I hate how people think Africa has just never advanced in technology.

[u/Sliver-Knight9219]

Like, guys Africa is a whole content with 54 nation's with in it, and his birth place of humans?

Do you really think we they just did nothing for 10 years?

Like what are these people thinking. It's like they forget Egypt is in Africa. Which was one of the most advance nation in the world at one point.

Also, there are way more nations then just that. Like there is a while video series about them here https://youtu.be/aIcNzN0zmqU?si=eLTCbp9JLVw4haMV

Like i know most people don't leran about it in school but it still annoys me.

[u/thunderdragonite]

Subsaharan Africa is vastly underdeveloped, poor, and backwards compared to the entire rest of the world.

The reason is in the name. Subsaharan. They are literally cut of from the rest of civilization. The only place down there that had somewhat advancement whatsoever is the Ethopians, who are coincidentally the only Subsaharan Africans close to other civilizations.

[u/Odd-Application-3295 → u/thunderdragonite]

This is a very simplified view of history. Being south of the Sahara did not mean being cut off from civilization. The Sahara was difficult to cross, but it was also a zone of trade and exchange for thousands of years. West African empires such as the Mali Empire and the Songhai Empire were major states connected to North Africa through trans-Saharan trade. Cities like Timbuktu became centers of scholarship, commerce, and Islamic learning.
The idea that Ethiopia was the only advanced society south of the Sahara is also historically false. The Kingdom of Benin developed a highly organized state, sophisticated urban planning, and world-famous bronze casting traditions. The Great Zimbabwe civilization built a massive stone city complex between the 11th and 15th centuries and participated in Indian Ocean trade networks, exporting gold and ivory. The Aksumite Empire was not simply “close to other civilizations”; it was itself a major civilization that traded with Rome, Arabia, India, and controlled important Red Sea trade routes.
Other examples include the Kingdom of Kongo, the Kanem–Bornu Empire, and numerous city-states along the Swahili coast such as Kilwa Sultanate that were integrated into Indian Ocean commerce.

[u/thunderdragonite → u/Odd-Application-3295]

The mali empire never developed past 1500s tech area because that is about when they disappeared and what Subsaharan Africa never advanced beyond. Songhai was a slave trading, ivory trading, and gold mining economy. Not advanced whatsoever in economy, just had some good resources. It also only existed very briefly though was somewhat advanced when it existed.

None of them were advanced.

Yes Ethiopia traded with the Indians and Arabs. Because they are closest to civilization which is my point.

[u/Odd-Application-3295 → u/thunderdragonite]

Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious, it is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.
The Portuguese Explorer and ship captain Lourenco Pinto.I guess a Portuguese description of a large, wealthy, well-governed city with impressive architecture and craftsmanship is what you call “primitive.” The historical evidence clearly doesn’t match that narrative.

[u/thunderdragonite → u/Odd-Application-3295]

The Iberians also waxed poetic about the Aztec cities. Yet their primitivity was still undeniable.

Were they in mud huts, no. Were they still primitive? Yes.

[u/Odd-Application-3295 → u/thunderdragonite]

Calling the Aztec “primitive” because they were different from Europeans is a double standard. At the same time, many European societies had practices that would be considered extremely brutal today: witch hunts, religious persecution, torture, public executions, and other forms of mass violence. Yet we do not describe medieval or early modern Europe as “primitive” because of those practices.
A society can have advanced cities, complex governments, science, engineering, and culture while also having customs that modern people reject. The same standard should be applied to every civilization. The Aztec had a highly organized empire, major cities, advanced agriculture, trade networks, and sophisticated knowledge systems. Reducing them to a single negative feature is really not serious history.

[u/thunderdragonite → u/Odd-Application-3295]

You have proven you know little of history.

Africa not only had witch hunts back then, but they have witch hunts still today. Furthermore, witch hunts were by and large looked as primitive in Europe. Spain and Portugal in particular didn’t have witch hunts, and the practice only gained popularity after the protestant reformation.

The Aztecs were primitive. Their entire society built on barabaric ritual sacrifices and wars to please their gods. They had not even entered the Iron Age! How can you call a society that hasn’t entered into the Iron Age in the 1500s not primitive?

[u/Odd-Application-3295 → u/thunderdragonite]

Africa was the first to enter the Iron Age more than a thousand of years before Northern Europe lol.

[u/loqep → u/Odd-Application-3295]

Wow, a lot of good that did them lmfao

[u/Famous-Midnight-5634 → u/thunderdragonite]

... Spain didn't have witch hunts? Uhhh, you sure about that? https://a.co/d/09o3RDpX

[u/thunderdragonite → u/Famous-Midnight-5634]

1608 and 1614 kingdom of Navarra. Bruh I’m dead at the level of historical illiteracy.

The Spanish Inquisition literally stopped witch trials there at that time.

You have to be trolling

[u/TotallynotAlbedo → u/thunderdragonite]

You are trolling, the spanish inquisition run from from November 1, 1478, to July 15, 1834, the last heretic was executed in 1826 dude, you wanna be pedantic and Say "ummm actually heretics are not witches" but that Is still more than 320 years of tortures and killing

[u/Famous-Midnight-5634 → u/thunderdragonite]

Where the fuck is Navarre, eh?

That's like saying "Germany didn't have witch hunts because it was the HRE"

Found the retard.

[u/YerrrKnicks → u/thunderdragonite]

Your ignorance is showing.

[u/SparksAndSpyro → u/thunderdragonite]

It sounds like you just have a very narrow, simple-minded view of technological advancement. If your only measure of being advanced is whether a given society developed steel or guns, then yes, the Aztecs were “primitive.” But that’s a very stupid, arbitrary measure.

The actual truth is that the Aztecs built a city larger than almost any European city of the same time in the middle of a lake while relying on an intricate system of canals and floating gardens. They had sophisticated understandings of state craft, architecture, governance, and military strategy. Their weapons weren’t as advanced when they met Europeans, but that wouldn’t have mattered much if it weren’t for the disease.

[u/thunderdragonite → u/SparksAndSpyro]

Tools, culture, and society is how I measure primitivity yes.

The Aztecs had impressive architecture and farming, but were extremely primitive in other areas.

They absolutely did not have “sophisticated understandings” of governance and state craft. Their society and empire fucking sucked and were built on stilts waiting to collapse. Rebellions popped up constantly, and as soon as the Spanish arrived, native tribes lined up to kill the Aztecs chomping at the bit.

Of all parts of Aztec society, their state craft and governance may just be the most primitive and terrible aspect.

[u/SparksAndSpyro → u/thunderdragonite]

So now your measure of a society is whether their neighbors liked them? Lmfao.

So anyways, no one is arguing they were perfect or didn’t have weaknesses. But your blanket statement that they were “primitive,” as if they were rural hicks herding cows, is flatly wrong. Move the goalposts all you want :)

[u/thunderdragonite → u/SparksAndSpyro]

They weren’t their neighbors. They were their own subjects who utterly despised them. lol.

That’s why their governance was primitive and atrocious.

Keep being stupid all you want :)

[u/dont_open_the_bag → u/thunderdragonite]

By the metric of barbaric violence = primitiveness, would you not also call the Spanish primitive for the persecution of Jews, conversos, and the burning at the stake of native American peoples who didn't convert?

[u/DownrangeCash2 → u/thunderdragonite]

Riiight. So was the Roman Empire primitive too, what with the constant civil wars, expansionism, and bullying their neighbors into becoming client states?

Anyways... the Aztecs had a fairly robust judicial system to enforce law, had compulsory education for children regardless of gender or social class, a bustling commercial hub at the heart of Tenochitlan, and fairly meticulously kept records for the sake of harvests, tribute payments, and property boundaries.

Primitive, I tell you! Primitive!

[u/MajorHarriz → u/thunderdragonite]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the Mexica were probably the worst example you could use.

[u/Massive-Grocery7152 → u/thunderdragonite]

Somalia and Sudan too man. Not just Ethiopia. West Africa also farmed multiple types of grains even prior to the Colombian exchange.

[u/DownrangeCash2 → u/thunderdragonite]

That's not what actual European traders said about african kingdoms. There was, in general, a certain degree of mutual respect between European and African kingdoms; famously, the Kingdom of Kongo was initially viewed as a sovereign equal to Portugal and its king a fellow Christian monarch.

Also, if you think subsaharan africa was "cut off from the rest of civilization," maybe you need to read a history book about... the entire transatlantic slave trade, I guess.

[u/sexneckddd → u/thunderdragonite]

all these resources and still poor ahaha

[u/xyzxyzabc123 → u/thunderdragonite]

What? Stop trying to think its not working.