Look up some pictures of Addis Ababa. It’s probably not what you expect.

The regional differences within Ethiopia are very large. One way to grasp the scale is to look at UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) rankings.

The poorest Ethiopian regions have an HDI score around 0.44 [1] while Addis Ababa reaches 0.74. That’s higher than many Mexican states.

For comparison, Mississippi has a HDI rating of 0.866. By this metric, life in the Ethiopian capital is much closer to living in the poorest American state than to living in other parts of Ethiopia. They have stable power, cars, highways, office towers, malls, and the rest of developed infrastructure.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ethiopian_regions_by_H...

Six million of them living in a relatively developed environment seems like pretty clear evidence against the claim that it’s “barely a country” and “without a shred of infrastructure.”

I think you'll find private jets are more expensive than cars. Worse in every regard to your other points as well.

Jets are still permitted. So your points can't be the reason as if it was you'd also ban private air travel.

You're sitting here celebrating what exactly? Their continued descent into eternal poverty and de-industrialization? Most people over there have a shit standard of living, but people like you are sitting here and celebrating that?

Here's an example I have first hand experience with.

Portugal was often considered the "poor man of Europe". When I was there at the end of the last century it was almost impossible to get reliable communication without a satellite phone. I was stuck out in the mountains where nobody could afford a telephone since the cost of having copper run over 10km was too much even if the whole village clubbed together.

I returned to London and thought rather little of it for years until I spoke to a family member there who said, I'll just email you some photos over. Seconds later my inbox was filled with hi-res jpegs. This must be costing you a fortune, I said, thinking of the old satphone. No, we're using the new dish!

In Portugal, between 1999 and 2004, using a big EU development grant, most of the "poor south" went from having no telecoms at all to having some of the finest and cheapest in Europe. It was perfect for new LOS microwave links that meshed across the country. In fact, without a legacy of copper providers to wrestle with, the transition was cheaper and smoother.

It's called "leapfrogging", which is a concept used in economics and business to describe rapid growth that bypasses stages assumed to be necessary, see Schumpeter, Stiglitz and Tirole and [0]

I do know a little something of what Ethiopia is like from people who've served or lived there - so the lecture from someone who probably can't find it on a map is a tad tedious. As I understand it's a beautiful and fertile place, sadly torn by endless war.

Anyway, you may know that African countries are leapfrogging at an astonishing rate, often spurred by Chinese investment. Indeed their "disadvantage" may be their greatest advantage, of not being under the heel of Western interests. They don't need to go through the environmentally devastating process of petrochemical industrialism if they can just go straight to a post-petro economy.

Now if you've got something civil and interesting to say about Chinese investment, what that might mean I'd love to hear. But all said, hats-off to them.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leapfrogging

It was a very nice country and I'd love to go back, but it's still the "poor south" of Europe.

Maybe you can "leapfrog" on phone service, but there's no modernist replacement for clean water, sewage disposal, and reliable electric power.

EVs could be hugely beneficial to developing countries as it’s a path to energy independence, and with cheap LiFePo batteries there’s a path to make EVs much cheaper than ICE could ever be.

So EVs start to eat at the ICE market from both sides of the spectrum. It’s like cell phones vs land lines all over again. Many poor countries never even built land lines and leapfrogged straight to cell phones even though that was the more expensive technology to start with.

Everything tends to be "coulda shoulda woulda" when it comes to EVs..

If that's the case, then they wouldn't even need to ban anything, the benefits and the market would be so obvious, poor people obviously would buy EVs.

To be clear, I kinda agree with your statement, but then don't wasted the little resources you have chasing a big dream constructed by other people who you don't owe anything. Wait it out.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/22/business/india-electric-vehic...

I suggest you follow the public debate around EVs in Norway, especially with regards to their performance this winter.

The public transportation system (which has largely transitioned to EV-only fleets) has collapsed completely and come under severe pressure to roll back to fossilized vehicles.

There's a growing pressure to reverse the push for using EVs everywhere, since the technology just doesn't seem to hold up to the weather conditions. Electric busses, taxis, trains and ferries have all underperformed, broke down, and brought Norway's largest cities to a halt on plenty of occasions this winter.

Outside of the large metropolitans, in the rural parts of the country - nobody uses EVs because they're completely impractical. People just can't risk running out of battery when it's -25 Celsius outside and the nearest charging station is an hour's drive away. EVs are heavier to drive up icy and snowy roads, and often get stuck in such conditions.

The busses in Oslo are driving without air conditioning, even when it's freezing outside, to preserve battery power.

People in the large metropolitans are now regularly being asked by the authorities to just stay at home and not go to work due to public transportation systems collapsing completely under the slightest snowfall or rainfall.

There's another debate in Norway about the severe lack of EV charging infrastructure. Coupled with the doubling of electricity prices this past year and the economic downturn - the public discourse has turned on the rapid adoption of EVs.

> "Many poor countries never even built land lines and leapfrogged straight to cell phones even though that was the more expensive technology to start with."

Cellular technology requires much less infrastructure to set-up and maintain (as opposed to land-lines).

EVs are the complete opposite. They require charging infrastructure everywhere. You need to connect the entire country to a reliable electric grid, and spread charging stations everywhere.

It's the complete opposite analogy to the deprecation of analog telephony...

As opposed to electricity - fuel can be easily transported and stored around the country in numerous ways... you can transport fuel with donkeys, trucks, trains, cars, jugs, bottles...

Huh? Do you mean public transport trains like trams? Because trains do not have batteries because they have an overhead line or a 3rd rail to deliver the current.

You haven't been to Ethiopia, or learned about its history, clearly.

Ethiopia is not only very much a country (with that name since 330 AD), but one orders of magnitude older and more deeply rooted in human history than, for example, the USA. The earliest known hominid archealogical evidence is from Ethiopia (circa 4 million years ago). It's the only African nation not to be colonised by genocidal Europeans. Haile Salassie - former emperor of Ethiopia - led the country to victory over fascism, and changed the direction of Euro-African relations, and is revered in the Rastafarian religion. This barely scratches the surface of how worthy of your attention Ethiopia is.

Ethiopia is a typical useless African nation marred by excessive corruption and mindless tribalism.

1 - https://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/Country-Profiles/MP...

E.g. - ABS (Applied Bottle Sciences) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e-IMCcWdcM

Ethiopians inventing a few things here and there is of no use if it’s a country where the majority lives in poverty because of corruption and violence caused by brainless tribalism.

Many formerly colonized countries achieved unprecedented levels of success.

But in Africa where corruption and tribal violence is hindering development, the foolish kleptocrats running the show always try to hoodwink their population by blaming long dead and gone colonialist powers.