Thread 18077302

How is it that the cradles of civilization were in the most inhospitable, barren places?

Mesopotamia wasn't always that arid

>>18077302 (OP)
they were more habitable in the past

>>18077305
That is correct, but of course this "why are country poor" thread has been spammed since forever.
The basis of civilization and river deltas is obvious. Once that saturated access to resources became the issue and obviously Europe has iron and hydropower and won.
After peak oil hydro will be the main resource and this inverts the initial advantages. It's a common proof why captialism is stupid and resources are all that matter.

>>18077305
It always was but like Egypt it has rivers running through to make agriculture possible.

This gives a more accurate picture of things.

>>18077345
lol New England sucks

>>18077355
it does a lot of New Englanders moved west in the early XIX century as the region was overpopulated and had poor soil

>>18077302 (OP)
This map 5000 years ago wouldn't have looked the same. Desertification has been an ongoing process. And of course these civilizations all appeared along major rivers that provided irrigation and fertile floodplains.

>>18077314
> It's a common proof why captialism is stupid and resources are all that matter.
It's the exact opposite, resources are entirely useless until you put in the work to turn them into something useful. All resources that are extracted today were already present thousands of years ago, but almost none of them were of any use to humans.
What matters for human development is always work and the efficiency of this work (productivity), not resources. That's why wealthy regions that don't rely on resource extraction can exist. If your theory was true, all wealthy regions throughout history must have had many rich resources to exploit and that's clearly not the case. Obvious examples include the Low Countries, Japan and Jiangnan.

I really feel like the "desert religion" insult for at least Judaism and Christianity is very inaccurate. For Islam, sure, because Islam comes from Arabia. But the Holy Land and the Levant aren't deserts. They're actually quite nice. Basically a Mediterranean climate.

>>18077433
Southern Israel is definitely a desert but mostly it's like California.

>>18077302 (OP)
>How is it that the cradles of civilization were in the most inhospitable, barren places?

Desertification caused by a mixture of soil depletion, deforestation, excessive ground water extraction & irrigation leading to salinization.
As the other Anons have said: >>18077305 >>18077306 these places USED to be nice, but gross-over-exploitation of their natural resources by early civilizations for thousands of years turned them (some of them permanently) into barren, arid, shit holes.

North Africa has been a desert for all of recorded history, Egypt is essentially the same climate it was in the days of Ramesses II.

>>18077345
Cool map

>>18077302 (OP)
Because that map is a meme, flood plains were perfect for early agriculture. During the dry season the dry soil was easy to plow and rid of weeds and pests and it would all be irrigated during the flood season.

>>18077481
Yes it's a better way of showing how habitable/not habitable a specific region is. You will see that Iraq has relatively good soil despite the desertic climate.

>>18077509
It overstates India. India doesn't retain water so your resilience just says its stable over time and medicore.