The earth gives like nepotism. Humans decide what to do with the gift.
If your national “success” depends on stuff that was buried in the ground before your ancestors even formed tribes, you’re not flexing — you’re renting.
Real civilization is what happens when people create value despite their geography, not because of it.
Raw materials come from the earth.
Full stop.
They have literally nothing to do with the people living above them.
This is why there’s oil in North America because dinosaurs and fossils died here 65 million years ago. Not because Americans are genetically superior extractors. The same logic applies everywhere: the ground doesn’t run background checks on who gets to sit on top of it.
Yet somehow, dependence on wealth that has zero connection to your own productivity is sold as a flex.
This is why the sultans look ridiculous.
Think about it. It’s considered a war crime to deliberately target civilian infrastructure :water, power, basic utilities — precisely because these things are universal.
They’re not cultural achievements.
They’re table stakes for modern life.
So when a petro-state waves around its skyscrapers and sovereign wealth funds, it’s often just inherited geological luck dressed up as civilizational triumph.
China has its fake Paris ghost towns and exports of low-tier EVs and solar panels. Much of that industrial base was built on the back of Western demand for cheap labor and sweatshops.
The West essentially outsourced its manufacturing and handed over the playbook.
The result? China got richer, but the most creative use of its unearned resources in some cases was… building replica European cities.
The UAE? They probably would’ve built their own Paris too, but they hired better consultants. Instead, they created a financial and travel hub 30-40 km from Iran. Strategic? Sure. Impressive?
Only if you ignore how much of it was built on turning desert sand and oil money into imported talent, imported labor, and imported ideas.
Most of these “sultans” (and I include the Kims, the Russian siloviki, and various Gulf royals) get fat off excess, not ingenuity.
.Russia and China claiming they “invented the cure for cancer” the same way they rolled out endless iterations of the COVID vaccine — none of which actually delivered as promised. It’s the same pattern: take credit for things the earth or someone else provided, then declare victory.
The earth gives. Humans decide what to do with the gift.