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> Guns Germs and Steel and all the TED talks that talk about how geographical differences are suspected to influence societal developments, all while keeping yo
by darkwater 7y ago
> Guns Germs and Steel and all the TED talks that talk about how geographical differences are suspected to influence societal developments, all while keeping your racism and eugenics radar on maximum-alert.
I really have no idea about those theories but they could perfectly be NOT racist at all just like saying a girl from a poor neighborhood has less chances to be rich as an adult than a kid from a mid-class neighborhood is NOT racist, just stating the (sad) reality.
And as a complete ignorant I guess that in a primordial society, climate had a huge impact on access to food, and the less you have to think about surviving the more you can think about improving your life.
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- austincheney 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel I haven’t read the book, but my understanding is that racism did play a preferential factor in that an ethic group that achieved geopolitical dominance tended to impose sanctions on more economically primitive people both intentionally and unintentionally. An unintentional example was the case with 1000 years of exposure to many pandemics for Eurasian people that isolated people never experienced, but once exposed suddenly dwindled.
- Retric 7y agoThe book suggests Europe had the biggest head start followed by Asia due to geography and plant and animal species, with races being completely irrelevant.
- nl 7y agoFrom memory (and it's probably 15 years since I read it) I seem to remember that the argument for European domination as opposed to Asian was because the European landmass favoured smaller city states. That in turn allowed them to avoid the critical mistake of the isolationist Chinese policy of the Ming dynasty right at the moment the European states were beginning to colonise. Chinese and European technology was roughly equivalent at the time, but the huge increase in economic activity by European states associated with colonisation gave them a lead that was impossible to reverse. And yes, the book make it extremely clear how little race had with anything.
- austincheney 7y agoI am not claiming race is a developmental or preferential factor but instead was an imposed factor in the consequences of one group achieving dominance comparative to another. National groups were still most strictly ethnically homogenous at that point and frequently used that as a point of identity. I also don’t think comparing European groups to East Asian groups is productive in this context because both were well connected and technologically similar at the point of colonialism. Better comparisons would be European groups to Pacific Islanders of the same colonial period who were often highly isolated aside from immediate neighbors. A more interesting comparison is European conquerors to civilizations of the Americas during the colonial era. The Aztecs were only conquered as a result of Spanish exploiting social unrest. They didn’t have the numbers themselves for their technological military advantage to matter, though that wasn’t the case with the Incas further south. Had the Incas developed metal working as advanced as their agricultural refinements they probably could have repelled the Spanish invasion. Conversely, the Spanish were never able to conquer or subdue the Maya communities around Mexico’s current southern border due to the environment, geography, and decentralization.
- ghettoimp 7y agoI think you're slightly confused about the kind of racism being discussed. You rightly point out that there has been tremendous exploitation of (for instance) Africa by Europe, and that a lot of this exploitation has been justified by racism. But separately from that, consider the question: why were Europeans able to do this to Africans in the first place? If you asked question back in the Nazi regime, you'd probably get answers like, "Europeans are somehow inherently racially superior to Africans, and this superiority allowed them to become dominant." Guns, Germs, and Steel lays out a different and detailed explanation. The author is quite aware of this history of racist explanations. He provides a competing theory, backed by considerable research and evidence. I found it quite good, but also very dry. :)
- danans 7y ago> the less you have to think about surviving the more you can think about improving your life. This is still very much true in our current non primordial "advanced" world.
- rapind 7y agoI wonder at what threshold from between being born into poverty / riches that this reverses due to a lack of the same pressing motivation. Or if that's even the case.
- danans 7y agoI would say that my comment applies at the aggregate level, not the individual level. Its about how the environment people operate in increases or decreases their odds of advancement.
- LeifCarrotson 7y agoI have read the book: it explicitly and thoroughly debunks the idea that race was a factor in the development of modern societies. It provides a myriad of geographical and climate-based explanations why the course of history would result societies in the northern hemisphere set the direction of clocks for the globe. It's honestly pretty refreshing to have a scientific explanation for why Aboriginals or Africans didn't set the direction of 'clockwise'. Without that explanation, I can faithfully assert "all humans are equal" but be confused by the apparent dominance on the world stage of Western societies. Armed with an explanation that has nothing to do with the innate abilities or intelligence or suitability in the modern global economy of the victims of circumstance, I can genuinely believe in equality.
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- lopmotr 7y agoHow does it show that race differences weren't a factor? Not how does it show that other factors existed, but how does it exclude race?
- nl 7y agoIt shows that other explanations are sufficient and make much more sense. But it's a historical explanation, not a double blind experiment. Nothing will ever disprove "scientific racism" to people who are racist unfortunately.
- stormdennis 7y agoThat's not a rigorous answer which is possibly why you felt the need to play the racism card at the end.
- nl 7y agoThere's no way to make a rigorous (to the "prove" level) argument from history on racism (or most social issues) because it relies on counter-factuals. Counter-factuals are inherently untestable.