I don't see how you can draw any conclusions from the data you've provided. This ranking [1] of African countries by Human Development Index [2] has Ethiopia and Liberia ranked 36th and 38th respectively out of 50 countries - all countries ranked below these two (39 to 50) were colonized. You state that these two countries "have the lowest" standards of living; I think most people would argue with your use of "lowest" here. South Africa is ranked 9th, behind the likes of Botswana (6th) and Gabon (8th), and Côte d'Ivoire is ranked 34th. So you think a ranking of 34 out of 50 is high but one of 36 (also out of 50) is low? Or does your source vary significantly from [1]?

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_Hu... 2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

A reasonable theory would be that the best, most productive areas were colonized first. The productivity / potential of those lands can have nothing to do with colonization and just be inherent to the land.

Related: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/geopolitics-united-states-p...

Is wealth and GDP per capita in South Africa increasing or decreasing after apartheid?

Did the wealth and GDP per capita in the Southern US increase or decrease after the abolition of slavery?

Righting a terrible, terrible moral wrong should come regardless of the short-term economic costs. To suggest that economic concerns trump overturning codified racism is one of the most disheartening things I've read on this site. (I do hope I've misread your comment as a support of apartheid.)

1. You should really bother to look up the answer instead of climbing on a soapbox - GDP per capita in SA has been climbing.

2. His point- that certain countries were much better run while colonized still stands (check out Zimbabwe for example).

I did look up the data, and saw what you saw. However, his daughter comment links an article that claims "whilst there have been gains in some areas, overall, most Black South Africans are materially worse off now than they were under Apartheid," which I took to be the actual point he was making.

Ok, fair enough - I just saw that thread and thought it would make sense to argue facts rather than moral posturing :)

Looking at the actual situation in countires, though, this is kind of a false argument.

Take Africa. Given that there were only two uncolonized countries, the sample size there is too small to be meaningful, though the fact that neither Liberia nor Ethiopia fall into the lowest group of African countries in terms of either HDI, and there are a number of countries below both in Africa that did fall under colonial rule (Central African Republic, DR Congo, Malawi, Burindi below Liberia, plus Niger, Mozambique, Eritria, Guinea, Togo, Madagascar, and Guinea-Bissau below Ethiopia), would seem to indicate that colonial areas can be quite bad off.

Lets also look at your example of Hong Kong. The issue there is that you're conflating a single city, one that was used as primarily a trading and financial hub for the British Empire, with an entire country. Cities across the world tend to be more prosperous in general than the rest of the country. Plenty of Latin American capital cities are quite modern, and many other coastal Chinese cities are as well, but that belies the widespread poverty that might exist in rural area.

To be clear, you're claiming that Europeans are genetically superior to Africans?

The conclusion "colonization is beneficial" might have supporting evidence, even if the cause (genetics) was grossly incorrect.

So basically the genetic term, outside of individuals and perhaps families, is always, as a matter of moral principal, negligibly close to zero? Because...?

because, correlation does not imply causation. If after some thought you don't understand what this means, you unfortunately never will.

Correlation is not causation, and correlation does not logically imply causation, but correlation is evidence of causation [1] which in a looser English context could be taken as a sort of implication. Many correlations aren't worth digging into, but others are, so you can't just dismiss all of them outright with "correlation doesn't imply causation."

[1] http://oyhus.no/CorrelationAndCausation.html

Please do not consider comments out of context and reply. That's just ...bad form. In the context of the comment I was replying to, my reply was just a simple way of saying that beyond the scope of direct genetic influence (a.k.a: outside of individuals and perhaps families, as the comment put it) attributing genetic causation to observed phenomenon is simple correlation. Well, that's all I have to contribute.

He's claiming white domination generally resulted in a better standard living. Like how income equality doesn't necessary mean everyone is worse off. Even if the rich get a bigger slice of the pie, the pie may get bigger, thus standard of living is higher for everyone.

You can no more be genetically superior than just 'better'. It's a meaningless proposition since it doesn't specify 'better at what'.

I'm all for exploring forbidden ideas, but your second paragraph doesn't follow from the first. For example, a much more plausible way for colonization to have advanced civilization is through memetics rather than genetics.

> those that were not colonized (Liberia, Ethiopia)

Problem is, that doesn't reflect the history of Liberia at all, which was colonized and established in 1822 by Americo-Liberians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americo-Liberian

Comparatively, how is Africa _not_ dirty and diseased? The only place on Earth where long vanquished diseases are still fairly common is Africa.

By what metric (child mortality, water quality, GI diseases, environmental degradation), could you possibly undermine this statement? Africa appears dirty and diseased because it is.

The difference is that's a causality claim.

"Africa harbors exotic diseases" - fact

"IQ tests have conclusively shown there are differences between races" - fact

"The observed difference in IQ between races are because race X is genetically inferior" - causal speculation

> how are black people not intellectually inferior?

If lower IQ test scores were the definition of intellectual inferiority then that would be the case.