no, geography doesn't matter. if you think it does, please explain japan. japan has objectively awful geography in every way, and yet it's still rich and prosperous because east asians are a crafty and intelligent race.

there are other examples of this. australia, netherlands, new zealand, etc. awful geography but still prosperous due to industrious and smart people.


this is to say, it has everything to do with the people and little to do with the place. if you put africans in a place with great geography like, say, the USA, they wouldn't be able to make a rich, developed country. but if you put white americans or asians in africa they would make it rich in short order. this is proven states like south africa, where the whites live in prosperous micro-communities, but they are heavily outnumbered by africans. if the africans were removed it would be a very rich country.

You're confusing intelligence for civilization. Japan developed civilization because Japan is a very mountainous region, leading to a high population density along withe sea. Civilization is largely a factor of high population density, which is why North America had few permanent city-states

>gigantic island with a lot of wood and fish close by to a cradle of civilization is objectively awful geography
Bait, should have said Finland or something
Also Japanese people are retards they didn't even have writing until the Chinese civilized them in the first century AD

>>509143443
>minuscule amount of arable land
>very hard to get from one area to another without a boat (before the advent of modern infrastructure)
>almost no navigable waterways
>incredibly prone to natural disasters of all kinds
>no natural resources (no wood doesn't count, everyone has wood)
genuinely there are no upsides, wtf do you mean

>>509143442
>Japan developed civilization because Japan is a very mountainous region, leading to a high population density along withe sea.
that's definitely not how that works

>>509143444
>everyone has wood
The middle east would like a word. Wood is actually a huge resource before you develop enough to use coal and natural gas you have to use charcoal to power furnaces
>navigable waterway meme
Why would they need navigable waterways if their entire island is one big port after another
>>509143442
Japan didn't even independently develop civilization, the Yayoi brought it with them from Korea

>>509143445
This is 100 percent how it works
Civilization is the result of a high populaton density, which is determined by geography.
Every early civilization developed along foothills, rivers, an in valleys. There are few if any exceptions to this rule. It's about population density. North America did not have necesarry geography for a high population density, hence lack of permanent city states outside of some very specific areas like the Pueblo of New Mexico. Mesoamerica and South America had several city states because the geography allowed it. Same with Europe. The first European city-states developed between the Alps and Mediterranean sea. It's the reason why the Romans and Greeks were living in villas and having gay orgies while the rest of Europe was still a bunch of tribes.

>>509143441 (OP)
>muh leRacial determinism
The idea that intelligence and economic development are determined by race is an outdated and scientifically discredited view. Genetics and scientific research do not support the existence of significant racial differences in intelligence.

>>509143448
so then why are lighter skinned people wealthier than darker skinned people across the board?

>>509143442
>>509143448
Chatgpt

>>509143449
The second richest man on Earth is some It*lian-American Jew with swarthy skin

>>509143446
>Japan didn't even independently develop civilization, the Yayoi brought it with them from Korea
the Yayoi+Jomon Japanese had already formed civilization in Korean peninsula in the ancient times. Korea was part of Japan.

People do matter. But Japan is far from hard mode.

>>509143451
the man in this photo is light skinned

>>509143442
This is wrong but also right. Japanese civilization spawned in Kanto and around Kyoto because there is flat ground there for rice farming. Lots of farms = lots of people, and everyone lives near the rice causing japanese society to concentrate around megawork rice farming communities. People generally didn't just live along the coasts because of the constant tsunamis.

>>509143441 (OP)
Japan has good geography. It always sustained a large population due fishing and rice yields and it was one of the largest silver producers in the world

>>509143444
>miniscule amount of arable land
Yes, but counterpoint: rice. That's enough land to sustain a huge, concentrated population. See China for a larger example.
>very hard to get around without boats
They made roads for tribute. Also, so? Boats will be common on an island.
>No navigable waterways
Only matters in places like America where you have some valuable inland that needs access to the sea. What inland center needs a waterway in Japan? Tsuruga castle? It's an island.
>big natural disasters
Yeah. See: china. Not that big of a deal if you have a stable government.
>No natural resources
Not really a concern until the meiji era. The lack of coal led to them getting super belligerent in Manchuria and Korea and Sakhalin. Otherwise Japan has plenty of resources, and wood is charcoal.

>>509143447
This theory would make sense if pre-Columbian North America didn't have a huge, central capital city at Cahokia. The first Europeans encountered the North Americans in a post-collapse state and just assumed they were nomadic and scattered naturally, like if aliens watched the walking dead and just assumed that's how humans live normally.

>>509143441 (OP)
>east asians are a crafty and intelligent race
Is that why east asia was a warlord-led hellhole until the evil westerner showed up?

>>509143459
All of the West was under military dictatorship until the Age of Republicanism taught them that maybe 99% of the population having a say in the government may actually be a good idea. Really the Chinese administration style they spread to Japan and Korea was pretty far ahead of Europe, which was largely literally absolutist when they started caring about East Asia.

>>509143458
What is this copium?

>>509143461
What do I even have to be coping for? Am I the Last Mississippian?

>>509143462
I have being to those ruins and they are pathetic

>>509143444
in premodern (really pre-railroad) times, waterways meant easy transport and it was always way cheaper to move things by water than by land

>>509143442
>Civilization is largely a factor of high population density
What causes high population density?

>>509143448
Why do blacks have smaller brains?

>>509143465
civilization of course.
high population density can't be achieved without the effective agricultural system and the developed society.

Japan would be third world without american investment.
Japan got 5 lost decades after the plaza accord's when americans turned off the free money

>>509143461
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture
But there is point of the geographical features permitting density. This culture settled in Mississippi basin and it's network of waterways.

>>509143465
High density of food production.
Agriculture in irrigated and/or naturally fertilized lands in river basins.

>>509143468
Japan literally has one of the least dependences of foreign capital in the world while muttmerica's entire economy runs on the idea that they can print money without causing inflation due global demand you dumb stupid mutt

>>509143441 (OP)
Yes, Japan did well because developed Neolithic Asians migrated there, but it has perfect geography for them, isolated from invasions but not from the spread of ideas and trade, good oceanic climate for agriculture and infinite fish for protein to go with their shitty rice.

>>509143441 (OP)
Italy is not that far off from your picture OP and look at what happened with Rome. You need to make a better argument than "muh mountains".

>>509143444
Meaning, they need to farm well
they need to build boats
they need to find proper ways to navigate
they need to learn what good infrastructure is very early on
in africa where these upsides dont exist we can see how it made their societies and people lazy

>>509143471
Japan has more debt than the United States relative to their GDP anon. Japan has one of the most dependent economies in the world. What exactly possees you to be so confidently wrong?
>>509143465
>>509143467
Geography does. This has been discussed to death already
The averge IQ of this thread is sub-90

>>509143475
He means percentage of debt owned by the country itself. Japan owns like 90% of its public debt while the US owns only 60-70%, the rest is foreign owned.

>>509143463
Irrelevant and cope, civilization and city in North America. There are others too, like Mobila with was a city with 16ft tall walls in Alabama that De Soto destroyed.

>>509143475
>Japan has more debt than the United States relative to their GDP anon
No they don't, you are only counting public debt like a moron. Japan is a net creditor while you mutts soak up basically 75% of the world's debt through money printing
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_position

>>509143478
Can't we just agree to disagree and say that debt is a meme anyways?

>>509143441 (OP)
Seed and soil both matter.

But japan is the ultimate endorsement of taking the bluepill - spit on your own traditions and embrace the (vintage) globalhomo, and attain unlimited power.

They did it when they nuked their own culture to 100% adopt Chinese culture, and they did it again to adopt Western culture.

No people on earth are as quick to voluntarily disown their ancestors or way of life as the Japanese - if they think there is a buck to made.

>>509143466
you lost

>>509143479
You just don't know what you are talking about

>>509143482
No, it seems like you don't. Because you're just looking at NIPs like they mean anything on their own. The US economy is worth 30 trillion dollars, which is twice that of its negative net investment position, creditors don't want their investments back in a lump sum, they just want the promise it can be payed back. The US is the largest economy on Earth, which allows it maintain a relatively high credit score. You're looking at this from the perspective of big number=scary. You're caveman brained. The debt is a meme. Stop treating it like a boogeyman

>>509143480
This is completely wrong. They larped as the Chinese in the same way as basically all Europeans larped as Romans. They did it because they thought chinks were cool and cultured, not to attain power. The Chinese didn't give a shit about them and they stayed irrelevant island hillbillies. And retaining, reviving, and emphasizing Japanese culture was a big deal throughout their modernization to the extent that they even tried to throw out Chinese influence. Even as an American vassal they've made more of an effort to retain their cultural identity than most occupied peoples.
It's especially absurd to say this about the Japanese when the Koreans are right next door.

The fedoratheist will throw every cope at the wall to deflect from the fact that the African is just plain retarded.

>>509143448
The science also says you’re ackually a woman but we both know that’s cope

>>509143454
Careful next xhes going to claim anyone south of Londonshireton is not yhte

>>509143441 (OP)
Temperate weather is the biggest condition for development and Japan has that.
Genetics and social-economics are both influenced by climate
Temperate weather allow genetic selection for traits that benefits civilization and development.
Temperate weather allow humans to labour for an entire day and conserve energy.
Temperate weather has less health risk than tropical weather. There are no tropical disease less infection, parasites, insects in temperate climate
Almost all developed countries in the world has temperate climate. Including southern countries such as Australia whose population live the temperate part

>>509143460
>taught them that maybe 99% of the population having a say in the government may actually be a good idea

And they’ve been wrong ever since

This thread is proof that 2 nukes weren't enough

>>509143480
Holy cope. Japan literally is the perfect blend of mixing tradition and progress. They’re the only the Western satellite that isn’t ritually humiliated

>>509143490
Cope. The Soviets were the reason they surrendered

>>509143488
Hmmm and where’s the North Amerindian civilization. I don’t see anything

>>509143441 (OP)
The volcanic soil of Japan are very fertile and Japan has been able to sustain a large population despite its mountainous geography. It is consistently one of the most populous countries in the world. Always in the top 10 until modern times

>>509143493
Guaranteed you the North Ameridians would have created a comfy country compared to Mexico
Even between Latinxes, the Southern cone Latinx countries (Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, southern Brazil) who have temperate climate are way better than the tropical Latinx

>>509143483
NIIP is the net position. It literally tells you if a country is a net creditor or debtor, there is no other way to measure it. The US is a giant parasite that lives and dies by the dolar while Japan has some of the smallest levels of FDI internally while having a vasy portfolio of assets abroad

>>509143496
Btw the US NIIP deficit is actually almost 100% of GDP, the last countries with such an imbalance were Spain and Greece before 2008. The US NIIP hasn't been half of its GDP since around 2008
https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/us-international-investment-position-4th-quarter-and-year-2024#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20net%20international%20investment,Economic%20Analysis%20(chart%201).

>>509143496
>It literally tells you if a country is a net creditor or debtor
Yes, but that's also not really the point and I've already explained what the point is and I'm not going to repeat myself

>>509143497
You ever even consider the idea that you might actually want to lend from other countries because it gives other countries obligation to ensure your economy remains stable?

>>509143498
Your point is silly, you claimed that Japan relied on US money which is actually the opposite.
Your interpretation is actually retarded, as the US NIIP is not stable it actually increase a fuck ton every year in relative terms due the massive trade imbalances that are only paid through debt monetization which is why 25% of the US GDP and 40% of US corparate profits are purely financial

>>509143500
>you claimed that Japan relied on US money
I never said this
>25% of the US GDP and 40% of US corparate profits are purely financial
You're retarded

>>509143499
Wait hold on a second, so you are saying that the US is just getting into retardedly dangerous levels of foreign debt as leverage? Holy shit the brainrot of Amerifats, this arrangement is just moving US investment into worthless things while actual value added industries have moved to Asia. The US is a financial recession away from a depression that could last at least a decade which is probably when China will stop its export driven growth to pivot into its internal market with balanced trade

>>509143501
You did and the actual retard is (You) who can't check basic fucking information. The US gutted its economy completly and its in its own Periwig era

>>509143441 (OP)
Japan prostitutred teenage Japanese girls (karayuki san) to foreigners in the Meiji era for cash.

Japan's economic rise was built on child prostitution of Japanese girls.

>>509143484

Japan annihilated and destroyed its own culture in the Meiji restoration

https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/16634206/#q16634206

>>16634206

Tens of thousands of Japanese temples, shrines and castles were destroyed and decades later rebuilt with steel and concrete for dumb western tourists like you.

Japan destroyed its traditional social structure violently in the blood tax riots.

Japan even destroyed its traditional burial customs and food taboos, switching to eating dairy in the Meiji restoration while stop eating dogs and cats, and forcing its people to cremate.

French culture was destroyed in the French revolution.

https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/15158610/#q15159608

>>15159608
Japanese violently destroyed their own culture in the Meiji restoration, destroying tens of thousands of temples, shrines and castles and destroying their own culture to westernise

France violently destroyed its own culture in the French revolution and then Napoleon destroyed Spain and Portugal's heritage.


https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/13277598/#q13277766


90% of South Korean men circumcise. (Agaisnt Confucianism)

90% of South Koreans cremated the dead. (Agaisnt Confucianism)

Most traditional Korean palaces have been destroyed like Gyeongbokgung and what stands today is a 20th century replica.

Most Korean clan genealogies are 20th century forgeries (over half of Koreans who descend from the peasant class now claim ancestry from royalty) by totally unrelated people who joined together and fabricated a common genealogy.

Korean "traditional food" includes spam soup (Budae-jjigae) from US army rations.

Korean "traditional" martial arts like taekwondo, kumdo were invented and copied from other counties in the 20th century.

Korean traditional Hanbok exposes breasts but they are too ashamed to wear it now.

https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/13869957/#q13869957

>>509143484
>>509143505

Japan's "cleaness" is from government destroying their traditional culture.

Japanese uses to piss everywhere in the streets and litter garbage as part of their culture, but the Japanese government forced and re-engineered its people to stop in the 1960s to please western tourists for the Olympics in the 1960s (same decade many fake concrete castles were built for western tourists) it began forcing elderly Japanese to pick up garbage.

Japanese streets and train lines used to smell like rubbish, piss and shit.
https://x.com/malecsandram/status/1511650585690447874

>Turn out that hosting the 1964 Olympic Games completely kickstarted the transformation of Japan and Tokyo from a sewage smelling city with rubbish all over to the hyper polite, hyper clean, hyper cosmopolitan place we know today.

https://x.com/MacSingularity/status/1576955688395636738

>A long time ago, during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the Sumida River smelled foul and was in a dirty state, so as a temporary measure to improve it, clean water was flowed.

https://x.com/NewbieJapan/status/1654060267003691008

>after the Olympics of 1964 foreign people complained that the Japanese were tossing their trash in the rivers and ditches everywhere. Tokyo was dirty.
>That little bit of shame in the media produced the clean Tokyo we appreciate and JP fans picking up trash in the stadiums

It was easy for poor Chinese men working as peddlers or labourers to groom random Japanese girls in the 1920s and 1930s.

https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/17164434/#q17164434

Japan also used to export more child teenage prostitutes to foreign men than Thailand in the Meiji era (karayuki san) with Japanese girls from Africa to the US and Canada.

Japan only cleaned up its image and GDP after the Tokyo Olympics

>>509143484
>>509143505
>>509143506
China's medieval city walls walls in Xi'an and the Wild goose pagoda in Xi'an are the oldest standing medieval city walls and buildings in East Asia.

The oldest Japanese standing building is centuries younger than Wild goose which is over 1,300 tears old, and Japan has no medieval city walls.

The Forbidden city in Beijing is centuries older than any standing Japanese palace. Japan's palaces and castles are all recent reconstructions.

Japan also had a reputation for poisoning its people in mass industrial accidents in the 20th century (four big pollution diseases, Minamata disease) and dumping mercury into the ocean.

Japan only started cleaning it up in the 1970s.

https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/16634206/#


White nationalist Jared Taylor's book "Shadows of the Rising Sun", published in 1983 on how Japanese piss in the streets in public

https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/16634206/#q16634301

Every stereotype you think about China, applied to Japan before the 1970s.

>>509143484
>>509143505
>>509143506
>>509143507
You're literally describing Japan.

Japan demolished the majority of their castles, temples and shrines in the Meiji restoration in the 19th century.

They then rebuilt the castles and temples out of concrete for the Tokyo Olympics in the 1960s for tourists.

Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto and Senso-ji in Tokyo are both rebuilt concrete fakes

Japanese tour guides won't tell you that on purpose, unlike Chinese tour guides who are blunt and honest.


In China, Pingyao and Xi'an's entire city wall is the original and so are its pagodas and temples.

Beijing's Forbidden city, Confucian temple are all originals.

Qufu's Confucius temple and mansion are all originals.

Japan also had the reputation for cheap shoddy knockoff products in the 1950s, and Japan had a reputation for urinating, spitting, littering and shitting on the street until Japan's government forced its people to stop for the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

Japanese people were forced to stop shutting, spitting and urinating and pick up their garbage at that time.

Also Japanese girls had a reputation for being whores for foreigners in the entire Meiji era to the 1960s until again, the Tokyo Olympics made Japan clean up its public image.

Chinese hobos and exiles like Sun Yatsen used to pick up Japanese teenage girls like Kaoru Otsuki as side hoes.

ching chong ping pong

>>509143441 (OP)
No, it has to do with the perfect storm of trade routes and a comparatively urbanised population

>>509143451
Are you retarded or just referencing this particular e-debating trope on purpose?

>>509143505
>>509143506
>>509143507
>>509143508
Oh, hello Spammy. Shall we talk a bit of a certain battle during the An Lushan war?

>no, geography doesn't matter

>>509143453
what does this chart mean?

>>509143441 (OP)
>japan has objectively awful geography in every way
?????????

>dozens of excellent ports
>a few fertile plains
>a big inland sea, and a smaller inland sea
>close to fishing routes
>separated from enemy peoples by a sea
>neighbouring different economies (furs, whales, timber, hunting to the north; food, urbanization, manufacturing to the south) and can trade between them

Its a better Greece. Japan is a better Greece. And Greece was the earliest part of Europe to develop.

>>509143441 (OP)
>no, geography doesn't matter.
lol

Anyways, if a Taiwan sized island existed in the middle of the Sea of Japan, in the shallows, how would they develop?
Geography determinists, do a little larp for me, tell me how you think this would play out.

>>509143505
>Tens of thousands of Japanese temples, shrines
Shinto shrines are -periodically- torn down and reconstructed for religious reasons, my dear unknowing spammer.
>castles
On this you are right for once. They did, and given how much tourists like places like Himeji or Matsumoto, that wasn't a good idea. Same as with the Chinese destroying all those ancient city walls.
>destroying their own culture to westernise
I have a feeling you do not understand one bit what Meiji restauration was about.
>Japan only started cleaning it up in the 1970s.
Way earlier than China.
>White nationalist Jared Taylor's book "Shadows of the Rising Sun", published in 1983 on how Japanese piss in the streets in public
Oh, someone wrote that in a book, then it must be true. People also wrote that headless humans live in India, or that unicorns live in China.
>Japan demolished the majority of their castles, temples and shrines in the Meiji restoration in the 19th century.
Like China demolished a fuckton of temples and other historic places during the cultural revolution, or the occupation of Tibet and Xinjiang?

>>509143508
>Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto and Senso-ji in Tokyo are both rebuilt concrete fakes
>Japanese tour guides won't tell you that on purpose, unlike Chinese tour guides who are blunt and honest.
My dear spammer, why are you lying?
Sensoji (and Meiji shrine too: https://www.meijijingu.or.jp/en/about/establishment/) literally tell you on their website that the buildings were destroyed (by the Burgers, by the way, not by the Japanese) and were rebuilt post-war.
And Kinkaju-ji ist -still- made of wood, as before it burned down.
Lying is a bad habit. What would your ancestors think? You bring shame on them.

>>509143515
You do realize Japan had no real civilization before the Yayoi, right? The Jomon barely practiced agriculture.

Japan's geography is a mixed bag, it's not all bad.
>little arable land, but great variety in soil types, including some rich volcanic soil
>varied climate and habitat across archipelago allows Japan to engage in almost every type of agriculture
>several natural deep water harbors which today have some of the world's largest and wealthiest cities sitting on them (Nagoya, Tokyo, Osaka)
>islands are naturally defensible and have contributed to Japan maintaining its autonomy, if not its total independence, for most of its history


The real downsides to Japan's land:
>poor quality mineral deposits overall
>very little coal deposits, virtually no oil, difficult for industry without outside trade or annexation of fuel-rich areas
>prone to earthquakes, is hit by super destructive earthquakes every few decades and smaller ones on a weekly basis
>said earthquakes also make tsunamis a common threat to people living on the coast, which is most of Japan
>seasonal typhoons that also require special building codes to address
>rugged, mountainous interior of the largest islands limits building and agriculture and heavily restricts travel

>>509143519
They lived in paradise I wouldn't want "society" either, just live off fruit, berries, and fish.

>>509143517
>Shinto shrines are -periodically- torn down and reconstructed for religious reasons, my dear unknowing spammer.

Only Ise shrine dumbass, and its dimensions are memorized for rebuilding before it's torn down every 20 years


The 80,000 shrines destroyed in the shrine closure policy were totally permanently destroyed by the Meiji government

https://www.tofugu.com/japan/state-shinto/#:~:text=During%20the%20Meiji%20era%20's,Shinto%20Shrines%20in%20Japan%20today.)

These Shinto shrines and castles were destroyed for decades with no photos, no blueprints, and then rebuilt from concrete by people born decades later with no idea what the originals looked like.

That's not part of Shinto ritual.

>Same as with the Chinese destroying all those ancient city walls.

Pingyao and Xi'an have the original intact city walls and Chinese don't lie to tourists while Japanese claim kinkaku ji is a medieval temple to tourists

Jared Taylor included a public quote by a Japanese official who peed in public.

>Meiji restauration was about

The "Meiji emperor" dressed in western clothes. The "Japanese emperor" wears a suit and tie in public.

>>509143512
An Lushan lost and he got hacked to death in a plot by his own son.

All his sons died and his people were then massacred.

>>509143518
https://www.tofugu.com/japan/state-shinto/#:~:text=During%20the%20Meiji%20era%20's,Shinto%20Shrines%20in%20Japan%20today.

>>509143522
>The "Japanese emperor" wears a suit and tie in public.
Same could be said about Xi Jinping, or does he run around like pic related? No? So then China has abolished its own culture, yes?

>Japanese claim kinkaku ji is a medieval temple to tourists
Again, wrong. I was there, in Kyoto, and one of the first things our Japanese guide told us was about the arsoning and reconstruction of the golden pavillon.
Why are you lying?

>Pingyao and Xi'an have the original intact city walls
And many, many more Chinese cities had them at the beginning of the 20th century. Not anymore. Cause they Chinese rulers deemed them useless in modern times and had them demolished. Like the Meiji era Japanese did with the castles.
The castles that got reconstructed were mainly destroyed during WW2, by the way, like Shuri, Osaka or Hiroshima. They had enough blueprints and photos for those. Same with the temples and shrines.

>>509143519
>You do realize Japan had no real civilization before the Yayoi, right?
You do realize that's still 2500 years ago, right?

>>509143525
Odawara castle was torn down in the Meiji restoration and rebuilt from concrete decades later after World War II.

>many more Chinese cities had them at the beginning of the 20th century.

Big sections of walls in other cities remain.

>>509143525
>>509143966
Aizuwakamatsu Castle, Kumamoto Castle and the majority of Japanese castles were destroyed in the Meiji restoration and only rebuilt 80 years later in the 1960s after World War II.

They weren't destroyed just in World War II.