Any opinions on this book? Is it any good? Should i read it or is it just a waste of time?

Any opinions on this book? Is it any good? Should i read it or is it just a waste of time?

General Sup Forums books thread.

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amazon.com/Conquest-Cortes-Montezuma-Fall-Mexico/dp/0671511041
amazon.com/gp/aw/d/160384290X/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1477652140&sr=1-4&refinements=p_27:Bernal Diaz del Castillo&pi=SL75_QL70
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youtu.be/LMO7Yo4PM8U
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The entire point of the book is:
>we are all the same!
>whitey only did better because we had crops and bad hygiene
>our lack of handwashing killed all those poor dindus
>africa is to verticle to grow crops, and zebras can't be donesticated!

Pretty much this, it's self hating drivel and ignores a lot of factors about the early development of Europe.

>self hating

No, a Jew wrote it.

Well i suppose it does make sense now.

Well the environment did have an impact on Europeans and you can say most african civilizations couldnțt go past their primitive state because they couldnt do shit in their respective environments.

Its shit. Its a Geologyst trying to explain History with mostly Geology while leaving out most otger factors. All while a9lying a nonscientific method of "Here is the result I want so lets cherrypick the stuff I need to get that result"

Fucking phone

((( Diamond)))

Well it points out that europeans had it easier, but the point of our successful history isn't just that, to be honest. The main drivers were others.

It's a good read but not the entire picture. Follows the "we're all equal!" bullshit.

Says that environments have had massive effects on human civilizations, but in the same chapter shoves aside how environments also have massive effects on human racial biology.

Sargon of Akkad had a good video recently that was in response to that John Greene "crash course" human geography bullshit. Might be worth a watch once you familiarize yourself with Diamond's arguments.

amazon.com/Conquest-Cortes-Montezuma-Fall-Mexico/dp/0671511041

amazon.com/gp/aw/d/160384290X/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1477652140&sr=1-4&refinements=p_27:Bernal Diaz del Castillo&pi=SL75_QL70

Read those to get really cultured and informed. The second one is a good complement to the first.

bait

Sargons video got me interested in the book actually.

And again, you cant argue we are not all equal to a degree. We are all humans but with different traits that distinguish us from each other.

Africans are good at running because thats what they do for the last tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Whites are better at a vast spectrum of things because we lived in a good climate that let us organize.
Asians are soulless beings because after thousands of years of brutal leadership their spirit was destroyed and the only things they have are work.
Euroasiatics are tougher because of the environment because they had to adapt to the harsh winters.

In essence we are all human beings but some human beings are just better because thats how they evolved.

Holyshit finaly found someone who thinks like me, the only thing I have to say that atm whites are taking steps backwards and it seems they're no longer the most 'superior race' so I'd guess its asians who dominate atm. Also are you a gypsy?

It's interesting, but as many anons here have said, it takes the geographical determinism idea and ignores all other possible factors that contribute to how civilisations came about and grew.
So everything he says may be fairly accurate, but so is a lot of what he elects not to say.

you need to update your j-dar friend

>see flag

Apparently living where snow covers the ground for 3 months a year is easier than living in the tropics.

The underlying issue with his book is his poor reasoning leads to incorrect conclusions and throughout his book he makes a lot of asinine statements that in many cases completely contradict his ideas.

Nah, not a gypo.

Even with whites taking steps backwards we will still be the best for at least 500 years longer. Asians, as i said, are soulless machines. They are drones, they are incapable of inventing with the purpose of bettering the society they live in. The only asians that can actually do that are the ones that live in white civilizations.

Lets put it this way:
>Societies that have to constantly hunt and move around to live day by day will never advance because they will never have time to sit down and do anything else or they will die.

>Societies in more temperate climates can plant crops and just wait it out until food grows. In the time you have, you start to use your brain more because thats one of the things you have left to do. You start thinking of domesticating animals. Food becomes even more abundant and now you can just work a bit to get food and the rest of the time you are free to do stuff and to think.

>The previous societies now discover new things and resources but will soon run out so they will need to start getting more land for those resources.

>Getting land implies fighting with other civilizations (mostly close together but still diverse). After fighting and conquering each civilization learns from the other one resulting in advancements.

So on and so forth until you get the whites you see today, and the africans that are still in the literal stone age.

Asians had potential but they fucked up.

Living in a place where snow covers the land for 3 months a year after which the ground is ripe and fertile IS better than in the tropics where constant rain will drown most crops.

>Asia and middle east have fuck huge head start in civilization

>still lose to europeans

>"Waaa they had a better start, thats the only difference"

>"Okay so China had many of the same advantages Europe did... but they weren't as evil and violent to colonise the world or something"

So much crap, the bias was to obvious

>"The Europeans stumbled into this discovery which was so obvious its amazing it took them so long"

>"Wow these ingenious natives discovered how to get nutrition from these trees, truly amazing"

After a video on Sargons channel yesterday I now feel that it's a pretty good book.

>You now realise that GGS is right wing facism to the modern SJW, that's how far the pendulum has swung.

The split in Europe between competing states that quickly corrected mistakes did give Europe an advantage.

It's amazing to think, China gave up all its foreign naval trade and defense based on the decision of one person. Something that couldn't happen in Europe with 100 competing nations with Kings and Republics.

But European success still isn't 100% geography, we were blessed with great minds and a society that rewarded merit just as much as breeding.

I hate Bernie, hope trump wins greatest ally. Now fuck off to your burger eating or what ever you faggots do these days.

Pretty good read. But it has a huge liberal bias.

Some of his conclusions are shit.

Pic related
>muh Tolstoy principle. Zebras are too nervous to be tamed by blacks. But whites can. Go figure.

>come ask Sup Forums about guns, germs, and steel meme
we've been having one of these every day, what gives?

Better books in here:
>Politically Incorrect Books Archive:
mega.nz/#F!B4dB2SzQ!h_pMC30v2a_y31iD0dy0sg

When I read it I didn't perceive a real strong liberal bias, in fact, he seems to argue for the superiority of Europe throughout. Overall, the argument is pretty weak and cherry-picked, but interesting. Many people hate on Jared Diamond's credentials, but whatever, he is a good writer.
The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal is actually a better read. His books get shittier as time goes on whether due to his personal biases or simply the failings of an overarching argument falling apart under its own weight. Collapse was wack

Thing is, Africa doesn't lack for resources. There's a reason that various European states and now China have been colonising the place.

Culture is more important the geography. Like you said, merit and innovation was rewarded, and a divided Europe meant that the status quo was impossible to keep.
In China, innovation was put down several times, most notably in the Song dynasty were they were on the verge of their own industrial revolution 600 years before Europe but the ruling class put their foot down so fucking hard it stopped dead.
Meanwhile in Europe everyone was always looking for an edge, and if a ruler was dumb enough to keep something down, there was sure to be someone else that would see the benefit, or just want to take the risk.
I suppose you could blame geography for that, but that's ignoring a whole lot of European history that lead to the political climate of post-Roman Europe.

Sargon was actually speaking in favour of environmental determinism -- while the SJW thought it was racist, for some reason.

Africa has a lot of second tier resources. There's no point in having advanced technology if you cannot get there.

We lived in small countries with challenging terrain so there were plenty of years to build up city states and not one massive shitfest. African plains have people who want to fight on nice easy flat terrain so they constantly fuck each other up. If you had to worry about your neighbours fucking your goats and eating your wife then you wouldn't have time for teching up either.

In Northern Europe it's a total ballache to even get to the next village so no massive wars happened till people reached high tech levels.

Leave it to a fucking jew and a gypsy to post oh muh equality.

Niggers are better runners but in a modern civilization they are far from equal. Thousands of years of having to delay gratification to survive winter forced the white and Asian IQ to go up. Niggers only ever had summer with tons of game to hunt. There was nothing to kill off the idiots. When there is tons of food year round, a species is not forced to evolve.

White people have domesticated foxes. If we wanted to I'm sure we could easily domesticate a zebra as well. Niggers are just too stupid.

Yeah read it critically-it is a good book.

Claim that hostile neighbors means you dont want to tech up is ridiculous. Hostilities have been the catalyst to much of Europe's success, everything from advance banking to state bureaucracies are the result of people wanting to fuck each other up more effectively, and that's just naming two things not inherently tied to combat.
And warfare was happening in Northern Europe a lot, Viking raids may seem like small scale, but they siege'd quite a few cities, and there were quite a few civil wars as well.

Or alternatively nigs are more prone to chimping out.

(((coincidence))), the book

This all seems to be true though. Sorry to rain on your white supremacist parade but Europeans aren't inherently better by virtue of their albinism or whatever.

So you are saying european Caucasians were geographically privileged?

It's a book on anthropology, geography, and history, written by an ornithologist. Diamond was completely unqualified to write it, and it shows in the scores of errors he made and the fact that his argument only seems internally consistent provided that you're ignorant, genuinely or willfully, of all the evidence to the contrary. It makes real historians and anthropologists gnash their teeth and start to spontaneously evolve venom glands out of sheer rage, which in turn fucks with evolutionary biologists who have to try and account for the phenomenon.

It's trash. Disregard it.

>le race is skin deep xD
Thanks for correcting the record. Also learn what albinism means

My black commie professor said it was a terrible book, so I'm guessing it must be pretty redpilled

Can you blame Zebras for not relaxing around blacks?

This book managed to piss off a shitload of libs in the sci-fi community back when it was released

Good read

He only said that because the book admits black wuz not kangz.
instead they were poor lil dindus.

Of course human biodiversity exists, but what can you learn if you accept it as an explanation.

Though it exists, it is far from the only force at play. There is no reason to suspect it is even the most important force shaping societal evolution.

I like Guns Germs and Steel because it places Human Biodiversity aside and looks for forces that shaped us, and which also may have contributed to Human Biodiversity itself.

There are plenty of broad plains of gently rolling grasslands all throughout Europe, and plenty of geographic barriers like mountains, jungles, and deserts isolating small patches of Africa.

Africa had loads of first tier resources, and Europe didn't have nearly as many first tier resources as they're assumed to have had until Eurasians selectively bred the feeble crops and ravening hellbeasts they were given to start with to that state. "Boo-hoo, Africa only had sorghum and millet, Europe and Asia had wheat, rice, barley, and oats." Well all those were pretty shitty until we fixed them. "A-boo-hoo-hoo, Africa had zebras and Cape buffalo, Europe and Asia had cows and horses!" Bitch, those cows and horses were called the aurochs and dinohippus back when they were in the beta-testing phase, and I'll lay all my money on either over a Cape buffalo or zebra in a "which animal is the best example of pure evil incarnate in the mortal realm" contest, any day of the week. And we fucking domesticated them.

It's like you're defending GSS with knowledge drawn only from GSS, which was ignorant and flagrant bullshit.

Stupid. I remember the first chapter begins as same Papua New Guinean tribesman asks Diamond
>why europeans have so much cargo and we have none
And Diamond thinks 'hm, interesting question, since the people I met in Papua New Guinea were just as smart'

No they fucking aren't. In WW2 when the Asians saw our technology they strived to improve their own, when the New Guineans saw it they did this:

youtu.be/LMO7Yo4PM8U

>White people have domesticated foxes. If we wanted to I'm sure we could easily domesticate a zebra as well

Not as easily as foxes no.

Humans are not a natural predator to foxes and they don't see us as an imminent threat. Wild foxes are merely cautious around us, and are sometimes even curious. Zebras on the other hand naturally see humans the same way they see lions. They are naturally very agitated in our presence and this is hard wired behavior on a genetic level.

One-off examples can be broken and trained to pull a harness, but all attempts to breed them for better temperament since the 19th century have failed. Many efforts were made.

The cost of importing horses to African colonies was enormous, and many horses would be lost to tsetse flies (zebras were immune to the disease carried by the flies, while european horses were not). Zebras could solve all of these problems but the task proved impossible.

So yes zebras could still be trained for simple tasks but they always remained dangerous and very jumpy. With enough conditioning even a tiger can be trained to jump through a flaming hoop, but to then declare the lion and it's offspirng to be domesticated would be laughable.

t. jamal-kun

That book sucks