998 and most people in the US and Europe couldn't tell you anything about it. Not even the name.

Sometimes it's impossible to have a conversation without generalization. While my post may have discredited my knowledge of Africa, the continent is a small hobby of mine, and I periodically read and watch movies about it. I'm even considering traveling there if I save enough money. To see and feel how it's like with my own eyes.

The disclaimer wasn't meant to spread magic dust over my post, just to show I realize my knowledge has blank spots.

I'm not looking forward to 54 separate conversations, and that's the the other extreme you're suggesting ? I also read many of Ryszard Kapuściński's books, I know sometimes you can have more than 50 languages on a single street. I also know about de-colonization and how many countries are still abused by the old colonial powers, it's just the form of abuse that changed (like economical exploitation or dumping e-waste).

Okay, I over-emphasized warlords. My fault. I should have said instead that Africa has a potential to have a lot of money, but is highly dysfunctional.

From what I read in Kapuściński's books, the corrupt officials may be small fry but they make exploitation by foreign powers possible. They are often put into power by foreign powers too.

According to Basil Davidson ("Black Mother"), the consequences of slave trade are much more devastating and lasting to this day than is generally thought. For some 300 years societies and kingdoms were rotting from inside and men were turned against each other. Wars were started to get more slaves. He listed many examples (like in the delta of Congo) where Africans fought against Europeans to get them out and stop the slave trade, but it was bloody hard to do. If you refused to trade in slaves, European ships arrived at your neighbors, sold guns to them and your neighbors could raid you. To completely stop it, it would require African kingdoms along the west coast at least to ally and cooperate. That was a hard problem. So another thing they tried was only selling a slave for a musket. Later, armed to the teeth, they could repel Europeans.

Africans were smart enough to realize the importance of seafaring ships. They (for example mani-kongo, the ruler of Congo) tried to buy them and pay for the technology. They were repeatedly refused.

What I'm trying to say is that it's very unfair to repeat the old propaganda of slave traders and say Europeans brought order to Africa. Africans had order and powerful, civilized kingdoms. At first Europeans were just thrown out by strong armies and diseases. Fun fact: Africa had feudalism, just not on the scale dim Portuguese could comprehend. It had a feudalism of peoples. Tribe A is a vassal of tribe B, tribe C is a vassal of tribe B.

Europeans systematically destroyed Africa using corruption (slave trade). They mostly didn't come and kidnap slaves, they bought them until kingoms were thouroughly rotten and a foothold could be gained. This lasted for 300 years. Don't underestimate the power of 300 year old corruption on society.

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