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The True Size of Africa (2015)

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Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#151

Post by eru »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #132
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you measuring to determine over or underpopulation? Food production? We grow more food that is required to feed current population, much of world's farming is not efficient, done without modern equipment, etx., and then there is the subject of meat - if we stopped growing feed for animals, and instead seitch to vegetarian diet, we could feed a lot more people. Then there is the argument that glasshouses are…

The modern agriculture just means automating depleting natural aquifers and using up topsoil and abusing chemicals at massive scale. Its the agricultural equivalent of optimizing for next quarter, but losing out on next decade.

How would greenhouses use up top-soil?

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#152

Post by eru »

init wrote: post #73
JackFr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say the US is homogenous for it’s size, are you referring to the physical geography or the demographic make up of the population, or something else entirely? (I think I would disagree, but good faith requires I actually try to understand what you meant before I take issue with it.)

As the other commenter responded, I'm referring to the linguistic, socioeconomic and judicial homogeneity. Even though the US is culturally diverse, it still has a single currency, a single dominant language and a single jurisdiction (with minor state specific legal requirements). I only need one US visa to travel to all 52 states. A software company taking payments in the US has access to all 52 states. A peach cobb…

> The US can be seen as a single market, the same applies to China and India. Europe has the schengen area, the EU and the EEA. Africa needs similar initiatives.

Yes, but you don't need much international cooperation to get a single market or visa free travel: individual countries can unilaterally declare free trade and open their borders. (And economic theory is in favour of that, too.)

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#153

Post by eru »

manquer wrote: post #83
init wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the other commenter responded, I'm referring to the linguistic, socioeconomic and judicial homogeneity. Even though the US is culturally diverse, it still has a single currency, a single dominant language and a single jurisdiction (with minor state specific legal requirements). I only need one US visa to travel to all 52 states. A software company taking payments in the US has access to all 52 states. A peach cobb…

Not taking away anything from what you said, my experience has been a bit different. I actually found US more federal in nature for doing business compared to India and to some extent Europe. The tax laws are lot more state specific than India, California has very different rules for privacy(ccpa) or environmental regulations than other states. Europe largely following GDPR is good enough (with some exceptions for Ge…

Try running a barbershop in France, Germany and the UK. They are far from business homogeneous.

In eg Germany you need three years of government approved training to work in one. And another two years of government approved training to run one.

(And I don't think those training certificates can be used for anything in other countries?)

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#154

Post by visarga »

ulfw wrote: post #129
t0mas88 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me (an outsider from Europe) the US doesn't feel homogenous at all. Compare New York to Taxas or California to South Carolina and they feel as much as different as for example Germany and Spain. With the only difference being that all US states share the English language and Europe has different languages, but even that difference is slowly reducing. For example the French, famous for not speaking English 20 years…

None of what you write makes any sense. Spain and Germany have hugely different history, completely different food, different weather, they speak two non-compatible languages sets (Romantic vs Germanic), they have different laws, different stores, different banks, anything. Texas and California speak the same language, have similar makeup of people, are similarly wealthy, they have the exact same stores, your bank ac…

Don't want to interrupt this nice discussion but the head topic was about Africa for once, and here we are talking about Europe and US again. Funny we can't switch even for a moment. I bet Africa sees a lot of this.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#156

Post by andi999 »

owenversteeg wrote: post #139
boraoztunc wrote: post #77

>> The Good Design Grand Award, arguably Japan’s most prestigious award for design, went out to architect Hajime Narukawa’s completely groundbreaking design for a map of the world. His map, the AuthaGraph World Map, isn’t your average map of the globe: It’s a near-perfect representation of the continents and oceans as they exist on our spherical planet, all laid out on a two-dimensional surface. https://totravelistol…

I’m not a fan of AuthaGraph at all. It has horrible distortion look at Brazil or Alaska - and it’s proprietary (creator never released the actual map details, so you can’t make your own...) The worst thing, in my eyes, is that the distortion is unpredictable. Looking at a map where Canada is too big, you can mentally imagine Canada as smaller. But you can’t mentally undo the multi-direction transformation of Alaska i…

If one really cares about accuracy, why not getting a globe.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#157

Post by philipswood »

birdyrooster wrote: post #149
init wrote: post #35

Africa has 54 countries, thousands of languages and 1.2 billion people. As an African, whenever I see this map I'm more astonished by how densely populated Europe and India are, how big and populated China is and how homogeneous the US is compared to its size.

What does it mean to be an African? Is there unifying culture of all of Africa? Like when I say I am an American, I don't mean the continent, I am talking about living in the US, but when someone calls themselves an African, what can I glean from that other than they live on a large, heterogenous continent?

As a fellow African I struggle to answer the question!

I find it interesting that your (valid to you and a commonly used use case) of "being American" excludes Canada, Mexico, etc. ... (actually all of South America).

There isn't a common culture.

I'm also acutely aware that my definition is extremely unlikely to be shared in North Africa, Central Africa, even in another province of my own country).

All that said "being African" parses with a lot more emotional and ideological content than just geography.

There's a hint of pride at the grandeur and diversity of the landscape and peoples, a dollop of hope for a brighter future given our huge potential (despite our poverty we have so much more stuff than many other countries), there's a dash of injustice of colonial history and exploitation.

When I work with someone from Nigeria or Kenia or I interact with someone who is effectively a refugee from DRC or Zimbabwe - I can honestly say we seem to have something in common with our feeling about Africa.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#158

Post by Talanes »

eru wrote: post #153
manquer wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not taking away anything from what you said, my experience has been a bit different. I actually found US more federal in nature for doing business compared to India and to some extent Europe. The tax laws are lot more state specific than India, California has very different rules for privacy(ccpa) or environmental regulations than other states. Europe largely following GDPR is good enough (with some exceptions for Ge…

Try running a barbershop in France, Germany and the UK. They are far from business homogeneous. In eg Germany you need three years of government approved training to work in one. And another two years of government approved training to run one. (And I don't think those training certificates can be used for anything in other countries?)

Barber licensing is done at the State level in the US, and also varies pretty widely between states.

https://www.barber-license.com/

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#159

Post by industriousthou »

birdyrooster wrote: post #149
init wrote: post #35

Africa has 54 countries, thousands of languages and 1.2 billion people. As an African, whenever I see this map I'm more astonished by how densely populated Europe and India are, how big and populated China is and how homogeneous the US is compared to its size.

What does it mean to be an African? Is there unifying culture of all of Africa? Like when I say I am an American, I don't mean the continent, I am talking about living in the US, but when someone calls themselves an African, what can I glean from that other than they live on a large, heterogenous continent?

I think you'll find lot's of people from North and South America would take issue with your definition of "American".
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