Guns, germs, and Steel

What is your opinion of this book, Sup Forums? My history (((teacher))) recommended we read it over winter break.

Other urls found in this thread:

city-journal.org/html/real-war-science-14782.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle
web.mit.edu/posner/www/WGAPE/tsetse_29october2012.pdf
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

It's decently interesting, but tries to argue that success of a civ has nothing to do with race, but only environment

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Pretty cucked. The opening chapters are basically how terrible colonization was. Utterly cucked.

Maybe read it and give a critical response about how anti-white the author is.

His book "collapse" was much better

pol hates it because it doesnt confirm their narrative that european success was a product of genetic superiority instead of a numerous economic, social factors that allowed the european powers to over take china and india.

its a good start. i prefer niall ferguson's the west and the rest.

But environments are what makes races, races.

desu he's a cuck:
city-journal.org/html/real-war-science-14782.html

Complete garbage. Anyone with critical thinking skills will laugh at a lot of the shit he says. HE throws out numerous tautologies ,presents all kinds of unsubstantiated theories as facts, never considers any weaknesses of his blather. The worst kind of pseudo intellectual crap ever written. Anyone who believes anything this guy (Jared Diamond) says can safely be dismissed as a moron.

jesus fucking christ why does this retarded bullshit always get 300 replies of the same exact horseshit just fucking go on 4plebs and find one of the other ten thousand instances of us discussing this and then gas yourself

kek

I don't like books that can be fully disproven with a picture of zebras.

Don't read it, total waste of time.

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History books thread?

It's not taken even remotely seriously by historians and you probably have a really bad history teacher.

It does fit some leftist narratives about how prosperity is basically luck based though.

What gave the european's economic succsess to begin with?

I mean. were talking about an economy mostly held up by agriculture. Telling me that the ground beneath europeans feet is simply better?

was he secretly redpilled?

TBF, I wouldn't trust many historians either. They're saturated in the academic (((types))) who love to make easy cop-out theories.

Division of labour. Necessary creation of long term produce due to long winters, consumption of meat.

Temperate climates are the best for stable civilizations.

Floodplains like Egypt and Mesopotamia are ok but can have salinization and disease problems.

compare to the Maya, who made a glorious civilization, but the thin soil of the jungle couldn't support it.

Zebras are mean and nasty fucking animals. They're incredibly difficult to capture in the wild compared to horses, and they're also incredibly dangerous to humans. They have a nasty habit of biting onto people and refusing to let go.

The zebras in this picture are tamed, not domesticated. Domestication is a long term process that actually changes the biology of animals to become more compatible with humans.

Don't read it. It's not a scientifically accepted theory, it's just SJW accepted. It suggests that niggers didn't civilize because they couldn't domesticate zebras. Truth is they didn't civilize because they didn't evolve and the vast majority still havent.

Northern hemisphere people evolved at a quicker rate due to harsh winters. You had to think far ahead (which requires creativity as well) and prepare yourself for what was to come. You also had to have a high degree of empathy, because if your tribesmen and children died so would you.

Niggers don't think beyond the day, they live in the moment, and they have very little empathy (they beat their kids and feel no remorse when victimizing others). This is because Africa was temperate and fertile during the time humans were up and coming. There were vast food forests and slow megafauna. You could basically wake up, eat, fuck, sleep, repeat. This led to a society more based on sexual competition (competition against other members of the tribe) rather than competition with nature. This means there was a shit ton of violence between members of their communities, and there still is. This is also why they have exaggerated sexual traits, comically huge asses and lips, among some other things maybe. You basically just had to be the meanest motherfucker with the biggest dick and you'd survive and thrive in Africa, while up north you had to be more crafty and inventive, but still tough at least up until the modern era.

Great book. Interesting premise with tons of supporting evidence. Loved it - and the follow on book Collapse as well.

It also, despite seemingly being a leftist book, implies that colonized people in general are inferior to their colonizers in that they couldn't figure out how to resist their colonizers. If you take the logic in the book to its ultimate conclusion, so it's not even as politically correct as a message as it would seem.

Generally the book puts way too much emphasis on the points Jared Diamond is pushing on affecting the course of history. It pushes an oversimplified narrative.

Bullshit. Even liberals shit on Jared Diamond these days.

>history teacher

Reported underge b&

>Zebras are mean and nasty fucking animals. They're incredibly difficult to capture in the wild compared to horses, and they're also incredibly dangerous to humans. They have a nasty habit of biting onto people and refusing to let go.

As opposed to the original horses which they just lured in with an apple and then just climbed ontop. Legend has it the first horses actually even lowered their front legs so that it would be easier for people to get up.

>whites didn't earn their world dominance: the book

It's kike propaganda of the first order.

Nah it was uniquely situated for spurring huge competition and growth. A lot of things went right for Spain, UK and France. (Remember not all Europeans were as mighty and glorious as the big European powers)

I'm not going to write a book but the main reasons are

1. China had a period of terrible rulers. Zheng He's fleet was destroyed and China never took part in the discovery of the New World even though at the time of Zheng He's life, his fleet was ocean worthy and could have traversed the Pacific. China was very closed minded. They had the motto, of "we have everything in the world so we don't need to do anything anymore. there is nothing the outside world can offer china"

Obviously not verbatim.

2. Asia was relatively peaceful unlike Europe which was a collection of fractured states that were in a constant state of calamity and conflict. This spurs innovation and growth. China became decadent.

3. By the end of the Medici period, Europe had an extremely sophisticated banking system. To my knowledge, there did not exist a financial system as sophisticated as the Dutch central bank and later the British Central Bank. Europe was literally able to finance itself to fight incredibly expensive wars and undertake huge voyages even though at the time they were quite poor relative to China which was an extremely vast realm with many more people than Europe.

There are a ton of other points...

umm medicine for one.

Not a bad book, Sup Forums just hates it because it actually tries to do deeper research than just "niggers r stupid XD"

horese WERE like that be fror they were bred by europeans

Glorious head piles

>just SJW accepted

But SJWs call the book racist

The most thoroughly debunked pop-culture "anthropology" to have ever been invented by Jews to attack whites. Virtually every point it made was wrong, and all of it invented by a single person to simply hand-wave genetics, which are in fact THE determining factor in civilization-development.

That's why whites were able to setup shop in Africa and create nation-states out of nothing despite the supposed lack of resources, as per (((Diamond)))'s analysis.

Ask your teacher about Mongols, Vikings, Huns or pretty much any barbarian Stepp tribe ever that came into success (there's a lot of them) and watch them squirm and recoil at how btfo and retarded they are for believing that shit book.

Yeah, his initial premise is that the shitskins are not inferior, then he spends the rest of the book explaining why they are inferior. Not surprising that low IQ liberals love it. The type of person who scored on the 53rd percentile on the SAT, never took a college math class, has a degree in "studies" and considers himself to be smart because he has a degree eats this shit up. It proves to the world that he is a genius, with his 103 IQ, and can smugly call people far more intelligent than himself "stupid".

Stop being retarded. Zebras evolved to avoid capture and attack from predators. Most predators in Africa are strong, fast, and completely savage.

There are a few competing theories as to how horses were domesticated. First is that when hunters killed and ate adult horses for meet, they would keep their foals as pets. The foals would keep mild temperaments since humans met social needs like a herd. Horses are social animals, and humans meet their social needs.

Zebras on the other hand do not bond to humans.

I also heard that the early cattle were so docile that they killed and butchered themselves for the convenience of ancient Caucasians.

spbp

They are middle eastern you spanner

>Zebras evolved to avoid capture and attack from predators. Most predators in Africa are strong, fast, and completely savage.

Luckily for horses, predators were not present in Europe/Asia/Middle East. Animals such as wolves, tigers or lions did not exist there... Wait a minute!!!

>Horses are social animals, and humans meet their social needs.

lel, don't even have a shitpost for this level of retardation

that is like saying dogs are social animals and humans meet their needs

Attempts to do research....lol. For instance, primitives in New Guinea are super geniuses because they can walk on paths in the woods. And whites can't. And his proof was....he declared it to be so. Throughout the book, he backs up NOTHING. Only a person with a very low IQ, and poor reading skills would think that there was any research involved in writing that book.

100% propaganda.
You're better off reading The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David Landes.

No, it's an anti-scientific tirade against evolutionary biology. I'll wait for some other anons to reply with the large volume of imagery this board has collected over the years completely and utterly stomping this faggot out. My favorite is Diamond's claim that "Africa had no domesticable animals" superimposed over images of colonial whites riding zebras and leading cheetahs along with leashes. God, anyone who's ever been made aware of the circus knows fucking elephants can be tamed.

But the entire book is nonsense bullshit that any layperson can upend.

>b-b-blacks didn't have access to nutrient-dense food
>what are yams and all the other shit that fucking grow wild in africa
>b--b-b-but europeans still had access to be better nutrition
>the only two fruits native to europe were the apple and the pear
>b-b-but b-b-but you're a racist and i'm not at all some fucking kike trying to explain away the obvious, visible differences between biological races that relationship with social outcome

Honestly, the shit's laughable.

As opposed to the slow, weak predators in Europe, like wolves and bears. Brown bears could eat lions and tigers for lunch. Just stop, you're embarrassing yourself.

One thing that makes me laugh about people who hate Guns.Germs and Steel is that they say Diamond is ignorant for not recognizing inherent differences between races, but then refuse to accept that zebras or elephants may be inherently different from horses or cows.

Skip it, go to the original source. More straightforward and with music less moralizing bullshit. See also The Colombian Exchange by the same author.

>that is like saying dogs are social animals and humans meet their needs

No that's exactly what I'm saying

Canadian proxies love to shill this made up kike shit.

If you read history from textbooks and fags like jared diamon and not direct sources like letters and journals, you are a cuck

we can't even get rid of the tetse fly with modern technology.

you realize its basically impossible to farm in sub Saharan africa because of that fly right?

Fundamentally flawed premise, thoroughly debunked. Very repetitive.

Read the first half just so you can keep up with the class discussion.

Jared stfu and kill yourself.

Yeah I know, hence me calling you a retard

>look at these huge differences in behavior between these domesticated animals and these non-domesticated animals
>it is proof the non-domesticated animals can't be domesticated

What are some books Sup Forums recommends?

Haha this kike thinks animals were always domesticated.

Subersion doesnt work on Sup Forums

Maybe youre just a fucking ignoant fag... jews are degenerate arab stock after all

I wonder what Mr. Diamond would think about the Russian's domesticated fox.

>cuck
>kike

Pick one.

You're a fucking moron, nigger, or Jew.

Also, check out for a fuller illustration of how fucking stupid and useless you are.

It's not real, duh

Last night, I crab chair your sister

Zebras. I read the book it was retarded. Skip to the part about domestication. It's pants on head retarded.

Your history teacher is a retarded cuckold.

>What are some books Sup Forums recommends?

See . Also, the 10 000 Year Explosion, A Farewell to Alms and the Son Also Rises.

>refuse to accept that zebras or elephants may be inherently different from horses or cows

Elephants were domesticated by Indians and North Africans. Hannibal marched an army of elephants from Carthage to Italy. Sub-saharan Africans didn't develop civilization because they are incapable of doing so regardless of environment.

Zebras.

Zebras have been tamed by a few people, but not widely domesticated.

Why do so many people on Sup Forums have trouble accepting this fact?

Lel you fucking idiot. White Rhodesians and South Africans farmed the land for as long as the globalist Jew allowed them to own their own countries. The difference between the whites that can farm the land in Africa and the blacks that can't is initiative and intelligence.

Holy fuck you're retarded.

Who would win in a race, a brown bear or a cheetah?

African animals evolved to avoid fast predators and be able to avoid danger at a moment's notice. Consider the gazelle that can sprint at a moment's notice and leap over 30 feet.

Of course, this isn't exclusive to other animals either. Consider how we haven't domesticated deer either.

There are a list of necessary features that Diamond mentions called the Anna Karenina principle

>Diet – To be a candidate for domestication, a species must be easy to feed.
>Growth rate – The animal must grow fast enough to be economically feasible.
>Problems of captive breeding – The species must breed well in captivity. Species having mating rituals prohibiting breeding in a farm-like environment make poor candidates for domestication. These rituals could include the need for privacy or long, protracted mating chases.
>Nasty disposition – Some species are too mean and nasty to be good candidates for domestication. Farmers must not be at risk of life or injury every time they enter the animal pen. The zebra is of special note in the book, as it was recognized by local cultures and Europeans alike as extremely valuable and useful to domesticate, but it proved impossible to tame. Horses in Africa proved to be susceptible to disease and attack by a wide variety of animals, while the very characteristics that made the zebra hardy and survivable in the harsh environment of Africa also made it fiercely independent.
(1/2)

Meh, generic popular history with no real significance.

If civilizations success relied on only on their environment, then why have political entities from a gigantic spectrum of climates all been succesfull at some part or another throughout history?

Western centric garbage.

Zebras.

It's strangely irrelevant. Why would you assume that agriculture wouldn't influence genetics? Even if everything diamond said was correct, he still would have done nothing to disprove a genetic hypothesis for civilizational differentiation.

You clearly don't understand how domestication works/worked.

>Tendency to panic – Species are genetically predisposed to react to danger in different ways. A species that immediately takes flight is a poor candidate for domestication. A species that freezes, or mingles with the herd for cover in the face of danger, is a good candidate. Deer in North America have proven almost impossible to domesticate and have difficulty breeding in captivity. Horses, however, immediately thrived from the time they were introduced to North America in the 16th century.
>Social structure – Species of lone, independent animals make poor candidates. A species that has a strong, well defined social hierarchy is more likely to be domesticated. A species that can imprint on a human as the head of the hierarchy is best. Different social groups must also be tolerant of one another.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle

The lack of domestication is not proof of the impossibility of domesticating the animal.

Stop using circular arguments.

>Who are you gonna believe, goy? Me, or your lying eyes?

>tfw your dad is too busy sucking dick at the international level to pay attention to you

Taming is the first step to domestication.

>Using machines
lmao
web.mit.edu/posner/www/WGAPE/tsetse_29october2012.pdf

Sup Forumss cop-out theory is racial determinism. Something inherent in the genes and only in the genes that produce the current situation rather than also a mixture of history, geography, different neighbors, their developments, and cultural interactions.

You clearly didn't actually read it. You also posit complete and utter bullshit dogma that anyone with half a brain know is complete garbage.

Give me 100 Zebras and 10 years. I will domesticate those fucks guaranteed. There has never been an economic incentive for whites or Asians to domesticate the zebra or else they would have done it. There had always been an economic incentive for Africans to domesticate them but they couldn't. Also explain dogs. Explain wild horses. Do you think wolves and wild horses were just like hey lets submit to the humans? No they didn't it was hard. And it was too hard for Africans.

I believe that genetics do play a rather large role in the determination of success, however you are correct, I believe, in saying that other various factors like geography and cultural interactions and such are also factors. But I think that it's the genetics that determine how well a race or ethnicity best utilizes the factors of their situation to elevate themselves above what would normally not be easy or possible.

Whites obviously excelled at this fact, that is undeniable.

>only living in nice places allows you to build civilizations
>largest empire created by some fat asian living in a tent
>rape conquered china so hard that han chinese isn't really a thing anymore

I don't think this book is right.

You're not intelligent enough to examine and understand both sides of the argument, so you default to the establishment narrative. You can't even explain what you supposedly like about the side you arbitratily chose aside from using vague and non-descriptive terms. Why bother participating in this discussion?

Did not read it, but is it true that he denied that race exists.

If domestication of Zebras were so simple and it were just a matter of niggers being too stupid, why haven't white Europeans succeeded in the task? Tsetse fly resistant horses would be badass. Why hasn't modern science been able to solve this issue?

It boils down to the inherent mental behavior of Zebras. They cannot adapt to human domestication.

The best part of the book is the chapter about Polynesian islands. The idea that one tiny source population created lots of different civilizations on tiny to huge islands, depending on what was available, was an interesting idea.

>Stop being retarded. Zebras evolved to avoid capture and attack from predators.
So did horses, imbecile kike.

We tamed and then went through the lenghty process of domesticating feral animals. Niggers didn't bother. THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE, not envirnoment.

That's bullshit.

>why haven't white Europeans succeeded in the task?

Why would they do it?

>Tsetse fly resistant horses would be badass

In what way would this be badass for Europeans?

This book is important because it presents a very clear, highly reductive model of historic state-level outcomes. It's a "limit-case", essentially, on how simplified you can get when trying to explain stuff.

That said, it's obviously not 100% correct. Although environmental factors may explain some initial variance in societies/technology, as societies developed and became more complex, a wider range of historic forces became *independent drivers* of outcomes. So as time progressed, the explanatory power of initial environmental conditions became less and less important.

>genetics is THE factor
Wrong.

>Horses are social animals
What are you implying that Zebras a not?

Good post
Horses before domestication weren't as nasty as zebras. Look up Przewalski's Horse. It's related to the original wild horse. It's nowhere near as dangerous as the zebra.

>Nasty disposition – Some species are too mean and nasty to be good candidates for domestication
Like Cows?

>Social structure – Species of lone, independent animals make poor candidates.
Like Foxes?

It was ok, not very deep.

Oy vey a self hating Jew.

Stop spamming that.

Tasmania, Australia is a temperate climate but the Tasmanian Aborigines were much stupider than their mainland counterparts, they didn't even know how to make fire.