This thread is an obscene reflection of how the Org's demographic can lead discussions down a rabbit hole of stereotype, partitial truths and jingoism, tied off with supposedly well meaning condescension.

Contemplating the ball of some here consider thought, I don't even know where to start unravelling it. I am impressed with the will of those who have tried, mostly it just frightens me.

I have to respond to one point in particular, and a very minor one at that though:

The use of horses to plow in Europe was indeed a key medieval agricultural development, but it was due to the spread of Chinese technology (put that in your "white is right" pipe and smoke it!) - namely the Horse collar, which allowed a horse to better pull a plough (previous designs tended to strangle the horse, the harder it pulled). The point has already been made of how isolated and un-horse friendly much of sub-saharan Africa was, so it's hardly surprising that neither the horse, nor horse drawn plowing, was adopted there.

Prior to horse drawn ploughing, the trend was for Oxen to be used. Cheaper to own and run, and more resilient than a horse, Oxen were still used in Europe up untill the 1950s in some places.