India. Papua New Guinea. Sudan. What are the first things that you think about these countries and other ones like these, especially if you are comparing it to Europe or the United States? Many will say these countries are poor. They are third-world countries. They aren't as advanced as us. We're better than them. "We" refers to first world countries. But we aren't any better than them. We may be ahead technologically, yes, but we aren't any better.
Early Beginnings Of Human Civilization
Nothing is perfect or completely fair in nature. Some get the better hand simply because of their location or their resources. This is what happened with early humans. In the area where Europe would later be, the resources were just much better than the ones located in Africa. The theories of Jared Diamond, outlined in "Guns, Germs, And Steel" attempt to explain why we face such inequality in the world today.
Eurasia is spread out on an East-West Axis where trade is easy because climate doesn't vary dramatically going East to West, whereas in the Americas, the distribution was the opposite, with North America and South America. With the discovery of agriculture, early humans found that Europe was better-suited for growing organized plants and raising animals. They could also now live in organized groups of people in the same area instead of being nomadic hunter-gatherers, so they formed societies in Europe where multiple people lived. This made disease transmission much more efficient as diseases are spread more easily in larger populations living together, especially with living in close proximity to animals such as pigs and cows. And this is also why Europeans became immune to these diseases...but they still carried them.
At this point, Europeans had discovered how to make weaponry with metals in forges. The rest of the world, however, lacked these important resources and the ability to stay in one place. Europe was visibly ahead of the rest of the world after organized towns and cities originated that utilized agriculture to their advantage. European kingdoms and the class system appeared, driven by agriculture. This kind of thing was also visible in the northern part of Africa and the Middle East, areas where agriculture flourished. But the Middle East didn't hold out its agricultural capabilities because the area was becoming too dry for further intensive agriculture.
The European Age Of Exploration
The three driving factors of European exploration included God: the spreading of their own religion, Christianity and gold due to the everlasting greed of humans to have more. Glory to be known in the entire "world" of how glorious their country was to show off to other competing countries.
Europe was split up into different "countries" from the very beginning. The frontiers between them were outlined with fighting because the ultimate desire of people was to have more, to gain as much as possible. The rivers and physical characteristics of Europe had separated these different groups from the beginning and caused them to define themselves as a group before encountering other such "groups."
Places like China, on the other hand, were unified as one "country" long before people had the chance to define themselves. At the time, China was the only other country that could battle Europe in terms of technology and resources. There was only one Chinese emperor, however, who didn't have too much competition from neighboring groups, so he didn't wish to explore and conquer the world. The rulers in Europe, however, had a lot of competition on their hands, and the only way to battle this was to conquer as much as possible as quickly as possible.
Europeans also had a desire for different flavors that were much more prominent on the Asian subcontinent, so they wished to have these spices to make their bland food more appetizing.
European Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution that happened in Europe in the late 18th century was the fuel for the European Imperialism in Asia. With this new technology, the colonists could easily dominate the new land and exploit people and resources for their own benefit, such as when British soldiers took most of the gold out of India and rendered the civilians poorer than they ever were. The concept of the railroad allowed the British to extend their power throughout the Indian subcontinent and handed them a huge advantage in their Imperialist endeavors.
When the Europeans brought their advanced weapons and diseases with them to the new world and Asia, it was clear who'd had the advantage of resources and geography from the very beginning of humanity. It's extremely difficult to battle human nature and the need for more and more, even if it means the downfall of others. The European explorers and colonizers are the main reason why the third world countries that exist today are in their most helpless state.
The Europeans had been lucky, but they had also been smart enough to learn how to use this luck properly. They allowed this luck to take them to the four corners of the world, conquering people who had not been so fortunate as the Europeans. Luck deserves only part of the blame for the plight of third world countries today because the human seed of greed that was planted ever since humanity has existed was the real reason why the world turned out this way.
However, these countries whom we call poor and unfortunate today survived with fewer resources and fewer advantages than the Europeans, but today, some have the ability to live in frigid climates. Some have the ability to live in high, mountainous regions. Humans have always been accustomed to finding ways to survive, and these "poor" people have been demonstrating what human craftiness really looks like. They learned to work with what they had. They still do.
After all, they even survived the colonization (i.e. the "ripping apart") of their countries and still managed to make a decent name for themselves in the modern world. Maybe third world countries deserve more credit than we have ever given them.