Was his theory ever taken seriously?
>>17985072it’s assigned curriculum in AP World History classes all over the US
>>17985085This
>>17985072I've never seen an intelligent refutation that wasn't some variation of: I don't believe it because believing in it would make me angry. The most popular variation of this being butthurt historians that hate that Jared Diamond is the last historian rockstar and he's not even a formal historian. He's way more popular than they will ever be and his books sell by orders of magnitude more than theirs. Ergo he HAS to be fatally flawed - work backwards from that motivated reasoning and conclusion. The second most popular is the woke puritan that hates even speculating on race and civilization differences - even if you offer an egalitarian analysis and conclusion. It should be inherently a third rail and unalloyed bad. "Environment can't negatively affect blacks, or positively affect white Europeans, because black civilizations aren't different from whites and anyone saying otherwise is wrong and racist."
>>17985085That's depressing
>>17985131This dogshit book doesnt even warrant a refutation, because the author didnt even bother using figures data statistics or anything other than vibes to back up his statements
It seems believable if you're uneducated on the subject.
>>17985190>didnt even bother using figuresTry opening the book, retard>>17985072If anyone actually has a refutation that isn't >>17985131I'm interested. Retards who haven't opened the book need not apply
>>17985131All this tells me is that you have either never seen an intelligent refutation or you have just discarded them without really hearing them out.
>>17985072it shouldn’t be
His theory while wrong and idealistic makes more sense than the 100% genetic essentialism of Chuds. Geography, natural resources, etc do actually matter massively but Chuds deny that.
>>17985085I found that out when I started going to college this year. it was my first assignment.
>>17985184>starts rambling about brown people and jews unpromptedMental illness
>>17985279True, but his theory is still very very wrong, retarded even.
>>17985284open borders for Israel
>>17985279negroes have been outside of africa for 1000's of years and still cant built a functioning civilization
>>17985072The main issue is not that environment had no effect on societies around the world. There are some place that genuinely had no chance of forming a civilization because they can't grow crops in those regions or other reasons.The issue is that if you honestly consider and judge on a regional basis Europe is below average. Diamond probably learned this early on in his initial research for the book which is why, with one exception near the end of the book, he never directly compares Europe to other regions.The first thing he should have done is take Europe, take into account land area and other factors, and divide the world into reasonably comparable regions like China, The middle East/North Africa, India/SEA, and so on, but he doesn't because he can't do that and make his argument.In the first part of the book he places heavy emphasis on having an agricultural package for civilizational development, in particular cereal grains. However Europe does not have an agricultural package or native cereal grains.This leads to Diamond combining Europe and Asia together in order to pretend as if it doesn't matter. He even draws a line showing that Europe is at the same latitude as Asian civilizations even though his line is significantly North of them. Europe did not have a plug-and-play experience with Mesopotamian founder crops like Diamond claims instead to took thousands of years for crops to become more productive in the colder climate of Europe. This easily explains why Mesopotamia developed before North Africa and India, and why those regions developed before Southern Europe, which developed before central Europe and so on.Something that Diamond completely ignores in his book is unique natural resources like silk in China or spices in India despite their historical economic impact. He couldn't bring them up because Europe has nothing unique that was ever in demand elsewhere.
>>17985072The current year predominance of the white race is due to three reasons1) Good starting position2) Good starting position3) Good starting position4) Swarthies sitting down to breed corn5) A stone-age Slav cow herder killing most of our ancestors with a random animal disease.If you're a racist, you should hate him with every fiber of your being, really.
>>17985131Jared's like: "rocks fall, dinosaurs die", the scientific community's like: "birds aren't real, they're dinosaurs."
>>17985072We would never have those germs if we didn't build a society that can feed millions. We kept our animals in cities close to us so zoonosis was unavoidable, the price of a higher standard of living just like burning fuel turned london into a smogfilled ashheap for a couple decades. We earned those germs, they are part of us.
>>17985085>+repliesThat's odd, I recall in my UK university course it was actively discouraged, in one of the course-wide introductory lectures there was a slide generally about citing non-historians generally with specific mention of ggs, they said you'd get zero credit for citing it and whatever you were trying to support by citing it
>something something but look at this photo of a man posing on top of a zebra!
>>17985347The Mediterranean could plug and play crops that were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent, but from there they were able to be adapted to Northern Europe from a place that already had access to said crops. You had your nucleus and it had pretty easy access to places northwards of it. Corn was similar in the Americas, but required more effort because Mexico vs North America has a much larger climate difference and a larger geographic spread.
>>17985659It's not even a good starting location. Climate Change happened and made it so, which is a natural process completely out of control of humans.Honestly, geographic determinists absolutely hate the idea of human biodiversity mattering at all.
>>17985246It's true. The book literally has no citations only "recommended reading" at the end of each chapter
>>17985279Saying geography matters is not an explanation for why Africa is and always has been undeveloped. That's what people have problem with not that oil reserves make countries richer
>>17985131It's perfectly cromulant, people just make the mistake of thinking it's the whole story rather than a very important factor. Although the theory itself doesn't do this, major proponents seem to think that 'cultural technologies' are less important that they are. It's not just 'has universities' but it's very much 'is the kind of society that would have universities'. And obviously they don't like any ideas about genetic differences being a major factor.
>>17985190>HE'S WRONG HE'S JUST WRONG BECAUSE I KNOW NIGGERS ARE STUPIDok, chud
>>17985659Where was the starting position?
>>17985072>zebras have never been domesticated therefore they are not domesticable>papuans are more intelligent than Europeans because they can navigate in the wild >Sahara served as a barrier for spread of technology man I have no idea why people critize this well-researched piece of scholarly literature
>>17985302You racists used to claim blacks were children who would never be capable of running anything and now they're running $100billion+ cities...
>>17986354The Mediterranean. It's pretty perfect. First place reached, arrable land, perfect rivers, traversable waterways. Literally only thing that was better at another place on the world map was rice.
>>17986362Their ancestors came from the Steppe, they replaced earlier people who lived on the Mediterranean. In Sardinian there is still quite a bit of DNA from the earlier people. Mediterreanean is a great place to start from, but there was more to it than just getting there first.
>>17985085grimhere in Canada we made fun of it and still dothere are some who take it at face value, but they are not people worth talking to
>>17985131>zebracarriage.jpgthat's all your kvetching comment deserves. I am not even going to honor it with the actual evidence
>>17985131Virtually every refutation focuses on his ignorance of basic facts and surface-level understanding of the multiple topics he's trying to tackle at the same time.
>>17986440They wrote a book about it. The main argument seems to be that his teleology does not accurately describe what happened in any of the places he would like to have talked about.
>>17985072So what's the alternative explanation for how white Europeans were able to be the ones who invented all this shit, explored the world, and colonized other lands (instead of vice versa)?
>>17986739>how white Europeans were able to be the ones who invented all this shitRome died. That's how that all started.
>>17985072No, its jewish slop that only the dimmest goycattle take at face value. It doesn't even have citations. Zebra carriage!
>>17986357>they're running $100billion+ citiesInto the ground
>>17986760Other empires all around the world died too. Why was Rome (a European one) the most successful one?
>>17986778+10% yearly GDP growth
>>17986364Then why did egyptians, mesopotamians, jews, phoenicians, italians, greeks all prosper long before germanics got off the ground? Germs and brits would never have amounted to anything without the luck of being located close to the med so they could hitch a ride on med civilization.>inb4 ALL OF THOSE WERE YAMNAYA or some other retarded wewuzzing
>>17987023Rome was special in many ways.
>>17987023>Why was Rome (a European one) the most successful one?Lead poisoning on the population level. They had a sizeable stock of people brain damaged in a way that made them very useful soldateska.
>>17987023>Why was Rome (a European one) the most successful one?Nah, the Mongols and their descendants had a way better run. They even managed to clown on Alexander.
>>17987324What scientific achievements did Mongols bring?
>>17987375Exactly as many as the Romans.
>>17987375It's currently assumed that Black Powder managed to make the leap across Eurasia thanks to the Turks and Mongols.Romans on suicide watch.
>>17987387Groundbreaking achievements by the Romans:Core scientific contributions (natural philosophy, medicine, early biology, astronomy, etc.): maybe a dozen or so notable achievements.Applied / engineering innovations (roads, aqueducts, concrete, architecture, surveying, military engineering, hydraulics, calendar reform): dozens, easily 50+.Mongols:???
>>17987406Now subtract anything done by ethnic Greek. The Romans were a cargo culture.
>>17987431>copeYou didn't answer, though.Mongol achievements: ???
>>17987456They both were scientifically illiterate.
>>17987456They killed so many people that they triggered a man-made climate change.Meaning that the Mongols aren't real.
>>17987464Groundbreaking achievements by the Romans:Core scientific contributions (natural philosophy, medicine, early biology, astronomy, etc.): maybe a dozen or so notable achievements.Applied / engineering innovations (roads, aqueducts, concrete, architecture, surveying, military engineering, hydraulics, calendar reform): dozens, easily 50+.
>>17987023What did they achieve exactly, aside from enslaving northern Europeans to build more bridges to reach more lands where they could enslave more Europeans to build more bridges?
>>17987499>Core scientific contributionsAll of those were made by Greeks.>Applied / engineering innovations (roads, aqueducts, concrete, architecture, surveying, military engineering, hydraulics, calendar reform):Engineering is not a science.
>>17987519>All of those were made by Greeks.Which empire held Greece for centuries?
>>17985085>social conditioning centers foist of Jewish fairy tail as valid historymakes sense
>>17985131You're not intelligent. Pretty common for dunning krugers like you to not be able to distinguish fact from fiction.
>>17986353You have the reading comprehension of a toddler.
>>17985246>Spoon feed a moron how to recognize incoherent logic
>>17987678You may not know, but cops got us to the moon. You may be asking how fat dudes in cruisers eating doughnuts had any part in it, but they were in charge of handing out speed tickets, so them turning a blind eye to rockets going fast is the only reason why we ever made it out of the atmosphere.
>>17988245Succulent cope.Once again, without deflecting: which empire held Greece for centuries? Failure to answer = concession.
>>17988558Tell me, where's the Seminole moon mission and the Mongols being first to launch a satellite? Clearly, they controlled the territory from which these events originated.
>>17988584Concession accepted. You may now leave the thread.
>>17988245Underrated post, the guy you’re arguing with is retarded. I came here and waited two minutes for a captcha just to say this.
>>17988588Can't you wrap your head around the idea that Elon Musk is both unrelated and detrimental to the companies he owns? That's the ethnic Roman's relation to the Greek sciences.
>>17986356>zebras have never been domesticated therefore they are not domesticableDo you think every animal in the world is equally domesticable? Are you retarded?
>>17985072Taken far too seriously for far too long. Easily disproven by a single thought exercise. If War>Innovation>Domination then look at where most of the Wars have taken place in the past 70 years.That's right- Africa and the Middle EastSo when are they taking over?
>>17988698>>17987023>>17986760
>>17988715Ah, you thought I wouldn't notice how you snuck that equally there. Naughty anon
>>17985085Damn no wonder americans are like that then
>>17988720The Middle East literally rules the world's oil supply. In 3000 years when they'll study us they'll remark how important that region was, just like how we mention how essential North Africa was for roman grain importation.As for Africa, well, they just butcher each other with machetes, it's not "war".
>>17989452The largest oil producer in the world is the US, 3rd largest is Russia, 4th Canada, and 5th China.
It's based.
>>17985085It's the same in New Zealand for Social Studies.His work seems custom made to poison teenage minds with Boasian cultural relativism. First they get a dose of To Kill A Mockingbird and several other stories of evil whites oppressing brown people (We had five, and then Othello), then you're given a dose of the Civil Rights Movement, then you're made to think all your historical achievements are due to having fucking bread and a complex coastline.The funny thing is this (((Jared Diamond))) is a lying hypocrite himself. He wrote "Guns, Germs and Steel" specifically to refute race realism, which he admitted in the introduction seemed to be the naturally strong default position. Then immediately afterwards started speculating on how Paupa New Guineans are "genetically superior" to Europeans because selection there was based on navigating a complex environment, not resistance to disease. He stumbled right out of the Culture of Critique and his entire motivation for writing that book was political.
>>17985131>>17985131some critiques engage with the theoretical core of Diamond’s workrather than being driven by righteous offense or envy. They question whether large-scale environmental models can fully account for complex human history.Economists like Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue in Why Nations Fail that institutions not just environment explain long-term inequalities between countries.To summarize Historian J. R. McNeill praised Diamond’s scope but noted he “oversold geography as an explanation for history and under emphasized cultural autonomy
>>17990716>He wrote "Guns, Germs and Steel" specifically to refute race realismWell he did. The periods he describes are too short to account for natural selection, so clearly it's environmental, climatic factors that forcefully generate certain behaviors and political institution.But then again, the ancient Greeks already knew hat.
>>17990803Pretty much this. Race realists are in shambles and confirmed to be retarded.
>>17990816>Every white and east asian country is successful and every brown/black country is an unimaginable shithole because... the weatherWow. This is the power of libtard history
>>17985072>"his" theoryImagine being on a history board and not knowing determinism and probabilism have been discussed for the last 150 years, gaining damn near universal acceptance in academy before Diamond was even born.GGS brought absolutely nothing new to the table, aside from bad examples. And yes, the basic premise is pretty undeniable, which is why his book is received positively in spite of how trash it is.
>>17990725>Economists like Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue in Why Nations Fail that institutions not just environment explain long-term inequalities between countries.The problem with that argument is that you have to explain where the impetus for the creation of said instutions in the form they were made came from.Ironically, their accusation of narrow mindedness falls back on their head.
>>17990829>Every white and east asian country is successful and every brown/black country is an unimaginable shithole because... the weatherUnironically the whole issue with the book. A century old theory is now getting derided because a politicized retard tried to subvert it to suit his agendaYou're looking at it like "the theory is wrong because it doesn't account for nogs being dumb", when the theory is actually telling you why nogs are dumb to begin with.Diamond is just glossing over it because he's intellectually dishonest.I mean think about it: we have a billion examples of animal species splitting up and becoming separate when expanding in different environments, why the fuck would you expect humans not to be genetically shaped by the natural conditions they were subjected to for thousands of years?
>>17987499>Groundbreaking achievements by the Romans>>17987519>Greekseach of those "core contributions" came after "studying" at the library of alexandria. copypasta. egyptians seemed to have the rudiments of calculus 5000 years ago. masters of hydraulics. pyramids were maybe pumps feeding a reservoir or aquifer. but i wasn't there so don't know for sure
>>17985131He said rice was domesticated once, it wasnt, it was domesticated three times in different places.he said it was domesticated once and only once because of specific conditions that made it possible which then evaporated and made rice impossible to domesticate anywhere else.he was wrong.>>17985279>genetic essentialismno one claims this, they say race, specifically IQ distribution which certain races, is a relevant and discernible factor which must be addressed alongside geography and resources and historical tradition when assessing and explaining differences between regions, peoples, nations.
>>17987200They didnt, Germanics prospered in the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and every subsequent age.If Mesopotamia and Egypt were so great, why were they THE LAST to get in on Mega-architecture?Why were the Ziggurats and Pyramids so late to the game? Gobekli Tepe was 10k BC, The first rock of Stonehenge was laid by villagers 500 years before the first stone of the Pyramid was laid.youd think proximity to Anatolia, where the first megalithic structures were built would confer some advantage, but it doesnt, as it turns out genetic! not! geographic! closeness is what is correlated with civilizational advancement.
>>17985072The theory that humans dont have agency or that nothing we do matters isnt very popular or apparent.
