Guns, Germs, and Steel PBS miniseries discussion thread.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
Jews and Asians are more intelligent than Europeans.

Jews, if we're not Europeans, ARE Asians. Or is there another continent out there that belongs to us that I dont know about?????

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
Jews and Asians are more intelligent than Europeans.

Unfortunately Ive known far too many stupid Jews.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Spiffor

And it were 3/4 of a post where you didn't justify the reason why you opposed GePap.

And for the record, I'm against GGS. I do not believe in any determinism, as human behaviour is something far too complex to explain with a simple set of variables (human mass behaviour is even moreso complex).

However, I remember you, and I'm not surprised that you'd jump on a GGS thread to reaffirm the European superiority. You seem to be very fond of it.

I agree with your views determinism. I believe as well that humans are far too complex to be viewed as say, software. But I also believe that movements in history are a function of culture. I believe as Gibbon makes his case, that Rome fell because it lost it's cultural virtues that led to initially conquer and rule the Western world.

You are right, I am proud of my Western heritage and happy that I was born into it rather then say, oh, Somalia. Likewise, I am happy that my many ancestors decided to move to North America and in particular what became America. I have one line that were in fact colonial settlers. An I am proud of them- it took true guts ( as opposed to the last 100 years) to move here in the 1600's. In more recent times (150 years ago) that same branch and another branch were responsible (along with a handful of others) for the city that I live in- pioneers, I guess. It's fun to live in a city where one can drive around and see structures their ancestors built five generations ago- I would imagine it to be even more fun to live somewhere and be someone where one can point back a thousand years.

So yes, I am proud of all that and hate to see it all denigrated or made light of. Having familiar memory of what it took to do establish that which people take for granted and make light of, or worse, tell lies about, is disconcerting to me. I have enjoyed Spielberg's "Into the West" series thus far and find it to be a fair assessment. Of course there is never enough time on television to be judicious with historical topics such as that- which is why books are still written, and hopefully read. But, the case of Jeddidiah Smith (whom the series starts with) is an excellent example of why Western man was so successful and subjugating the world.

As per that other thread, I found it doing a google search and was astonished at the vitriolic, anti-white aspects of it. I read what there is of that person's website and confess, the man needs a shrink or medication. He hates himself more then anything else.

The left in America and perhaps Europe has, in my opinion, become very anti-white with regards to the average white man. Some of it I can see and understand, but a lot of it is just irrational hatred. And it makes me wonder, since it's "okay" to hate and denigrate the average white "guy", is it being done because of that? What I mean is, do people have a need to hate groups and because it is PC to hate blue collar Americans, is that why they do it?

All of which is rhetorical in this thread as I do not want or expect an answer as I do not want to be accused of "Hi-jacking" it.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Unfortunately Ive known far too many stupid Jews.

I do not doubt that, but you cannot deny their success. A cursory look at the beneficiaries of Noble awards is enough......

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Jews and Asians are more intelligent than Europeans.

Overly broad statement. There are different kinds of intelligence and their are different kinds of Jews, not all Jews are Ashkenazi, nor are they all Eurasian. But most Ashkenazi Jews are European. One reason for their increased IQ average maybe that they didn't spend 1500 years cloistering their best and brightest behind the walls of monasteries, as Christians did in Western Europe. The catholic church in effect practiced reverse eugenics.

But that is purely a cultural based function- religion.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Epublius Rex
So yes, I am proud of all that and hate to see it all denigrated or made light of.

I dont see that Diamond denigrates or makes light of anything in particular. He carefully explains how eurasian civs got to where they got to.

Have you actually read GGS?

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Except that Europe continued to be just as vulnerable to epidemic disease in say, the late middle ages, as were other parts of the eurasian world. And they proved quite vulnerable to tropical diseases. Again the reason they had diseases to give is explained well by Diamond, and the reason the Americas had few diseases to give back is explained. And the reason the old world tropics had few diseases to give back.

These are the key points, and i dont see what youve said that contradicts them.

The Americas were isolated, obviously. Europeans weren't once trade with the East was re-established. Europeans went through a culling very similar to what the Indians in the Americas went through. Europe did loose some 2/3's of it's population due to the plague, which they got from the islamic hoards in the East. IIRC, it was besieged Venetians who first suffered an deliberate attack of biological warfare at the hands of the Turks. They used catapults to launch plague infected flesh and other items (clothing?) over the walls of a city that the Venetians were trying to hold. As the disease spread through the city, the Venetians abandoned it, carrying it back to Western Europe.

My point being, is that Western Europe, in the throes of the plague for 300 years did not end up by being conquered by Islam as a result, the way the Indians did the Europeans. On the contrary, most scholars attribute the loss of life as being one of the precursors to the Renaissance. The loss of cheap labor to the death of primarily the working class led to higher wages. At the same time, fewer people making demands on the existing agricultural methods of production resulted in widespread economic gain- thus allowing greater wealth accumulation.

I believe Diamond also makes the claim that continued exposure to germs in the third world also holds them back today. My words concerning basic sanitation are meant to address that aspect.

As an aside, there was a PBS show (NOVA?) that went back to villages where there had been devastation over that 300 year time period, but also survivors- of the plague, and did some genetic testing. They used surnames in the graveyards and public birth records to find thew descendants of the survivors. These people still carried the genes that had given their ancestors immunity to it.

In any case, I believe I have made a case for refuting him. Disease was imported into Europe just as it was in the Americas. Europe was at war with a foreign entity intent on subjugating and colonizing it. Europe suffered massive human loss of life. Europe survived it, territorially (almost) intact. Europe also went on to flower and bloom, at least partly because of it.

How's that? Did I make myself more clear? I hope so. You will have to forgive me for not making the case better the first time. I sometimes assume that a set of basic facts and knowledge are a given.

http://isu.indstate.edu/ilnprof/ENG451/ISLAND/bellren.html

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


I dont see that Diamond denigrates or makes light of anything in particular. He carefully explains how eurasian civs got to where they got to.

Have you actually read GGS?

That was not about anything to do with Diamond, the poster I quoted, had you actually fully read the quote and the response, linked to and made reference to another topic. And I was answering that, not you. I believe a quote is enough to normally inform the reader of what is being responded to.

I have watched the PBS version. WHen the book came out, I spent 2 hours at barnes and nobles "skimming" it and mostly checking his sources. His layout of facts coupled with the bibliography led me to not bother buying it. He makes the same basic arguments that others have made. Particularly when it comes to the Americas- his ideas are not actually new. They have been around for at least 40 years, since I first encountered them 25 years ago in college. Back then though, most people understood it to be mostly tripe. The fact is, is that if Amerindians had had higher social organization skills, they could have easily pushed the Europeans right back into the ocean. The lack of those skills was the reason for their demise.

His basic premise is that Europeans got lucky. Just admit it, that is his basic premise. The idea that "Whites" used germ warfare to obliterate opposition in the Americas is not new. Neither is the idea that we beat up on more primitive societies because we had guns and they didn't also isn't new.

But the problem with the guns thing is so obvious to anyone who knows anything about weaponry in the 1500- 1870 time period. The simple fact is, is that unless you were fighting a similarly equipped army on a mostly flat plain (ala Western Europe) you were at a disadvantage to someone with a bow and an arrow. A well trained soldier could fire no more then twice every 90 seconds or so- reloading, aiming and firing a musket took that long. The average was even longer. An Indian with a bow, on the other hand, could launch upwards of 25 arrows per minute- so who really had the firepower advantage?

Furthermore, in sub-Shahran Africa where the bow never came into use, an army equipped with bows could more easily subdue them then muskets could have.

So, what I concluded then, and have had reinforced by the show, is that what he set out to do was find proof for these languishing accusations that have been around since the 60's. And that is not science, per se. Since he allowed facts that would work against his thesis to be deliberately ignored or brushed them off without full justification.

The fact is, is that Western European success was predicated on the accomplishments of other Europeans going back thousands of years- a lineal line of assent. The basic underpinnings for that success were built thousands of years ago. Culture played a huge role in that.

But, I do think trying to find easy answers for it is a form of denigration. None of it came easy- not to those who lived it.

Okay, time for the news.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Epublius Rex
Furthermore, in sub-Shahran Africa where the bow never came into use, an army equipped with bows could more easily subdue them then muskets could have.

Quite an interesting view. in the 16th century, Morocco fought twice againt the subsaharian Songhai empire. On the first time Morocco lost the battle. On the second time (1591), Morocco won against a similar Songhai army. The main difference was that Morocco used guns that second time.

Besides, bows came into use in Subsaharian Africa, at least in western Africa. It was used for hunting an for war (though I do not know to what extent the bow was used vs the spear)

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Spiffor
However, I remember you, and I'm not surprised that you'd jump on a GGS thread to reaffirm the European superiority. You seem to be very fond of it.

Great thread. ER gets humiliated by a highschooler over SAT scores.

And the link DRose provided was terrific, too:

http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/15/42600caaf0ac2

You can see his posts defending this ad:

http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v?TARGET=showImage&article_id=42600caaf0ac2&image_num=1

He makes it quite clear he's not a troll, just a white supremacist. Such as in the post where he claims white people invented everything but all blacks had done was make peanut butter.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov




Great thread. ER gets humiliated by a highschooler over SAT scores.

And the link DRose provided was terrific, too:

http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/15/42600caaf0ac2

You can see his posts defending this ad:

http://www.thedmonline.com/vnews/display.v?TARGET=showImage&article_id=42600caaf0ac2&image_num=1

He makes it quite clear he's not a troll, just a white supremacist. Such as in the post where he claims white people invented everything but all blacks had done was make peanut butter.

I see you're as ill informed as the high schooler

Most people are aware of the fact that the SAT has been dumbed down over the last 20 years.

Most people are aware that it is no longer consider an accurate test of IQ

Most people are aware that the test had a total of 1600 points until a year ago- werenin more points were added for an "Essay"- said essay needn't even be coherent, just long, to acheive the additional points which now come up to 2400.

Links were posted that discuss the SAT scores over the years and the renorming.

Most people are aware that after 1980 an extra hour was allowed to complete the test- the same test that I took in 1977.

Most people are aware that as of 1990 caluclators were allowed, when prior to that only scratch paper was allowed as well as a second extra hour.

Most people are aware that prior to 1980 that only one test score was allowable, and that score was for the one and only test you were allowed to take.

Most people are aware that yet more time has been granted for the essay portion.

Now, my score of 1540 in 1977, per links provided, equated with an IQ of 158. Your HS's test score equates with nothing. As no one any longer believes it to be an indication of anything other then the ability to fill in blank circles.

25 years ago the ACT was not accepted by most colleges because it was not a good enough predictor of future scholastic success. Today, because it has not been dumbed down, it is becoming increasingly popular.

NOw, as to your assertion of my being had by the kid, based upon that alone, I consider you to be substandard.

Everything I have listed above is verified by facts contained in the links. You weren't smart enough to either follow or understand them, either way, it says more about you then it does me.

The ultimate humiliation is to be so ignorant as to not know when you have humiliated yourself, as you have just done.

[DRoseDARs]

The Great White Hope is back!

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


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.

I would argue the opposite, that economic possiblity dictates a significant part of the social fabric that then dictates the culture.

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.

While Africa as a whole runs North-South, Africa runs very far East-West in the north, not true in the south. The Bantu people's in the Sahel were able to absorb the technologies from the NOrthern African region, and gained access to some of their crops (wheat) then develop some of their own (Millet) and also vitally aquired cattle. The Bushmen were isolated to the south, until then the Bantu (rather late) broke through and conquered their lands.

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.

Those differences are micro ones, and generally utterly irrelevant to the grand scope of history. The success of say the Chinese diaspora has been of relatively minor importance to the shape of the world map and the distribution of world wealth. Diamond would be wrong to attempt to use geography to explain those differences, but in the end those difference don;t matter. Wealthy Chinese in Peru are less powerful than wealthy chinese in the US, and what matters is the difference between the US and Peru, NOT between Chinese immigrants and the local cultures.

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.

Or maybe it was the fact that Japan was isolated and relatively safe from European expansionism at the moment it did make the decision to modernise? After all, China was the target of foreign attack because it WAS rich. Japan was of relatively smaller interest, specially because no one knew much about it. Korea was relatively free of European encroachment, yet they did not develop as Japan did either. China on the toher hand had not isolated itself from the world and faced the dangers of foreign aggression. The leaders of Japan also had the advantage of much stronger central rule. Lets remember there were those that fought the modernizing urge, but they had been weakened by the strong state and the rulers were ablt to implement their programs. China on the other hand was faced with internal troubles, partly caused by the external aggression. Besides, would the Europeans, already in China, have simply looked away as China modernized and threatened their existing economic interests by doing so? I think that hardly unlikely- after all, the Opium war was Britian forcing China to back from its attrempts to stamp out the evils of opium usage because of how it would hurt heir own economic insterests.

By 1854 the Chinese had already to deal with the problems cause by European intervention. The Japanese had the "luxury" of the Chinese example, and of being relatively useless to Europeans (lacking any real worthwhile materials and having a market dwarfed by China's).

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.

NO, the hardware is the soci-economic condtions the people live in.

The Sioux are a great example of how in my view economics trumps culture, or in fact creates culture. Everyone thinks of the Sioux today as horse warriors, and yet anyone who thinks about it for a second will realize that the decendents of the Sioux must have been small scale farmers and gatherers for millenia before. Then they get access to this new beast, and in some short centuries their culture changes completely to become that of horsemen. And not only the Sioux but most plains Indians all of a sudden change their cultures because this possible change in economics occured.

Our culture today is very different from that of our predecessors, and what actually changed? The socio-economic situation.

Socio-economic conditions drive culture, not the other way around. And geography is vitally important for the type of economic conditions that can arise.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Quite an interesting view. in the 16th century, Morocco fought twice againt the subsaharian Songhai empire. On the first time Morocco lost the battle. On the second time (1591), Morocco won against a similar Songhai army. The main difference was that Morocco used guns that second time.

Besides, bows came into use in Subsaharian Africa, at least in western Africa. It was used for hunting an for war (though I do not know to what extent the bow was used vs the spear)

The Zulu nation never used it, they used a short handled spear- Aesigi, i think they called it.

Interesting you make no comment on the firepower rate of arrows versus muskets. Soldiers and settlers did not gain the advantage on the Western frontier of the US until the arrival of the repeater- Colt pistols and later the Winchester. Before that time, it was usually necessary for the whites to outnumber the indians. Which may have also been the case with the Moroccans. SInce you did not provide a link, I cannot say anything about the battles you mention. They are not well known enough to have been a factor in anyway other then purely local.

But, I suspect the battle took place on flat terrain? I cannot imagine muskets making the difference in the jungle- not against arrows. I see it did now-

well, I am always unimpressed by the reading comprehension capabilities here. You people seem to read what you want, not what's actually written. Go back and read what I wrote, you will note the point that the methods of war were developed and most effective in an environment such as Western Europe's flat plaines. There you could mass soldiers in the preferred method for musketry- long lines of compact troops who could mass the firepower- several layers deep for alternating the firepower.

That method, as the French demonstrated in Canada with their Indian allies, was not workable in the Forest nor would I think in the jungle.

The proof for that is in the battle of Rorke's drift versus Isandlwhana- where the British failed to mass the firepower so as to maximize it's effect. Even though they were outnumbered, they should still have won. They didn't because they formed the line with several yards between each man. By doing so, they lost the ability to mass the firepower. This was especially important in the days of smooth bore guns- as they were not very accurate at any distance. At Rorke's Drift, they kept the firepower concentrated and were able to inflict heavy casualties on the Zulus. Thus, it was better to have a wall of lead flying in the direction of the enemy then single shots ringing out.

In any case, Moroccan arms are not known for their superior fighting prowess. They are Moroccans, after all- not highly trained regiments of Her Majesty's army.

[Drake Tungsten]

Or maybe it was the fact that Japan was isolated and relatively safe from European expansionism at the moment it did make the decision to modernise?

Japan didn't start modernizing until the Western powers (first America, then Europe) starting forcing themselves on Japan. The Meiji Restoration and the ensuing modernization of Japan were directly caused by the threat of the "barbarians"...

I'm against GePapism

A wise course of action.