Why do some countries succeed and others fail?
For example, why is Finland great but Estonia or Lithuania are shitty?
What determines this?
Culture? Race? Choice of leadership? External factors conspiring against them?
>>57848876
It all depends if that country's full of pussies and liberals or not. For example, Canada rolled over to everyone else's whims while most Americans are still anti-liberal. That is we are are and always will be on top.
>>57848986
How in the fuck is Estonia and Lithuania liberal you absolute moron.
Geographical position and the levels of subhumany of your bigger neighbor.
>>57848876
Mongol genes and memes
Usually need good management of citizens, infrastructure, trade routes, favorable climate, and good resources.
You can tell what areas are more prosperous on Google Maps by the number of highways there. There's also a reason why Eurasia and the Steppes are mostly irrelevant, no ports. It's much more convenient and cost effective to ship by water and why people talk about NYC, Amsterdam, Singapore, etc. and not cities like Samarkand.
Not sure about the countries you asked specifically, but in terms of things innate to your country, race isn't going to effect much, culture maybe, religion can help/hinder depending on how secular it is naturally (compare Islam and Shinto).
Also, can we address how Indonesia is fucking irrelevant despite being the 4th largest country by population?
>>57848986
>>57848876
Fucking communists
>>57848876
Take a wild guess.
>>57849586
lol portugal
>>57849586
>muh communism
But Estonia is great.
Bravo, Estonia.
>>57850199
But it really destroyed economy for them. There was no economic competition in ussr
Luck
Look at fucking Norway. They would be sitting in trees and eating bananas if they hadn't found oil
why is panama successful?
They didn't kill/maim enough soviets and got taken over by the shittiest prank the world has ever seen. Simple as that.
The cut off rate seems to have been one dead or crippled russian per 8.75 population to stay independent, so 400,000 for a population of 3,5 million in finland during WW2 for example. All estonians should have done was kill or cripple 100,000 russians to have stayed independent.
>>57850474
We started building our country up before we found oil, without it we would probably be about the average nordic country, perhaps one of the poorer but not by much if you go by 1950s-1960s economic status and nation building.
We have a few advantages like the insane amount of electricity we can create with water power.
However oil gave us a goddamn jet boost economically and it just never stopped.
>>57848876
Communism
>>57848876
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Diamond explained things pretty well.
CGP Grey has a couple of good YouTube videos on why the western hemisphere and Australian natives were primitive compared to Europeans, Asians and Arabs.
Niall Ferguson does a talk called "the six killer apps of western civilization" that explains cultural reasons why some nations succeed and some don't.
Peter Zeihan is pretty good at predicting gopolitical and economic success going into the future.
>>57850495
Because canal helps generate jobs and business and also it's a relatively safe place while all the other countries around it fucking suck
>>57851879
this
https://www.ted.com/talks/niall_ferguson_the_6_killer_apps_of_prosperity?language=en#t-220332
>>57848986
You know that Hillary is going to win right?
