Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesis to the test(psypost.org)
psypost.org
Scientists put Jared Diamond's continental axis hypothesis to the test
https://www.psypost.org/scientists-put-jared-diamonds-continental-axis-hypothesis-to-the-test-heres-what-they-found/
238 comments
The AskHistorians group on reddit has a section of the FAQ devoted to Jared Diamond which you might be interested in:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...
I don't really understand the hate /r/AskHistorians has for Diamond. When you look at the assessments of Foucault there, he basically will be criticized for somewhat similar things yet with a far more forgiving and even praising tone. I guess one can read into Diamond implicit atonement of the sins of white people because "it's just geography"; and it is just too much for some people, especially for this specific demographic who is into humanities and Reddit.
Foucault has strengths and weaknesses, makes good points, makes bad points, but is almost always read by people as part of or adjacent to some other ongoing education. Foucault gets debated and recognised for having pros and cons.
Diamond, unlike Foucault, is damn near airport departure lounge fodder; historians and sociologists generally encounter general members of the public who are uncritically fans of Diamond and near venerate the GG&S book for radically changing their world view, etc.
It's that association that grates after a while .. it can be as relentless as those who approach mathematicians with their novel proofs for squaring a circle.
Diamond, unlike Foucault, is damn near airport departure lounge fodder; historians and sociologists generally encounter general members of the public who are uncritically fans of Diamond and near venerate the GG&S book for radically changing their world view, etc.
It's that association that grates after a while .. it can be as relentless as those who approach mathematicians with their novel proofs for squaring a circle.
I have read both, and Foucault is 100x the charlatan than diamond is. Foucault is responsible for significant amounts of fashionable nonsense within the academy.
A Kant scholar once told me that the difference between Kant and Hume is that Kant described simple ideas complexly and Hume described complex ideas simply.
To apply that to Foucault and and Diamond, Foucault explored complex ideas obtusely and Diamond explores dumb ideas simply.
Sure, the academy has a bias towards complexity. It is slightly self-justifying. But let's not be black and white thinkers and assume that the opposite is true, and that airport reading by somebody with no historical credentials must be some secret truth the academy doesn't want you to now. It might just be popular bunk.
To apply that to Foucault and and Diamond, Foucault explored complex ideas obtusely and Diamond explores dumb ideas simply.
Sure, the academy has a bias towards complexity. It is slightly self-justifying. But let's not be black and white thinkers and assume that the opposite is true, and that airport reading by somebody with no historical credentials must be some secret truth the academy doesn't want you to now. It might just be popular bunk.
To paraphrase Roosevelt: "He may be a charlatan, but he's OUR charlatan!"
C'mon now, he was pretty spot on about that pendulum ... /jk
Different Foucault!
Not the one that wrote The Name of the Rose then? Damn, who'd have thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_Pendulum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault%27s_Pendulum
>fashionable nonsense
If you believe that critiquing the prison-industrial complex is fashionable non-sense, then I think I know where you lie politically.
If you believe that critiquing the prison-industrial complex is fashionable non-sense, then I think I know where you lie politically.
I (unfortunately) read most of his works alongside a lot of the post-modernist cannon while participating in speech and debate. While he may give some interesting speculative reasoning about the nature of state power, he's ultimately fashionable nonsense.
Lacan, Zizek, Foucault, and Derrida are The 4 horsemen of the epistemological apocalypse.
Lacan, Zizek, Foucault, and Derrida are The 4 horsemen of the epistemological apocalypse.
>Lacan, Zizek, Foucault, and Derrida are The 4 horsemen of the epistemological apocalypse.
We should probably just go back to Rhene Thom and Morphogenesis, except that even that theory has lost face. A hundred years of denying the importance of Hegel's Logic has led to a significant loss in the progress of human civilization.
We should probably just go back to Rhene Thom and Morphogenesis, except that even that theory has lost face. A hundred years of denying the importance of Hegel's Logic has led to a significant loss in the progress of human civilization.
Contemporary anthropology is...not very good. Latour's critiques are still quite strong and very difficult to overcome; perhaps anthropology as a field is fundamentally flawed.
I haven't read Diamond, but I could understand, if you're a liberal academic and you see a text, almost like Nietzsche's Geneaology of Morals, that just says that the strong always conquer the weak because of totally contingent conditions, it will seem horrifying because, as a liberal, you genuinely believe in personal agency and social justice and all that fun stuff. But go back and actually read Marx, go and read all your favorite Frankfurt school thinkers: they will say, the conditions that we have been placed in are a real illusion of nature: even if the so-called nature of things is a construction, it is one where the reality of it is undeniable for us. Therefore, the goal of critique, even in that Marxian, Kantian sense, is to raise consciousness to shatter that real illusion precisely by illuminating this so-called "natural" process.
For Marx, revolution is a natural result of the development of Capitalism, but Capitalism also dissolved history, and temporality, so the naturality of revolution must be immanent in every moment of its development: its like Walter Benjamin said, we must bring about a real catastrophe, as opposed to the constant "accidents" of human suffering under the system that come about with almost mechanical regularity.
In any case, I don't remember Marx ever being either an academic, or particularly hard to read in most cases, even if a thorough familiarity with German Idealism is a great help to understanding him more deeply. Even Foucault was technically an academic, but only because he helped organize a nearly successful revolutionary movement that managed to extract the concession of an entire university (Paris VIII) out of the government which he then ran, and is still being run by his students and colleagues to this day.
I haven't read Diamond, but I could understand, if you're a liberal academic and you see a text, almost like Nietzsche's Geneaology of Morals, that just says that the strong always conquer the weak because of totally contingent conditions, it will seem horrifying because, as a liberal, you genuinely believe in personal agency and social justice and all that fun stuff. But go back and actually read Marx, go and read all your favorite Frankfurt school thinkers: they will say, the conditions that we have been placed in are a real illusion of nature: even if the so-called nature of things is a construction, it is one where the reality of it is undeniable for us. Therefore, the goal of critique, even in that Marxian, Kantian sense, is to raise consciousness to shatter that real illusion precisely by illuminating this so-called "natural" process.
For Marx, revolution is a natural result of the development of Capitalism, but Capitalism also dissolved history, and temporality, so the naturality of revolution must be immanent in every moment of its development: its like Walter Benjamin said, we must bring about a real catastrophe, as opposed to the constant "accidents" of human suffering under the system that come about with almost mechanical regularity.
In any case, I don't remember Marx ever being either an academic, or particularly hard to read in most cases, even if a thorough familiarity with German Idealism is a great help to understanding him more deeply. Even Foucault was technically an academic, but only because he helped organize a nearly successful revolutionary movement that managed to extract the concession of an entire university (Paris VIII) out of the government which he then ran, and is still being run by his students and colleagues to this day.
If someone wanted to read more into the theory(s) you highlighted do you have any recommendations on where to start?
I ask because I have not heard either of those ideas put that way of the real illusion being undeniable and needing to shatter that real illusion by raising consciousness, or the idea of "Walter Benjamin said, we must bring about a real catastrophe"
Any recommendations are welcome.
Context no background in German Idealism just some cursory understanding of Marxism and Nietzche.
My favorite, and what I still think is the best Benjamin essay, is On the Concept of History[0], but that one is a bit tough as a first essay, perhaps a better starting place (and where most people start with him) is Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction[1]. There's a pretty big gap between those two essays, not intellectually but theoretically, as in it will take you a while, probably, before you understand how they're related.
In general, if you want an actual "start" to studying any modern philosophy, you've got to go with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (go with the NK Smith or Guyer-Woods translations, though I prefer the former). Then you can start reading forward, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, then, of course, Marx's Capital, vol 1. Then from there, I think you would do well to read Nietzsche's Geneaology of Morals and/or Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and after that really you should read Freud, at the very least the Interpretation of Dreams, and Heidegger, either the Origin of the Work of Art or The Question Concerning Technology. And from there, you can basically just read whatever you want and you'll understand it.
My only further advice is to study all those texts first, before trying anything else, otherwise you'll end up like the people in this comments section.
[0]https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html [1]https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
In general, if you want an actual "start" to studying any modern philosophy, you've got to go with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (go with the NK Smith or Guyer-Woods translations, though I prefer the former). Then you can start reading forward, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, then, of course, Marx's Capital, vol 1. Then from there, I think you would do well to read Nietzsche's Geneaology of Morals and/or Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and after that really you should read Freud, at the very least the Interpretation of Dreams, and Heidegger, either the Origin of the Work of Art or The Question Concerning Technology. And from there, you can basically just read whatever you want and you'll understand it.
My only further advice is to study all those texts first, before trying anything else, otherwise you'll end up like the people in this comments section.
[0]https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html [1]https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
Thanks for the recommendations I really appreciate it. I have read a lot of philosophy piecemeal but nothing that gave quite the comprehensive connections that you described in either of your comments.
The most important thing is the Critique of Pure Reason, everything else follows from that text. Other than that, everything else here is just an outline, but if you do read all those books, I think you'll be naturally inclined to continue studying on your own in a suitable direction.
I don't know for certain, but the two major faults of Diamond are first, that his framework for anthropology is perpetuating beliefs that are antithetical to modern anthropology, and second, that he is extremely resistant to following up with new advances in anthropology. On the latter point, for example, Diamond is still a believer in Clovis-First hypothesis, despite that having been discredited for so long that I learned about it in grade school decades ago.
On the first point in particular: there's a general thesis of anthropology which is properly termed unilineal model (and in more colloquial terms, Civilization-style tech tree), which views civilizations as existing on a spectrum from less to more advanced. In essence, GG&S reduces the question of "why did Europe conquer the New World and not the other way around" as "because Europe was more advanced" (and then go on to try to explore why Europe was more advanced), but never trying that hard to justify why "was more advanced" was the answer to the first question. By contrast, the consensus view of modern anthropology is that technological development is heavily adapted to the context of its culture, so that (for example) the Incans don't develop carts because carts are useless in their mountainous environment.
Once you go beyond the idea that "more advanced" is a qualitatively useful metric of comparison and actually start demanding to see the causal links in how specific technologies are necessary to achieve the claimed outcomes, it starts to become clear just how badly Diamond whiffs it. Literacy is a fun example: Diamond has to work around the fact that the conquistadors were largely illiterate, and they were facing bureaucratic, administrative imperial states that ran on record keeping, requiring at least proto-writing [1]; really, how different were the two empires in terms of literacy? Another fun example I like to bring up is comparing Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital) to Toledo (the Spanish one). Tenochtitlan had over 100,000 inhabitants, universal primary education (for both boys and girls, even!), running water, and public amenities like zoos and history museums; the Spaniards had... none of that.
[1] And there's a case to be made that Incan quipu were an honest-to-god writing system.
On the first point in particular: there's a general thesis of anthropology which is properly termed unilineal model (and in more colloquial terms, Civilization-style tech tree), which views civilizations as existing on a spectrum from less to more advanced. In essence, GG&S reduces the question of "why did Europe conquer the New World and not the other way around" as "because Europe was more advanced" (and then go on to try to explore why Europe was more advanced), but never trying that hard to justify why "was more advanced" was the answer to the first question. By contrast, the consensus view of modern anthropology is that technological development is heavily adapted to the context of its culture, so that (for example) the Incans don't develop carts because carts are useless in their mountainous environment.
Once you go beyond the idea that "more advanced" is a qualitatively useful metric of comparison and actually start demanding to see the causal links in how specific technologies are necessary to achieve the claimed outcomes, it starts to become clear just how badly Diamond whiffs it. Literacy is a fun example: Diamond has to work around the fact that the conquistadors were largely illiterate, and they were facing bureaucratic, administrative imperial states that ran on record keeping, requiring at least proto-writing [1]; really, how different were the two empires in terms of literacy? Another fun example I like to bring up is comparing Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital) to Toledo (the Spanish one). Tenochtitlan had over 100,000 inhabitants, universal primary education (for both boys and girls, even!), running water, and public amenities like zoos and history museums; the Spaniards had... none of that.
[1] And there's a case to be made that Incan quipu were an honest-to-god writing system.
What is the consensus answer to why Europe conquered the Americas and not vice versa?
If technological development is "heavily adapted to the context of its culture", and that context is mostly geography ("mountainous environments") then isn't Diamond right?
Seems like the alternative is, "That's just the way it turned out," which is not very satisfying.
If technological development is "heavily adapted to the context of its culture", and that context is mostly geography ("mountainous environments") then isn't Diamond right?
Seems like the alternative is, "That's just the way it turned out," which is not very satisfying.
The interesting question really is "why did Europe conquered the Americans instead of China conquering the Americas"?
And I'm pretty sure that's just the way it turned out.
And I'm pretty sure that's just the way it turned out.
China could probably have done so if their huge fleets (with hundreds of ships) of exploration of the 13th and 14th centuries didn't suddenly stop for likely political reasons.
They went at least as far as the Roman Empire and Africa.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-...
> The difference between the experiences of Europe and China were economic and cultural rather than technological. As the voyages of Cheng Ho demonstrate, the Chinese certainly possessed the maritime technology and expertise to undertake long voyages of discovery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages
> In 1435, when the Xuande Emperor died, the civil officials started to gain power as the new emperor, the Zhengtong Emperor, was only eight years old when he ascended the throne and could be influenced.[186] They seized this opportunity to permanently dismantle the voyages.
They went at least as far as the Roman Empire and Africa.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-...
> The difference between the experiences of Europe and China were economic and cultural rather than technological. As the voyages of Cheng Ho demonstrate, the Chinese certainly possessed the maritime technology and expertise to undertake long voyages of discovery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages
> In 1435, when the Xuande Emperor died, the civil officials started to gain power as the new emperor, the Zhengtong Emperor, was only eight years old when he ascended the throne and could be influenced.[186] They seized this opportunity to permanently dismantle the voyages.
Ocean currents + cost-effectiveness, according to Ian Morris.
By his telling, Chinese bureaucrats buried the knowledge of large fleets because it was a more expensive way to project power than simply going over land.
By his telling, Chinese bureaucrats buried the knowledge of large fleets because it was a more expensive way to project power than simply going over land.
Unfortunately the unsatisfying alternative is correct. Counterfactuals are fun but have little value in serious study of history.
That's the kind of thing "serious" historians like to say but that makes no sense on closer inspection. Any causal historical claim can necessarily be rephrased as a counterfactual claim. e.g. "Slavery caused the U.S. Civil War" -> "If there had been no slavery, there would have been no U.S. Civil War."
To give up counterfactuals is to surrender causality and to truly make the past "one damn thing after another," i.e. chronicle rather than history. The historical profession as we know it is all about making arguments, not merely cataloging events, so it would cease to exist without counterfactuals.
To give up counterfactuals is to surrender causality and to truly make the past "one damn thing after another," i.e. chronicle rather than history. The historical profession as we know it is all about making arguments, not merely cataloging events, so it would cease to exist without counterfactuals.
But there are arguments and there are arguments. I read a great book about the Reformation that was a comprehensive history but whose final chapter makes a very compelling case for the Enlightenment being a direct result of the Reformation. He even makes the stronger argument that the Enlightenment unconsciously carried on several of the preoccupations of the Protestant Reformers into a secular context. And that America being a nation founded by Protestants has shaped the entire world.
This chapter is preceded, though, by 800 pages of detailed history. You have to earn your big conclusions. And the bigger your conclusion is (say, here is why/how Europe colonized the world) you'd better have a lot of evidence.
This chapter is preceded, though, by 800 pages of detailed history. You have to earn your big conclusions. And the bigger your conclusion is (say, here is why/how Europe colonized the world) you'd better have a lot of evidence.
> And the bigger your conclusion is (say, here is why/how Europe colonized the world) you'd better have a lot of evidence.
Sure, but I feel many academic historians have a bit of a double standard here. Did Foucault muster up mounds of evidence for his totalizing theories of power and social structure? Not really, he gestured at a few facts and then built an elaborate structure of theory on that very wobbly foundation. Yet he continues to be taken seriously in academia, whereas Diamond never has been.
I think that's partly because he was a "serious thinker" and Diamond is an "airport read," and also partly because theories like Focuault's are so flexible that it becomes a fun hammer you can apply to any nail ("social media is a panopticon!"), whereas Diamond's argument is specific to a particular historical arc, and partly because Foucault accords with the prejudices of the academy (there are hidden structures of power woven throughout society that oppress the weak) and Diamond doesn't (X determinism is bad, everything is "contingent.").
Sure, but I feel many academic historians have a bit of a double standard here. Did Foucault muster up mounds of evidence for his totalizing theories of power and social structure? Not really, he gestured at a few facts and then built an elaborate structure of theory on that very wobbly foundation. Yet he continues to be taken seriously in academia, whereas Diamond never has been.
I think that's partly because he was a "serious thinker" and Diamond is an "airport read," and also partly because theories like Focuault's are so flexible that it becomes a fun hammer you can apply to any nail ("social media is a panopticon!"), whereas Diamond's argument is specific to a particular historical arc, and partly because Foucault accords with the prejudices of the academy (there are hidden structures of power woven throughout society that oppress the weak) and Diamond doesn't (X determinism is bad, everything is "contingent.").
I think the academy is biased AND Diamond is a dunce. Have you read any of the responses to his work from actual historians? There are deep methodological flaws. Fundamentally, what he is doing is not history. He has no interest in engaging with other academics, or in systematically analyzing all of the data. He starts with his conclusion and then cherry picks the facts, and it's popular because it appeals to people's preconceived notions. It's "lead caused the fall of the Roman Empire" level thinking.
Plenty of academics hate Foucault. Ask an analytic philosopher what they think of him. And yet, those people still get to be part of the academy. Are some people shut out unfairly? Sure. Are many people shut out fairly because they aren't interested in rigor, they are only interested in exposure? Well, ok, academia has a lot of those. But at least it doesn't have Jared Diamond.
Plenty of academics hate Foucault. Ask an analytic philosopher what they think of him. And yet, those people still get to be part of the academy. Are some people shut out unfairly? Sure. Are many people shut out fairly because they aren't interested in rigor, they are only interested in exposure? Well, ok, academia has a lot of those. But at least it doesn't have Jared Diamond.
> conquistadors were largely illiterate, and they were facing bureaucratic, administrative imperial states that ran on record keeping
That seems like a weird (pointless?) thing to say when a lot of what we know about the conquest comes from letters Cortez constantly sent to Charles V to inform him on his progress. Yes, some Conquistadors were illiterate, so what?
> how different were the two empires in terms of literacy?
Massively. Usage on of writing for bookkeeping specifically (though pretty much everything else as well) in Europe by 1500 was on a whole other level. It’s not even comparable. Are you really saying there was hardly any difference between quipu/etc. and double entry bookkeeping? Based on what we know bureaucratically/administratively European states were much more complex at the time than the Aztec empire (which was more like a hegemonic confederation, possibly because they did not have the administrative capacity to administer the areas they subjugated directly).
> Tenochtitlan had over 100,000 inhabitants, universal primary education (for both boys and girls, even!), running water, and public amenities like zoos and history museums;
Rome and Constantinople had most of those things too. Doesn’t mean that Spain ~1500 AD wasn’t more advanced technologically than Rome in ~100 AD in almost every way. Also what are your sources on on universal education? And I don’t really think that most houses had direct access to running water (and many Medieval cities, albeit usually on a much smaller scale had functioning water distribution systems*, e.g Barcelona still had a functioning systems from the Roman period).
Bronze and pre-Bronze ages civilizations in the old world also had very complex societies, large cities (and from what we can tell) more advanced writing systems. The most advanced American civilizations were overall about on the same (or slightly below) level technologically. So yeah in that sense they were about 3000-4000 years behind the Spanish and other Europeans.
* https://fakehistoryhunter.net/2023/07/29/list-of-medieval-to...
That seems like a weird (pointless?) thing to say when a lot of what we know about the conquest comes from letters Cortez constantly sent to Charles V to inform him on his progress. Yes, some Conquistadors were illiterate, so what?
> how different were the two empires in terms of literacy?
Massively. Usage on of writing for bookkeeping specifically (though pretty much everything else as well) in Europe by 1500 was on a whole other level. It’s not even comparable. Are you really saying there was hardly any difference between quipu/etc. and double entry bookkeeping? Based on what we know bureaucratically/administratively European states were much more complex at the time than the Aztec empire (which was more like a hegemonic confederation, possibly because they did not have the administrative capacity to administer the areas they subjugated directly).
> Tenochtitlan had over 100,000 inhabitants, universal primary education (for both boys and girls, even!), running water, and public amenities like zoos and history museums;
Rome and Constantinople had most of those things too. Doesn’t mean that Spain ~1500 AD wasn’t more advanced technologically than Rome in ~100 AD in almost every way. Also what are your sources on on universal education? And I don’t really think that most houses had direct access to running water (and many Medieval cities, albeit usually on a much smaller scale had functioning water distribution systems*, e.g Barcelona still had a functioning systems from the Roman period).
Bronze and pre-Bronze ages civilizations in the old world also had very complex societies, large cities (and from what we can tell) more advanced writing systems. The most advanced American civilizations were overall about on the same (or slightly below) level technologically. So yeah in that sense they were about 3000-4000 years behind the Spanish and other Europeans.
* https://fakehistoryhunter.net/2023/07/29/list-of-medieval-to...
But carts aren’t useless in the Andes. Trucks and cars travel paved roads in and around the Andes today. The Incans maybe hadn’t found a reason to rely on them yet, but this kinda plays in to Diamond’s argument.
To be fair they don’t seem to like most popular historians, podcasters etc. and big picture/all encompassing theories which over simplify complex systems.
Which I guess is reasonable, if you’re a real historian deeply specialized in a specific field seeing someone gloss over or outright ignore very important details and/or new findings/theories might be hard to stomach.
Which I guess is reasonable, if you’re a real historian deeply specialized in a specific field seeing someone gloss over or outright ignore very important details and/or new findings/theories might be hard to stomach.
Most of historians at there said they like him, some people even said that they were inspired by his book. but as a historian, they can't say book is correct, because it is not truth. I do not think this is hate.
Well there's no great mystery, jared diamond doesn't engage in anything resembling academic historiography, but still tries to sell a great narrative of history.
This is like asking why economists hate freakonomics but have respect for Milton Friedman.
> This is like asking why economists hate freakonomics but have respect for Milton Friedman.
Do economists hate Freakonomics? I know some who liked it. I think the objection is not to popular content but to misleading popular content.
Do economists hate Freakonomics? I know some who liked it. I think the objection is not to popular content but to misleading popular content.
Do they? I have one economist friend who credits reading Freakonomics as a kid with sparking his interest in the field.
> have respect for Milton Friedman.
Do they? Still? Color me skeptical.
Do they? Still? Color me skeptical.
See also: Anthropology. I am guessing it's a simple matter of human pride. These groups consider themselves to have authority over their domains. Diamond made claims that ignore some of their tenants, and come to different conclusions. There is a visceral reaction.
More to the point, Diamond got rich doing it.
A pretty good response: https://blog.daviskedrosky.com/p/jared-diamond-a-reply-to-hi...
This FAQ is mostly ideologically-driven and, at the very least, willfully misinterprets what Diamond says in his books in a way that I think is impossible to explain by accidental misreading or even misunderstanding; only by intentional misinterpretation driven by an agenda. I've read Diamond, then many years later this FAQ, then the above response; then cross-referenced all 3 to see who's lying.
I used to say all modern humanities are worthless garbage, except history. After that exercise, assuming AskHistorians crowd is representative, I'm not so sure about history...
This FAQ is mostly ideologically-driven and, at the very least, willfully misinterprets what Diamond says in his books in a way that I think is impossible to explain by accidental misreading or even misunderstanding; only by intentional misinterpretation driven by an agenda. I've read Diamond, then many years later this FAQ, then the above response; then cross-referenced all 3 to see who's lying.
I used to say all modern humanities are worthless garbage, except history. After that exercise, assuming AskHistorians crowd is representative, I'm not so sure about history...
That book, along with Peter Turchin's "Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall" made me a fan of 'Cliodynamics' (a field name Turchin coined) as a concept. It, along with general ideas in Complexity Theory, I find more useful for making sense of large human/societal systems than just "single bullet theory" case studies.
I read Turchin's book, but what I didnt understand was how you could fit large-parameter models on such a small number of instances provided by history, w/o cherry-picking examples? What is the intuition?
Because there aren't that few. I'd need to revisit some of it really, but even in the late 90s, when I was doing a custom PS major, we were using comparatively larger models for conflict analysis, like the "Correlates of War" project, which were coded well enough to do some rough but statistically useful runs with...as an undergraduate back then it felt like something really useful to compliment/challenge/reconcile with the more common case study format prevalent in the field.
https://correlatesofwar.org/ https://www.jessicamaves.com/forge.html https://www.csac.org.uk/dataset/ etc
https://correlatesofwar.org/ https://www.jessicamaves.com/forge.html https://www.csac.org.uk/dataset/ etc
Models with non-linear dynamics will often need 10^(12+) examples to fit.
You cannot, in practice, establish empirical adequacy of such models. (Making, imv, much of social "science" better regarded as semi-empirical speculation).
You cannot, in practice, establish empirical adequacy of such models. (Making, imv, much of social "science" better regarded as semi-empirical speculation).
You might enjoy this as well, similar big picture and fascinating, but a bit more scientific and focused on the human element.
> The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
> The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
"The Triumph of the West" by Roberts has a similar thesis.
https://www.amazon.com/triumph-West-J-M-Roberts/dp/076070850...
It's been a long time since I read it, but as I recall the theses were that individual rights and freedoms coupled with things like the scientific method is what resulted in triumph.
https://www.amazon.com/triumph-West-J-M-Roberts/dp/076070850...
It's been a long time since I read it, but as I recall the theses were that individual rights and freedoms coupled with things like the scientific method is what resulted in triumph.
The scientific method wasn’t novel to the western world. It’s origins date back to when the Moors conquered the southern half of western europe - and by almost all historian accounts - modernized many institutions over the subsequent hundreds of years (eg, from cutlery to math and science).
I think the most relevant book on the west’s success is called complexity: a guided tour
I think the most relevant book on the west’s success is called complexity: a guided tour
It doesn't matter where the idea originated, it matters where it is applied.
And because they had to much of science, they rejected the printing press? Does anyone read the sources anymore before they start projecting utopias everywhere?
Also by preventing proper analysis, one prevents the discovery of cultural defects and repairs, preventing liberating change and effectively kicking away the ladder of progress, a deeply colonial act.
Also by preventing proper analysis, one prevents the discovery of cultural defects and repairs, preventing liberating change and effectively kicking away the ladder of progress, a deeply colonial act.
100% agree w/this recommendation. The title is pretentious and put me off, so I missed out for a few years, but the contents are amazing. He has another related book, The Secrets of our Success, which is good. I'm happy that despite everything, at least a few people are doing cross-domain research and trying to put together and test ideas for how humanity came to be.
Thank you, I've added it to my reading list!
What you really need to read is David Reich’s who we are. Totally based on genetic data and talks about how the “aryans” basically wiped out the male population of Europe and took all their women displacing them completely. Another branch went off to India and it has a pretty good breakdown of the genetics of the Indian population as well.
Just a minor detail: when a population takes all the women of another population and has kids with them, it doesn't completely wipe out the previous genetic footprint since obviously the mothers contribute to half of the genetic material (and she in turn got half of it from her father)
Wipes out the Y
You're never going to find a solid answer to these questions. The best you can do is ask yourself "does this seem reasonable".
That is absolutely fine to me. (I mean, I'd like answers, but I've gotten used to the idea of limits to our knowledge.) What I appreciated so much is that is broadened the range of potential answers for me, emphasising just how much I'm never going to find solid answers.
"A Short History of Mostly Everything" by Bill Bryson is next for you.
I hope not. That book is more of a collection of biographies of a handful of random researchers than the details of what they're actually researching.
"it showed me a way of looking at the world at a way larger scale than I had previously done, and was very engaging while at it."
It's definitely "sitcom science", especially compared with Guns, Germs, and Steel (I've read both). I found it engaging (check!), and appreciated the earlier chapters that literally start by describing that single-celled organisms + billions of years == some other new form of life (way larger scale? check!)
The comforting nihilistic internal response to that book was "doesn't matter if we nuclear war or death by solar flare, or whatever... a billion trillion years from now, it's intimately necessary that something would go from single-cell organism to multi-cell organism".
Time marches on, even if we do not.
It's definitely "sitcom science", especially compared with Guns, Germs, and Steel (I've read both). I found it engaging (check!), and appreciated the earlier chapters that literally start by describing that single-celled organisms + billions of years == some other new form of life (way larger scale? check!)
The comforting nihilistic internal response to that book was "doesn't matter if we nuclear war or death by solar flare, or whatever... a billion trillion years from now, it's intimately necessary that something would go from single-cell organism to multi-cell organism".
Time marches on, even if we do not.
I did actually read that, but it hasn't really stuck with me. I think (but based on faded memories) that it was mostly things I'd already seen in school, with more detail? It didn't really open up new ways of looking at the world for me.
Alternatively, I was just too young to realise and appreciate that. It's been a while since I read it.
Alternatively, I was just too young to realise and appreciate that. It's been a while since I read it.
It's worth a re-read of like the first 15-20%. A quick, fun read, but has that same feel (to me) of GG&S where it talks about microbiology life form evolution underwater, high acidity, low light, high temperature, etc.
In that regard, it's like a precursor to GG&S which is "smarts + politics forward" vs a lighthearted approach to "which multi-cell organism has the right conditions to evolve limbs" (and presumably intelligence).
...or just chill out and accept that a world full of mushroom and fungus is just as intelligent and terraforming as humans can be.
In that regard, it's like a precursor to GG&S which is "smarts + politics forward" vs a lighthearted approach to "which multi-cell organism has the right conditions to evolve limbs" (and presumably intelligence).
...or just chill out and accept that a world full of mushroom and fungus is just as intelligent and terraforming as humans can be.
To be fair to Diamond, his arguments in GG&S are bit broader in scope than just the the continental axis hypothesis. The disparity in domesticable animals between Eurasia and other continents always seemed more persuasive than the axial argument. Although it is true that he leans too far into determinism and discounts cultural and economical factors.
The theories are linked. Diamond's assertion that Europeans conquered the world because they had an easier time domesticating animals makes sense if you're talking about the Americas, but not so much when talking about Africa, which was in constant contact with Europe and in theory should have been able to trade for any technology invented there.
Simply saying that Africa didn't have domesticable animals isn't good enough because, certainly, they could have imported them along with other technology from Europe.
The continental axis hypothesis is his answer to this. He says crops (and later animals) could be more easily moved east to west rather than north to south because the climate will change less. In his mind, this explains why Africans didn't adopt European advancements in agriculture and animal domestication.
You don't need a study to debunk this theory within the context of Diamond's overall hypnosis; you need a globe and some measuring tape. Africa's east-west axis (4600m) is only 8% smaller than its north-south axis (5000m), which in turn is almost identical to Eur-Asia's (4,900m). The only time this isn't true is on a distorted map like the Mercator projection he uses in the book.
Sub-Saharan Africa is not some wasteland that couldn't support these animals and crops. And this is obvious when you consider that colonial empires brought their crops to Africa without the need to fundamentally change them for the climate. Colonial holdings in Africa often produced a good chunk of the grain for their empires as a whole.
Axis theories aside, Diamond is just factually wrong about the origins and timelines of domestication. Many of the crops and animals that supposedly helped Europe dominate the world were widely present in Africa centuries before European invasions.
Romans explored into Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1st century BC; Turks and Arabs had established trade routes deep into Africa by the 6th century AD; the Indian Ocean, including the coast of Africa was continually interconnected through trade going back to the bronze age at least, and trade caravans across the Sahara have been recorded in ancient Egyptian records.
This is covered well in Diamond in the Rough: Reflections on Guns, Germs, and Steel https://www.jstor.org/stable/24707701
You could fill a book disproving his theories, but I'll point out one last thing: trying to explain European conquest through the lens of continents is super weird. Africa, let alone any other 'continent,' is a vast and diverse place. The idea of continents in and of itself makes less and less sense the more we learn about geography. You could as reasonably draw continental boundaries in dozens of other ways that would make more sense than the ones Diamond presents in his books.
Simply saying that Africa didn't have domesticable animals isn't good enough because, certainly, they could have imported them along with other technology from Europe.
The continental axis hypothesis is his answer to this. He says crops (and later animals) could be more easily moved east to west rather than north to south because the climate will change less. In his mind, this explains why Africans didn't adopt European advancements in agriculture and animal domestication.
You don't need a study to debunk this theory within the context of Diamond's overall hypnosis; you need a globe and some measuring tape. Africa's east-west axis (4600m) is only 8% smaller than its north-south axis (5000m), which in turn is almost identical to Eur-Asia's (4,900m). The only time this isn't true is on a distorted map like the Mercator projection he uses in the book.
Sub-Saharan Africa is not some wasteland that couldn't support these animals and crops. And this is obvious when you consider that colonial empires brought their crops to Africa without the need to fundamentally change them for the climate. Colonial holdings in Africa often produced a good chunk of the grain for their empires as a whole.
Axis theories aside, Diamond is just factually wrong about the origins and timelines of domestication. Many of the crops and animals that supposedly helped Europe dominate the world were widely present in Africa centuries before European invasions.
Romans explored into Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1st century BC; Turks and Arabs had established trade routes deep into Africa by the 6th century AD; the Indian Ocean, including the coast of Africa was continually interconnected through trade going back to the bronze age at least, and trade caravans across the Sahara have been recorded in ancient Egyptian records.
This is covered well in Diamond in the Rough: Reflections on Guns, Germs, and Steel https://www.jstor.org/stable/24707701
You could fill a book disproving his theories, but I'll point out one last thing: trying to explain European conquest through the lens of continents is super weird. Africa, let alone any other 'continent,' is a vast and diverse place. The idea of continents in and of itself makes less and less sense the more we learn about geography. You could as reasonably draw continental boundaries in dozens of other ways that would make more sense than the ones Diamond presents in his books.
I just found the continental axis theory kinda weak when describing Europe, because both the trade and the cultures were dominated by the presence of the seas (Celtic, Mediterranean, Black, Caspian) that connect it all from England to France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and all the way to Tehran. The closest you have in the temperate parts of Africa are Lakes Albert, Edward, Kivu, and Tanganyika to Lake Malawi, and perhaps Victoria. The great lakes are too far north, and the rivers of India and China are too sparse. You can barely traverse Australia today. Again, just look at a globe.
There are boats (in Denmark no less) that are 10000 years old. Drawing of trade boats in Egypt are 6000 years old. I'd be surprised if travel and trade by boat wasn't common at the earliest stages of agricultural civilization.
There are boats (in Denmark no less) that are 10000 years old. Drawing of trade boats in Egypt are 6000 years old. I'd be surprised if travel and trade by boat wasn't common at the earliest stages of agricultural civilization.
Some fair points but you’re really downplaying the inhospitality of much of sub-Saharan Africa wrt productive agriculture. The tsetse fly lays waste to livestock and the thin soils make ploughs useless.
> Colonial holdings in Africa often produced a good chunk of the grain for their empires as a whole.
Only Egypt, nowhere else.
> Colonial holdings in Africa often produced a good chunk of the grain for their empires as a whole.
Only Egypt, nowhere else.
Yeah, when I was reading the booking at the time I thought it was pretty clear Diamond's arguments applied to sub-Saharan Africa.
> Africa, which was in constant contact with Europe
does the parent believe this was the case for Sub-Saharan Africa, BC?
from the parent:
>Romans explored into Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1st century BC; Turks and Arabs >had established trade routes deep into Africa by the 6th century AD; the Indian >Ocean, including the coast of Africa was continually interconnected through >trade going back to the bronze age at least, and trade caravans across the >Sahara have been recorded in ancient Egyptian records.
>This is covered well in Diamond in the Rough: Reflections on Guns, Germs, and >Steel https://www.jstor.org/stable/24707701
Unless my search is broken, I found no mention of Romans, Turks, or Arabs in the article the parent referenced. Also the initial contact dates the parent mentions seem to be too late for the argument being made.
from the parent:
>You could fill a book disproving his theories,
How about we start with a comment doing the same first? Let's try to strive for a little modesty, um, CSMastermind.
> Africa, which was in constant contact with Europe
does the parent believe this was the case for Sub-Saharan Africa, BC?
from the parent:
>Romans explored into Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1st century BC; Turks and Arabs >had established trade routes deep into Africa by the 6th century AD; the Indian >Ocean, including the coast of Africa was continually interconnected through >trade going back to the bronze age at least, and trade caravans across the >Sahara have been recorded in ancient Egyptian records.
>This is covered well in Diamond in the Rough: Reflections on Guns, Germs, and >Steel https://www.jstor.org/stable/24707701
Unless my search is broken, I found no mention of Romans, Turks, or Arabs in the article the parent referenced. Also the initial contact dates the parent mentions seem to be too late for the argument being made.
from the parent:
>You could fill a book disproving his theories,
How about we start with a comment doing the same first? Let's try to strive for a little modesty, um, CSMastermind.
Animals, including domesticated, mostly require fairly narrow biomes to thrive.
In Africa there were all sorts of parasites and microbes that played havoc with attempts to grow European animals outside these lucky spots.
The Americas were too isolated and recent; Africa was too connected and old.
In Africa there were all sorts of parasites and microbes that played havoc with attempts to grow European animals outside these lucky spots.
The Americas were too isolated and recent; Africa was too connected and old.
> You don't need a study to debunk this theory within the context of Diamond's overall hypnosis; you need a globe and some measuring tape. Africa's east-west axis (4600m) is only 8% smaller than its north-south axis (5000m), which in turn is almost identical to Eur-Asia's (4,900m). The only time this isn't true is on a distorted map like the Mercator projection he uses in the book.
Surely Eurasia is around twice than that? You don't need a distorted map to see that the distance between Portugal and Japan is far greater than the distance between Senegal and Somalia.
Surely Eurasia is around twice than that? You don't need a distorted map to see that the distance between Portugal and Japan is far greater than the distance between Senegal and Somalia.
East to West yes but the book asserts that it's the variance North to South that matters because supposedly biomes change far more along that axis than on the East to West one.
Africa and Eur-Asia measure almost identically North to South
Africa and Eur-Asia measure almost identically North to South
> Africa and Eur-Asia measure almost identically North to South
And there's not much room for useful exchange of crops or livestock between Indians engaged in tropical farming and Sami engaged in reindeer pastoralism on the tundra.
And there's not much room for useful exchange of crops or livestock between Indians engaged in tropical farming and Sami engaged in reindeer pastoralism on the tundra.
The book says that a longer West-East axis means more civilizations can exchange the same crops/animals as the climate tends to be similar, while across the Nort-South axis you have a much harder time moving things, as you end up having to go from cold to temperate to tropical and then back again, effectively stopping movements. I haven't read the book again in many years, but this is something that stuck with me...
> but not so much when talking about Africa, which was in constant contact with Europe
Sort of, but it wasn’t exactly direct and straightforward, the Sahara was close to impassable and following the Atlantic coast was infeasible until the ~1500. And there were pretty complex civilizations in Ethiopia, Mali etc. in later periods when trade/travel become more feasible.
You also have the climate in sub-Saharan Africa which is generally not very hospitable and there are far enough to the South didn’t really have much contact with Eurasia at all.
> Romans explored into Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1st century BC; Turks and Arabs had established trade routes deep into Africa by the 6th century AD; the Indian Ocean, including the coast of Africa was continually interconnected through trade going back to the bronze age at least, and trade caravans across the Sahara have been recorded in ancient Egyptian records.
I confused. I assumed that you were talking about much earlier periods, are you saying that there weren’t complex civilizations in sub-Saharan Africa during those times? And yes while the Romans could get past the Sahara (like the Carthaginians allegedly were able to reach the Souther hemisphere or even sail around Africa) it was hard, expensive and rarely worth the effort so there was very little direct contact.
Sort of, but it wasn’t exactly direct and straightforward, the Sahara was close to impassable and following the Atlantic coast was infeasible until the ~1500. And there were pretty complex civilizations in Ethiopia, Mali etc. in later periods when trade/travel become more feasible.
You also have the climate in sub-Saharan Africa which is generally not very hospitable and there are far enough to the South didn’t really have much contact with Eurasia at all.
> Romans explored into Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1st century BC; Turks and Arabs had established trade routes deep into Africa by the 6th century AD; the Indian Ocean, including the coast of Africa was continually interconnected through trade going back to the bronze age at least, and trade caravans across the Sahara have been recorded in ancient Egyptian records.
I confused. I assumed that you were talking about much earlier periods, are you saying that there weren’t complex civilizations in sub-Saharan Africa during those times? And yes while the Romans could get past the Sahara (like the Carthaginians allegedly were able to reach the Souther hemisphere or even sail around Africa) it was hard, expensive and rarely worth the effort so there was very little direct contact.
> The continental axis hypothesis is his answer to this. He says crops (and later animals) could be more easily moved east to west rather than north to south because the climate will change less. In his mind, this explains why Africans didn't adopt European advancements in agriculture and animal domestication.
> You don't need a study to debunk this theory within the context of Diamond's overall hypnosis; you need a globe and some measuring tape. Africa's east-west axis (4600m) is only 8% smaller than its north-south axis (5000m), which in turn is almost identical to Eur-Asia's (4,900m). The only time this isn't true is on a distorted map like the Mercator projection he uses in the book.
Why is that a refutation? Diamond says that Eurasia's east-west axis is much longer than Africa's east-west axis. You're responding that Africa's east-west axis is almost as long as Africa's north-south axis. So what?
(Your following paragraphs make sense as refutations of Diamond, but I don't see how that one does.)
> You don't need a study to debunk this theory within the context of Diamond's overall hypnosis; you need a globe and some measuring tape. Africa's east-west axis (4600m) is only 8% smaller than its north-south axis (5000m), which in turn is almost identical to Eur-Asia's (4,900m). The only time this isn't true is on a distorted map like the Mercator projection he uses in the book.
Why is that a refutation? Diamond says that Eurasia's east-west axis is much longer than Africa's east-west axis. You're responding that Africa's east-west axis is almost as long as Africa's north-south axis. So what?
(Your following paragraphs make sense as refutations of Diamond, but I don't see how that one does.)
I haven’t read GG&S (and I’m probably not going to; as this question gives distaste in my mouth) but is it not addressed that the Americas did indeed have domesticated animals pre-contact? I mean they had (among others) llamas, alpacas, dogs, turkeys, ducks and guinea pigs. Apart from domesticated animals they also had very powerful crops like maize, and—probably the best crop of them all—the potato.
I hear this myth quite often, but apart from it not being a good hypothesis, it simply isn’t true, like at all.
But all that is to the side, that I really really hate the question of European domination. I honestly wished the people would stop asking that question, and instead focus on the damage and horrors Europe inflicted on the world with their colonial mania.
I hear this myth quite often, but apart from it not being a good hypothesis, it simply isn’t true, like at all.
But all that is to the side, that I really really hate the question of European domination. I honestly wished the people would stop asking that question, and instead focus on the damage and horrors Europe inflicted on the world with their colonial mania.
People are naturally curious; why would they stop asking questions, especially ones that are as obvious as this one? It's not like Europe is the only colonialist society in history, so what made it so successful, especially given how backwater it has been for most of recorded history compared to well-developed states in Mesopotamia, China etc?
And to be clear, if you refuse to even contemplate questions like these, you just cede ground to people who will gleefully answer them for you with answers such as "because they are white, duh".
And to be clear, if you refuse to even contemplate questions like these, you just cede ground to people who will gleefully answer them for you with answers such as "because they are white, duh".
Because this particular question is based on outdated euro-centric view of history. It is kind of like asking the question “Why is the white man more intelligent than other races?”. Any answer to questions like these will not inform anybody, and at worst it will reinforce the suppositions this question makes, no matter how valid those suppositions actually are.
Now to be clear, I’m not accusing Jared Diamond of being a white supremacist (he obviously isn’t), just that this particular book smells of being and outdated and misdirected view of history which happens to cater to euro-centrists (probably unintentionally). And this is a bit ironic given how he is often put in the same camp as Howard Zinn, the history legend him self.
Now to be clear, I’m not accusing Jared Diamond of being a white supremacist (he obviously isn’t), just that this particular book smells of being and outdated and misdirected view of history which happens to cater to euro-centrists (probably unintentionally). And this is a bit ironic given how he is often put in the same camp as Howard Zinn, the history legend him self.
How is it based on "outdated euro-centric view of history"? The fact that Europeans curb-stomped every other civilization on the globe, including several other competing colonialist empires who were in the running long before, is a fact. Therefore, it must have an explanation. You can't just handwave it away as "because they tried", since they were not the only ones who tried. Sure, the answer can well be something like "blind luck at first, and then just a positive feedback loop" - but that is not the same as refusing to even consider the question, and if that is indeed the answer, then we should be able to find evidence for it and validate it.
(To be clear, I don't hold high opinion of Diamond's work, either.)
(To be clear, I don't hold high opinion of Diamond's work, either.)
You can use the same logic to justify any pseudo-scientific believes. ”The White man has proven himself to be wildly successful in every aspect of society, therefore white supremacy deserves an explanation”
> The fact that Europeans curb-stomped every other civilization on the globe
This is not a historical fact. And supposing it to be true is a prototypical example of euro-centrism. Yes Europe did engage in a brutal colonial campaign, causing horrors on a scale previously unheard of. But so did the Mongol empire, the Japanese imperial army, the Huns, Alexander the Great, etc.
Yes Europe colonized on a larger scale then before (but did so over a longer time period), but they didn’t colonize the entire world. There were other colonial ambitions which coexisted with Europe’s. For example, the Imperial Japan even won colonial wars against a European power, with colonial holdings (and border disputes) persisting to this day.
The question of how Europe did this, attributes something unique to Europe, and ignores the times when non-european powers were equally criminal. And you can see how this line of argument starts to break down by reading other posts in this thread. When you try to find what this is that makes Europe unique (Diamond argues environmental conditions) it most likely turns out either not be unique or otherwise completely irrelevant.
Euro-centrism has fallen out of favor among historians. We don’t study history anymore by presupposing there is something special about Europe.
> The fact that Europeans curb-stomped every other civilization on the globe
This is not a historical fact. And supposing it to be true is a prototypical example of euro-centrism. Yes Europe did engage in a brutal colonial campaign, causing horrors on a scale previously unheard of. But so did the Mongol empire, the Japanese imperial army, the Huns, Alexander the Great, etc.
Yes Europe colonized on a larger scale then before (but did so over a longer time period), but they didn’t colonize the entire world. There were other colonial ambitions which coexisted with Europe’s. For example, the Imperial Japan even won colonial wars against a European power, with colonial holdings (and border disputes) persisting to this day.
The question of how Europe did this, attributes something unique to Europe, and ignores the times when non-european powers were equally criminal. And you can see how this line of argument starts to break down by reading other posts in this thread. When you try to find what this is that makes Europe unique (Diamond argues environmental conditions) it most likely turns out either not be unique or otherwise completely irrelevant.
Euro-centrism has fallen out of favor among historians. We don’t study history anymore by presupposing there is something special about Europe.
Colonization is not just about boots on the ground. European dominance is a truth self-evident to anyone actually living on those other countries; just go and ask them! Even large and powerful countries like China are disproportionally influenced by Western culture and economics, while influence in the other direction is much more limited. In the "third world", election results in US are front-page news, because that matters to them in a very real way; but few people in US care (or even know) of politics in other countries.
All those other examples that you have listed are precisely why the question arises in the first place. E.g. Mongol Empire was a comparable project in intent, and wildly successful at the time (I hail from one of the places that were colonized by it). It also predated the European project. So, why aren't we living in a Mongol-dominated world today? Why did I have to learn English and not Mongol as my second language? Why did I have to emigrate to US and not to Mongolia to get paid more?
You seem to be responding from the assumption that I'm trying to push some kind of "white Europeans are superior" agenda, but this perspective is fundamentally wrong starting with the basic premise that the ability to dominate other cultures is a mark of superiority. I don't believe that it is; quite the opposite. But that doesn't negate the question of why Europeans are so much more successful at dominating than any of their competitors.
All those other examples that you have listed are precisely why the question arises in the first place. E.g. Mongol Empire was a comparable project in intent, and wildly successful at the time (I hail from one of the places that were colonized by it). It also predated the European project. So, why aren't we living in a Mongol-dominated world today? Why did I have to learn English and not Mongol as my second language? Why did I have to emigrate to US and not to Mongolia to get paid more?
You seem to be responding from the assumption that I'm trying to push some kind of "white Europeans are superior" agenda, but this perspective is fundamentally wrong starting with the basic premise that the ability to dominate other cultures is a mark of superiority. I don't believe that it is; quite the opposite. But that doesn't negate the question of why Europeans are so much more successful at dominating than any of their competitors.
> You seem to be responding from the assumption that I'm trying to push some kind of "white Europeans are superior" agenda.
I’m sorry that I did that. That wasn’t my intention.
I actually hail from a country which was colonized by a European country for centuries (albeit a fellow European country) but the cultural dominance of the Americans and the British (who didn’t colonize the country; but did occupy it for a brief period) are much greater than that of the the colonizers (they still make us learn Danish is school though).
So, yeah, I guess I see your point there.
I’m actually not gonna raise a counterpoint here, because I haven’t read the book and whatever I say is doomed to be misinformed. I still believe his work and the question is euro-centric though (and many critics seem to agree with me on that).
I’m sorry that I did that. That wasn’t my intention.
I actually hail from a country which was colonized by a European country for centuries (albeit a fellow European country) but the cultural dominance of the Americans and the British (who didn’t colonize the country; but did occupy it for a brief period) are much greater than that of the the colonizers (they still make us learn Danish is school though).
So, yeah, I guess I see your point there.
I’m actually not gonna raise a counterpoint here, because I haven’t read the book and whatever I say is doomed to be misinformed. I still believe his work and the question is euro-centric though (and many critics seem to agree with me on that).
One question I've had about domesticable animals that I've never seen addressed - likely because, to be fair, it's unfalsifiable - is How many of the North American large animal species wiped out in the first waves of human settlement would eventually have been domesticable? If the answer is "some, probably" (which doesn't seem unreasonable), then continuous human habitation is a relevant (continental) factor for cultural advancement.
There were horses, at least, not tremendously different morphologically from Asian species, but which (most likely) had not inherited an instinctual fear of humans.
There were horses, at least, not tremendously different morphologically from Asian species, but which (most likely) had not inherited an instinctual fear of humans.
An interesting section of GG&S addresses how zebras have never been domesticated (for a number of reasons) despite superficially seeming quite similar to horses.
My point is, I guess, it’s hard to know and counterfactuals with hypothetical species are probably not definitive.
My point is, I guess, it’s hard to know and counterfactuals with hypothetical species are probably not definitive.
Absolutely fair point: it is an unanswerable question. It's just... Aargh:
- Africa, Australia: continuous habitation; no suitable creatures.
- Europe, Asia: continuous habitation; suitable creatures.
- South America: recent habitation; no suitable creatures (discounting cameloids).
- North America: recent habitation; ???.
It's a tantalizing, permanent un-known that just invites speculation! Nothing wrong with indulging imagination a bit, so long as we recognize that's what we're doing.
- Africa, Australia: continuous habitation; no suitable creatures.
- Europe, Asia: continuous habitation; suitable creatures.
- South America: recent habitation; no suitable creatures (discounting cameloids).
- North America: recent habitation; ???.
It's a tantalizing, permanent un-known that just invites speculation! Nothing wrong with indulging imagination a bit, so long as we recognize that's what we're doing.
Can you offer cliff notes on what/why you found his argument persuasive?
For one who has relatively little interest in reading such a book, the claim seems quite outlandish. For instance Africa has everything from monkeys to elephants, and most have been tamed. Even the common exception of zebras isn't really an exception. One can find countless examples of them being tamed to varying degrees [1], but there seems to be no large scale and competent multi-generational effort to achieve that at scale. Taming in many species is a process that happens over many decades to centuries. And when you look at other places like Russia, everything from foxes to bears have been tamed.
[1] - https://www.npr.org/2014/09/20/349856240/my-little-zebra-it-...
For one who has relatively little interest in reading such a book, the claim seems quite outlandish. For instance Africa has everything from monkeys to elephants, and most have been tamed. Even the common exception of zebras isn't really an exception. One can find countless examples of them being tamed to varying degrees [1], but there seems to be no large scale and competent multi-generational effort to achieve that at scale. Taming in many species is a process that happens over many decades to centuries. And when you look at other places like Russia, everything from foxes to bears have been tamed.
[1] - https://www.npr.org/2014/09/20/349856240/my-little-zebra-it-...
Domesticated means more than tamed. Domesticated means bred in captivity for so many generations that their behavior and physique has changed. You can tame a wolf, but it won’t be a dog.
Of course this is true, but I'm not entirely sure of the implication? A tamed animal can be used for work, which is presumably the crux of his hypothesis?
Domesticated animals make more domesticated animals. Tamed animals make taming projects for their owners
Tamed animals also can generally reproduce in captivity, with exceptions being exceptions more than the rule. For instance zebras have yet to be domesticated but can be tamed, reproduce in captivity, and we've even created all sorts of hybrids since zebras also can reproduce with horses, donkeys and so on.
GP's point is that for tamed animals, each animal has to undergo the long and arduous taming process before it becomes docile enough to be "useful". With domesticated animals, this isn't really the case - just being raised around humans is sufficient.
Well yes, but it becomes easier and easier over time. And taming over generations can gradually trend towards domestication. For instance Russian experiments in domestication took something like 40 generations to create sustainably domesticated foxes, and that was starting with the cream of the crop in terms of sentiment - they were selectively pulling them from fox fur farms. For another example the horses we know of today are certainly very different creatures than the animals from which they were initially selectively bred.
So I think we're now getting back to the point. The idea that this all had a meaningful, let alone critical, impact on the overall evolution and competence of civilizations just seems quite irrational without some sort of major missing link that nobody seems to be able to provide.
So I think we're now getting back to the point. The idea that this all had a meaningful, let alone critical, impact on the overall evolution and competence of civilizations just seems quite irrational without some sort of major missing link that nobody seems to be able to provide.
The idea isn't that it has impact on "overall competence" of the civilization so much so that it has effect on their economy. Which matters when it comes to fielding armies, and thus to who conquers whom in the end.
FWIW I don't know if I buy this particular argument from Diamond myself in a sense that all those animals aren't possible to domesticate in principle. What is undeniable, though, is that horses and oxen are very efficient as beasts of burden. Which means that a single farmer can produce more surplus food to feed people doing other things (like say going to foreign lands to conquer them). And militarily, horses give you cavalry, of course, but perhaps even more importantly, they make military logistics that much more effective - and for pre-modern armies the logistics is often what defines their limits.
FWIW I don't know if I buy this particular argument from Diamond myself in a sense that all those animals aren't possible to domesticate in principle. What is undeniable, though, is that horses and oxen are very efficient as beasts of burden. Which means that a single farmer can produce more surplus food to feed people doing other things (like say going to foreign lands to conquer them). And militarily, horses give you cavalry, of course, but perhaps even more importantly, they make military logistics that much more effective - and for pre-modern armies the logistics is often what defines their limits.
You're certainly making some true statements, but I don't see how this can be retrofitted to explain the past in a meaningful fashion. So, for instance, Cortes near single handedly (in terms of foreign forces), conquered the Aztec Empire with an "army" of 508 Spaniards and 16 horses. It's not like there was some massive global logistics chain keeping one army supplied. He just had such an absurd technological and political advantage that he was able to convince the locals he was a god, and was able to dominate the local populations by leveraging that - whether in gathering disposable "allies", or conquering more hostile groups. Imagine, vice versa, that 500 Natives landed in Spain. It's quite improbable that they would have found themselves conquering Spain anytime soon.
And food, in general, is not particularly difficult to produce at scale. During the voyage his crew would have eaten nothing more than what the Aztecs would have had available - salted meats, dried carbs, and light alcohol. His primary advantage came from technology - metal working, gunpowder, weapons development, and so on. And all of these technologies were fully available to everybody in most of every part of the world, yet they failed to discover them. And that's ultimately what decided the winners and the losers in history.
So it seems to me that his argument must be boil down to horses causally lead to gunpowder and metal works. And one can try to argue such, but it's quite clearly contradicted not only by the obviously rather tenuous logic there, but also by the endless examples of civilizations which had one yet not the other, in both directions.
And food, in general, is not particularly difficult to produce at scale. During the voyage his crew would have eaten nothing more than what the Aztecs would have had available - salted meats, dried carbs, and light alcohol. His primary advantage came from technology - metal working, gunpowder, weapons development, and so on. And all of these technologies were fully available to everybody in most of every part of the world, yet they failed to discover them. And that's ultimately what decided the winners and the losers in history.
So it seems to me that his argument must be boil down to horses causally lead to gunpowder and metal works. And one can try to argue such, but it's quite clearly contradicted not only by the obviously rather tenuous logic there, but also by the endless examples of civilizations which had one yet not the other, in both directions.
Part of the reason why he had a massive technological advantage, though, is that he came from a society that had so many resources to spend on things that are strictly about waging war on its neighbors more effectively. And because its neighbors were also like that - they also had resources to spend on both the tech and the soldiers - both Spain and its opponents were engaged in a brutal never-ending arms race. So when Cortes came to the Americas, he came bearing all the fruit of that. Which in this case was technology, primarily.
With respect to food in general, it's not that it's difficult to produce at scale. But your ability to produce food is inherently limited by three factors - the land, the people to work that land, and the tech those people use. Now, pretty much any agricultural society can produce enough food to feed all the people who produce the food (and all other basic necessities besides). Everything past that point is surplus, which can then be spend to feed people who are not producing food. Which is first and foremost the rulers and the priests - and thus you start getting social stratification - but then also artisans (who make tools) and soldiers (who go and conquer more land to farm and subjugate more people to farm it). And, at some point, a portion of those elites - who have enough calories and enough leisure time to waste on "frivolous" activities not having to do with immediate survival - uses that time to do research that eventually translates to better tools. Furthermore, if their society is in a constant state of war with neighbors - as was the case in Europe for most of its history - those tools are likely to be better weapons specifically.
Horses are clearly not the single definitive factor here, but I don't see why it couldn't be a significant one. This whole setup I just described is clearly a positive feedback loop, so even relatively minor factors introduced early can compound massively over time. And if horses meant that a single European farmer could produce, say, as much food as two Incan farmers, that's a lot more resources that can be spent on waging war and on figuring out how to do it more efficiently.
I should note that the above is not a rehash of Diamond, but rather my own thoughts on this matter. Speaking for myself, I think that it's really the non-stop warfare in Europe, where no single entity managed to unify the entire continent and make it stick for long enough, that was the defining factor in pushing Europe ahead in military science specifically (and other things more or less incidental to that). And then its relatively small size meant that much of this aggressive potential was directed outside of the continent - as military tech progresses, wars of conquest against peer-level neighboring states become less and less lucrative, because you have to spend considerably more resources to conquer the same amount of land and population. Much easier to take all that tech you already have and go curb-stomp some civilization that doesn't have it yet.
With respect to food in general, it's not that it's difficult to produce at scale. But your ability to produce food is inherently limited by three factors - the land, the people to work that land, and the tech those people use. Now, pretty much any agricultural society can produce enough food to feed all the people who produce the food (and all other basic necessities besides). Everything past that point is surplus, which can then be spend to feed people who are not producing food. Which is first and foremost the rulers and the priests - and thus you start getting social stratification - but then also artisans (who make tools) and soldiers (who go and conquer more land to farm and subjugate more people to farm it). And, at some point, a portion of those elites - who have enough calories and enough leisure time to waste on "frivolous" activities not having to do with immediate survival - uses that time to do research that eventually translates to better tools. Furthermore, if their society is in a constant state of war with neighbors - as was the case in Europe for most of its history - those tools are likely to be better weapons specifically.
Horses are clearly not the single definitive factor here, but I don't see why it couldn't be a significant one. This whole setup I just described is clearly a positive feedback loop, so even relatively minor factors introduced early can compound massively over time. And if horses meant that a single European farmer could produce, say, as much food as two Incan farmers, that's a lot more resources that can be spent on waging war and on figuring out how to do it more efficiently.
I should note that the above is not a rehash of Diamond, but rather my own thoughts on this matter. Speaking for myself, I think that it's really the non-stop warfare in Europe, where no single entity managed to unify the entire continent and make it stick for long enough, that was the defining factor in pushing Europe ahead in military science specifically (and other things more or less incidental to that). And then its relatively small size meant that much of this aggressive potential was directed outside of the continent - as military tech progresses, wars of conquest against peer-level neighboring states become less and less lucrative, because you have to spend considerably more resources to conquer the same amount of land and population. Much easier to take all that tech you already have and go curb-stomp some civilization that doesn't have it yet.
One surprising fact is that hunter-gatherer societies actually have substantially more free time than agricultural ones! [1] Something probably less surpising is that And Native American tribes, African tribes, and well pretty much everybody everywhere was also constantly at war! Europe was not especially unique in that regard, at all.
I also have to add that many of the advances we're talking about are not things that require any sort of special preconditions. I can setup a furnace capable of creating and forming steel in my backyard out of clay, straw, wood, and perhaps some leather if I really want to go all out and add a billows. Similarly I can even make gunpowder in my backyard - straw, wood/charcoal, sulfur, urine, and you're good to go! One curious and experimental individual is all it takes to reshape a people.
At least if they're willing to be reshaped. There's a lot of weird things in history. For instance the Zulu were a warlike people, yet their traditional shield was made of cowhide! And it was "real" - not just ceremonial/ornamental. Obviously they were aware of the possibility of making one out of thin wood, which might be a bit heavier yet orders of magnitude more protective - yet they chose not to. Similarly they preferred to fight near naked, as opposed to wearing cowhides - which again, I think it goes without saying they were aware of the possibility of.
Even simple things like fortifications seem to largely have not been a thing in much of the world in spite of never-ending wars. Simple wooden defenses, moats, etc are utterly trivial to construct, and that sets you almost immediately down the technological path towards the massive spiraling castles that would end up dotting the European landscape. But most of these other cultures simply failed to create such things.
----
EDIT: You know, thinking about this some more - I can even see this weirdness in our own cultures today. For instance everybody knows that fertility rates are plummeting to the point that most Western societies stand a large risk of simply dying off. Yet most people simply shrug. It may be that the first 'grand reshaping' of Earth was technology, but the second may simply be fertility. And an anthropologist looking back find himself struggling to answer why it was that people simply didn't adapt when the answer was right in front of them. And living through this, perhaps there is no answer - certainly no neat and tidy one.
[1] - https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-01... (short and highly readable)
I also have to add that many of the advances we're talking about are not things that require any sort of special preconditions. I can setup a furnace capable of creating and forming steel in my backyard out of clay, straw, wood, and perhaps some leather if I really want to go all out and add a billows. Similarly I can even make gunpowder in my backyard - straw, wood/charcoal, sulfur, urine, and you're good to go! One curious and experimental individual is all it takes to reshape a people.
At least if they're willing to be reshaped. There's a lot of weird things in history. For instance the Zulu were a warlike people, yet their traditional shield was made of cowhide! And it was "real" - not just ceremonial/ornamental. Obviously they were aware of the possibility of making one out of thin wood, which might be a bit heavier yet orders of magnitude more protective - yet they chose not to. Similarly they preferred to fight near naked, as opposed to wearing cowhides - which again, I think it goes without saying they were aware of the possibility of.
Even simple things like fortifications seem to largely have not been a thing in much of the world in spite of never-ending wars. Simple wooden defenses, moats, etc are utterly trivial to construct, and that sets you almost immediately down the technological path towards the massive spiraling castles that would end up dotting the European landscape. But most of these other cultures simply failed to create such things.
----
EDIT: You know, thinking about this some more - I can even see this weirdness in our own cultures today. For instance everybody knows that fertility rates are plummeting to the point that most Western societies stand a large risk of simply dying off. Yet most people simply shrug. It may be that the first 'grand reshaping' of Earth was technology, but the second may simply be fertility. And an anthropologist looking back find himself struggling to answer why it was that people simply didn't adapt when the answer was right in front of them. And living through this, perhaps there is no answer - certainly no neat and tidy one.
[1] - https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-01... (short and highly readable)
The domestication if animals has far more to do with the humans domesticating them than the animals.
You're going to need to elaborate on what exactly you mean if you make an incendiary claim like that.
Jared Diamond's argument is that for an animal to be domesticated it needs to have a very specific collection of traits—tameability and ability to breed in captivity being two important ones—and that there weren't any sufficiently good candidates for domestication in the Americas, Africa, or Australia (besides the llama in South America, which they did domesticate).
With which part of this argument do you disagree? What candidates would you propose for domestication in non-Eurasian continents?
Jared Diamond's argument is that for an animal to be domesticated it needs to have a very specific collection of traits—tameability and ability to breed in captivity being two important ones—and that there weren't any sufficiently good candidates for domestication in the Americas, Africa, or Australia (besides the llama in South America, which they did domesticate).
With which part of this argument do you disagree? What candidates would you propose for domestication in non-Eurasian continents?
It seems obvious that selection for affinity to humans would occur naturally over time, with humans being a good food source (trash, if nothing else), and animals that were proximate to humans but non threatening becoming very successful over time.
Does the Norwegian rat count as having been domesticated?
Yes, people keep them as pets, play with them, etc.
There are also large wild populations.
There are also large wild populations.
Not all rats are good at being pets. If they were, the bushy tailed wood rat would be in every pet store
I can't argue with that, but the question was about Norwegian rats. The bushy-tailed wood rat isn't even in the same taxonomic family. It's just called a rat.
There are many animals who have such affinity with humans, but most of them have not been successfully domesticated, so it's not that simple.
And it does seem rather obvious on its face that animals exhibiting certain kinds of social behavior, for example, would more readily adapt to a symbiotic relationship with humans than others.
And it does seem rather obvious on its face that animals exhibiting certain kinds of social behavior, for example, would more readily adapt to a symbiotic relationship with humans than others.
But what about Turkeys, dogs, ducks and guinea pigs. They were also domesticated in the Americas, do they not count as well?
Also why the focus on animals, some of the very best crops we have today (e.g. the potato) were originally bread in the Americas for thousands of years before contact.
Also why the focus on animals, some of the very best crops we have today (e.g. the potato) were originally bread in the Americas for thousands of years before contact.
None of them can pull a plow or carry a soldier.
I haven’t read much about Inuit warfare, but there was nothing stopping them from using their dogs, bred for hauling heavy loads over vast distances, for carry soldiers. Same with the llamas. No doubt the Inkas used llamas for warfare, and if they wanted to, they probably could have bred them to carry soldiers, just like how camels and dromedaries were.
Also, North America had buffalo. I fail to see anything inherent in the North American buffalo which would prevent it from being bred to plow a field the same way that the Water Buffalo in Asia was bred.
Most likely the agricultural practices and warfare was different in the Americas which never drove the people living there to breed their animals for the same trades as in Europe and Asia.
Also, North America had buffalo. I fail to see anything inherent in the North American buffalo which would prevent it from being bred to plow a field the same way that the Water Buffalo in Asia was bred.
Most likely the agricultural practices and warfare was different in the Americas which never drove the people living there to breed their animals for the same trades as in Europe and Asia.
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My god, reading some of these comments is like pulling teeth. "But what about...", how about some of these people stop and think about their arguments first before just randomly throwing them into the open? I don't understand this form of discussion or what they hope to achieve with these ridiculously weak "aha" arguments that simply don't hold water. Is it bad faith? Bad education? Lack of self-reflection?
Well I think it's safe to say that near 0% of people have read his book, and the hypothesis put forward is far from intuitive. It's also easy to see it as probably being motivated by ideology, as it falls right in line with certain social trends. So this is going to have a pretty polarizing effect. People who adopt to said ideology are going to be inclined to accept it with minimal questioning, and vice versa people who challenge said ideology are probably just going to eye roll and completely dismiss it with about as much consideration as the equal but opposite group gave it.
So it would probably help if somebody compellingly laid out his hypothesis, at least as it relates to animals, while making some reasonable effort to account for the countless self evident arguments against it.
So it would probably help if somebody compellingly laid out his hypothesis, at least as it relates to animals, while making some reasonable effort to account for the countless self evident arguments against it.
That is right, I haven’t read the book, and I’m probably never going to. I’ve read some of Diamonds other work, and I have heard this argument a lot (particularly about the animals) and like you said, there is a lot of self evident arguments against it. Not just the fact that there were domesticated animals in the Americas, but also like the buffalo existed (and was probably semi-domesticated like the reindeer in Sápmi) and could probably be domesticated just as easily as the Water Buffalo in Asia.
But I have a deeper problem with Diamond’s book, and the main reason I will probably never read this book, is the fact that I believe he is asking the wrong question. The question of European colonization should not be about capability, but of consequence.
Brutal armies have in the past from all over the world been able to siege, occupy, colonize and genocide vast areas with nothing superior but their brutality. The Mongol army for examlple might have had a superior breed of horses, but what they had above else was complete disregard of the human lives of their victims. Same with the Huns, or the Japanese imperial army, and yes, colonial Europe.
Guns Germs and Steel (the explanation, not the book) sound to me like a post hoc analysis, an overfit if you will, to fit history neatly between the lines, and tie it together with a nice bow. Asking the question, „but how could Europe do this?“ is an extremely colonialist thing to do, a euro-centric world view. If Jared Diamond wanted to do history, he wouldn’t ask this question. He would ask: „what were the consequences of actual people victims of these crimes?“ Yes this is ideology, but I would argue that Diamond is also full of an awful world view which doesn’t fit in historic analysis of this century.
But I have a deeper problem with Diamond’s book, and the main reason I will probably never read this book, is the fact that I believe he is asking the wrong question. The question of European colonization should not be about capability, but of consequence.
Brutal armies have in the past from all over the world been able to siege, occupy, colonize and genocide vast areas with nothing superior but their brutality. The Mongol army for examlple might have had a superior breed of horses, but what they had above else was complete disregard of the human lives of their victims. Same with the Huns, or the Japanese imperial army, and yes, colonial Europe.
Guns Germs and Steel (the explanation, not the book) sound to me like a post hoc analysis, an overfit if you will, to fit history neatly between the lines, and tie it together with a nice bow. Asking the question, „but how could Europe do this?“ is an extremely colonialist thing to do, a euro-centric world view. If Jared Diamond wanted to do history, he wouldn’t ask this question. He would ask: „what were the consequences of actual people victims of these crimes?“ Yes this is ideology, but I would argue that Diamond is also full of an awful world view which doesn’t fit in historic analysis of this century.
The only thing it needs is breedability in captivity. You can selectively breed for "tameability" over time.
how long they live before reproduction, reproduction rate, edibility (while you're waiting for them to be tame), in-captivity behavior, what they eat, etc matter a lot since they are the variables going into the equation for how many 100s or thousands of years you're going to have to devote to this.
Also, if they are basically useless now, most groups won't even realize there's a point to starting to tame them.
Also, if they are basically useless now, most groups won't even realize there's a point to starting to tame them.
Technically, perhaps, but maybe it takes more time than a low-tech society can afford. That's close enough to untameable for practical purposes.
Why could a low tech society not afford time?
A low tech society may not have the surplus to run a wild animal breeding programme for multiple generations without interruption.
I think in this theory, it wouldn't be a program so much as it is people leaving scraps behind, animals learning that humans are a beneficial food source, and a symbiotic relationship naturally developing over time (measured in centuries).
That's very much an example of having the animal become tameable before breeding them in captivity.
Yes, thank you, that's more precisely put.
That's not always true.
Go domesticate a tiger shark ...
Diamond’s ideas seemed pretty intuitive to me. The idea that geography is the primary shaper of civilisations seems _very_ likely to be true in general. I’ve read other books on the impact of geography on military defence and how that shapes geopolitics, for example.
Having worked in academia for many years, when I see academics attack a book such as GGS my instinct is to question their motives. Academics can be very egotistical and territorial. A priori, it is very difficult to imagine a situation where academics would say to any book like Diamond’s “oh yes this is a really great point and we need to learn from this guy” and very very likely to say “this guy doesn’t know anything about (less important factors that I know a lot about)! What an idiot! He even gets the date of this event wrong, proving I am clever and he is wrong.”
So when I hear about academics attacking something that seems to be fairly obviously correct at least at a very general level, my instinct is not “oh, yes, this guy must be completely wrong” but rather “this guy is probably mostly right but of course there will be a lot of other factors and it will be very easy to pick apart his book if you so wish, especially if your ego relies on you finding fault with him.”
I’m not so easily dissuaded that GGS isn’t mostly right that geography and in particular agricultural factors are the broad strokes of history, rather than the less permanent and smaller scale “Gaussian noise” of cultural events that intuitively are likely to mostly even out over time.
Having worked in academia for many years, when I see academics attack a book such as GGS my instinct is to question their motives. Academics can be very egotistical and territorial. A priori, it is very difficult to imagine a situation where academics would say to any book like Diamond’s “oh yes this is a really great point and we need to learn from this guy” and very very likely to say “this guy doesn’t know anything about (less important factors that I know a lot about)! What an idiot! He even gets the date of this event wrong, proving I am clever and he is wrong.”
So when I hear about academics attacking something that seems to be fairly obviously correct at least at a very general level, my instinct is not “oh, yes, this guy must be completely wrong” but rather “this guy is probably mostly right but of course there will be a lot of other factors and it will be very easy to pick apart his book if you so wish, especially if your ego relies on you finding fault with him.”
I’m not so easily dissuaded that GGS isn’t mostly right that geography and in particular agricultural factors are the broad strokes of history, rather than the less permanent and smaller scale “Gaussian noise” of cultural events that intuitively are likely to mostly even out over time.
In fighting there are various factors at place, the size and speed of those in the fight, the area they are in, the training. Some areas are more conducive to victory for specific body types and training. This kind of dynamic plays out everywhere, the race is not always to the swift but you should place your bets that way.
Geographical factors would seem to be this kind of importance that establishes a long dominance and strong chance of success, sure, but what Geographical factor allowed for Industrialism to be established in Western Civilization, with all the force multipliers that Industrialism gives? Almost all countries nowadays are industrialized therefore there is no geographical factor that prevents industrialization in those nations.
Finally, historical trends seem not really to last more than 200-400 years, which 200 years really seems like the kind of thing that can be effected by a cultural issue - somebody who was a really bad king came along and reined for 70 years and destroyed the country, now you're in a weakened condition and get picked on by everyone else for the next 130 years. Yeah - your country's rich geographical resources finally lead to comeback but it just does not seem a very profound or interesting point the more I think about it.
Geographical factors would seem to be this kind of importance that establishes a long dominance and strong chance of success, sure, but what Geographical factor allowed for Industrialism to be established in Western Civilization, with all the force multipliers that Industrialism gives? Almost all countries nowadays are industrialized therefore there is no geographical factor that prevents industrialization in those nations.
Finally, historical trends seem not really to last more than 200-400 years, which 200 years really seems like the kind of thing that can be effected by a cultural issue - somebody who was a really bad king came along and reined for 70 years and destroyed the country, now you're in a weakened condition and get picked on by everyone else for the next 130 years. Yeah - your country's rich geographical resources finally lead to comeback but it just does not seem a very profound or interesting point the more I think about it.
>Geographical factors would seem to be this kind of importance that establishes a long dominance and strong chance of success, sure, but what Geographical factor allowed for Industrialism to be established in Western Civilization, with all the force multipliers that Industrialism gives? Almost all countries nowadays are industrialized therefore there is no geographical factor that prevents industrialization in those nations.
the Industrial Revolution started because Great Britain had an over abundance of coal, so another point for the geographical theory?
the Industrial Revolution started because Great Britain had an over abundance of coal, so another point for the geographical theory?
also Rome had access to Britain's coal, there were steam turbines available in 1 B.C, in other words the geographical requirements for industrialism existed a long time ago and the people who had access to these things were not idiots and had a relatively strong organizational system.
I would say Printing is the most important explanation for the Industrial revolution, allowing spread of science through the West, and at the same time providing an example of a technology that was successful and financially beneficial. If you're smart, coming up, and see that other smart people became financially successful by building tools it drives your ambition.
I would say Printing is the most important explanation for the Industrial revolution, allowing spread of science through the West, and at the same time providing an example of a technology that was successful and financially beneficial. If you're smart, coming up, and see that other smart people became financially successful by building tools it drives your ambition.
Printing didn't require a lot of power. The Romans didn't have the precision (though arguably could have acquired that skill) to build decent steam engines, but more importantly they had no use for that power.
The most compelling explanation I've read about the convergence of trade, textiles, free-energy (coal), and engines is one that comes up on HN periodically:
https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...
The most compelling explanation I've read about the convergence of trade, textiles, free-energy (coal), and engines is one that comes up on HN periodically:
https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...
Saying they had access to steam turbines is wildly overstating the case. They had toys that span round and round, but nothing that could produce useful horsepower.
You need metallurgy considerably more advanced than the Romans had in order to make a useful steam engine.
You need metallurgy considerably more advanced than the Romans had in order to make a useful steam engine.
> the Industrial Revolution started because Great Britain had an over abundance of coal, so another point for the geographical theory?
One thing that bothers me is, before that Netherlands had an abundance of windmills. So why was the industrial english and coal powered and not dutch and wind powered?
One thing that bothers me is, before that Netherlands had an abundance of windmills. So why was the industrial english and coal powered and not dutch and wind powered?
China is the largest coal producing country in the world. Why did China not have an industrial revolution?
China has a very centralized structure, he who holds the central planes is king of the hill. So technological competition like in the battle sponge of Europe never took off.
Centralization is then arch nemesis of progress.
Centralization is then arch nemesis of progress.
Not that it changes your point in the slightest, but China is about the size of all western Europe, so that should be more like "why didn't Shaanxi[0] have an industrial revolution?"
[0] picked for size, not mineral abundance; I don't want to waste time delving into exactly which part of China is currently mining however much coal.
[0] picked for size, not mineral abundance; I don't want to waste time delving into exactly which part of China is currently mining however much coal.
> what Geographical factor allowed for Industrialism to be established in Western Civilization, with all the force multipliers that Industrialism gives?
Wasn't there a whole book devoted to exploring exactly this question?
Now what was its name…
Wasn't there a whole book devoted to exploring exactly this question?
Now what was its name…
It has been a very long time since I read GGS, but I can tell you haven't yet... and judging from this comment I bet you would find it fascinating.
To give a top-of-my-foggy-memory answer to your question about industrialization, here are some of the contributing factors as I recall:
- Head-start: agricultural settlements started in Mesopotamia about 10k BCE, and branched out from there. That's the earliest record we have anywhere in the world of a farming culture which allowed specialized classes to emerge (builders, rulers, administrators, inventors, etc etc) and the basis for emerging technology. e.g. in the Americas it looks like this happened 5k years later.
- More wild plant and animal species suitable for domestication. Only a small % of wild plants and animals are suitable and useful for domestication, and they were overwhelmingly concentrated in Europe. Wheat, barley, and beans were farmed earlier and are easier to farm than rice (East Asia) and potatoes/corn (Americas). There are no African or American animals with the capacity for burden and domesticability of european horses, donkeys, and oxen, and we haven't even talked about cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, etc.
- the mix of small arable geographical area and concentrated population centers led to constant war in Europe, which drove a lot of technological innovation, especially in metallurgy. Europe is also particularly rich in iron and coal, which gave another advantage to pre-industrial tech branches (to use a Civilization analogy). In contrast, China was extremely politically stable and had less need for tools of war like hardened steel.
- The relatively limited available land and population also motivated invention in European farming methods, which was not the case in e.g. China, where human labor is in many places still cheaper than technological efficiency. Human labor intensive farming methods from the 6th century are still in use in many parts of China, because that's just more effective than the alternative.
- Constant war improved infrastructure between cities, too (thank you Roman empire). Hundreds of years later this accelerated trade beween population centers, contributing to many features that characterize industrialization as it happened in Europe. Including: a merchant class, production geogrpahically separated from sale, etc.
- Early advantages were determining factors in colonialism and wealth extraction from other continents. i.e. because Europe had better guns, more germs, and better steel (ha), when they arrived in the Americas they wiped out the indigenous populations.
Please don't take this as a unilateral endorsement of the ideas in the book - I'm not qualified! If nothing else the whole question is post-hoc... "why did Europe achieve European-defined success before any other continent achieved European-defined success?" In any case the ideas are interesting and I bet you would enjoy thinking about them, as I did.
To give a top-of-my-foggy-memory answer to your question about industrialization, here are some of the contributing factors as I recall:
- Head-start: agricultural settlements started in Mesopotamia about 10k BCE, and branched out from there. That's the earliest record we have anywhere in the world of a farming culture which allowed specialized classes to emerge (builders, rulers, administrators, inventors, etc etc) and the basis for emerging technology. e.g. in the Americas it looks like this happened 5k years later.
- More wild plant and animal species suitable for domestication. Only a small % of wild plants and animals are suitable and useful for domestication, and they were overwhelmingly concentrated in Europe. Wheat, barley, and beans were farmed earlier and are easier to farm than rice (East Asia) and potatoes/corn (Americas). There are no African or American animals with the capacity for burden and domesticability of european horses, donkeys, and oxen, and we haven't even talked about cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, etc.
- the mix of small arable geographical area and concentrated population centers led to constant war in Europe, which drove a lot of technological innovation, especially in metallurgy. Europe is also particularly rich in iron and coal, which gave another advantage to pre-industrial tech branches (to use a Civilization analogy). In contrast, China was extremely politically stable and had less need for tools of war like hardened steel.
- The relatively limited available land and population also motivated invention in European farming methods, which was not the case in e.g. China, where human labor is in many places still cheaper than technological efficiency. Human labor intensive farming methods from the 6th century are still in use in many parts of China, because that's just more effective than the alternative.
- Constant war improved infrastructure between cities, too (thank you Roman empire). Hundreds of years later this accelerated trade beween population centers, contributing to many features that characterize industrialization as it happened in Europe. Including: a merchant class, production geogrpahically separated from sale, etc.
- Early advantages were determining factors in colonialism and wealth extraction from other continents. i.e. because Europe had better guns, more germs, and better steel (ha), when they arrived in the Americas they wiped out the indigenous populations.
Please don't take this as a unilateral endorsement of the ideas in the book - I'm not qualified! If nothing else the whole question is post-hoc... "why did Europe achieve European-defined success before any other continent achieved European-defined success?" In any case the ideas are interesting and I bet you would enjoy thinking about them, as I did.
OK maybe I'm dull here but it seems to me most of these ideas where well understood, so I don't think I would be incredibly impressed since they are mainly what I understand to be the case.
That they had more germs not sure about, my take on the germs part has always been the same thing you have with any invasive species in a new environment. It is mathematically easier for them to spread their germs to indigenous population .
So it seems like the book is mainly a condensation of the widely understood historical narrative (although maybe my knowledge of what is understood is out of date as I have not read so much history in the last 20 years, most of my history reading having been in my teens)
However, while I agree that geography is an important contributor to success in endeavors it is imho not a determinant. It seems to me that industrialism could have arisen a few places and times in the history of the world but it didn't, that it did in Britain, sure, the environment was favorable, but a lot of things led into it. So many things that it becomes in many ways a clever Connections type discussion where you connect one thing you would not think was connected to the outcome - for example does this guy talk about the Black Plagues influence on Industrialization? https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/black-death-and-industrialisa...
probably it's a pretty easy connection to make but still almost everything can be connected and when the thing comes about you say HAH all these things here together made it, the perfect soup! But there were all sorts of soups in the past that did not achieve perfection, and I don't think there is a convincing argument why that is.
on edit: tldr - I don't think the Industrial revolution was destined to start in Britain in the mid 1700s because of some combination of Geographical factors. If it hadn't started there it would have started somewhere else later - probably in the U.S. Or it could have started much earlier, but many factors did not pan out in just the right way in the past when it was possible for Industrialism to start.
That they had more germs not sure about, my take on the germs part has always been the same thing you have with any invasive species in a new environment. It is mathematically easier for them to spread their germs to indigenous population .
So it seems like the book is mainly a condensation of the widely understood historical narrative (although maybe my knowledge of what is understood is out of date as I have not read so much history in the last 20 years, most of my history reading having been in my teens)
However, while I agree that geography is an important contributor to success in endeavors it is imho not a determinant. It seems to me that industrialism could have arisen a few places and times in the history of the world but it didn't, that it did in Britain, sure, the environment was favorable, but a lot of things led into it. So many things that it becomes in many ways a clever Connections type discussion where you connect one thing you would not think was connected to the outcome - for example does this guy talk about the Black Plagues influence on Industrialization? https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/black-death-and-industrialisa...
probably it's a pretty easy connection to make but still almost everything can be connected and when the thing comes about you say HAH all these things here together made it, the perfect soup! But there were all sorts of soups in the past that did not achieve perfection, and I don't think there is a convincing argument why that is.
on edit: tldr - I don't think the Industrial revolution was destined to start in Britain in the mid 1700s because of some combination of Geographical factors. If it hadn't started there it would have started somewhere else later - probably in the U.S. Or it could have started much earlier, but many factors did not pan out in just the right way in the past when it was possible for Industrialism to start.
That they had more germs not sure about, my take on the germs part has always been the same thing you have with any invasive species in a new environment. It is mathematically easier for them to spread their germs to indigenous population
There was one major disease Europeans brought back from the Americas: syphilis.
Otherwise, the raft of diseases Europeans brought to the Americas (which devastated the indigenous populations) can be specifically traced back to animal husbandry. The intensity of Europeans’ relationship to domestic animals plus all of the wild animals living in urban areas in close proximity to humans (such as rats) is what led to Europeans being potential carriers of so many diseases. You simply get way more disease exposure from farming (cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, poultry) and living in cities (rats, mice, cats, dogs, bats, insects) than you do in small hunting or fishing villages.
So the germs axis is part of Diamond’s geography argument. Proximity to domesticable animals and cereal grains leads to more exposure to disease, greater concentrations of population, and therefore devastating plagues. Those who survived the plagues had the potential to be asymptomatic carriers who would eventually bring destruction to the indigenous people of the Americas.
There was one major disease Europeans brought back from the Americas: syphilis.
Otherwise, the raft of diseases Europeans brought to the Americas (which devastated the indigenous populations) can be specifically traced back to animal husbandry. The intensity of Europeans’ relationship to domestic animals plus all of the wild animals living in urban areas in close proximity to humans (such as rats) is what led to Europeans being potential carriers of so many diseases. You simply get way more disease exposure from farming (cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, poultry) and living in cities (rats, mice, cats, dogs, bats, insects) than you do in small hunting or fishing villages.
So the germs axis is part of Diamond’s geography argument. Proximity to domesticable animals and cereal grains leads to more exposure to disease, greater concentrations of population, and therefore devastating plagues. Those who survived the plagues had the potential to be asymptomatic carriers who would eventually bring destruction to the indigenous people of the Americas.
> I agree that geography is an important contributor to success in endeavors it is imho not a determinant.
Does anyone claim it's determinant? I thought the claim was merely that these factors make the outcome more likely.
Does anyone claim it's determinant? I thought the claim was merely that these factors make the outcome more likely.
It seemed to me that the original post I was replying to felt it was determinant, but maybe I was reading too strictly.
yes, that is exactly the topic discussed in the book. To what extent is this narrative, and to what extent determinism, is exactly the discussion _around_ the book. Seems like an area of interest for you which is why I recommended it. Definitely geared towards a popular audience but well-researched, engaging, and thought/discussion provoking .
I think his theory on what happened to Easter island has been debunked?
I wasn't convinced by guns germs and steel at all. It seemed to ignore the fact that western Europe was a cultural backwater for most of known history.
Anyway it was a long time ago that I read it, so I could be remembering it wrong.
Northern Europe didn't take off until the invention of the moldboard plough. The Romans took advantage of the looser, sandier soils around the Mediterranean which didn't need such a heavy plough to work. To bring the moldboard plough into fruition required the development of better steel and the breeding of heavy horses, something that was just not possible earlier on.
Diamond explicitly calls out the fact that Western Europe was a backwater for most of history until a few hundred years ago in the first dozen pages of the book.
"Academics can be very ...territorial"
Ironic statement given the context.
Ironic statement given the context.
Ah yes, the ''this feels right to me, a layman who knows nothing about it, so clearly he is right and people attacking him just are out for a cheap hit'' defense. A classic.
No, just I have a lot of experience of academia so I’m wary of motives.
Well, one could always just read the paper and judge the science. Your comment above almost sounds like you won't because you think it's not worth reading it.
That’s a fair point. I skimmed it and got the gist of their approach, but I didn’t deep dive. It’s very hard to do what they’re trying to do rigorously. The real problem lies in the formulation of the question. It also doesn’t feel like they’ve “steelmanned” the original thesis, which is suspicious (tbf it’s rare in most of academia to see folks genuinely try to disprove their own position).
So you are wary of the motives of academics saying ''this is wrong for these reasons', but you dont think that Diamond has any motives, so you take his argument at face value (because it aligns with your feelings on the subject most likely)?
Not sure why downvoted, maybe because it’s a bit of a personal attack on me.
Well, we can say everyone has motives but that does not mean some incentives are more misaligned than others. So it’s not really a counter argument to say “everyone has motives”.
I wouldn’t say it’s my “feelings”, but my common sense, which is mostly derived from wider reading.
Quite often we wish to overcomplicate subjects to make them seem sophisticated. But many topics just don’t lend them to the complex analysis of say, high energy physics, they’re just much more prosaic. It’s ok to say “someone who lives near the sea has accessed to an additional food source and that’s probably beneficial” (as a random example) without having to write a thesis on it.
I defer to Charlie Munger on this topic, as he expresses it so well.
Well, we can say everyone has motives but that does not mean some incentives are more misaligned than others. So it’s not really a counter argument to say “everyone has motives”.
I wouldn’t say it’s my “feelings”, but my common sense, which is mostly derived from wider reading.
Quite often we wish to overcomplicate subjects to make them seem sophisticated. But many topics just don’t lend them to the complex analysis of say, high energy physics, they’re just much more prosaic. It’s ok to say “someone who lives near the sea has accessed to an additional food source and that’s probably beneficial” (as a random example) without having to write a thesis on it.
I defer to Charlie Munger on this topic, as he expresses it so well.
Even if the layout of the land didn't give an advantage to Eurasia + Mediterranean Africa, the sheer size did. It had a lot more arable land, more space for nomadic tribes (capable of fast travel and spread of culture and technology), more resources, more people. Brief study of geography and climate would make it obvious that areas like Mediterranean, Middle East, India and China will become centers of civilization. All these were connected by land and sea routes, that made it possible to exchange knowledge (and germs). Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia didn't stand a chance.
The Americas and Australia lacked horses until their (re-)introduction by europeans, whie sub-saharan Africa resisted repeated attempts to introduce horses.
We can guess the effect that might have on exchanges by considering: unmounted but encumbered people travel at about 25km/day; spanish missions in California were about 50km apart; Pony Express riders with relay remounts could cover 120km/day.
We can guess the effect that might have on exchanges by considering: unmounted but encumbered people travel at about 25km/day; spanish missions in California were about 50km apart; Pony Express riders with relay remounts could cover 120km/day.
You make it sound like sub-Saharan Africans were offered an unparalleled opportunity with horses and rejected them out of some sort of pique. A quick search indicates that endemic diseases in the region made the husbanding of horses completely impractical until they could be bred over centuries to be resistant to the diseases transmitted as easily as say... a bite from an insect.
The Pony Express lasted all of 18 months and was apparently financially unsustainable.
The Pony Express lasted all of 18 months and was apparently financially unsustainable.
You make it sound like the Pony Express simply went bankrupt when the primary cause for its closure was the completion of the transcontinental telegraph.
In 1491 people in mountainous South America had domesticated alpacas and llamas, which are better suited than horses for steep, alpine slopes. The horse was quickly abandoned by Spaniards in such terrain.
Draft horses are going to be a lot better at hauling and plowing fields. The fact that they don't work well in mountainous South America goes to show how more difficult the geography there is. Which kind of Jared Diamond's point. The Incans were very well adapted to their environment, but their spawnpoint wasn't easy mode.
Sure, but it's impossible to build a wealthy society using alpacas as pack animals over mountains. A horse or ox pulling a cart over relatively flat terrain is far more efficient.
The Incans were quite wealthy and advanced. As said by the official secretary of Pizarro [1]: “The city of Cuzco, being the primary place where the lords made their residence, is so great and so beautiful and with so many buildings that it would be worthy to be seen in Spain”.
On a fortress of the city: “Many Spaniards who have seen it, and who went to Lombardy and other foreign kingdoms,” he adds, “say they have not seen another building like this fortress nor a stronger castle.”
In any event, the advantages of stronger pack animals are only significant if you can create wheeled carts. The Incans, like most Mesoamerican civilizations, had limited access to metals and advanced metallurgy preventing them from widespread usage of wheels as a means of facilitating travel. Without wheels, the amount of distance most animals can go while carrying their supplies is fairly similar.
If I recall correctly, it is something on the order of 150 km, regardless of horse, ox, or even human. If you have to carry your food and water you can only go around 150 km with what you can carry. That means proportional consumption rate is highly similar, so two animals that can carry 100 kg is not materially different than one animal that can carry 200 kg. Under that model you would probably actually prefer smaller pack animals to reduce concentrated risk of animal loss and improve maneuverability.
You actually can do better since animals like horses can efficiently graze, but that heavily limits your transportation speed and weight maximums for commerce purposes and you still need to feed the humans.
Incidentally this is why rivers are so important in early civilization. Barges on rivers bypass the fundamental distance limit even without wind. Floaty boat and a stick to push off the banks/riverbed dominates almost everything else for commerce.
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterl...
On a fortress of the city: “Many Spaniards who have seen it, and who went to Lombardy and other foreign kingdoms,” he adds, “say they have not seen another building like this fortress nor a stronger castle.”
In any event, the advantages of stronger pack animals are only significant if you can create wheeled carts. The Incans, like most Mesoamerican civilizations, had limited access to metals and advanced metallurgy preventing them from widespread usage of wheels as a means of facilitating travel. Without wheels, the amount of distance most animals can go while carrying their supplies is fairly similar.
If I recall correctly, it is something on the order of 150 km, regardless of horse, ox, or even human. If you have to carry your food and water you can only go around 150 km with what you can carry. That means proportional consumption rate is highly similar, so two animals that can carry 100 kg is not materially different than one animal that can carry 200 kg. Under that model you would probably actually prefer smaller pack animals to reduce concentrated risk of animal loss and improve maneuverability.
You actually can do better since animals like horses can efficiently graze, but that heavily limits your transportation speed and weight maximums for commerce purposes and you still need to feed the humans.
Incidentally this is why rivers are so important in early civilization. Barges on rivers bypass the fundamental distance limit even without wind. Floaty boat and a stick to push off the banks/riverbed dominates almost everything else for commerce.
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renaissance-quarterl...
The Incas had a handful of fancy residences for the ruling class. The society as a whole was very poor. Even if they had more metal available they lacked the economic surplus that would have been necessary to ever accomplish anything of significance.
You are going to need to support that blanket assertion with some references.
The capital city of the Incan empire, Cusco, is estimated to have had a population of ~40,000 [1] ruling over an estimated 10,000,000 people.
The capital city of Spain at the time, Toledo, had a population of a mere ~32,000 [2] at the time ruling a population of a mere 6.5 million at the time.
Contemporaneous accounts demonstrate the comparable grandeur of their seats of power and more objective determinations demonstrate the comparability of scale and scope. It is not just “a handful of fancy residences” unless you apply that moniker to Spain as well.
For that matter, Spain in the early 1500s is not exactly a wealthy country. Their wealth largely came from their American conquests which resulted in what is believed to be a ~300-600% increase in the amount of European-accessible gold and silver [4]. It is a little hard to determine how much came from plunder and how much from the mines and slavery, but the Incans were not poor in precious metals, the measure of wealth in the contemporaneous European societies.
[1] https://www.worldhistory.org/Cuzco/
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,_Spain
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution
The capital city of the Incan empire, Cusco, is estimated to have had a population of ~40,000 [1] ruling over an estimated 10,000,000 people.
The capital city of Spain at the time, Toledo, had a population of a mere ~32,000 [2] at the time ruling a population of a mere 6.5 million at the time.
Contemporaneous accounts demonstrate the comparable grandeur of their seats of power and more objective determinations demonstrate the comparability of scale and scope. It is not just “a handful of fancy residences” unless you apply that moniker to Spain as well.
For that matter, Spain in the early 1500s is not exactly a wealthy country. Their wealth largely came from their American conquests which resulted in what is believed to be a ~300-600% increase in the amount of European-accessible gold and silver [4]. It is a little hard to determine how much came from plunder and how much from the mines and slavery, but the Incans were not poor in precious metals, the measure of wealth in the contemporaneous European societies.
[1] https://www.worldhistory.org/Cuzco/
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo,_Spain
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Spain
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution
Ironically, Spain did not become wealthy by looting gold and silver from the New World. What happened was - inflation!
The looting was doing the same thing that the US government does - injecting money into the economy, which always results in inflation.
The same thing happened with the two American gold rushes.
The looting was doing the same thing that the US government does - injecting money into the economy, which always results in inflation.
The same thing happened with the two American gold rushes.
> injecting money into the economy, which always results in inflation
This can be disproven by simply plotting the quantity of money in circulation compared to the inflation rate.
For instance from 2005 to 2020 the US went from 6.5 to 15 trillion dollars in circulation yet inflation was around 2%.
Same story for the eurozone which went from 3 to 9 trillions euro in circulation, with similar inflation (despite the Quantitative Easing policy of injecting currency in financial markets).
The eurozone provides another clue in that its member states experience different inflation in spite of sharing a common currency.
The true effects of injecting money in the economy are more complex than a straightforward increase in inflation. Most notably, since economic projects must be financed before they can be undertaken, injecting money in the economy can result in the economy increasing in size if there is spare productive capacity and resources.
There are indeed cases like Venezuela where injecting money results in inflation because there is a supply crisis (more money attempts to buy the same quantity of goods) but it cannot be generalized to all economies.
This can be disproven by simply plotting the quantity of money in circulation compared to the inflation rate.
For instance from 2005 to 2020 the US went from 6.5 to 15 trillion dollars in circulation yet inflation was around 2%.
Same story for the eurozone which went from 3 to 9 trillions euro in circulation, with similar inflation (despite the Quantitative Easing policy of injecting currency in financial markets).
The eurozone provides another clue in that its member states experience different inflation in spite of sharing a common currency.
The true effects of injecting money in the economy are more complex than a straightforward increase in inflation. Most notably, since economic projects must be financed before they can be undertaken, injecting money in the economy can result in the economy increasing in size if there is spare productive capacity and resources.
There are indeed cases like Venezuela where injecting money results in inflation because there is a supply crisis (more money attempts to buy the same quantity of goods) but it cannot be generalized to all economies.
They did not become persistently wealthy, but they were able to buy a bunch of neat stuff like ships that they could not purchase previously before people caught on that there was more gold. Spain did become "wealthy", but that is because inflation is a wealth transfer from creditors to the immediate recipient of the newly created money that lasts until the creditors catch on. But, as you point out, it stops working when people realize they are getting fleeced. Spain learned that the hard way.
But that gets back to Diamond’s motivating fundamental question.
Why were the Spaniards colonizing the Americas rather than the Incas colonizing Spain?
Why were the Spaniards colonizing the Americas rather than the Incas colonizing Spain?
The obvious answer is the Spaniards had the means to get to the Americas.
A more subtle answer is the Spanish commanders had access to thousands of years of military history in the form of books.
A more subtle answer is the Spanish commanders had access to thousands of years of military history in the form of books.
No? This comment chain is not about that. The first comment argues "quantity of interconnected people". The second adds on by postulating horses/riding animals are key as they support interconnection/communication. The third says that the Mesoamerican societies had riding animals as well, so that is not a unique differentiator.
The person I am replying to then makes the implicit argument that obviously a poor society would be conquered and then makes the explicit argument that obviously the Incans were poor because alpacas do not count. This line of argumentation relies on the Incans being poor otherwise the implicit argument fails. The implicit argument is being made because otherwise there is no reason to bring up "it's impossible to build a wealthy society" since that would be irrelevant.
I point out how the Incans were not poor and thus their implicit argument fails. I quoted first-hand witnesses who support that the Incans appeared to be quite wealthy and thus the "wealthy conquers abject poor" theory does not adequately explain the Spanish conquest of the Incans.
You are free to make a different root argument, but it is not really the point here. But you do have to make a argument that is consistent with the fact that the Incans seemed pretty darn wealthy even though they were missing certain technologies that we would normally view as critical or indicative of "progress".
The person I am replying to then makes the implicit argument that obviously a poor society would be conquered and then makes the explicit argument that obviously the Incans were poor because alpacas do not count. This line of argumentation relies on the Incans being poor otherwise the implicit argument fails. The implicit argument is being made because otherwise there is no reason to bring up "it's impossible to build a wealthy society" since that would be irrelevant.
I point out how the Incans were not poor and thus their implicit argument fails. I quoted first-hand witnesses who support that the Incans appeared to be quite wealthy and thus the "wealthy conquers abject poor" theory does not adequately explain the Spanish conquest of the Incans.
You are free to make a different root argument, but it is not really the point here. But you do have to make a argument that is consistent with the fact that the Incans seemed pretty darn wealthy even though they were missing certain technologies that we would normally view as critical or indicative of "progress".
Think of "poor society" not in terms of quality of life of its residents, but in terms of how much economic surplus it has to spend on war-related things. If society A and society B have equal number of people living in poverty, but society B has much larger armies, it is richer (in purely economic terms) as a whole, and that's what matters here.
It goes beyond the sheer number of soldiers, too - if you have more economic surplus, you can spend it on e.g. things like mining to obtain better materials to make weapons from, on science to construct more advanced weapons etc.
It goes beyond the sheer number of soldiers, too - if you have more economic surplus, you can spend it on e.g. things like mining to obtain better materials to make weapons from, on science to construct more advanced weapons etc.
What are you even responding to? The claim is A => B, A is true, therefore B. Much Poorer => Conquered. Incans were poor, therefore Incans conquered. I dispute A, Incans were poor. By almost any observable metric such as quality of life, size of empire, scale of construction, population and thus food production, intricacy of ornaments it is unclear that the Incans were much poorer than the Spanish. In fact, by many of those metrics the Incans were comparable or even wealthier than the Spanish.
If you do not think that the Incans were materially poorer than the Spanish, the we already agree. If you disagree and actually want to respond to the arguments presented, please present a argument supported by evidence that does not use circular reasoning to demonstrate that the Incans were much poorer than the Spanish.
As an example of circular reasoning: "The Spanish had more advanced weapons demonstrating they invested more economic surplus into weapon technology which proves they had more societal economic surplus." Not to say that superior weapon technology could not be a reason for the successful Spanish conquest, but it is not evidence of a significant "wealth gap" unless you subscribe to the ludicrous notion that all technology gaps are by definition wealth gaps. Even if we did assume that ridiculous notion is true, we have no way of comparing the tech trees of two civilizations to compare their "tech wealth" so it still just ends up being circular reasoning.
If you do not think that the Incans were materially poorer than the Spanish, the we already agree. If you disagree and actually want to respond to the arguments presented, please present a argument supported by evidence that does not use circular reasoning to demonstrate that the Incans were much poorer than the Spanish.
As an example of circular reasoning: "The Spanish had more advanced weapons demonstrating they invested more economic surplus into weapon technology which proves they had more societal economic surplus." Not to say that superior weapon technology could not be a reason for the successful Spanish conquest, but it is not evidence of a significant "wealth gap" unless you subscribe to the ludicrous notion that all technology gaps are by definition wealth gaps. Even if we did assume that ridiculous notion is true, we have no way of comparing the tech trees of two civilizations to compare their "tech wealth" so it still just ends up being circular reasoning.
> The Incas had a handful of fancy residences for the ruling class. The society as a whole was very poor
Meanwhile, in 15th century Europe…
Meanwhile, in 15th century Europe…
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To my untrained eye, the eastern United States and Uruguay + surroundings also seem like great places for civilizations to thrive. But for some reason those areas did not seem to have particularly large civilizations before the colonization period. Does anyone know of a good reason why these areas were relatively unpopulated compared to the areas you mention but also compared to say Mexico?
Do yourself a favour and just read the book we're talking about. It explains exactly these questions, and many more, even if the current trend is to criticize those explanations because "there could be other factors as well" (which Diamond does acknowledge, but perhaps not enough for everyone).
If you're looking for an alternative view, check out "The Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow.
I loved Debt for the ideas, but I abandoned this since it seemed to be pushing their politics so hard. I've read Zinn, GGS, later pop science anthropology books, 1491, 1493, as well as kept up with john hawks, razib, etc as far as paleogenetics; I wanted to like this book but a lot of it didn't add up - the theory was so complicated and specific. There also didn't seem to be much room left for the evolution of larger scale social structures... yet to me the way things went in history seems obvious. Most of the actors and roles in early human history have cultures shaped by their survival imperatives - and the variety of belief systems we know about match the needs of that culture. Anyway, I would love to hear a good defense or explanation of the book, to make sure I haven't missed anything! I abandoned it possibly 1/3 in, and then read reviews, which mostly confirmed what I had been thinking, so I never went back.
I’m almost done with it and I’ll say that I hated the first part, found many of the specific examples interesting throughout the middle, and although there are some interesting insights later, it’s an utter failure from a narrative standpoint as a whole. It really would have benefited from a much stronger editor, if there even was one at all.
It's weird to see the people in this thread stating the generally accepted scientific viewpoints downvoted while those praising Diamond are upvoted.
Diamond is a skilled and persuasive writer, who's had success as a pop science writer but the theories he pushes to put it lightly are largely not accepted within academic communities.
Some, like the stories of ecocide featured in Collapse, have been completely and thoroughly debunked. That book is about as academically rigorous as The Lorax and fills the niche: a modern ecological morality tale for a modern Western audience.
Diamond is a skilled and persuasive writer, who's had success as a pop science writer but the theories he pushes to put it lightly are largely not accepted within academic communities.
Some, like the stories of ecocide featured in Collapse, have been completely and thoroughly debunked. That book is about as academically rigorous as The Lorax and fills the niche: a modern ecological morality tale for a modern Western audience.
The problem is that it seems like the scientific community has largely failed at communicating their findings to the wider public. Where are the books like Diamond's that tell people what modern science has found about the same topics? Pop Sci is extremely popular, but scientists refuse to write them, so you get books by people like Diamond that hit the mainstream and then you get subreddits like r/askhistory getting mad about it. You can't get mad when your entire field has failed at educating the public.
The problem is that "the academic view" is a messy web of ideas and findings, with a lot of uncertainty and inconsistencies. That's a hell of a lot harder to sell and engage people with than a simple and elegant idea that's eloquently explained, even if said idea is almost certainly wrong.
I think people can easily be engaged by complex, messy topics. You just need a scientist who's a decent writer to try. Scientists, academics as a whole aren't trying.
This is only tangentally related to this discussion, but this youtube video about science communication (through the lens of 'what killed the dinosaurs?') I found quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DHgkMYgp7w . Science communication is hard, and it's not that unusual for scientists to market their ideas to the public, but it's still difficult even then for the public to get a good idea of the academic view.
The problem is that "the academic view" is a messy web of ideas and findings, with a lot of uncertainty and inconsistencies
That’s a cop-out. What it’s really saying to me (as a non-academic) is that they don’t have a theory. That is really bad news for a field struggling to be respected as a science.
Where is the Newton of history? Where is the Einstein or the Darwin of anthropology? Diamond earns my respect for having the courage to even try.
That’s a cop-out. What it’s really saying to me (as a non-academic) is that they don’t have a theory. That is really bad news for a field struggling to be respected as a science.
Where is the Newton of history? Where is the Einstein or the Darwin of anthropology? Diamond earns my respect for having the courage to even try.
Well, duh. Not every branch of academia has a grand unified theory of their field. That's what physics is going for, and still hasn't succeeded at. That doesn't make any random attempt at a theory a good one. Coming up with a theory is easy if you don't bother to be constrained by pesky details that don't match your theory, but unfortunately description of human society is actually incredibly patchwork, messy, and inconsistent.
> Where is the Einstein or the Darwin of anthropology?
Diamond is more the Jean-Baptiste Lamarck of Anthropology.
Diamond is more the Jean-Baptiste Lamarck of Anthropology.
Then who is the Einstein or the Darwin of anthropology? If Diamond is not credible, then who is? It's a lot easier to pick apart someone else's theory than it is to advance your own. If no one in a field is willing to step forward with a theory then the whole field is worthless.
This just reads as the typical HN veneration of arrogance.
The problem is to non-academics, it’s all a bunch of Just-So stories and Whig histories, so it’s difficult to judge and the more compelling writer is gonna win.
As an aside, the debunkers were also quite entertaining (at least as entertaining as GGS), although they weren't generally commercialized or marketed to the same degree.
I loved the team's demonstration that showed the complexity of Easter Island's civilization, and included a demo of how the moai statues were "walked" into place.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.11613
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvvES47OdmY
I loved the team's demonstration that showed the complexity of Easter Island's civilization, and included a demo of how the moai statues were "walked" into place.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.11613
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvvES47OdmY
Part of the problem is that pop-sci debunkings of Diamond - which is of course what the general public reads, as opposed to actual papers - tend to be very explicitly ideological, and often start with that angle rather than addressing the actual problematic constructs that Diamond presents. And, conversely, Diamond's books, while factually questionable in many ways, are written in a language that reads very dry and sort of "science-neutral". Given the cultural climate of our times, this inevitably conjures an image of someone doing hard science being attacked primarily for "inconvenient" views.
Simply put, if you want to convince people that Diamond is wrong, don't start by telling them that his books are bad because racism/colonialism/..., even if that is true.
Simply put, if you want to convince people that Diamond is wrong, don't start by telling them that his books are bad because racism/colonialism/..., even if that is true.
> the transmission of cultural traits among 1,094 traditional societies
So people had already been living in a given zone. When Europeans first arrived in America, had the locals not already been there and learned the ways of that land and shared, famously the first Thanksgiving in US education, the new arrivals would have perished.
So people had already been living in a given zone. When Europeans first arrived in America, had the locals not already been there and learned the ways of that land and shared, famously the first Thanksgiving in US education, the new arrivals would have perished.
> The findings suggest that factors such as the movement of peoples
These are heavily influenced by geography.
> direct and indirect cultural exchanges
This are heavily influenced by physical proximity, which, of course, is heavily influenced by geography.
Of course that geography is not destiny, at the end it of it all nothing is, but it plays a very big part. And the historical truth is that Karakorum (located towards the Eastern end of the Eurasian landmass) had a lot more closer connections to places like Budapest and Kiev (located towards the Western end of the Eurasian landmass) compared to the connection between, let's say, Cairo and Johannesburg.
As such, saying that "Jared Diamond is wrong" without looking at concrete historical facts from our past does not help anyone, no matter if the people doing it like to brandish themselves as "scientists".
These are heavily influenced by geography.
> direct and indirect cultural exchanges
This are heavily influenced by physical proximity, which, of course, is heavily influenced by geography.
Of course that geography is not destiny, at the end it of it all nothing is, but it plays a very big part. And the historical truth is that Karakorum (located towards the Eastern end of the Eurasian landmass) had a lot more closer connections to places like Budapest and Kiev (located towards the Western end of the Eurasian landmass) compared to the connection between, let's say, Cairo and Johannesburg.
As such, saying that "Jared Diamond is wrong" without looking at concrete historical facts from our past does not help anyone, no matter if the people doing it like to brandish themselves as "scientists".
> As such, saying that "Jared Diamond is wrong" without looking at concrete historical facts from our past does not help anyone, no matter if the people doing it like to brandish themselves as "scientists".
Good thing the article didn't really say that, then? They explicitly agreed with some of his proposed mechanisms.
Good thing the article didn't really say that, then? They explicitly agreed with some of his proposed mechanisms.
These are direct quotes from the article:
> However, the researchers discovered that these environmental barriers do not consistently favor Eurasia over other continents. This finding directly challenges Diamond’s assertion that Eurasia’s geographic orientation provided a unique advantage in the spread of agricultural and other critical innovations.
> Instead, the study indicates that the facilitation of cultural spread by geographical and ecological conditions is a global phenomenon, with no clear bias towards Eurasia.
which to me says that indeed the authors of the article intended to say that Diamond was "wrong", at least that's how I interpret the part with "challenges Diamond’s assertion".
> However, the researchers discovered that these environmental barriers do not consistently favor Eurasia over other continents. This finding directly challenges Diamond’s assertion that Eurasia’s geographic orientation provided a unique advantage in the spread of agricultural and other critical innovations.
> Instead, the study indicates that the facilitation of cultural spread by geographical and ecological conditions is a global phenomenon, with no clear bias towards Eurasia.
which to me says that indeed the authors of the article intended to say that Diamond was "wrong", at least that's how I interpret the part with "challenges Diamond’s assertion".
So are these:
> In line with Diamond’s hypothesis, the researchers found that environmental barriers do indeed impact the likelihood of cultural traits being shared between societies.
> “Our analyses support the hypothesis that yes, environment likely influences how cultural innovations spread, just like Diamond intuited..."
> “Our study offers one quantitative realization of Diamond’s arguments and not a definitive answer,”
Meaning, not a definitive no, either.
> “Our findings point out that geography, like genetics and ecology, matters, but it is not destiny.”
It's complicated. I hope this doesn't surprise anyone.
> In line with Diamond’s hypothesis, the researchers found that environmental barriers do indeed impact the likelihood of cultural traits being shared between societies.
> “Our analyses support the hypothesis that yes, environment likely influences how cultural innovations spread, just like Diamond intuited..."
> “Our study offers one quantitative realization of Diamond’s arguments and not a definitive answer,”
Meaning, not a definitive no, either.
> “Our findings point out that geography, like genetics and ecology, matters, but it is not destiny.”
It's complicated. I hope this doesn't surprise anyone.
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My hypothesis is better (and its probably pretty common): easy living (temp, soil, etc) and navigable waterways (lots of ports) made the difference. When conditions are comfortable for civilization, there's plenty of time to think about things, and with lots of ports its easy to spread those ideas. This is probably why places like Egypt, Greece, Italy, Minoa, etc, get the gold medal for early civilizations.
> Scholars generally acknowledge six cradles of civilization. Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Indus valley, and Ancient China are believed to be the earliest in the Old World,[1][2] while the Caral-Supe civilization of coastal Peru and the Olmec civilization of Mexico are believed to be the earliest in the New World.
Temperate climates, maybe, but ports?
Temperate climates, maybe, but ports?
ports are like the internet of the olden days. Don't forget to include the Nile River, which was navigable both ways, and used extensively, and which conveniently connected to the med sea.
If you expand the theory to encompass riverine ports that would cover five of the six. I don't know enough about Olmec / Mexican geography / development to speak to that.
this map misses large scale organized predation and murder that were rampant in many places.
I found the more mundane explanations in "Why Nations Fail" to be far more convincing than the geographical determinism of "Guns, Germs and Steel"
They seemed largely complementary to me? Guns, Germs and Steel was mostly about how people, culture, ideas and skills spread across the world, whereas Why Nations Fail seemed to be mostly about what happens after that, at a nation state level.
To be honest I didn't understand why they felt the need to position it as a rebuttal of GG&S when reading it either.
To be honest I didn't understand why they felt the need to position it as a rebuttal of GG&S when reading it either.
Jared Diamond is a pretty big proponent of environmental determinism. This can be somewhat obscured in GG&S itself, but his follow-on book Collapse is a pretty naked advertisement for environmental determinism, and he harps on a lot about it in interviews and the like. In fact, the introduction to Why Nations Fail (if memory serves correctly) includes some discussion by people who saw the book before it was published, and one of those discussions was Diamond, who complained that the book rejected environmental determinism as a major factor (to which the authors responded "the evidence just doesn't hold up, what more do you want us to say?").
A lot of the complaints about GG&S are to some degree a complaint about Diamond in general being mapped on to the least offensive of his works, and if that is the only exposure you have to Diamond, it can be seem like the complaints are coming out of left field.
A lot of the complaints about GG&S are to some degree a complaint about Diamond in general being mapped on to the least offensive of his works, and if that is the only exposure you have to Diamond, it can be seem like the complaints are coming out of left field.
A lot of the complaints about GG&S are to some degree a complaint about Diamond in general being mapped on to the least offensive of his works, and if that is the only exposure you have to Diamond, it can be seem like the complaints are coming out of left field
Which discredits the entire field. Ad hominem arguments have no place in science. Everyone knows that Newton wrote extensively on the occult but that takes nothing away from his contributions to physics and mathematics.
If I could address his critics as a whole I would say:
Critique the theory on its own, independent of the author. Provide an alternative theory. “It’s complicated” is not a theory.
Which discredits the entire field. Ad hominem arguments have no place in science. Everyone knows that Newton wrote extensively on the occult but that takes nothing away from his contributions to physics and mathematics.
If I could address his critics as a whole I would say:
Critique the theory on its own, independent of the author. Provide an alternative theory. “It’s complicated” is not a theory.
What's wrong with environmental determinism? Obviously our civilizations are influenced by our environment; that's why Egypt formed around the Nile delta, instead of forming a hundred miles west in the Sahara.
Geographic arguments are a very common tool in pop Social Sciences, for example the correlation between landlocked states and poverty or supposed American exceptionalism due to the fertile Midwest (while ignoring similar agrarian immigrant countries like Brazil and Argentina).
Furthermore, the kinds of argumements that Diamond would provide weren't actually "tested" per say. Social Sciences are a "Science" (albeit flawed in some shape or form), but are dependent on validating a hypothesis in a reproducible manner as well, hence why economics has basically become applied math since the 50s (and similar changes in other fields like Sociology, Linguistics, Polticial Science, and Anthro as well)
There isn't much difference between grifters like Perun or Zeihan and Jared Diamond.
Also, Jared Diamond doesn't have a background in Economics or Political Science - he is an Ecologist/Environmental Scientist (and one of the best ones at that), and as such reading GGS induces Dunning-Kruger for those with a background in Comparitive Politics.
Furthermore, the kinds of argumements that Diamond would provide weren't actually "tested" per say. Social Sciences are a "Science" (albeit flawed in some shape or form), but are dependent on validating a hypothesis in a reproducible manner as well, hence why economics has basically become applied math since the 50s (and similar changes in other fields like Sociology, Linguistics, Polticial Science, and Anthro as well)
There isn't much difference between grifters like Perun or Zeihan and Jared Diamond.
Also, Jared Diamond doesn't have a background in Economics or Political Science - he is an Ecologist/Environmental Scientist (and one of the best ones at that), and as such reading GGS induces Dunning-Kruger for those with a background in Comparitive Politics.
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Perrin the guy on YouTube? What’s wrong with him?
this comment reads like you called Jared Diamond a "grifter" e.g. diligent con and knowing thief.. maybe you did not mean that exactly?
I did mean that.
No one in the academic PoliSci, Sociology, or Anthropology space views him as credible.
He is a great Ecologist and Environmental Historian, but he is not someone with domain experience in Comparative Politics, Political Economy, IR, and/or other adjacent fields which people try to extrapolate GGS to.
No one in the academic PoliSci, Sociology, or Anthropology space views him as credible.
He is a great Ecologist and Environmental Historian, but he is not someone with domain experience in Comparative Politics, Political Economy, IR, and/or other adjacent fields which people try to extrapolate GGS to.
> other adjacent fields which people try to extrapolate GGS to
I don't have a dog in the fight other than having read (most of) GG&S and found his writing style laborious, but the quoted bit above seems more like an issue with those other people that Diamond.
If I say "x" and people extrapolate that to things for which it was not intended, how does that make _ME_ a grifter?
I don't have a dog in the fight other than having read (most of) GG&S and found his writing style laborious, but the quoted bit above seems more like an issue with those other people that Diamond.
If I say "x" and people extrapolate that to things for which it was not intended, how does that make _ME_ a grifter?
The issue is Jared Diamond explicitly argues for Environmental Determinism despite it largely being bunk. He has had multiple opportunities to clear up his arguments, but he only digs deeper and deeper into it.
No love for Gruber?
What an abhorrent shitpost.
So apropos of this pop history author, my "oh shit, being compelling and interesting doesn't mean it's correct" anecdote comes courtesy of another book that was popular around the same time as Guns, Germs and Steel, 1421: The Year China Discovered The New World.
I read it, found it all very plausible and interesting.
I read Gavin Menzies next book, 1434, found it equally interesting and compelling.
Then I read his third book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, and found it just as plausible as his first book.
Except the prior plausibility in my head of a Minoan civilization maintaining global trade was way, way lower, and so I didn't just accept it as uncritically as I had the first two books, and that made me realize how unskeptically I had been reading the first two books, and other books in the genre.
It was a more enjoyable life lesson than most, all things considered.
I read it, found it all very plausible and interesting.
I read Gavin Menzies next book, 1434, found it equally interesting and compelling.
Then I read his third book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, and found it just as plausible as his first book.
Except the prior plausibility in my head of a Minoan civilization maintaining global trade was way, way lower, and so I didn't just accept it as uncritically as I had the first two books, and that made me realize how unskeptically I had been reading the first two books, and other books in the genre.
It was a more enjoyable life lesson than most, all things considered.
When I was about 10 or so I read the Erich von Däniken book Chariots of the Gods and was absolutely fascinated - eventually (and I don't know how) I came to understand that just because something is written in what seems to be a non-fiction book doesn't mean it's remotely true. Nearly 40 years on I can still remember my rage on realising this.
Haha I fell into the same trap around 15-25 years ago!(but tbf, elementary school me was going through cryptozoology phase)
von Daniken really knew how to write in academic prose, which only sold it further.
von Daniken really knew how to write in academic prose, which only sold it further.
I keep a dozen books by von Daniken and his contemporaries on my bookcase to this day. Not because I believe them, but to remind me that I once did. I like to blame the X-Files, but the 90s was a funny time and I don't even remember buying all these books, but I sure believed them for a while.
I personally think Ancient Aliens ought to be required watching in english classes. The way they smoothly slip down that slope from non-controversial statements of the form "X." towards statements of the form "Ancient Astronaut Theorists believe X; could it be true?" usually beats even political discourse.
I used to watch Ancient Aliens as entertainment, and was usually not convinced by their claims. But it did reveal the cultural and historical ignorance that we have of other nations.
You can basically say anything about a culture that the audience is not familiar with, and they will think it is plausible.
For me, AA jumped the shark when they claimed that Vikings came from "nowhere" and "suddenly" had sea faring technology. Obviously the Aliens had given them the technology through the god Odin, who was also an alien... what other explanation could there logically be?
There was so much wrong with those claims, that I just turned off the TV. I decided to be more careful about looking at shows about aliens and conspiracies, because I am afraid that it will slowly change my ability to distinguish fact from fiction.
In reality, the ships were based on a long history of ship making with incremental improvements and did not suddenly appear. Anyone could find this easily, which indicates to me that they don't care to make even a slight effort to moderate their claims.
That got me thinking of all the other programs I watch that are not necessarily as "inventive" as AA. What other false statements are said about other cultures that I am not aware of?
You can basically say anything about a culture that the audience is not familiar with, and they will think it is plausible.
For me, AA jumped the shark when they claimed that Vikings came from "nowhere" and "suddenly" had sea faring technology. Obviously the Aliens had given them the technology through the god Odin, who was also an alien... what other explanation could there logically be?
There was so much wrong with those claims, that I just turned off the TV. I decided to be more careful about looking at shows about aliens and conspiracies, because I am afraid that it will slowly change my ability to distinguish fact from fiction.
In reality, the ships were based on a long history of ship making with incremental improvements and did not suddenly appear. Anyone could find this easily, which indicates to me that they don't care to make even a slight effort to moderate their claims.
That got me thinking of all the other programs I watch that are not necessarily as "inventive" as AA. What other false statements are said about other cultures that I am not aware of?
From a sibling comment, the Graham Hancock/"progenitor civilization" idea is likewise just so obviously wrong to me.
Basically, they think that multiple agricultural civilizations arising independently at the end of the last glacial maximum is implausible, and that there must have been a global progenitor civilization that discovered it all and spread it after its own fall.
Except ... all of the crops of those early agricultural civilizations were distinct, based on the plants native to that region. Why would ancient farmers have traveled the world to teach people how to farm, but not have brought seeds with them?
Basically, they think that multiple agricultural civilizations arising independently at the end of the last glacial maximum is implausible, and that there must have been a global progenitor civilization that discovered it all and spread it after its own fall.
Except ... all of the crops of those early agricultural civilizations were distinct, based on the plants native to that region. Why would ancient farmers have traveled the world to teach people how to farm, but not have brought seeds with them?
It also doesn't really answer the interesting question -- if one presupposes a "progenitor civilization" that gave rise to later civilizations, how did the first civilization start? It's not unlike the arguments for "panspermia" -- the claim that the origin of life came from outside Earth in a meteor. That just moves the interesting question of life's origin farther back in time and space.
You make a good point. I have watched several Hancock shows, including the one on Netflix, and while some of his points seem plausible, he tries to link everything into a common source that does not seem plausible to me.
There are some things that are plausible that I think would be interesting to see actual academics researchers spend time on, such as the Sphinx and a few other claims.
- The Sphinx:
To me it seems plausible that the Sphinx may have been constructed before the Egyption civilization, based on geological analysis that indicates a wetter climate and that the head seems to be carved much later than the rest (even proportions are wrong).
The findings in Göbleki Tepe proves that you don't need a massive agricultural civilization to create impressive stone works. People can get together and make amazing things without having to invent an Atlantian civilization that travels the world.
Unfortunately I think that Hancocks involvement may prevent serious research into this, as they don't want to be associated with him.
There are some things that are plausible that I think would be interesting to see actual academics researchers spend time on, such as the Sphinx and a few other claims.
- The Sphinx:
To me it seems plausible that the Sphinx may have been constructed before the Egyption civilization, based on geological analysis that indicates a wetter climate and that the head seems to be carved much later than the rest (even proportions are wrong).
The findings in Göbleki Tepe proves that you don't need a massive agricultural civilization to create impressive stone works. People can get together and make amazing things without having to invent an Atlantian civilization that travels the world.
Unfortunately I think that Hancocks involvement may prevent serious research into this, as they don't want to be associated with him.
> The findings in Göbleki Tepe proves that you don't need a massive agricultural civilization to create impressive stone works.
Is this definitive? Couldn’t it be evidence that the people that built it might have had massive agriculture that we haven’t found yet?
Is this definitive? Couldn’t it be evidence that the people that built it might have had massive agriculture that we haven’t found yet?
They haven't found anything that would require an agricultural society to support it. Also, the time and location matches the origin of the oldest known strains of farmed grain. And the remains of people from agricultural societies differs dramatically from non-agricultural, again not far away in time and space from Gobleki Tepe. And the amount and type of animal remains suggests non-agricultural diet, with animals hunted and slaughtered elsewhere and carried in (the site wasn't used year round). So dawn of agriculture. A popular theory is this sort of society grew big enough (due to abundance of animals in the region at that time) that they needed to start farming for non-essentials, such as grain for alcohol, kicking off what would become agricultural societies.
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I rated 1421's credibility pretty low from the introduction onwards - he talked about matching Chinese maps to how he'd seen things from seaports, which sounds like a very easy way to see whatever you want to see, and some stuff about the same kind of chickens which felt like extremely thin evidence to hang extraordinary claims off of.
I haven't got to GGS yet, but given that the top reddit "debunking" is pretty open that its main argument is "his conclusions are racist, therefore he mush be wrong", I'm feeling a little more hopeful.
I haven't got to GGS yet, but given that the top reddit "debunking" is pretty open that its main argument is "his conclusions are racist, therefore he mush be wrong", I'm feeling a little more hopeful.
See also Graham Hancock.
"I read Gavin Menzies next book, 1434, found it equally interesting and compelling."
As a trained STEM Scientist, I found this book utterly nonsense and non-scientific.
"Then I read his third book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, and found it just as plausible as his first book."
For me this is not very promising. "As plausible as his first book"
As a trained STEM Scientist, I found this book utterly nonsense and non-scientific.
"Then I read his third book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, and found it just as plausible as his first book."
For me this is not very promising. "As plausible as his first book"
In the rest of the comment you're replying to, the commentor indeed concludes that being as plausible as the first book means the first book isn't so convincing after all
boringuser2(2)
Despite having his book, I anticipated this story being about how some aspect of a jewelry store's marketing is hogwash, and there was in fact no discernible difference between their specially-sourced diamonds and any old diamonds dug up from control sites around the globe.
"Eurasia’s geographic layout inherently facilitated a quicker spread of critical innovations compared to other regions of the world, such as the Americas and Africa."
sadly, "critical" and "innovation" are semantically characterized as both important and good because who made those critical innovations dominated with weapons other trivial and unoriginal populations.
Edit: I havent't read the book but such hypothesis are quite sterile considering how populations move (and used to move) around the globe. We are taught a pretty static idea of ancient civilizations, while they probably move more than us.
sadly, "critical" and "innovation" are semantically characterized as both important and good because who made those critical innovations dominated with weapons other trivial and unoriginal populations.
Edit: I havent't read the book but such hypothesis are quite sterile considering how populations move (and used to move) around the globe. We are taught a pretty static idea of ancient civilizations, while they probably move more than us.
It makes sense that such theories like the continental axis hypothesis may turn out to play some role, but not be a single cause-and-effect. Earth is a pretty complex system, after all.