Guns, Germs, and Steel.

[Fishteacher73]

Having just finished a series on PBS called Guns, Germs and Steel, I found an intereesting theory. The idea was brought up by Jared Diamond. It is amazing that he examines the distribution of wealth and power in the world today and traces it back to what he feels are its origins.

 

These origins were based on biology and geography. No one peoples had wiser more profound individuals, but the disparity arises from availability of suitable climate and suitable food source(both plant-wise and animal-wise). Most all advanced societies developed from the groups connected with the fertile crescent. Wheat and barley sprang from this region. Pigs, sheep, and horses as well. Species tend to spread easier along the same latitude, and these advantages spread east and west. These advantages allowed for more people to be fed off of less work and allowed free-time for experimentation and development of new technologies (metalurgy for example).

 

 

I'm still poking about this theory but upon first exposure it seems reasonable. Lets see what you guys think about ut.

[Erasmus00]

Having just finished a series on PBS called Guns, Germs and Steel, I found an intereesting theory. The idea was brought up by Jared Diamond. It is amazing that he examines the distribution of wealth and power in the world today and traces it back to what he feels are its origins.

 

I read his book of the same title a few years ago (though I haven't seen the series). Certainly an interesting book, though his premise seems to be that those who started with the most stuff ended with the most stuff.

-Will

[Qfwfq]

I haven't read that book but I don't think I'll rush out to buy it. What you mention all seems obvious and matches up with what I can remember from high school history courses. It was a valuable resource, object of all the wars of conquest. You can find it all in any good encyclopedia too.

 

A consideration or two. The fertile crescent wasn't fertile only naturally. Like the Nile valley, it was fertile because some clever folk learned the trick of irrigation. The exact same could be done today in the same area and was part of Hussein's projects. Some locals were against it though because they had made their own livelihood in the swamps that got altered by the dams. The trouble in Sudan is partly over control of water (Nile sources) vs. keeping swamps the way they are. Without disputes, a modern, large scale project could make perhaps half the Saharah cultivatable and, who knows, maybe in the long term desertification would cease to be the local climatic tendency. People will never agree about things and whenever some major advantages become apparent there will be plenty of fighting over them.

[Turtle]

___I watched 2 episodes of the program & found it enjoyable. I don't agree about the irrigation issue that Q mentions however; many cultures in the America's used very sophisticated irrigation systems as well as cultures in the fertile crescent. The problem is still one of location & resources, i.e. you can't efficiently use water you don't have.

___Satellite images reveal extensive river systems under the Sahara which dried up as global climate changed. The resources required to rehydrate the Sahara exceed any benefit derived.

___What the program reinforces for me is that greed supersedes knowledge & organized religion is greed made efficient. The Mayan religion isn't less greedy than any other, but the luck of the draw gave the christian greed the best hand.

[Qfwfq]

you can't efficiently use water you don't have.

I didn't say that you could, I only meant that before the Mesopotamian irrigation, the area must have been much like it has been since those canals were destroyed by the wars over the area.

 

When children fight over a toy, they sometimes end up busting it.

 

The resources required to rehydrate the Sahara exceed any benefit derived.

Do you have an idea about how much water flows unused out through Cairo/Alexandria?

 

What the program reinforces for me is that greed supersedes knowledge & organized religion is greed made efficient. The Mayan religion isn't less greedy than any other, but the luck of the draw gave the christian greed the best hand.

Typical, through the whole of history.

[Turtle]

___The river systems I referenced I understood were natural when the area had plants eons ago. I don't know about manmade canals there? I don't know how much waste either.

___The other interesting point they made in one of the shows in regard to the Maya & how easily they fell to the Spanish, is the role of germs. They said the Spanish had immunity because they gained it by way of their domestic animals (goats, sheep, cattle) whereas the Maya had only Llamas & didn't pen them or live in close enough proximity with them to acquire their germs & then immunities.

___While Europeans intentionally infected North American natives with small pox, the Spanish apparently did this to the Maya unintentionally. :)

[Qfwfq]

I don't know about manmade canals there? I don't know how much waste either.

There were manmade canals only in the Nile valley at the time of the Pharaohs, crude compared with what could be accomplished in times after feats such as Suez and Panama. The Pharaoh's canals were carrying a few teensy drops, in comparison to the total flow of the Nile.

 

___The other interesting point they made in one of the shows in regard to the Maya & how easily they fell to the Spanish, is the role of germs. They said the Spanish had immunity because they gained it by way of their domestic animals (goats, sheep, cattle) whereas the Maya had only Llamas & didn't pen them or live in close enough proximity with them to acquire their germs & then immunities.

___While Europeans intentionally infected North American natives with small pox, the Spanish apparently did this to the Maya unintentionally. :)

The point is that there were certainly not the exact same microorganisms on the different continents, implying different antibodies. It wasn't due to differing species of domestic animals. All the animals in an area develop the antibodies necessary in that area, or else come down ill.

 

Even in recent times, when less people travelled internationally, caution was necessary with drinking water. It was easy to get diahorrea, even for travellers in the '60s and '70s. American tourists in Mexico called it Montezuma's revenge.

[UncleAl]

Western civilization is a fusion of disparate cultures plus pressure. Greeks were the first major folks who had obscene abundance, mild climate, leisure, and a society tolerant of dissenting thought. They were vigorous deep thinkers and they were routinely trod upon. Rome was all muscle and little brain. It gleaned Greece and conquered the world. Europe got clever given its nasty climate and the cow - that coverted vegetable waste into nutritious output supporting large dense populations. Alas, Europe was crippled by Roman Catholicism whose goals exclude existence of the future.

 

China through its own endeavor had all the technological good parts of the West and more, and rather less of its crippling philosophies. China lacked clear glass and an outward view. Science never took hold. Islam had a fat chance, but it adopted the Turkish model of violent absolute political domination. Contemporary Islam, like orthodox Catholicism, denies the future exists and lethally hates outworlders as reflex action.

 

Not much would have happened overall in the West if two more things had not transpired. The insane wealth of Venice revived Greek thought as the Renaissance. A bunch of muscle wanted Catholic revenues retained as local franchise, hence the Protestant Reformation. If you loan money with interest the future exists. Oh yes indeed. Add the New World to allow migration of the fittest. The South was interbred with natives to the usual dismal result. The North was all immigrants and only the best survived.

 

Things were still slow and the world was still primarily agricultural. It controlled its populations through disease and petty warfare. WWI and WWII changed that. Sublime Greek thought, Roman muscle, a god honored by being ignored, plus capitalism met...worthy competition. We evolved.

 

Here we are. Look what we've got! Now what? The immediate extrapolation is that China - now outward looking, capitalist, and unhobbled by Yahweh - will be the next Big Thing as North America drowns in effete dissolute impotent totalitarianism decorated with a big dollop of God, thus rediscovering its European roots.

[Qfwfq]

One must admit Uncle Al, you can be quite entertaining. :circle: