This was the birthplace of civilization. Why isn't

>>2074635
We fucked it up and moved on. Hasn't ever worked right since.

>>2074635
Mongols, colonialism, literal tribalism, desertification, religious fanatics, and corrupt dictatorships

Israel is pretty developed :^^^^^^^^^^^^)

>>2074645
so.. Islam?

>>2074635

Because life is not like a game of Civilisation 5.

>>2074671

Except many of those regions reached the zenith of their glory under Islamic rule.

climate change

>>2074635
White people.

>>2074635
the flood

Finns.

>>2074649
Shithole compared to the US.

>>2074635
Because it was the pinnacle of land, in terms of agriculture at that time. With the advancement of technology, the land lost its value as better land/richer land was found and used with technology. These days it is just okay farming land, ravaged with shitty ideologies.

>>2075045

Eh. Climate change happened, and they overworked the land basically sewing salt into their own farmlands.

New agricultural methods and tools allowed agriculture to expand and other regions ended up becoming more productive, reducing the relative importance of flood plains which in the early bronze age was the only place agriculture could be that intensive.

Also agriculture is only a small proportion of the modern economy.

Soil salination and this >>2074776 might play a role.

Soil erosion, stripping of topsoils with extensive agriculture, run off, desertification, deforestation, overgrazing, siltification moving the mouth of the Persian gulf further downstream. Lebanon was once filled with cedars covering over a million acres. Now there's just four tiny groves, and the lebanon cedar is a threatened species.

Man turned the fertile crescent into the infertile desert.

Good trial run for what's going to happen to the rest of the Earth over the next two centuries. :^)

>>2074635
There are a lot of reasons why this area got worse, but a lot of other people have already said that. What is more fundamental is that being there first isn't always an advantage. Meaning all the other civs around them didn't have to work from scratch they could steal the advancements of the more developed neighbors. This is the same reason that Britain isn't 30 years ahead of the rest of the world. Everyone else stole their industrialized techniques and made them better because they didn't have the shitty infrastructure from the learning days.

>>2074671
I don't see the relation between Islam and Mongols/colonialism/desertification

>>2074649

Israel is like the only country in the world that needed (or still needs, i don't know) financial help from USA and Europe just to exist.

File: health-of-forests.jpg (94KB, 759x398px) Image search: [Google]

94KB, 759x398px

>>2075092
net primary production is actually increasing

File: nppchange.jpg (61KB, 720x444px) Image search: [Google]

61KB, 720x444px

>>2075092
What you are describing is a tragedy of the commons where noncapitalists only care about short term gain instead of turning their agribusiness into a long term investment.

Take a look at what the commies did to the Aral sea.

Islam.

It worked well when you could conquer and prosper by the sword, not so much anymore.

>>2076578
>data source from MA 2005

you people can't even read your own fucking macros anymore lmao

https://earthenginepartners.appspot.com/science-2013-global-forest

>>2074635
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-evIyrrjTTY

Because nobody's kept it for long enough to actually do anything with it

>>2074635
There is no real reason for any industrial other than basic agriculture, some textiles, and oil to be there.

That in an of itself is half the reason.

The other half, and is partly a self-fulfilling prophecy, is that because developement of industry was relatively little, nothing else developed along with it.

Thus, tribalism and religious feuds were there to stay.