W. I. Rd World Analysis

The world is divided into two sets: the W.E.I.R.D, (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Developed) and the non-W.E.I.R.D. world. The W.E.I.R.D world includes North America, Europe and most of Latin America, while East Asia, Pacific, South Central Asia, MENA, and sub-saharan Africa make up the non-W.E.I.R.D world. Obviously, there are many major differences between these two sets of regions; however, in my opinion, the geography and development, economics, and politics demonstrate the differences in the most significant way.
Geography and development play an essential role in the success of different regions of the world, as geography in the 21st century plays an important role to trade goods and services abroad. A country’s ability
In dry climates, like the ones of one must work significantly harder to produce necessities like food and water. In order to have successful crop growth, farmers must spend capital on irrigation, opposed to nations that can rely solely on rainfall to produce successful crops. In some climates, it’s simply too hot to work during the middle of the day, so not only do they have significantly harder work to do, they also have a much shorter time frame to do it in. Seasonal factors, like rainy or dry season, impacts how much of the year they can grow in; some nations can produce crops year round, others for only a few months. Some places are just at a natural disadvantage. Furthermore, the physical locations of a nation impact its access to markets. Nations that are near waterways are able to trade goods and services significantly easier. Nations that have busy ports, like the United States and China are able to make money through shipping and taxing. Without ports, nations are only able to ship through land, which is more expensive and takes much longer and are not able to make money through shipping services and taxing. For example, South and Central Asia face are at an extreme disadvantage due to
The economy is an important, driving force that impacts all aspects of a country/region. The economy can push for change in the politics, and can severely influence other things like the culture of a country. An example of how the economy impacts politics is, in the United States, in 2008 when the housing market crashed, the government was force to change politics to accommodate the country’s changed economic position. Similarly, when the housing market crashed, and families has significantly less income, it altered the U.S. culture because people ate out less, spent less on entertainment and ultimately became much more frugal over all. This is why the economy plays such an important role in a region’s ‘WEIRDness.” In sub-saharan Africa, there is a lack of economic growth, which leads to several other issues. As Dr. Kanner discussed in class, and shown in the slides, lack of economic growth leads to so many other issues within a region. Poverty, leads to disease, which leads to lower production, which leads to less revenue, which leads to fewer services, and then leads to more health issues, which circles back to poverty. Sub-Saharan Africa faces extreme poverty, which has led them to face so many other challenges, making them a “non- W.E.I.R.D” region. Furthermore, the economic position of the South Central Asia region greatly prohibits their success, and causes them to be categorized as a