Why didn't Mansa Musa attempt to take over the world?

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since I would be on the losing end, no.

so isnt it just a power carousel then? whoever got the juice gets their turn, but in the process creating enemies that will inevitably come for the crown and continue the cycle? cuz every "empire" no matter how powerful have fallen too, whether its from outside forces or just crumbling within itself

i mean i get the perspective based on our (relatively) recent recorded history, but it seems like a 0 sum game on a long enough timeline

maybe it'd be better not to perpetuate the same shyt humans been doin since time :manny: be powerful and self sustaining but leave others to do their own thing over there while observing from a distance
 

Ozymandeas

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China was unified. Africa wasn't, then, and still isn't. That's how Europeans played it. They arrived after several West African Empires collapsed from internal warfare and just took advantage of an existing situation......​



It’s geography and Egypt’s fault :yeshrug: Most continents had a major power come into existence that made everyone fall in line. Rome took over Europe. Persia took over Eurasia. The Han and the Mongols took over Asia. Egypt was on that no conquering tip though. The most they took over was Nubia and the Levant at times. If they went down deep into Africa (like Chad, Niger, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, etc) they could’ve had half the continent on the same program and same culture so Africa wouldn’t have been so disconnected when the Europeans came through. Mali, Ghana and Songhai could’ve done this too themselves as well by spreading eastward into Central and East Africa. We never had a power conquer the whole continent. A part of that could’ve been geography. The Sahara made it so basically one half of the continent was cut off from the rest + Africa is big af so West Africa is almost the size of the United States alone. That may have been asking a lot of these pre-colonial powers. All that played a factor :yeshrug:
 

Dafunkdoc_Unlimited

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It’s geography and Egypt’s fault :yeshrug: Most continents had a major power come into existence that made everyone fall in line. Rome took over Europe. Persia took over Eurasia. The Han and the Mongols took over Asia. Egypt was on that no conquering tip though. The most they took over was Nubia and the Levant at times. If they went down deep into Africa (like Chad, Niger, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, etc) they could’ve had half the continent on the same program and same culture so Africa wouldn’t have been so disconnected when the Europeans came through. Mali, Ghana and Songhai could’ve done this too themselves as well by spreading eastward into Central and East Africa. We never had a power conquer the whole continent. A part of that could’ve been geography. The Sahara made it so basically one half of the continent was cut off from the rest + Africa is big af so West Africa is almost the size of the United States alone. That may have been asking a lot of these pre-colonial powers. All that played a factor :yeshrug:

The question, now, is that knowing the history of colonization suffered by disparate African Nations, why have they not rectified that situation since then and combined their resources so it doesn't happen again?​
 

UncleTomFord15

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The question, now, is that knowing the history of colonization suffered by disparate African Nations, why have they not rectified that situation since then and combined their resources so it doesn't happen again?​
It's already happening again. China is taking over black nations and areas.
 

Ozymandeas

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The question, now, is that knowing the history of colonization suffered by disparate African Nations, why have they not rectified that situation since then and combined their resources so it doesn't happen again?​

Because its not pretty breh. We’re basically asking for war and mass death so a single power can come about. I’m sure if East Asians had their way China wouldn’t be China today but a bunch of smaller countries (Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Cantonese speakers in the South, Mandarin dialects up north, etc.) but China forcibly brought them together. The most you can do today is have a country like Nigeria, Ethiopia or South Africa become wealthy through their economies and start leading the way for other countries.
 

Vandelay

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Paying people to take over the world doesn't exactly work. You need a deeper motivation to get people to do that other than money, it usually takes something divine or philosophical to do that.
 

Scustin Bieburr

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Must be embedded in the DNA of black people to be generally good in nature as a default setting 'cause if he were white it'd be the complete opposite
Its a desire for resources. Africa has everything people need. All sorts of plants, animals, quality soil, metals and minerals, etc. Its all there. Africans didn't feel the need to go out and dominate others to steal their resources because everything was in that continent and people were satisfied with what they had.
 

Skooby

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1) I don't think some of you realize how large Africa is. No one was bringing an army all the way to the interior of Africa and conquering it. Migrating across it is one thing. Bringing an army with supplies and backup and reinforcement is quite another. It wasn't until close to the 1900s that the Europeans got to the interior of Africa. Before then they just traded weapons with the ethnic groups already there. They fought each other and over the centuries they got weaker.

2) The Mongol empire had recently split into four but no one was stopping any of them except for themselves at that time.
 

Skooby

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So not with an army, but a navy. That's how they really did it.

This leads to additional problems. Not to engage in historical counterfactuals, but consider the relative naval heritage of Europe and Africa. The European naval-built empires only arose after centuries and centuries of experience in developing naval technology, doctrine and seamanship. The Mali Empire conquered on foot.

Also, the current off West Africa flows to the southeast; in the absence of the advanced technology/seamanship, this would make any such Mali naval expansion kind of limited.

Just looked at this current map. It flows Southeast first but then merges in turns Northwest towards the Americas.

ocean-current-map.jpg
 
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