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I read Guns, Germs, and Steel right before reading Sapiens. While I've heard that some of the ideas of GGS were not well received, I really enjoyed it. Sapiens

I read Guns, Germs, and Steel right before reading Sapiens. While I've heard that some of the ideas of GGS were not well received, I really enjoyed it. Sapiens felt more like a tech bro hand waving and jumping to conclusions that he thought was obvious and I thought was suspect. Edit: Two takeaways I did enjoy (can't recall from which book): Humans were pray animals that quickly became dominant predators, not allowing us to develop the confidence of "real" predators, so we are still scared of the dark and everything else. Humans were able to stay in practically the same state for 40k years in Australia. After killing some megafauna of course. In the last 1k years, we've upset the apple cart and may destroy the world as we know and need it. We _can_ coexist in our environment without utterly destroying it in 40k years - but we are not.

dragonwriter 3y ago
Ironically, the reason some of the ideas of Guns, Germs, and Steel were poorly received is that it, too, is perceived by experts in the relevant fields as rather egregiously engaging in handwaving and jumping to conclusions.
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yywwbbn 3y ago
> In the last 1k years, we've upset the apple cart and may destroy the world as we know and need it. We _can_ coexist in our environment without utterly destroying it in 40k years - but we are not. It’s extremely unlikely that whatever we do to the environment will decrease QoL in developed countries below that which was experienced by the Australian aboriginals (when measured by child mortality, life expectancy, access to stuff etc.) though.
- geph2021 3y ago
  That strikes me as incredibly confident that humanity (and developed countries), will avoid even some of the pessimistic consequences of climate change, let alone some of the potentially dire scenarios. Please share why you are so confident. I could use a mood boost on this friday... :)
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rdevsrex 3y ago
Aborigines didn't just hunt megafauna to extinction they managed their environment to make it what it is to day. This is true of Native Americans too. Any thing we do in sufficient numbers has an effect on the environment regardless of our tech level.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  It's not at all proven that the megafauna extinction is a result of overhunting.

dragonwriter 3y ago

Ironically, the reason some of the ideas of Guns, Germs, and Steel were poorly received is that it, too, is perceived by experts in the relevant fields as rather egregiously engaging in handwaving and jumping to conclusions.

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yywwbbn 3y ago

> In the last 1k years, we've upset the apple cart and may destroy the world as we know and need it. We _can_ coexist in our environment without utterly destroying it in 40k years - but we are not. It’s extremely unlikely that whatever we do to the environment will decrease QoL in developed countries below that which was experienced by the Australian aboriginals (when measured by child mortality, life expectancy, access to stuff etc.) though.

geph2021 3y ago
That strikes me as incredibly confident that humanity (and developed countries), will avoid even some of the pessimistic consequences of climate change, let alone some of the potentially dire scenarios. Please share why you are so confident. I could use a mood boost on this friday... :)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

rdevsrex 3y ago

Aborigines didn't just hunt megafauna to extinction they managed their environment to make it what it is to day. This is true of Native Americans too. Any thing we do in sufficient numbers has an effect on the environment regardless of our tech level.

chrisco255 3y ago
It's not at all proven that the megafauna extinction is a result of overhunting.