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2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

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2038775 No.2038775 [Reply] [Original]

Guns, Germs, and Steel.

So Jared Diamond says that the reason there was never any civilization in australia/pacific islands was because of the geography.

He says that the middle east had wheat growing there, which was easy to harvest, easy to plant, and could be stored for long periods of time.

He says that new guinea had few plants that were calorically dense like wheat, with the exception of taro, a root plant, which WAS used in agriculture by the new guineans, but was much harder to plant, and took much more effort to harvest. It also spoiled rather quickly.

Because people in the middle east did so little for their food, and were able to store reserves of food for long periods of time, they had "leisure" time, and used this to develop more intricate homes, more intricate ways of already existing agriculture, etc.

How true is this, or is it just liberal bullshit?

>> No.2038797

His conclusions make a lot of sense. When you don't need to be hunting and gathering all day you are able to move forward with other things to advance civilization. The geological evidence supports almost all of his claims.

>> No.2038796

He makes a sound argument, and the book is entertaining, but most of this is speculative.

>> No.2038801

It's a model of civilization that works fairly well. We wonder why it is that different parts of the world, and different cultures, seem to have drastically different levels of technology, culture, and education. This gives us good explanations that seem to work both on the small and large scale. Do other things matter? Of course. But this model is a good start.

>> No.2038798

>liberal bullshit

what would make you think liberals are, what? I don't even...

>> No.2038811

>>2038798
I don't know why conservatives think this is a liberal scheme. If anything, this explains why it is that, by many standards, some civilizations are better than others. You can't blame it on intelligence or other such factors of individuals. But there seem to be geographic reasons.

>> No.2038814

you missed the part, OP, where the movement of crops was extremely helpful

>> No.2038818

>>2038811
What the shit?

Can someone explain to me what political ideologies has to do with this?

>> No.2038837

>>2038818
In the US, political ideology has become synonymous with religious ideology, and about 1/3 of our population simply doesn't buy into all that sciency cosmogeny evolutioney anthropology mumbo-jumbo.

"Liberal bullshit" is code for "I'm a religus tard hurrr."

>> No.2038839

Middle East
India
China
Europe
North Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa (some parts)

How come Africa never got past very basic civilization? They had agriculture, and great plants.

Also, China and India both had very advanced civilizations, China invented the first firearms, India invented the numeral system, both had a shitton of other accomplishments.

Why did Europe (and within that, northern europe moreso) end up conquering the world?

>> No.2038846

>>2038837
God damn it america, get your shit together.

>> No.2038850

>>2038839

I think sea travel helped.

>> No.2038855

> Why did Europe (and within that, northern europe moreso) end up conquering the world?

genetic predisposition for producing geniuses within a population

>> No.2038860

>>2038775

Just a question about race and IQ.

You know all the IQ charts by nation? The ones with northeast asia at 110, europe at 100 and africa at 70?

How exactly do they administer those IQ tests? Do they administer them only on the populations living in cities, with significant education, or do they do a sample of the entire country?

Like I don't understand how anyone of any race living in a hunter gatherer tribe all his life could do even remotely well on an IQ test.

On second thought, I don't know how you'd even administer any sort of test with people like that.

>> No.2038867

>>2038839
Europe caught up with China and India and eventually outperformed them in science? I dunno but what's for sure, China wasn't interested in colonizing other countries when Britain and France were setting up colonies and shit: Qing was only interested in controlling Asia but not all of the world

>> No.2038873

>>2038855

is there any scientific evidence for this, or are you just looking at history?

>> No.2038877

What the fuck is "liberal bullshit", you actual-fuck?

>> No.2038884

native americans had freakin corn which is basically the best crop of all time.

>> No.2038875

>>2038855

Fuck off tranny.

>> No.2038918
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2038918

>>2038855
umad nazifag?

>> No.2038919

>>2038875

fuck off niggerlover

>> No.2038926

>>2038884

And there were a few advanced native american civilizations.

As for others, they were definitely more advanced than aborigines and pacific islanders.

Remember that you also need a lot of people together for a civilization to have any chance of starting.

>> No.2038927

>>2038918

reality doesn't bear out this graph

reality>graph

>> No.2038934

>>2038846
We need another civil war, same two sides, same outcome...

>> No.2038939

Makes good sense to me.

Makes a lot more sense then "because of skin color."

Or "because of baby jesus."

>> No.2038948

>>2038934
or just let texas leave and tell all the retards who love Jesus and Reagan to go there

>> No.2038952

>>2038839

Um, Egypt is in Africa, and it was highly civilized.

Sub-sahara didn't get civilized because the sahara was in the way. This is explained rather easily in the book.

>> No.2038953

americas had a big disadvantage in their lack of horses. they may have been able to domesticate something else, but a moose plowing fields isn't too likely.

northern africa didn't do half bad. the carthaginians rivalled rome for a long time, and once had the biggest navy/trade network in the meditaranian; the caliphate I've heard was pretty cool; he ottoman empire was still around in WW2m once had a lot of north africa

sub-sarahan though, I have no excuse there....

>> No.2039026

>>2038952

What about Nubia? Were they anywhere near as advanced as the Egyptians?

>> No.2039052

>>2038775
It's bullshit. Wheat wasn't always the culture product it is today. It took millennia of culturing plants until they became productive enough.

>> No.2039151

> the carthaginians rivalled rome for a long time, and once had the biggest navy/trade network in the meditaranian

They were Europeans

>> No.2039234

>>2038839

There were some historically, though that's about as far as my knowledge goes. I remember watching some documentary that explored some african ruins describing how it was such a surprise to archaeologists when they found them since they had assumed africa was culturally deprived. An example I can think of at the top of my head would be Ethiopia, even managing to beat off the gun wielding Italians in the 19th (?) Century

>> No.2039451
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2039451

Implying new historical theories are liberal. His theories are sound and aren't based on bullshit racial theory. I suggest reading it completely and then reading Collapse. Hunter gatherer and strictly hunting societies have to work far longer for food compared to agrarian societies. When humans (and other species) have 'free time' new behaviors develop that wouldn't because that species would be focused on strictly surviving (i.e. elephants that paint in zoos). When societies meet their capacity for meeting basic needs, culture usually follows due to a higher population and less concern on getting food, breeding, etc.

>> No.2041416

>>2038855
implying it takes genius to conquer civilizations.

many civilization had the means, like the Chinese but their civilization was very introverted. The question should be phrased why were European civilizations interested in "conquering" other civilizations.

>> No.2041431

>>2038855

More so an economic system that was predicated upon cheap labor and resource inputs as well as upon forced consumption.

Step 1: Find a continent/island rich with resources (metals, fur, agriculture) and people who you can enslave.

Step 2: Declare this continent/island for your country. Enslave or force the people living here to work for you (either through the political system already existing or through a new one you force upon them).

Step 3: Take their labor/goods/resources back to your industrialized home country.

Step 4: Create technologically advanced goods.

Step 5: Sell those goods to your citizens as well as to the citizens of your colonies.

Step 6: Take a bath in all of the money you just made.

>> No.2041433

>>2039151


Carthago was a Phonecian Colony from modern day Israel. Try again.

>> No.2041438

>>2038839

>How come Africa never got past very basic civilization? They had agriculture, and great plants.

No, they actually didn't. The fauna was also a lot more dangerous, too. Not many of the fauna in the area could be domesticated easily.

>> No.2041443
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2041443

So why exactly can these differences in environment not lead to any differences in cognitive performance?

As we all know it doesn't take much of an advantage in natural selection for useful traits to become widespread over time.

On many trivial traits the differences are widely accepted but god forbid if it they have anything to do with intelligence.

>> No.2041453

>>2038860

For over half (100 out of the 190 or so) of the countries they just averaged the neighbours. I shit you not.

>> No.2041466
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2041466

>>2038839

West Africa had a flowering civilisation. They entered the iron age before most of Europe and had a complex, urbanised society. They stagnated and died sometime after Jesus, we don't know why exactly, but I suspect just stagnation. When Europe fell into dark ages, there was contact with the muslims to prop it back up. When China fell behind, Europe invaded it. Africa just sat there.

Nubia and Ethiopia were relatively developed well into the middle ages. Europe surpassed them for the same reasons Europe surpassed the middle east, whatever those reasons may be.

South Africa, of course, was a hole. The impassible Congo probably played a role, but still. I think it was rather sloppy on behalf of the Zulu. Get your shit together.

>> No.2041473

I'm trudging my way through it, decent read so far, but way too repetive.

>> No.2041475

Ausfag here. Civilisation did not flourish in australia because the indigenous population were living with large marsupials. These animals are big and slow, very easy to hunt. Aboriginals hunted these to extinction and as a result did not develop animal husbandry because it was easier to go out and hunt them. Marsupial diet is a little different to the mammal so another idea is that their shit did not fertilise the earth as well as grain based animals. Another theory is the aboriginals fucked the environment with fire, but they will tell you they used it as a means to stop massive bush fires.

There are also many theories stating aboriginals raped and pillaged each other instead of cooperating to a degree thus staying in tribalism.

>> No.2041478

>>2041475
So you could say that the aborigines...
Fought fire with fire.

YEEEAAAH!!

>> No.2041481

>>2041431

aka mercantilism

>> No.2041511

>>2041478
You are a scholar, a gentleman and a poet. I salute you.

>> No.2041595

>>2038775
its true but its not entirely true, the real thing they never focus on that the day the world took off did, is that you never get systems of settled agriculture to form city states unless you are forced to, if rivals are pushing you in, or the desert starts to encroach, or you pop out to many kids, you stop being able to subsist on anything but farming, which means living side by side with assholes who can get military and social power then use it to subjugate your immovable ass

>> No.2041615

This author is a fuckwit.

Braudel broadly proved that rice production in Asia - laboriously intensive but extremely nutritive - led to larger more complacent urban development in asia rather than other regions prior to industrial-style, organized production of foodstuffs (largely protein-rich meats) in the west.

But that means the Neanderthals eventually win so IDK what to say...

>> No.2041635

Couldn't people of the Pacific Islands build a civilization on delicious oysters? Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

>> No.2041641

the point is to examine the actual processes - not concepts you may be making up...

>> No.2041644

then again, should you make up the concept - there should be a process by which it becomes possible to reconcile its truth or not

>> No.2041653

>>2041478
>Fought fire with fire.
This is a normal 'thing' / procedure amongst firemens. It's fucking efective.

>> No.2041661

>>2041615
Yes, Diamond is clearly the fuckwit here.

>> No.2041672

>>2041635

Easter Island is an example of a pacific people that tried to civilise.

Did not work.

>> No.2041690

>>2041672
>and lies 3,510 km (2,180 mi) west of continental Chile at its nearest point (between Lota and Lebu).
They liked sea travels A LOT back then.

>> No.2041694

>>2041615

But the characteristics of rice production, along with the massive transport network put in place in China with a combination of the east-west rivers and the north-south canals and coastline, meant that the region was simple to unite and maintain unity in a hydraulic empire.

Europe had the goldilocks mix of being on the edge of one of Jared Diamonds biogeograhical chords, as well as having a geographical layout that resisted political unity, but that promoted economic and cultural unity to a greater degree (in the numerous peninsulas, islands and mountains, sea travel is more conducive to economic than political unity).

>> No.2041710

>>2041694 here

Political disunity is an advantage in some ways. It promotes earnest conflict and competition. If the region is too divided, no one polity can muster the resources for something like colonialism, as in India, while if it is too united, it is more likely to favour conservative, traditional avenues of investment, as in China.

It is worth remembering that, as of 1492, both India and China were, individually, far wealthier than Europe.

>> No.2041716

>>2038775
i'd give op the suggestion to watch the day the universe changed.
>>2041443
no, this only happens when being stupid will kill you, if anything societies in every nation tried to kill all the smart people, especially in Europe. being an incurious peasant was a survival strategy that kept the pope and his church from bum raping you.

>> No.2041724

>>2041716

And as the neverending stream of people who can't grasp natural selection suggests, that strategy was a successful one.

>> No.2041736

>>2041716

It's a two way street. Societies that repress knowledge tend to survive in their present form better, but are knocked down when a more advanced society arises. Societies that exalt knowledge tend to change more over time, so the current elite is constantly shifting, but if you consider societies descended from a society to be the heir of it, then they survive better over time.

Soviet Union was weird. They encouraged the intelligentsia, but if you were too smart, you were in big trouble. Meanwhile, in the contemporary United States there is an overall trend that opposes intellectualism, but if you're very smart you can make a lot of money or wield a lot of power.

>> No.2041752

Seems like other races fail at producing geniuses. Euros might have lower IQs on average but all it takes is the occasional genius to design a ship or invent something and drastically change things for everyone.