thinks that there is clear evidence that the difference between what happened in a country like South Korea and what happened in subsaharan Africa has nothing to do with genes.
Well, let's see. It's quite convenient for us that there's a country right next door to South Korea, called North Korea. North Korea has the same genes as South Korea, and yet its economy is much more similar to the economy of Sub-saharan Africa than South Korea. Sure, that's just N=1, anecdotes are not data and all that, but I'd call that pretty good evidence.
The fact that the bad policies of North Korea lead to bad economic outcomes is no evidence that all bad economic outcomes are due to bad policies. It simply isn't.
Nobody in the EA camp denies that policies of countries matter and that the property rights and the rule of law aren't important. I haven't seen Peter Singer argue either that putting Embargos on other countries to put economic pressure on them instead of engaging in trade is bad.
Most African countries on the on the other hand don't suffer under strong embargo's. They are in the sphere of the IMF who preaches property rights for decades and tries to get the countries to respect property rights.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.