7 ms·
As cynical as it may sound, we are unequal once we are conceived in our mother's womb. An educated, healthy, grown-up mother has anticipated that moment with gr
by bluetomcat 7y ago
As cynical as it may sound, we are unequal once we are conceived in our mother's womb. An educated, healthy, grown-up mother has anticipated that moment with great sentimentality and does her best to ensure the best for the baby during the whole course of the pregnancy. Neglected, underweight, malnourished children from less responsible mothers are easy to spot even during their infant period. This is your real start which determines much of your mental and physical health for your while life.
Healthy, mentally-stable parents are most likely to have healthy and mentally-stable kids which is the number one prerequisite for enjoying and succeeding in life.
- jacquesm 7y agoI hope you did not mean to imply that all infants that are underweight, neglected and malnourished are so because of their moms bad choices. Some people just happen to have it hard in life and guess what, they still have children.
- bluetomcat 7y ago> Some people just happen to have it hard in life and guess what, they still have children. Sure, but let's not try to pretend that those kids will have an equal start.
- jacquesm 7y agoOf course it won't be equal. But that does not make any statement about their moms.
- renjimen 7y ago> Healthy, mentally-stable parents Do you think that people in Chad are inherently less healthy or mentally stable, or might it be a product of their environment?
- bluetomcat 7y agoThey are born less healthy because their parents are less healthy due to the harsh environment and due to their parents (the kid's grandparents), and if you extrapolate that for many past generations, you get a nation/race/ethnicity with worse genes which is inherently less healthy.
- renjimen 7y agoSo geography, external influence (e.g. colonialism) and climate (e.g. drought, as mentioned in the article) have nothing to do it with? Do you think Europeans have superior genes to Africans?
- bluetomcat 7y agoThe environment is surely in the equation, but you can hardly change the climate or the geography. You can try to improve the socio-economic matters, but any sensible improvement of the genes may be seen in hundreds of years, and they will still be at a disadvantage because of the unfavourable climate.
- renjimen 7y agoIt's interesting because excess stress can actually damage your DNA. How much so and how much it affects your children, I don't know. I suspect if you took an average European child and plonked them in a deprived part of Chad, they would fare about as well in life as your average Chadian child. And vice versa for a Chadian child in Europe. > you can hardly change the climate or the geography You can introduce new technologies to make the most of what they have. For example better water management and improved crop strains.
- bluetomcat 7y agoA Chadian child in Europe will enjoy a vastly better environment and healthcare which would prevent many potential diseases it would develop in Chad, but it would still be susceptible to diseases uncommon for Europeans and will have a vastly lower life expectancy. Under the severe conditions in Chad, a European child would still overtake Chadian children in its overall development, but would be susceptible to many local diseases. If the child manages to survive these diseases, it will enjoy a considerably longer and healthier life in that same environment.