Guns, Germs and Steel Part 16 of 18

Episode Three : Into the Tropics (Part 4 of 6)

So far, Jared Diamond has demonstrated how geography favoured one group of people -- Europeans -- endowing them with agents of conquest ahead of their rivals around the world. Guns, germs and steel allowed Europeans to colonize vast tracts of the globe -- but what happened when this all-conquering package arrived in Africa, the birthplace of humanity?

Can Jared Diamond's theories explain how a continent so rich in natural resources, could have ended up the poorest continent on earth?

Category:

Education

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• guns
• germs
• steel
• jared
• diamond
• pulitzer
• prize
• into
• tropics

[criskity]

Jared Diamond is a hero in the war against that most pernicious and pathetic of human stupidities: racism. Racists suck shit.

[wisestfoolalive]

Those of you who like to talk about IQ tests. What do you think IQ tests really measure? Do they measure your ability to survive in a hostile environment or do they measure how efficiently you can make abstract connections which may have very little to do with reality? I feel that the IQ test is a utility of western societies. How efficiently you can survive in a hostile environment, be it an inner city slum or a tropical village measures a more fundamental form of intellect.

[spinkna]

animals in africa that can be and have been domesticated: ostrich, elan, gazelle, giant bush rat, zebra, african buffalo, giant snail (roman delicacy) african rabbit, crops that can be domesticated in africa: wild rice, millet, barley (egyptians used it) in short africa was and is a goldmine of resources.

[spinkna]

@ItsAnathema2 ah ad hominem attacks; the rebbutal used by those in the wrong. zebras are close enough to horses that they can be mated. all equines have been domesticated in other parts of the world. oh! "jared said" did he? must be fact then! he also says in one of these vids that you can't get leather from pigs! so excuse me if i consider him full of crap.

[SD78]

@ItsAnathema2

Did you even watch video???

Explain the Great Zimbabwe. While you're at it, explain the Mali and Songhai empires.

[SD78]

@ItsAnathema2

No, according to Diamond's politically correct revisionist fantasy, Papuan tribesmen are "probably smarter" than White people, based solely on the torturous logic that intelligence is somehow the key to growing up in a dangerous environment, rather than physical ability and generationally learned survival skills.

He also makes the laughable claim that TV viewership has made people progressively dumber, in total contradiction of the Flynn Effect.

[SD78]

@outsky2008

LOL...look at a map.

Africa has an immense east-west axis and much of Diamond's heavily discredited 'Eurasia' was sparsely populated and divided by vast physical barriers which severely inhibited movement and trade, especially between Europe and the Far East.

[SD78]

@Umedark

Did you even watch the video???

Apparently, Great Zimbabwe had a highly developed economy based on abundant natural resources, with an extensive trade network that "traded as far afield as India" (Diamond's OWN WORDS).

Once again, if geography and natural resources are the primary factor of a civilisation's development (Diamond's entire thesis) why couldn't the inhabitants of the Great Zimbabwe progress past being primitive tribesmen in loincloths?

[ItsAnathema2]

@SD78 :

Northern Africa has an east-west axis and an abundance of potential crops. Diamond is talking about sub-saharan Africa here. Northern Africa is more similar to the Middle East than anything else.

Of course, we saw civilizations like Egypt rise in North Africa. But not in sub-saharan Africa. Which, given the geography of Northern Africa, seems to support Diamond's point.

[ItsAnathema2]

@SD78:

He argued that IF there was any innate difference in intelligence between whites and the people of Papua New Guinea, then it would be the opposite of what white supremacists are arguing for.

The key word is IF. Diamond doesn't believe that Papua New Guineans are smarter. His point was that when the arguments of white supremacists are self-refuting nonsense.

And I'm pretty sure that Diamond made this point fairly early in the book.

[ItsAnathema2]

@spinkna:

You are a moron. A few individual zebras might have been domesticated, but as a whole attempts (including attempts made by white people) to domesticate zebras have failed because zebras have a completely different temperament than horses. Diamond already explained this, you nit-wit.

Maize is native to the Americas, not to Africa. Good grief, Diamond went over this earlier too. Either you cannot be bothered to watch the videos you comment on or you have the memory of a goldfish.

[ItsAnathema2]

@SD78 :

You just said that the had an agricultural civilization with iron, gold, and trade routes. In other words, they had in fact "advanced from being primitive tribesmen in loincloths."

Talk about someone invalidating their entire thesis. You contradicted yourself and invalidated your entire argument within the span of a couple of sentences.