GGS - The Book

[VetLegion]

I see everyone is crazed with this book. So what is so great in it? What revolutionary ideas are finally written on paper?

I want to know !
Can someone give me an example or two?

[The Joker]

Well, it tryes to give a materialistic explanation why the Eurasian (and especcially European) civs were the ones that dominated the world. Why didn't aboriginals settle the UK in stead of the other way around?

Doing that the author have combined many sciences. First he describes how Eurasia is the continent with much more domesticable animals (to be domesticable they have to pass on several conditions, like not being too dangerous like Rhinos, or not grow too slow like elephants etc) compared to all other continents. This is mainly due to its size - if animals are spread evenly over the land and then spread throughout each continent the largest one will have more animals than the others.

Second he does the same thing with crops. Eurasia has more crops than other continents, thus the people there could more easily develop complex societies.

Third he looks at diseases. He claims that diseases are mostly transfered from domesticated animals (and brings up a few exambles that I dont remember), and therefore the civs with most domesticated animals will have more diseases. They will then develop partial resistance to them, and will be able to spread them to unlucky people not earlier exposed to them. This is what happened in the early 16th century in America - they all died from smallpox, because, unlike the Europeans, they had no resistance to it.

These are the most important features in the book. There are some others, like why it was Europe and not China that colonized the world, but this is done less throughly, and is not as convincing as the rest of the book.

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"Damn those nazicommunists."
- McBain

GGS Website

[cavebear]

quote: Originally posted by VetLegion on 12-15-2000 04:18 PM I see everyone is crazed with this book. So what is so great in it? What revolutionary ideas are finally written on paper? I want to know ! Can someone give me an example or two?

Could you create a "Gone With the Wind" game without understanding the Civil War? Could you create "North Pole Race" without knowing the the tragedy of Scott?

In the same way (nay, more) you must read GGS in order to make sense of what you are trying to recreate on the computer.

Examples? I'll give two.

1. Why didn't the Incas land in Spain and take over Europe?

2. Why did the AmerIndians die of smallpox and not the Europeans die of bisonpox?

I'll bet your answers are wrong. That's because you haven't read GGS. Its a good read, too, not dry and dusty (to me, anyway).

[VetLegion]

quote: Originally posted by cavebear on 12-16-2000 05:35 PM 1. Why didn't the Incas land in Spain and take over Europe?

I think they would have, if they had some 500 years more to develop. They were behind in tech.

quote: 2. Why did the AmerIndians die of smallpox and not the Europeans die of bisonpox?

There is bisonpox ?
I guess it isnt deadly then.

[VetLegion]

from another thread:

quote: He found it in geography. Specifically, he found it in axes (plural of axis) of landmass shape; East-West "good", North-South, "bad". That is, in his view (and I agree with him until a better explanation comes along) the original (ultimate)explanation for civilization success.

Geography, I agree (with you both ) is very big factor in any historical equasion. But, north-south vs. east-west alone wont work. If the population density and tech level in south africa was simmilar to that of china, there would probably be a "silk" route through africa to mediterranean, too.

quote: The fourth level factor was technology. That arose from cities, which depended on plant and animal domestication. Those factors combined to allow food surpluses which, in turn, allowed for tech specialists. Guns can only come from civs that have (by geographical fortune) had domesticatable plants and animals.

Tech level can progress only there, where concentracion of people is such that it allows them to pass knowledge to next generations. They sure need to eat to do that, but they can eat fish, and there is fish everywhere

quote: I welcome rebutal (without taking it in any way personally).

I dont know what rebutal means, but if its reply, you got it

quote: And I have some thoughts about how to make a game more faithful to GGS...

Speak freely!

[VetLegion]

I remembered a book "Clash of Civilization" I read some time ago. Anyone read that? Author trys to explain that every conflict always appears on borders of great world religions. (he somewhat redefines religions though).

[The Joker]

Vet:

Incas:
If that was true then Africans would rule the world. They have had millions of more years to develop their technology in than the rest of us.

Bisonpox:
Because bisons are not very domesticable (it hasn't even been domesticated in modern times), which means the indians had less contact with the bisons than europeans had with cattle. This meant the disease didn't spread from bisons to indians, and the indians didn't develop resistance.

Geography:
Yes, but why wasn't the population density of South Africa as high as in China? Because of lack of crops and animals, and because of fewer places to exchange technology with.

Technology:
Crops and animals provides more food, which means more people to develop technology.

Clash:
I've heard about it. It sounds interesting. It should propably become one of our team books, with Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Kennedy and of cause GGS.


Cavebear:

Please tell us everything you want us to know! We'd like to hear it.

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"The future is that mountain."
- Bret Easton Ellis

GGS Website

[VetLegion]

quote: Originally posted by The Joker on 12-17-2000 05:00 PM Incas: If that was true then Africans would rule the world. They have had millions of more years to develop their technology in than the rest of us.

No, they didnt have more tech - time. There is level (around the discovery of letters) when advance of tech becomes pretty determined and unstoppable process. Africa had not reached that level yet, hence its progress of knowledge depended much on tales and individual expirience, thus slow. (notice the use of hence and thus - nice )
But Incas or Aztecs were pretty close to the alphabet or had someting simmilar.

quote: Bisonpox: Because bisons are not very domesticable (it hasn't even been domesticated in modern times), which means the indians had less contact with the bisons than europeans had with cattle. This meant the disease didn't spread from bisons to indians, and the indians didn't develop resistance.

So there is Bisonpox???
And if indians didnt have resistance to it AND it was deadly they would certainly die from it considering how much bison meat they eat raw, etc.

quote: Yes, but why wasn't the population density of South Africa as high as in China? Because of lack of crops and animals, and because of fewer places to exchange technology with.

yes, yes, yes
Only north-south has nothing to do with it.

edit: quotes
[This message has been edited by VetLegion (edited December 18, 2000).]

[The Joker]

Technology:
Why hadn't the Africans come to that level? And BTW Aztechs and Incas didn't have an alphabet.

Bisonpox:
Hunting and eating animals does not spread diseases nearly as well as domesticating them, having them as the primary food source and sleeping close to them for warmth in the cold winters. Thus the Americans didn't have as many diseases as Europeans.

South Africa:
I would say that the fact that South Africa is a pretty small, isolated area had some effect as well.

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"The future is that mountain."
- Bret Easton Ellis

GGS Website

[Guildmaster]

It seems to me the point of us doing this project is to make a game about conquering the world. If we wanted to make a game based on a book, we should have started with the book instead of starting the game and later incorporating it.
It almost seems as if we are basing the entire game concepts on this book...

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He's spreading funk throughout the nations
And for you he will play
Electronic Super-Soul vibrations
He's come to save the day
- Lenny Kravitz

[cavebear]

VetLegion -

Your responses to my questions are perfectly logical (and were mine before reading the book). But that is where Mr. Diamond advanced the understanding of the main question.

Incas -Yes, the Incas were behind in tech, but *why* were they behind? Diamond differentiates between "proximate* causes (like lack of tech) and "ultimate" causes (like *why* lack of tech). The Incas were isolated and had no outside source of new ideas. The Europeans were not isolated and benefitted from N Africa, SW Asia, and Chinese advancements. The Incas were behind because of geography. In another 500 years, the conquest would have just been more lop-sided.

Bisonpox - Well, Llamapox fits better for Incas I guess. The point is that the Incas did not have a good selection of animals to domesticate (geography again). Since Eurasia had many domesticatable animals, and the people were in constant contact with those animals, diseases from those animals sometimes adapted to humans. Humans sufferred greatly in the short run, but the survivors developed resistance to those diseases. When they encountered non-resistant people, the effect was to spread an epidemic. The Incas did not have the "opportunity" to develop such diseases they could become resistant to and expose enemies to because they didn't have domestic animals in the first place.

East/West vs North/South - This is important for domesticated plants. A plant domesticated in one area can only be spread through trade if it grows well in the new location. Since plants are bith temperature and rainfall dependent, they can spread very easily East/West, but not North/South (or across climate barriers). Wheat, millet, fruits, etc could move from China to France (and vice versa) without difficulty in Eurasia. But corn and potatoes could not move between Aztecs and Incas because there was unsuitable growing areas in Central America in the way. Similarly, crop exchanges could not occur between N Africa and sub-Saharan Afica.

Trade is similarly affected. Trade occurs when surpluses are acheived and tech requires the specialists that are freed from food-gathering once agriculture takes hold. No domesticated plants means hunter-gatherer societies and little tech development, and hence, no real trading routes. Trade routes do not develop across hunter-gatherer societies.

Fish - That's a good point. In a very few areas, fish provided a basis for near-domesticated food sources. However, those were limited and seasonal. Fish has to be considered merely a very rich hunter-gatherer source of food.

Letters - The trade connections that could develop in Eurasia (because of the major East/West orientation, plants, and animals) allowed the sharing of writing advances among several independent cultures. They could advance more quickly because of outside ideas. That could not occur in the Americas. The few cultures there never developed the trade that allowed the importing of new writing concepts. Diamond explains in detail the various writing strategies that developed in each of the early Eurasian cultures and how some of those ideas spread and were taken advantage of. Indeed, he shows how people in non-letter cultures quickly grasped and used the new idea (over hieroglyphs and syllabic strategies) in the Americas. They were just as intelligent, but they hadn't happened to get the idea on their own due to geographical isolation.

So, it just keeps coming down to geography as the "ultimate" explanation of why civilizations advanced at different rates.

[cavebear]

The Joker - You have obviously read the book carefully and gotten quite a good understanding of the basic ideas. It is nice to see them well-articulated!

[VetLegion]

quote: Originally posted by The Joker on 12-19-2000 06:58 AM Technology: Why hadn't the Africans come to that level? And BTW Aztechs and Incas didn't have an alphabet.

Because they didnt need to. Africans (we are both doing wrong by putting whole continent population under one term) have not had a history of urban living, centralized government, or extensive trade - things that force people to deal with numbers and in effect engeneer an letter system of some sort. Alphabet is only a practical extension of that.

quote: Bisonpox: Hunting and eating animals does not spread diseases nearly as well as domesticating them, having them as the primary food source and sleeping close to them for warmth in the cold winters. Thus the Americans didn't have as many diseases as Europeans.

I think sleeping with animals wasnt rare either, and it might have helped to disease transfer.

We're loosing focus, I want to say what I dont like more clearly.

I dont see how "North-South = bad, East-West = good" claim can be true. What does that statement try to say?

I can agree with those other things.

edit: still getting used to quote properly
[This message has been edited by VetLegion (edited December 19, 2000).]

[cavebear]

quote: Originally posted by Guildmaster on 12-19-2000 01:18 PM It seems to me the point of us doing this project is to make a game about conquering the world. If we wanted to make a game based on a book, we should have started with the book instead of starting the game and later incorporating it. It almost seems as if we are basing the entire game concepts on this book...

I think that both can be done. Do you want just another world-conquering game, or something that is both playable and reasonably unique?

It was the GGS title that attracted my attention, not just another wargame. I think some of you are worried that basing a game on the real GGS ideas would either render it unplayable or force an outcome for one civ. I think there are ways around that. It may require a break in thinking from regular games, but it doesn't have to turn into some new Sim-game, either.

But seriously, if you don't want to model the game after GGS, why name it after the book? There are plenty of good names to be used without suggesting it is something that it is not...

I mean only to help, if you want something that is GGS-oriented. If not, I think you folks will make a great game, just not a GGS game, and there is nothing wrong with that either!

I think that a true GGS orientation only controls the methods and strategies for expansion, not the competitiveness or challenge of it.

[amjayee]

Mayas were the only American people with alphabet and writing.

I agree with GGS for reasons why Europeans became technologically more advanced. Here is a brief summary of events that led to Europeans conquering the world as I have understood it based on GGS and other books.

Southwestern Asia had the largest amount of domesticable animals and plants in the world, and it also was blessed with those best suitable for that, and the ones most used even today. (By domesticable animals and plants I refer to the definitions by Mr Diamond, but won't make a summary of those to save space.) Those plants and animals spread quickly to Europe and other parts of Asia, but not so quickly to Africa mostly because of the infamous North-South Axis. The main explanation for why it works is, that when traveling north-south, one has to cross different kinds of climate areas. The plants and animals had difficulties to adapt to strange conditions, whereas traveling east-west, the conditions were much the same.

With abundance of food, the civilizations of Southwestern Asia were able to develop quickly, because smaller and smaller portion of people was needed to grow food. That area eventually gave birth to Egypt, Babylonia, Greece and many other civilizations that spread the knowledge and technology to a wide area. eventually Rome was to take hold of most of Europe and Mediterranean, unifying the culture of the region. When Rome fell, many small, ambitious and evenly powerful nations rose from ashes. They were for a long time far behind Byzantine empire and Arabs, but eventually the endless competition and wars between the European nations lead them to develop powerful trading and warfare technology that helped them to gain control of most of Earth.

So, GGS is correct in describing what things were important in the success of Eurasians, but it doesn't explain everything. Also the axis idea works, but mainly for plants and animals. Diseases were important, and Joker described the idea correctly; Europeans had many diseases, some because of the domestications of animals, and some because they were living in densely populated communities. But those helped only with under-developed peoples of Africa and America. The civilizations of Middle East were holding back the Europeans. Eventually the competition between the small European nations was the final reason why Europeans gained control of the whole planet.