The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World are well documented and understood. There is perhaps more debate on what we should classify as the Modern Wonders of the World.
I am keen, in complete contrast to this thinking about the Wonders of the World, to debate the ‘Oddities of the World’ instead. I am not interested in the oddest looking cars, aeroplanes or buildings nor odd natural features but more in the strange economic outcomes from differing civilisations and human developments. How some seem to end up very differently from others.
These are my own personal list of curious observations. The list is born from our living and working in three countries over 45 years: the United States of America; the United Kingdom; and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It also comes from travelling to work in 71 other countries and from being married to a lady who lived in Bangladesh and India for 14 years.
The first oddity relates to the fact that neither the USA nor the UAE has a decent modern railway system, despite the former being an early pioneer in railway systems and the latter having enough undeveloped desert to build an excellent network. Why is there no bullet train from Abu Dhabi to Dubai or from Dallas to Houston? They had the money and resources to do so in both places. I know all the reasons why. You can explain them all to me, they are all entirely logical. Still, in the end, it really is a strange outcome.
The second is why the UAE and Saudi have not used their vast wealth, the constant sunshine and their undeveloped desert to create the world’s first ever solar-powered cities. Again I can trot out all the economic and cultural logic to tell you why, but it still strikes me as mighty odd.
The third is, how come Russia is so vast, has so much fertile land and yet until very recently was a less productive farming country than the USA which is approximately half its size and two times its population? Lenin, Stalin and many others following, have a lot to answer for. That oddity appears to be disappearing as Russia finally gets its agricultural act together with modern machinery, best practices and less social dogma under Putin.
Fourthly, how come Beijing was so quick to transform itself from one of the healthiest cycling capitals of the world, 8 million of them, into one of the smoggiest, least healthy cities to live in. I visited Beijing first in 1996 and couldn’t cross the streets for bicycles and again recently in 2020 waiting for the green man to avoid the numerous gas guzzlers. A real oddity born out of rapid modernisation with pure capitalistic thinking and no understanding of new ‘doughnut economic thinking’.
Fifthly, why do Africa and South America find it so hard, with their vast natural resources and less dense populations, to keep up with the Northern Hemisphere in terms of health, wealth and apparent wisdom. Again I have read all the main explanations about how and why this happens, but in the end I still classify this as an odd truth.
Sixthly, why is healthcare in the USA roughly twice the cost of healthcare in Europe with roughly the same outcome and much less than the success of Japan and Korea in outcome and cost. Again we know all the factors that create this fact, but that doesn’t make the observation less of an oddity.
Finally, closer to home, why is Scotland only 18% forested and not a wood-based economy when Sweden and Finland have 70% and a thriving timber-export business representing 4% of their economy, five times bigger than Scotland’s.
Well of course, it all comes down to two factors. Either the lack of human will to succeed at a certain task or overcome unhelpful dogma. Secondly, the (apparent) lack of ready money to make it happen.
In Scotland’s particular case, I believe the most serious list of oddities includes: the lack of trees and yet largescale subsidy of uneconomic farming; the constant losing of talent to the rest of the world yet obsession with rearing and churning out talented people; a paranoia with the South and yet a lack of obsession with what is happening in the Arctic North; and finally the lack of willingness to take risks, encourage local innovation, and the creation of large new companies indigenously rather than relying on the rest of the world to help us out by inward investment.
I hope we can overcome these local, human-made anomalies in Scotland, otherwise we may grow even odder in the next 50 years versus equally small but more successful nations.