[ExI] Africa wants to double in size

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
Sent: Tuesday, 2 September, 2025 11:54 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Africa wants to double in size

 

On Tue, 2 Sept 2025 at 18:45, spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:
>
< Big snip>
>
> Africa has plenty of everything except ambition.  I can't detect genuine ambition in that place.  They have everything else they need, plenty of it and more.  Africa needs capitalist vision and AMBITION!
>
> spike
> _____________________________________________


"We"  ????

Too late. Africa is being developed already, but by China.

BillK

 

>From ChatGPT -
China finances and builds roads, railways, ports, and power plants across Africa. Think Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway or Ethiopia’s new industrial parks. These projects often come through China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Trade and resources: Africa exports raw materials—oil, copper, cobalt—to China. In return, cheap Chinese goods flood local markets. 

With money comes clout. China positions itself as a partner without Western-style political conditions (like pushing democracy or human rights standards). That appeals to many African governments.

 

 

 

 

 

Cool!

 

Africa is big.  There is room for China and good old western unfettered CAPITALISM!

 

BillK, a recent development has fired my imagination.  I have been aware of many of Africa’s problems for a long time, and pondered how we in the west can help (and profit of course (hey, capital makes things happen.))  Africa has repeatedly tried to build something analogous to a western power grid, but this takes a lot of copper, and thieves come with wire cutters.  I am friends with a former African missionary who describes bringing in a bunch of western building materials, couldn’t get a local crew, imported a group of builders, set up what looks like a small but modern western clinic.  There was civil unrest, the westerners had to get scarce, they came back a coupla years later, couldn’t find a trace of the building.  Everything had been taken apart, gone.

 

OK.  So there are those kinds of problems, but there are leapfrog technologies available, one of which I was reminded of on a recent Canada camping trip way the hell and gone up at 53 degrees north latitude, no phone, nothing up there, not even a decent McDonalds (mercy.)

 

If the African nations have trouble setting up a power grid, do they really need one?  Can they have isolated areas which generate their own power and do not distribute it?  And if so, can they use a lot of our newer low-power using technologies?  For instance, on the Canada trip, we bought and set up a StarLink antenna.  It uses about 11 watts, and we could use our phones or tablets with it to get good internet out there in the sticks.  It was easy to set up, easy to use, good performance.  If the sub Saharan Africans had those babies, they could get internet, which means they could get Khan Academy and all the good stuff we have, learn how to deal with the outside world, get the information they need to climb up into the modern world.

 

Leapfrog technologies allow them to get what they need without having to go thru all the growing pains we had for a century.  They come right on up to the front and center without climbing the stairs.

 

spike

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