4 ms·

The 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 se

The 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 ago
It'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 ago
  A 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.
  - renjimen 7y ago
    Do you have anything to back up these claims? They seem outlandish to me. For example, there are plenty of African migrants in Europe. I've never heard anything about a vastly reduced life expectancy. There are some small dietary problems they might have if they switched to local food and drink, but I would have thought that their immune system would adjust over time.
lopmotr 7y ago
It's actually easy to change the climate or geography for a person by moving that person out of the place with the bad environment. Unfortunately, the bad environments are also the cheapest so some other person will move in to enjoy the low cost of living and then they'll become the new poor who has to be saved.

renjimen 7y ago

It'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 ago
A 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.
- renjimen 7y ago
  Do you have anything to back up these claims? They seem outlandish to me. For example, there are plenty of African migrants in Europe. I've never heard anything about a vastly reduced life expectancy. There are some small dietary problems they might have if they switched to local food and drink, but I would have thought that their immune system would adjust over time.

lopmotr 7y ago

It's actually easy to change the climate or geography for a person by moving that person out of the place with the bad environment. Unfortunately, the bad environments are also the cheapest so some other person will move in to enjoy the low cost of living and then they'll become the new poor who has to be saved.