Guns, Germs and Steel......a bias book that proves my point!

[Mrs. Gimpy]

"Survival of the fittest" is has never been more clearly explained to me than in this book. i lost my pages where i quoted these specific quotes from but i post page numbers when i find them. sorrry about that.

"only Americans can so stupid as to confuse poisionous mushrooms with safe ones." (144)

the author claims that he is not trying to make a bias book.....BAH! not bias my ass!

"Were those naive villagers [New Guineans] collecting every type of seed plant that they found, bringing it home, poisioning themselves on most of the species,and nourishing themselves from only a few species? no they were not that silly." (145)

the author likes to use many statements like the one above, based on nothing but his own thoughts and conclusions. i bet they did eat posionous mushrooms mr. diamond (author) and learned throught trial and error....

africa had NO domesticatable animals but europe had alot of animals, this gave the people an unfair chance at evolving. (fig9.2 page 162)

you cant be serious, africa has an abundance of animals and in the book he claims that no animals were able to be domesticated.....what about the zebra? couldnt they have been used as a horse????but no heres why according to mr. diamond:

"zebras are virtually impossible to lasso with a rope...because of their unfailing ability to ....duck their head out of the way." (172)

the more and more i read the book, the more i was convinced that africa, new guinea, etc..and all those other places COULD have been in a better place than they are in now if they were more intelligent.to use the excuse that africans couldnt use zebras as horses becasue they could not catch them becase a zebra ducks its head out of the way when being lassoed is rediculous!!!!! dont u think horses do the same!!!!!!!

"why were all new guineans and native australiansin a.d. 1800 still using stone tools likke the ones discarded thousands of years ago in eurasia and most of africa, even though some of the world's richest copper and iron deposits are in new guinea and australia respectively? all those facts explainwhy so many laypeople assume that eurasians are superior to other peoples in inventiveness and intelligence"(241)

according to that statement, i proudly call myselfe a LAYPERSON!lololol. i dont know about all of you, but this demonstrates to me superior inteeligence on eurasia and most of africa..... it doesnt surprise me that the people who chose to use stones instead of the resources of the copper and iron that they had ARE not where america and other powerful countries are today.......

i could go on and on but that would mean i would be writing my own book on this. i learned so much from this book..lol the author is so smart but can not see his own information that he put together.....so sad.

to sum the book up though , in my opinion of course:

Mr. Diamond gives no credit to eurasian intellgence but says that the sole reason they are where they are is because they got the best plants and animals.

a wealth of information, but biasly written . i could write so much more about the other factoids that i learned but then this would take forever! lastly....i read it all and felt no shame on my "western heritage"...lol, im not even western, but if i was i wouldnt be ashamed

 

[diminuendo]

Not only was that book ten times more biased than mein kampf, it was one hundred times more boring that any VCR manual I have ever read. Jared Diamond is a soft ass leftist apologist bitch.

 

[Matthew D]

From those quotes that is NOT leftwing.. that is extreme rightwing

 

[diminuendo]

Enlighten me. Here is what Mr. Diamond says in a nut shell: There are no differences between people (societies/races). Any apparent difference (read supperiority) is the result of enviornmental advantages that said superiors had over inferiors...wah, wah, waaah. The only thing that Mr. Diamond has in common with Xtreme Right wing is; Mr. Diamond is an idiot. All extremists are dogmatic, you must be to be an extremist...and all dogmatists are idiots. His views are a double appologism neat with an anti-"The Bell Curve" back. How can that possibly be Right Wing. (ranter's note: I am a libertarian and neither leftist nor rightist.)

p.s. Unless you mean extreme right wing in France.

 

[MarcusG]

Zebras cannot be domesticated. They can be trained like elephants, hippos and the big cats but can never be tamed.
Despite the abundance of animal species on earth, its remarkable only a handful are domesticated and farmed which is what Diamond said.

There may be mineral deposits in Guinea and Australia but is it easily accessible alluvial deposits or does it require more laborious surface mining methods?

Enlighten me. Here is what Mr. Diamond says in a nut shell: There are no differences between people (societies/races). Any apparent difference (read supperiority) is the result of enviornmental advantages that said superiors had over inferiors...wah, wah, waaah. The only thing that Mr. Diamond has in common with Xtreme Right wing is; Mr. Diamond is an idiot. All extremists are dogmatic, you must be to be an extremist...and all dogmatists are idiots. His views are a double appologism neat with an anti-"The Bell Curve" back. How can that possibly be Right Wing. (ranter's note: I am a libertarian and neither leftist nor rightist.)

p.s. Unless you mean extreme right wing in France.

Yes, Diamond tries to explain most of the differences came about from geographical factors (eg suitability for large scale agriculture, domesticated animals..).

 

[Nullifidian]

Sorry but I have to disagree with intelligence differences.

I think more likely it is factors like population density. Europe has always been very population dense throughout its history. Intelligent people are given more of a chance to shine in larger collectives. The more people there are in a collective when someone develops an idea, the more people will learn of the idea. The more people who know something the less likely it is to disappear.


Another thing Europe has a lot of is rivers. Rivers are excellent transportation systems. In an ancient world, the fastest travel is by river or by sea. That is why Egypt was a great nation; the Nile. That's why for the most part the rest of Africa wasn't advanced. When people travel, they share information. Shared information is built on and that new info is shared. That's how society advances. It's why the Incans had a complex calendar and math system and built intricate cities. It's why even though their weapons were primitive, many of their other technologies were not. Actually their weapons were primitive due to having a relatively peaceful empire.

 

[MarcusG]

Sorry but I have to disagree with intelligence differences.
I think more likely it is factors like population density......

Another thing Europe has a lot of is rivers. Rivers are excellent transportation systems. In an ancient world, the fastest travel is by river or by sea. That is why Egypt was a great nation; the Nile. That's why for the most part the rest of Africa wasn't advanced. .......

But Nullfidian, your points support Diamonds assertions in his book.

High population density eg early city states are feasible when there is large scale agriculture. A hunter-gatherer culture could not support large populations as efficiently as agriculturalists where grain and crops can be easily hoarded and stored for years. Hence most of the population is freed up from the menial tasks of food production and could concentrate on fielding large armies or engage in pursuits of a 'higher nature'.

And rivers/seas are one system of transport just as the domesticated horses are. Horses were the main system of transport overland until the industrial age. How could empires adminstrate their vast holdings without the horse (zebra's are too ornery and cannot be tamed). It is the ideal animal who can trot all day with a human sized load, gallop for 10+ miles or a balls-out cavalry charge for a few hundred yards.

 

[Nullifidian]

Camels are also effective at carrying humans.

... and look at the Middle East. Horses and camels and they had one of the most advanced societies of the ancient world.

I'm not disagreeing with Diamond's assertions. I'm just making my own assertions. If they happen to agree or disagree with Diamond, I don't care. However what I disagree with is the argument that one particular group of people is inherently more intelligent than another.

 

[MarcusG]

Camels are also effective at carrying humans.

... and look at the Middle East. Horses and camels and they had one of the most advanced societies of the ancient world.

I'm not disagreeing with Diamond's assertions. I'm just making my own assertions. If they happen to agree or disagree with Diamond, I don't care. However what I disagree with is the argument that one particular group of people is inherently more intelligent than another.

Wasn't saying that you were incorrect. Until the industrial age, water transport connected cities more efficiently than overland travel and was the main system of transport. But the utility of the horse cannot be overlooked.

Diamond has the opposite assertion of what you are saying. What Diamond actually is trying to tell is that races everywhere had basically the same capacity but geographical factors held a few back. This is a common myth about the book.