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Fascinating read. I also found the stuff about PNG very interesting in Jared Diamond's 'Guns Germs and Steel'. IIRC he said you could trade and marry with the

Fascinating read. I also found the stuff about PNG very interesting in Jared Diamond's 'Guns Germs and Steel'. IIRC he said you could trade and marry with the the tribes in the next valley. But if you want 2 valleys away, they would likely kill you.

emptyfile 19d ago
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sampo 19d ago
The mentioned book "First Contact: New Guinea's Highlanders Encounter the Outside World" is also a nice read. https://www.amazon.com/First-Contact-Guineas-Highlanders-Encounter/dp/0670801674 https://www.amazon.com/First-Contact-Guineas-Highlanders-Enc...
- OrangeMusic 19d ago
  I really want to read it but can't find a digital version for my reader anywhere :(
  - sampo 18d ago
    https://archive.org/details/firstcontact00conn https://archive.org/details/firstcontact00conn
Der_Einzige 19d ago
That book is so garbage, psudoscientific, empirically wrong, sinophobic, and I'm probably forgetting a bunch. Also lol to it's explanation for no beasts of burden in Africa. Sorry, folks have actually mostly domesticated the zebra. The explanations for why Zebra's were not domesticated after all this time are a massive cope. Even worse copes are the non recognition/misunderstandings of Elephant usage in large numbers for warfare / burden from Africa to India, "It is possible that having evolved under pressure from the many large predators of Africa, including early humans, they became more aggressive, thus making domestication more difficult.[104] However, zebras have been trained throughout history. In Rome, zebras are recorded to have pulled chariots during amphitheatre games starting in the reign of Caracalla (198 to 217 AD).[105] In the late 19th century, the zoologist Walter Rothschild trained some zebras to draw a carriage in England, which he drove to Buckingham Palace to demonstrate that it can be done. However, he did not ride on them knowing that they were too small and aggressive.[106] In the early 20th century, German colonial officers in East Africa tried to use zebras for both driving and riding, with limited success." Oh and also Africa had cattle and donkies and the donkey was actually domesticated in Africa. West African empires like Mali, Songhai, and the Oyo Empire famously maintained massive cavalry units. They adapted horses to tropical conditions, using them for state-building and warfare long before the arrival of Europeans. Also uhh Camels! Environmental Determinism is the ultimate racism.
- hermitcrab 19d ago
  >Environmental Determinism is the ultimate racism. Diamond says that the reasons Europeans colonised South America (rather than vice versa) is largely due to geographic factors, not due to any inherent genetic superiority of European over South Americans. I don't see how that is racist. Quite the opposite.
  - Der_Einzige 19d ago
    His entire section/epilogue on "Why China isn't actually a counter example to my whole thesis, tee-hee!!" AKA Chapter 13 literally goes into "well the emperor there had so much power and could unilaterally keep their technology levels down with stupid trade restrictions so that's why Europeans put them through the century of humiliation and eclipsed them!" and other nonsense is straight up massive Sinophobia and very racist. Diamond makes broad genetic/intelligence claims about whole populations, rankes societies as "advanced/backward" constantly and describes conquest as inevitable "in mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners" "modern "Stone Age" peoples are on the average probably more intelligent" "some societies seem hopelessly conservative, inward looking, and hostile to change." Actual quotes from this so called bastion of liberalism "China’s connectedness eventually became a disadvantage" [because] "a decision by one despot could and repeatedly did halt innovation." China = monolithic, obedient, centralized, despotic, stagnant; Europe = pluralistic, competitive, innovative. Diamond turns "Chinese authoritarianism" into a transhistorical condition produced by the land itself. I'm all about the LVT and Georgism and all but this is doing too much service for land. In other words, the old Orientalist story survives perfectly well after the race science has been supposedly removed from the chassis. Better still, Diamond treats Ming maritime policy, imperial bureaucracy, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution as variations on the same ancient geographical bug, as though two thousand years of Chinese politics were basically the Yangtze River repeatedly pressing the "authoritarianism" button with it's floods!!!
    - jobs_throwaway 19d ago
      > "some societies seem hopelessly conservative, inward looking, and hostile to change." This rings absolutely true? Do you not think any societies are more hostile to change than others?

emptyfile 19d ago

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sampo 19d ago

The mentioned book "First Contact: New Guinea's Highlanders Encounter the Outside World" is also a nice read. https://www.amazon.com/First-Contact-Guineas-Highlanders-Encounter/dp/0670801674 https://www.amazon.com/First-Contact-Guineas-Highlanders-Enc...

OrangeMusic 19d ago
I really want to read it but can't find a digital version for my reader anywhere :(
- sampo 18d ago
  https://archive.org/details/firstcontact00conn https://archive.org/details/firstcontact00conn

Der_Einzige 19d ago

That book is so garbage, psudoscientific, empirically wrong, sinophobic, and I'm probably forgetting a bunch. Also lol to it's explanation for no beasts of burden in Africa. Sorry, folks have actually mostly domesticated the zebra. The explanations for why Zebra's were not domesticated after all this time are a massive cope. Even worse copes are the non recognition/misunderstandings of Elephant usage in large numbers for warfare / burden from Africa to India, "It is possible that having evolved under pressure from the many large predators of Africa, including early humans, they became more aggressive, thus making domestication more difficult.[104] However, zebras have been trained throughout history. In Rome, zebras are recorded to have pulled chariots during amphitheatre games starting in the reign of Caracalla (198 to 217 AD).[105] In the late 19th century, the zoologist Walter Rothschild trained some zebras to draw a carriage in England, which he drove to Buckingham Palace to demonstrate that it can be done. However, he did not ride on them knowing that they were too small and aggressive.[106] In the early 20th century, German colonial officers in East Africa tried to use zebras for both driving and riding, with limited success." Oh and also Africa had cattle and donkies and the donkey was actually domesticated in Africa. West African empires like Mali, Songhai, and the Oyo Empire famously maintained massive cavalry units. They adapted horses to tropical conditions, using them for state-building and warfare long before the arrival of Europeans. Also uhh Camels! Environmental Determinism is the ultimate racism.

hermitcrab 19d ago
>Environmental Determinism is the ultimate racism. Diamond says that the reasons Europeans colonised South America (rather than vice versa) is largely due to geographic factors, not due to any inherent genetic superiority of European over South Americans. I don't see how that is racist. Quite the opposite.
- Der_Einzige 19d ago
  His entire section/epilogue on "Why China isn't actually a counter example to my whole thesis, tee-hee!!" AKA Chapter 13 literally goes into "well the emperor there had so much power and could unilaterally keep their technology levels down with stupid trade restrictions so that's why Europeans put them through the century of humiliation and eclipsed them!" and other nonsense is straight up massive Sinophobia and very racist. Diamond makes broad genetic/intelligence claims about whole populations, rankes societies as "advanced/backward" constantly and describes conquest as inevitable "in mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners" "modern "Stone Age" peoples are on the average probably more intelligent" "some societies seem hopelessly conservative, inward looking, and hostile to change." Actual quotes from this so called bastion of liberalism "China’s connectedness eventually became a disadvantage" [because] "a decision by one despot could and repeatedly did halt innovation." China = monolithic, obedient, centralized, despotic, stagnant; Europe = pluralistic, competitive, innovative. Diamond turns "Chinese authoritarianism" into a transhistorical condition produced by the land itself. I'm all about the LVT and Georgism and all but this is doing too much service for land. In other words, the old Orientalist story survives perfectly well after the race science has been supposedly removed from the chassis. Better still, Diamond treats Ming maritime policy, imperial bureaucracy, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution as variations on the same ancient geographical bug, as though two thousand years of Chinese politics were basically the Yangtze River repeatedly pressing the "authoritarianism" button with it's floods!!!
  - jobs_throwaway 19d ago
    > "some societies seem hopelessly conservative, inward looking, and hostile to change." This rings absolutely true? Do you not think any societies are more hostile to change than others?