Guns, Germs, and Steel PBS miniseries discussion thread.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

How can one lose a debate on big ideas, such as the relative worth of geography vs. culture in determining the outcome of history?

See Cap/Com threads.

Whom, the cap side?

Your biases on an issue aside, it those debates keep coming is because the issue has certainly not been settled, since to a certain extent the two sides aren;t always arguing the same thing, even though they think it.

It's a valued debate more than anything else.

In this debate, I define the question as which one is more easily quantifiable and less variable, because a variable variable is worse in my eyes than a fixed variable.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

How can one lose a debate on big ideas, such as the relative worth of geography vs. culture in determining the outcome of history?

See Cap/Com threads.

See, that's why I studiously avoid those threads.

<---- Masterdebator.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Whom, the cap side?

You think Kid wins those things?

Your biases on an issue aside, it those debates keep coming is because the issue has certainly not been settled, since to a certain extent the two sides aren;t always arguing the same thing, even though they think it.

No, it's because Kid is a glutton for punishment.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
See, that's why I studiously avoid those threads.

<---- Masterdebator.

No, you, like most sensible people, avoid them because they're 500 posts of pain and frustration.

[GePap]

I haven't been in one of those in a while-too much talking past each other.

The first ones were good.

[Berzerker]

From the show you would think everything began in the Fertile Crescent and then spread.

The show mentioned the development of farming in SE Asia ~11,500 years ago. But much of what we call civilisation did develop in the fertile crescent first. Egypt and the Indus followed soon after and it isn't unreasonable to see that China followed the Indus.

And I believe there were old world contacts with the new world leading to civilisation there. Pyramid/ziggurat construction is good evidence of diffusion as well as the mythology these structures represent.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Berzerker


The show mentioned the development of farming in SE Asia ~11,500 years ago. But much of what we call civilisation did develop in the fertile crescent first. Egypt and the Indus followed soon after and it isn't unreasonable to see that China followed the Indus.

And I believe there were old world contacts with the new world leading to civilisation there. Pyramid/ziggurat construction is good evidence of diffusion as well as the mythology these structures represent.

Excuse me, what?

Maybe Pyramid construction is common (thought certainly NOT universal) because its easier to build a giant pyramid to a giant cube?

As for China following the Indus, Diamond in his book has China as one of the places farming gre independently of the Fertile Crescent. I think archeology finds agriculture in China as far back as the Indus valley, which would not jibe with the idea China followed the Indus Valley.

Certainly agriculture developed fully independently in the new world.

[Boris Godunov]

As much as I find Diamond's thesis compelling, I am still drawn to Toynbee's "challenge-response" idea. Civilizations did tend to arise in areas that had harsh conditions relative to neighboring "pleasant" areas. Sumerian civilization began in marshland, Indian in the jungle, Egyptian in the desert, etc. It does seem to be that areas that had a significant amount of hardship ended up being where mankind rose to meet the challenges through specialized (civilized) society.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap

MOst of those differences you imply are far more economic than cultural. For example,herding people's ususally have small populations and mobile forces- for them conquest is the obvious way to go, as they simply can;t compete evenly with others in the colonizing bit, specially since farming in the new areas would probably be more successful than a pastoral experience. To say the the lands nearby are not easy to exploit is to make a geographic and economic arguement. And the Bushmen come from such marginal lands that they never have had the resources or populations to do anything but survive.

Are economics somehow detached from culture? While they do not comprise the entirety of culture, culture does dictate the sorts of economic activities and methods available to a particular people.

Bushmen controlled almost all of southern Africa until the Bantu explosion. They couldn't compete with a culture that had mastered agriculture and had developed more advanced (beyond ritual) warfare. They were pushed into marginal lands, they did not develop there. They were less capable of exploiting the same lands than the Bantu. The differences between the two peoples were not the land (which was the same land in both instances) nor innate biological capability (again identical, both human beings). It was culture and technology (software).

Culture and technology can travel more or less freely between groups. It isn't necessary for the Bantu to invent ironworking or agriculture for them to take advantage of it. Despite their start on a difficult north / south oriented continent they were able to nonetheless absorb these elements and apply them, to the severe competitive detriment of those who couldn't / wouldn't do so.

Diamond seems to almost completely ignore the question of which group succeeds within a particular region. When he does address this issue he attributes success to either chance or again to micro-geographical influence. This leads him to make a lot of dubious assertions which don't explain things like the huge disparity in income between (for instance) Polish immigrants from western Poland and Polish immigrants from eastern Poland in the United States even three generations after their arrival. Or the relative economic success of minority Jews or Chinese in a wide variety of locales in comparison to the majority cultures in those same areas. Or the relative lack of economic success of the Scotch-Irish, highland Scots or borderers who emigrated to the United States in the 1700s in comparison to those from other parts of the British isles, even after many generations in the U.S., or even in comparison to immigrants from those same areas who arrived in the U.S. after the Scottish enlightenment changed the culture in the old country. Simply put, culture matters a lot and Diamond seems loathe to admit it.

Originally posted by GePap

Japan is not a small Island, and not that isolated either. Like Britian, it was more than large enough to develop a strong civilization, strong enough to ward of foreign invaders (helped here or there by random chance). Japan is actually a good example against "culture" as the driving force. After all, Japan followed China's example of closing itself of to the world, purging foreign influences, so forth, which put it at a horrible disadvantage by the time Perry came. Then Japan, without adopting any cultural traits from the west, but plenty of technology, made itself a world power. Japan did not become a world power by adopting western culture, only its tools to augment itself. The same culture that kept Japan isolated for 2 centuries made it leap to a great power.

Hmm, then why did Japan manage to leap ahead of China despite their relative disadvantage in technology and huge disadvantage in population? How did they as a more primitive society technologically and much smaller and accessible region geographically with a much smaller population and resource base somehow manage to resist encroachment by the colonial powers more successfully than the Chinese? Geography? Or perhaps because as a nation with a keen awareness of their second banana status ingrained over centuries as a neighbor to China they were more open to adapting to new technologies and methods. The Chinese were resistant to the idea that perhaps Europeans had gained the upper hand in technology to such a degree that even across the globe and against huge numeric disadvantage they could strut about China almost at will, and it took them considerably longer to wake up to that fact and do something about it.

Originally posted by GePap

The problem is this: 1. The capabilties of the software are based on the hardware. Software is designed for the hardware that exists, not the other way around. You can;t run Windows XP of a cell phone, so even before you start talking about who has what software, you have to know what software can be used.

2. Software does not make as much a difference as hardware when it comes to overall capabilties. Certainly it matters, but the huge difference between my computer today and mine 8 years ago have more to do with an 8 fold increase in RAM, a 15 fold increase in chip speed, a 40 fold increase plus is Hard drive space than the improvements between Windows 95 and XP.

Silly. The hardware in this instance is the human brain, which is relatively unchanged over millenia. The software is culture and technology which can change very little over millenia, but which have for much of the world changed very rapidly in the last 500 years.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I remember being highly annoyed by the program so far, but I only watched about half of the 1st episode, before my hippie friend showed up and whisked me off to Goshen, NY.

Yea, I caught the second episode and found it a good deal more annoying than the book. Diamond's thesis isn't a complete crock. It is a crock to the extent that it is incomplete, which is considerably. The TV show is a vast oversimplification of an oversimplification, dressed up as unassailable truth.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Yes.
Do we have cultural determinists here? Maybe the racist is one, but the others (JohnT and myself) aren't. We oppose determinism.

Oooh, owie.

Can't prove me wrong, so call names like a six year old on the playground.

Japan isn't the only example. England is the consummate example of a country heavily deprived of natural resources, cut off from the mainland, etc., etc., etc., and yet........

The sun never set on the British Empire, until Roosevelt made it a condition of "Lend/Lease".

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


I suggest you take a closer look at the answers.com article you posted.

Small pleasures for small minds.

I did not link to wiki, which in any case is not a bad source on simple topics- it is growing, it is correcting it's mistakes.

It allows internal open debates on controversial subjects- and it does it without name calling. Something a few around here could learn to do. Calling people (now) meaningless names in a vein attempt to win a debate only ends in proving to people your (not necessarily meaning you) limited knowledge and level of intelligence.

[Drake Tungsten]

vein attempt

vain attempt...

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Yes.
Do we have cultural determinists here? Maybe the racist is one, but the others (JohnT and myself) aren't. We oppose determinism.

A nation is it's national culture. When it loses it's sense of who it is, it falters and dies. Gibbon made that point centuries ago and no one of any note has ever disproven it.

The idea that GGS proposes is that everything is chance. It's hogwash. That is akin to the religious fundamentalists on all continents who believe everything has already been decided by the "Gods" and nothing anyone does will make any difference.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

vein attempt

vain attempt...

vane attempt