/lit/ - Literature

>>16512893
Bump

>>16512893
The old lady of my library told me it was good, but I haven't read it

His take on social construct is so lame. I believe a lot of things are social constructs, but the way he explains it isn’t every convincing.

>>16512893

I haven't read it but my grandfather said he was "too old to read things like that".

>>16513105

he's gonna die soon

Stop spamming this trash every fucking day.

>read Homo Deus
>first page tells us we’ll never have to worry about epidemics ever again
Reminder that people actually take this retard seriously

>>16513156
>he thinks this is a pandemic.

>>16513156

covid is government hatched.

>>16512893
Jewish, need I say more? For real though, I thought it was very interesting in the beginning. I found the part which covered all the different kinds of ”human” there has been before Sapiens and when he described ancient societies and their diet. Basically he argues that agriculture and the discovery of cereals was a step back in our physical and mental evolution.
>>16513083
As this anon said he takes a very holistic approach to social constructionism which I found quite boring. All in all he’s quite materialistic. This is a book than boomers love for some reason.

>>16513182

anti semite

>>16512893
Its trash. Derivative dribble of exhausted Wikipedia excerpts. Prose is subpar and lacks any revelation in anthropology outside of its dull rehashings of the intuition. It's decent enough. Not decent enough to warrant a society-wide reading.

>>16513196

>>16512893

yeah, he's lame.
pop culture best seller tier.

>>16513438

>>16513156
haha thanks for reminding me, I have read that one too a few years ago.

>>16512893
It's entry-level anthropology.

I wouldn't let it change the way you think, but if you're looking for a way into the subject it's an easy read.

>>16512893
OP here with his opinion

-interesting first part, but don't know what hypothesis he proposed: out of africa or another one, because as far as i know that's still controversial in the literature

-all interesting ideas that are correct are not his: money is founded on mutual trust probably goes back to aristotle, the worsening of our lives with increasing comfort and technology can be traced back to kaczynski, Ellules and even to Nietzsche (cows in a green pasture)

-the unification of mankind as inevitable and important is standard globohomo PC bullshit, white race is superior to other races except orientals in IQ, and to orientals when it comes to creativity (openness if you want to get scientific), plus competition between cultures is advantageous for productivity and ingeniouity

-Humans becoming Gods due to science is just plain retarded, this will take long and will never actually happen. God lacks limit and therefore has no freedom, obviously

-his constant bitching about animals hurting as if consciousness wasn't directly related to braincomplexity is retarded, but not completely bullshit either

-Bold claims like 'wheat domesticated us' are edgy and original but ultimately mostly wrong, irrelevant in the ways they are correct and ultimately meaningless attention whoring.

feel free to add or comment

>>16513083
Can you elaborate?

>>16513182
Yeah same. First half wasn’t bad and then it’s pure garbage after that

>the unification of mankind as inevitable and important is standard globohomo PC bullshit, white race is superior to other races except orientals in IQ, and to orientals when it comes to creativity (openness if you want to get scientific), plus competition between cultures is advantageous for productivity and ingeniouity
This is nonsense. Competition between nations isn't real, everyone is collaborating right now. The conflict between China and America, for example, is pretty non-existant. There some petty disputes over a couple of tech companies. there's some tension over global domination of course, but that isn't related to productivity or innovation.
Besides, there will always be different cultures. They are and have always been independent of nation states.
Your claims about racial IQ seem like nonsense to me, there are far too many asians for them to be as homogenous as you think.
Then you have the history of Europe and America, which is centuries of different peoples warring with and influencing each other, ideas being able to flourish in France which would be surpressed in Germany. America comes from this and has similar goings on within it, plus they are massove cultural exporters so new ideas are needed constantly to turn the wheel.
When you're talking about Asia you're really talking about China, which has been one plave forever and now has a repressive government, so you won't see idea explosions there.
You aren't talking about the rest of asia because they're known for technology innovation and Japan is known for being full of weird new artistic ideas.

>>16515084
War going on between Armenia and that other nation, civic wars in Africa, conflict in Israel, Hong Kong, US. Besides that the struggle for power is far more subtle than all out open war. We are collaborating insofar as we have to. Any non-Western nation would rape our women and take our cultural and technological riches if they could.

the creativity thing, see:

Papers
Race differences in intelligence, creativity and creative achievement.
Mankind Quarterly, 2007, 48, 157-168.
by Lynn

>>16515153
I think you're too retarded by ideology to understand what I'm saying. How do wars in Africa have anything to do with causing productivity or innovation? They don't, you've just embarrassed yourself because the only thing you understand is racism. Regardless of racism being bad or not, it makes you a retard.
We were talking abour a generalized economic principal, does national conflict cause economic success, or do we largely cooperate with different cultures.
Your response? Naming irrelevant wars and going into hysterics about barbarians.
I won't be continuing this exchange, I just think you should know how stupid you are. Not bad or immoral, stupid. Bad at thinking.
The only cure is for you to approach all ideas with your ignorance and stupidity in mind. Assume you know nothing, then you will learn how to think.
Ignore my advice at your own peril.

>>16515284
>irrelevant wars and going into hysterics about barbarians.
>I won't be continuing this exchange, I just think you should know how stupid you are. Not bad or immoral, stupid. Bad at thinking.
>The only cure is for you to approach all ideas with your ignorance and stupidity in mind. Assume you know nothing, then you will learn how to think.
>Ignore my advice at your own peril.
You understand that you are seething and coping because of your addiction to an equalist ideology, right? Everything you say is quite literally false, and I have papers to back up my claims.
>Competition between nations isn't real
false, if France exports better burgers than Germany, Germany loses money and their citizens welfare. Of course in Europe this is largerly peaceful, does not mean that competition is less real.
The competition between China and the rest of the world is very real. China is literally buying diplomats and embassies to spew out more pro-china BS, they are offering young Chinese assitants to diplomats lel. Their Belt and Road plan in Africa is a proxy economic war for dominance in Africa waged between the West and China. How little do you now about current events? This list could go on and on.
>Everyone is collaborating now
wrong, see supra and it's just plain retarded
how is Africa starving if we are all collaborating? We are using third world countries to produce our products incredibly cheap and then pay them jack shit, because they're too retarded to stand up for themselves.
>some tension over global domination
read that sentence again
>Claims about race and IQ nonsense:
-(With Backhoff, E. & Contreras, L. ) Ethnic and racial differences in intelligence in Mexico.
Journal of Biosocial Science, 2005, 37, 107-113.

-(With W.C.Mau) Racial and ethnic differences in motivation for educational achievement in the United States.
Personality and Individual Differences,1999,27,1091-1097

-Lynn, R. (2003) The geography of intelligence.
In H. Nyborg (Ed) The scientific study of general Intelligence. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Asia is known for mindlessly copying Western technology and doing a good job at that, yes.

>>16515284

>>16515460

>>16515284
Trading with other countries also does not imply you are not ripping them off, lol. We are ripping off every country that couldn't take the West in a war.

>>16515460
>IQ can increase given societal success and safe surrounding
i wish we have IQ test back in the middle ages to prove once and for all how much of a genetic brainlet the whites were.

>>16515554
Blacks in America score 85 to 90 on average, they have never ever achieved the same mean IQ scores of whites. I don't see any reason why their IQ would still rise to that of whites after generations of adequate nutrition and infection prevention.

>>16515554

>>16512893
not reading social science histories of humanity unless they use jaynes as their foundation

>>16515554
well there are studies, estimating the difference

>>16515554

>>16515580
The rise in IQ of the Japanese population shows that IQ can be manipulated in accordance with what their environment requires. The fluctuation in IQ across generations can never be accounted for under the presupposition that IQ is not in any way shaped by environment.
Even so, facilitating a productive low income environment is paramount in keeping the stability of a country. The fact is, America have never been as good as Asian countries (even heterogeneous country like Malaysia) in facilitating a stable low income housing situation, which in turn provide a more accepting and lenient outlook on relative racial supremacy without delving into riot regarding racial inequality and materialistic paradigm on welfare and economic decisions.

>>16516118
>Black people have never been as good as Asian countries (ethnically way more homogenous, no blacks) in facilitating a stable low incoming housing situation is what you mean

And of course environment is important in developping your brain. Black genetics just put a hard cap on the population mean.

>>16514295
>-all interesting ideas that are correct are not his: money is founded on mutual trust probably goes back to aristotle, the worsening of our lives with increasing comfort and technology can be traced back to kaczynski, Ellules and even to Nietzsche (cows in a green pasture)

>the worsening of our lives with technology can be traced back to Kaczynski
>Kaczynski

This is the first person you think of? Kacyznski is a meme thinker that embarked on a pathetic campaign after misreading one book by Ellul. There are many philosophers, sociologists, and thinkers that have questioned the impact of technology upon humanity: Lewis Mumford, Max Weber, Thoreau, Heidegger, Richard Sennett, Baudrillard, Ellul (as you mentioned, but likely only because of his impact on Kacyznski). Absolutely embarrassing that this is the first name you reach for. The absolute state of /lit/.

>>16516254
>ethnically way more homogenous
Malaysia has only 60% Malay majority.

it's exceedingly obnoxious. The author contradicts himself by judging humanity while also justifying any system capable of sustaining large social constructs. He casually and often makes massive generalized claims that he frames as facts.

if you can piece out the select parts that have some value and ignore his bullshit, it's a decent read, but considering how many people will take his word on everything, I consider this book far more troublesome than good.

>>16515479
Yo this is pretty cool

>>16515554
Except you can already tell how much smarter they were thousands of years ago due to the invention of writing and recordkeeping. Do you know why we know so much about English history compared to various African tribes? Because the English kept detailed records. And the foresight to realize record keeping is good is in itself a high IQ trait.

Pseud garbage like all pop-history/pop sci in the same vein as Guns, Germs, and Steel, or Surely you're joking mr. feynman. It's all meant to attract people who think they're smarter than they are, the redditors who identify with Rick from rick and morty. The author also poorly substantiates his ideas in this book, as others have already pointed out, but this book as a concept is self-refuting when going beyond a study of basic anthropology. Different tribes had different customs as far back as 2000 years ago and there's no one framework that fits all. Tacitus in his writings also lays out these differences as they are 2000 years ago. It's very interesting he calls the germanic tribes barbarous for the constant petty warfare and gambling addictions, but also praises them for their marriage contracts and devotion to their family and community. Read a real historian instead of this pseud