> I think I heard it said quite recently that the standard of living in
> Somalia is about where it was 5000 years ago (sorry can't remember
> where).
It's a bit glib to talk about living standards being higher than a
hundred years ago in some sub Saharan nations and Afghanistan, I
know.
My personal opinion is that even for those countries it is likely that
standard of life indicators such as life expectancy or murder rates
are better today than 100 years or thousands of years ago. But, well,
Somalia is in civil war and the accuracy of present day statistics and
the few indicators we've got of the past is questionable.
Clearly, much of sub Saharan Africa in particular is doing awfully
poorly due to Aids, corruption, war compared with countries like say
South Korea, Singapore or even India.
Nevertheless, there are vaccines, mobile phones, radio's and a whole
load other technologies being applied in Sub-Saharan Africa, which
make a great difference. It's not as if the only way past Western
emissions impacted Africa was via climate change and the technological
developments coming with the emissions had meant nothing positive or
would be inconsequential for the future of these nations.
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