this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Many historians attribute the downfall of middle eastern empires to 18th century technological stagnation compared to both western and eastern adversaries, just under two centuries prior to the sykes-picot agreement.
The east has had just as much with destroying the middle east as the west, and arguably far more during the time of the USSR.
Fair point, the influence of the USSR middle eastern politics is something that isn't given as much credit as it should.
Also you're unfortunately absolutely 100% right on the technological stagnation. We had some geniuses here back in the day compared to where we are now! The word "algorithm" straight up has it's etymology going back to the name of a mathematician named "al-khawarizmi". The word ALGEBRA STRAIGHT UP GOES BACK TO THE NAME OF ONE OF HIS WORKS "Al Jabr".
Which means we are unfortunately also to blame as the root cause of the current garbage state of AI Large Language Models. Apologies.
I truly believe that education is the most important thing if you want to keep progress from stagnating. People here got lazy after the knowledge gap set in place by the divide of the Ottoman Empire, and then even lasier after the wealth gap caused by the discovery of oil & gas