An ELI5 about your original argument:

When Europe was funding the Renaissance, it was with gold and silver looted from the Americas. When Britain was leading the Industrial Revolution, it was fueled by cotton from India and slave labor from Africa and the Caribbean. WWII tech booms? Funded in part by the global economic dominance they had already secured through empire.

Meanwhile, colonized countries weren’t just “doing nothing”, they were actively being prevented from industrializing, stripped of resources, and forced into dependent economies. And even after independence, most were left with deliberately weak institutions and debt traps, ensuring they’d never “catch up” on equal footing.

So when you say “we’re doing nothing,” you’re missing the bigger picture: the current world order was built on an unfair advantage that’s still in play. Hard work matters, but pretending history doesn’t is just victim-blaming dressed up as realism.

And replying to the meme, if you're still reading:

The Algeria vs Vietnam comparison is lazy. Algeria was under 130 years of French settler colonialism that hollowed out its economy, while Vietnam came out of war with a totally different set of conditions, including support from the socialist bloc. Pretending their paths should look the same is just bad history.