These states may be fundamentally too resource poor to effectively maintain their populations. So collectively we agreed that richer states should subsidize them, because no one wants to see their neighbors suffer unnecessarily. And in the hope that newer generations may invent or unlock other resources to break the cycles of poverty.

My fear is that many of these states are locked in a bubble of lies, a culture that longs for an imaginary and idealized past that never existed. That they'll continue raising generations of people who think they need to be an independent, 'rudged' individualist when that's never been possible anywhere. And once they fail they'll settle for punching down on people different than them.