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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2861 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 8, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Why is Haiti so much worse than other overwhelmingly-African Caribbean countries? Is the difference between 80% African DNA and 90% African DNA the difference between a functional and non-functional society?

If you want to look for a genetic explanation, I'd bet the brain drain during the dictatorship of Duvalier is actually more important than that 10 percentage points difference. The human rights abuse of the dictatorship caused most of Haiti's wealthy class to flee the country, taking their material, cultural and genetic wealth with them. And it's hard to rebuild after a dictatorship if most of your doctors, engineers, scientists and teachers have fled the country.

There's also a large number of other factors, the most prominent ones that are completely independent of the genetic angle are:

  • poverty spiral: Haiti is so poor/dangerous, it can't even get its tourism industry off the ground
  • climate: especially compared to the Dominican Republic, Haiti's side of the island is significantly more arid and less well suited for agriculture. The classic West Coast problem.
  • deforestation: the previous point is made much worse by the massive logging operation Haiti executed while trying to pay of its debt to France by exporting timber

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