Gun, Germs and Steel

[Anonymous No.22755514]

Why didn't Africans with access to Zebras (or their ancestor) domesticate the animal itself in the thousands of years they lived alongsides it? The most common response I've heard is that Zebras are aggressive but so are modern horses if you agitate them. They can kill you with a kick or maul you to death with their teeth. This is horses after being bred to be bigger and less violent by the way so imagine what their ancestors were like if they were cornered. Selective breeding a more docile lineage of Zebras after capturing and taming their young could have resulted in a horse equivalent for those without access to horses. All they had to do was capture them and kill off the aggressive/skittish ones.

[Anonymous No.22755531]

>>22755514
/tv/ - Animals & Wildlife

[Anonymous No.22755539]

>he unironically read GGS

[Anonymous No.22755590]

>>22755539
>not reading a book because it's in a "midwitcore" jpeg

[Anonymous No.22755594]

>>22755590
I just stole this image from another thread that's up right now and it feels very appropriate here

[Anonymous No.22755599]

>>22755514
Europeans tried this but it failed because they are extremely aggressive compared to wild horses.

[Anonymous No.22755603]

>>22755594
>not reading because a /lit/fag told you not to

[Anonymous No.22755605]

>>22755594
Yeah I saw that one too. I get the whole not reading goodreads-tier YA chicklit but are you really gonna skip all of popsci too? How are you even discerning what's worth reading?

[Anonymous No.22755611]

>>22755599
You safely ride hybrid zonkies though.

[Anonymous No.22755619]

>>22755599
They failed because their attempt at it was an unimportant vanity project that was redundant because they already had Horses (superior to Zebras in speed and size) + wild horses are also extremely aggressive and will kill you if you try to mount them, "domesticated" ones will also rip you apart if you fuck with them.
If Humans can turn the Wolf ancestor into mutant toadline pitbulls then if they tried, if they had no access to horses, then they should be able to create something docile out of the Zebra as well.

[Anonymous No.22755623]

>>22755619
>docile
Meant functioning*

[Anonymous No.22755627]

>why couldn't africans do anything with their fucking MASSIVE continent filled with infinite resources, endless fertile lands and a bazillion different animals to experiment with

socioeconomic factors

[Anonymous No.22755655]

>>22755619
Your post shows that you have no clue about domestication. Wolves are extremely easy to domesticate, if you raise and orphaned pup he'll already be almost dog-like.

[Anonymous No.22755663]

>>22755594
That's why I skipped Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.22755669]

>>22755655
>tame means domesticated
pseud post. you can tame plenty of other wild animals to tolerate and trust humans as well.

[Anonymous No.22755692]

>>22755669
No shit, but they must have certain qualities that make them domesticable in the first place.

[Anonymous No.22755925]

QUOTE
The perpetual changes in the social importance of big cities are an unanswered demonstration of this truth on which the pretentious declamations of theorist economists cannot bite. Nothing could be more detestable than credit, where we see it as a so-called science, which, from a few general objections applied by the common sense of all the positive aryan eras, has been able to extract by wanting to give it a dogmatic cohesion, the greatest and most dangerous practical nonsense; which, by seizing only too much of the confidence of a public sensitive to the influence of its sesquipedalia verba, rises to the fatal role of a true heresy by giving itself the air of dominating, of gluttoning, of accomodating in it's views religion, laws, mores. Basing the whole of human life and, likewise, the life of peoples on these words that have become cabalistic in it's schools, to produce and to consume, it calls honorable what is only natural and just: maneuvrial labour, and the word honor loses all the sublimity of its primitive meaning. It makes the private economy the highest of virtues, and by exalting the advances of prudence for the individual and the good deeds of peace for the state, devotion, public fidelity, courage and fearlessness almost become vices at the discretion of it's maximes. It is not a science, for the most miserable negation of the true needs of man, and of the most holy, forms its narrow base. It is a merit of a miller and a spinner displaced from his modest rank and proposed to the admiration of empires. But, to limit myself to refuting the slightest of it's mistakes, I will say, once again, that, despite the commercial expediency that could recommend this or that topgraphic point, the civilizations of antiquity have never stopped advancing towards the West, simply because the white tribes themselves followed this path, and it was only when they arrived on our continent that they encountered these yellow mixtures that led them to the utilitarian ideas adopted with more reserve by the Aryan race and too little known in the Semitic world. So we should expect to see the white nations more and more realistic, less and less artistic as we look at them further West. It is certainly not for reasons borrowed from climate influence that they will be such. This is only because they will become at the same time more mixed with yellow elements and less imbued with melaninian principles. Let's draw up here, in order to be more convinced, a list of gradation of the results that I indicate. The reader needs to pay attention to this. The Iranians, as we will see later, were more realistic, more masculine than the Semites, who, being more than the Hamites, make it possible to establish this progression:
Blacks,
Chamites,
Semites,
Iranians.

[Anonymous No.22755929]

cont.
>>22755925
We will then see the monarchy of Darius sink to the bottom of the Semitic element and pass the palm to the blood of the Greeks, who, although however, in Alexander's time, were more free of melanian alloys. Soon the Greeks, drowned in the Asian essence, will be ethnically inferior to the Romans, who will push the empire of the world a good distance further west, and who, in their loosely yellow fusion, white to a higher degree, and finally semitized in a progression. However, they would have kept the dominance, if whiter competitors had not appeared again. That's why the Arian-Germains decidedly fixed the civilization in the northwest.
QUOTE END

[Anonymous No.22756075]

>>22755539
so what the high IQ version of this ?

[Anonymous No.22756093]

>>22756075
Paracelsus
Newton's "other" works
Hindu mystics
any textbook on quantum physics

[Anonymous No.22756100]

>>22755514
Here it comes.
I haven't read your post, but the answer I know you want to read is: Africans are subhumans with low IQ.
When you grow up, seek us again.

[Anonymous No.22756113]

>>22756093
he said high IQ anon

[Anonymous No.22756155]

>>22755627
Actually it's because of natural resource curse. The countries that had less are at a massive advantage.

[Anonymous No.22756311]

>>22756100
>I've grown up and the answer is ...
When you grow up, seek us again.

[Anonymous No.22756491]

>>22755539
I only disagree on The Prince. Most people don't even read it, only know a very wrong summary on it based on ad verbatim and memes

[Anonymous No.22756502]

>>22755514
The part you are missing is psychology. Horses have more formal behavioral patterns of family and herd structure that can be hijacked, or that the horse itself might elect to use as a model for its relationship to humans. Once you get a hang of these psychological tools you will notice some horses are nicer than others, and you will want to make more of the nice ones. All this happens without the need for understanding genetic engineering, etc. It's a natural self reinforcing process with obvious rewards in the short term.
Zebras don't strongly have these forms of psychology, so they remain unpredictable and nasty. Even the offspring of the nicest ones remain unpredictable and nasty. There's no obvious natural reinforcement reward to keep trying.
And, even the Europeans tried their hand at zebra domestication once they got their hands on some.
Now, horses are more useful to have than to not have. But, that's for a whole society, on an overall average. As others in this thread have mentioned, individually, horses are only marginally safe. You, as a human, have to conform more of your behavior to their psychology than the other way around.
Interesting factoid. Early in the last century various city newspapers picked up on a strange new phenomenon. The streets were becoming much safer, and less accident prone. The cause was attributed to new form of almost science fictional transportation technology called automobiles. Yes, as mindless cars displaced creatures with minds of their own far less people were getting maimed or killed on the streets.
Again, the point being is the differences between zebras and horses only seem slight to our modern viewpoint. Our ancestors learned the best zebras are not just dangerous, they are far too dangerous for short term breeding to transform in any useful way.

[Anonymous No.22757397]

>>22756502
Aurochs were super safe. Sure bro.

[Anonymous No.22757429]

>>22755925
Gibberish

[Anonymous No.22758003]

>>22755514
>could have resulted in a horse equivalent f

What would be the point? Why wouldn't they just use horses? You think they couldn't get horses if they wanted them? The egyptians had horses. If horses were suitable for the terrain in question and had some use, they would have imported them (ditto with camels). They would have spread all over Africa. The fact that they kept cattle, goats and other animals but not horses, suggest that they had no use for them. Either they could not protect them from predators, they could not feed or graze them, or there was no point in keeping such animals.

You will find that much of Asia likewise never used horses to any significant degree because there was little use for them, given their environmental constraints.

[Anonymous No.22758383]

>>22755692
They gather, they are social amongst their kin. This is the commonality between vastly differing species like Boars, Aurochs, Wolves, etc. All of which humans selectively bred into more useful species.
>>22756502
We aren't talking one generation but thousands of years creating a domesticated species seperate from the original "zebra"
>>22758003
>What would be the point? Why wouldn't they just use horses?
OP was clearly talking about the ones without access to them who still lived near zebras for 10,000+ years.

[Anonymous No.22758870]

>>22755514
Zebra make poor draft animals (just not built for it) and have the unfortunate tendency to dispose of their rider when they sense danger so not great for transportation either. Europeans have been attempting to domesticate zebra for well over a century now and have yet to even come close, they select for best behavior and train them and then the next generation are a bunch of assholes which you can do nothing with.