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Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

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Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#151

Post by chongli »

WalterBright wrote: post #149
chongli wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the point of the book is that Balkanized geography makes countries more likely to want to adopt free markets whereas big continents will be more likely to adopt authoritarian state control.

Sounds like nonsense - the US straddles an entire continent. At the opposite geographical extreme we have Taiwan and Japan, both highly successful free markets.

The US was colonized, it didn't spring forth from pre-history this way. Diamond's theory is about the foundations of civilization and how they led to the broad strokes of history, not about modern events.

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#152

Post by WalterBright »

swombat wrote: post #123
WalterBright wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N & S America civilizations were quite fragmented, as well as African ones.

Yes but, as Diamond argues, they didn't have large enough animals to domesticate because large american mammals that hadn't co-evolved with humans were exterminated in about 1000 years when the Americas were colonised by humans about 11k years ago. Not having cows and pigs and horses is a huge disadvantage.

Yes, I did read his book, and know about his argument about domesticated animals. That lack didn't prevent the Aztecs and Mayans from building an empire of stone buildings.

They did have moose and deer and llamas and bears and goats and bison. I don't know if there's any proof they can't be domesticated given enough generations, time and patience. Wolves and foxes can be domesticated.

The Finns domesticated reindeer.

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#153

Post by vanderZwan »

AlbertCory wrote: post #148
vanderZwan wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you specify which fields you have in mind and why you think so, or are you speaking in hypotheticals just for the sake of appearing to make a counterpoint?

I guess you think this is a witty thing to say. we're already talking about a specific field.

No, I think you're trying to dismiss critics of Diamond without ever engaging with the actual criticism by blanket-accusing them of living in "an echo chamber" (and missing the irony of doing so on HN), without providing a shred of evidence.

It's a wonderful mental trick to convince yourself you're right without fact-checking yourself, not to mention dismiss any field of expertise that you disagree with, but it doesn't actually prove anything.

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#154

Post by WalterBright »

chongli wrote: post #151
WalterBright wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like nonsense - the US straddles an entire continent. At the opposite geographical extreme we have Taiwan and Japan, both highly successful free markets.

The US was colonized, it didn't spring forth from pre-history this way. Diamond's theory is about the foundations of civilization and how they led to the broad strokes of history, not about modern events.

South America was colonized at the same time, but they didn't recognize rights and never amounted to much economically.

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#155

Post by AlbertCory »

vanderZwan wrote: post #153
AlbertCory wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you think this is a witty thing to say. we're already talking about a specific field.

No, I think you're trying to dismiss critics of Diamond without ever engaging with the actual criticism by blanket-accusing them of living in "an echo chamber" (and missing the irony of doing so on HN), without providing a shred of evidence. It's a wonderful mental trick to convince yourself you're right without fact-checking yourself, not to mention dismiss any field of expertise that you disagree with, but it doesn…

Well, I think you're trying to dismiss defenders of Diamond by saying "those people aren't published 'experts' in the field."

Which is, as you said, "a wonderful mental trick to convince yourself you're right without fact-checking yourself." They're not in our club, so they don't count.

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#156

Post by chongli »

WalterBright wrote: post #154
chongli wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was colonized, it didn't spring forth from pre-history this way. Diamond's theory is about the foundations of civilization and how they led to the broad strokes of history, not about modern events.

South America was colonized at the same time, but they didn't recognize rights and never amounted to much economically.

South America was pretty much entirely a jungle-covered mineral colony. Resource curse theory applies.

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#157

Post by cmh89 »

ren_engineer wrote: post #22
jrh3 wrote: post #5

Wow. I read that book in college. No idea a backlash like that developed... That is crazy if that is how skewed university's have become. Guns, Germs, and Steel is an incredible academic work. Dang.

the irony is that I've seen Guns, Germs, and Steel get trashed by people on the right for downplaying the idea that Western culture was/is special and the key to success/wealth/innovation and attacking Diamond for saying it was only due to geography and other random factors rather than Western culture itself Universities and academics have shifted so far left that they are increasingly eating their own, the entire po…

>Universities and academics have shifted so far left that they are increasingly eating their own, the entire point of the book was to try and say that race and Western culture wasn't a factor. It's a pretty obvious argument against most right wing talking points, but apparently that isn't enough anymore in academia

Is there any evidence that any actual 'eating' is happening here? I can't find any instances of it being banned or removed from curriculum. Jared Diamond continues to teach at UCLA.

Is the 'eating' the fact that people critiqued a pop anthropology? The author of the article is creating strawmen and then defeating them.

I was left with, who actually is the author of the article referencing and what is their actual argument.

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#158

Post by wizofaus »

mdhen wrote: post #127
wizofaus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The availability of suitable species for domestication always struck me as the most interesting part of his argument, as it's not one I'd seen before - but strangely it's the one that's not captured by the title "Guns, Germs & Steel" (which are, I suppose, the main proximate reasons why Europeans ended up decimating/overpowering populations elsewhere in the world, rather than more interesting fundamental reasons why…

Germany and Italy weren't even countries until the late 19th century.

Hence demonstrating there was at least one other key factor behind which nations/empires were able to successfully establish overseas colonies - but arguably that itself was not an "ultimate" cause that was out of the control of earlier civilizations (in the way availability of species suitable for domestication was). If the Roman empire hadn't collapsed the way it did the world would surely look very different to how it does today (I wouldn't be writing this in English for a start!). I don't think that's something Diamond addressed in GG&S, and even in Collapse I don't remember any serious discussion of how it might be ultimately and primarily due to geo-environmental factors (for a start, the empires that replaced it over the following centuries were operating in very similar ecologies/climates). I don't think Diamond would insist that the pattern of historical development of specific nation states was largely due to the ultimate causes he tries to identify for overall European hegemony, but it would be surely worth clarifying at what scales other factors start to become more important (and what those factors might be).

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#159

Post by LatteLazy »

WalterBright wrote: post #32

> Diamond absolves Europeans of blame for the crimes of imperialism through his geographical determinism, since the conquerors couldn’t help but seize the helpless Americas. Running through the article is the notion that somehow Europeans were uniquely interested in brutal empire building. I can only infer that such notions stem from never having read history books about other cultures. For example, "Empire of the Su…

One of the nice things about Anthropology being a science SHOULD be that there are no moral judgements, just causes and effects. Alas, people cannot help trying to see everything as good and bad, and 100% so in each case.

Re: Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics

#160

Post by kzrdude »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #112
WalterBright wrote: post #32

> Diamond absolves Europeans of blame for the crimes of imperialism through his geographical determinism, since the conquerors couldn’t help but seize the helpless Americas. Running through the article is the notion that somehow Europeans were uniquely interested in brutal empire building. I can only infer that such notions stem from never having read history books about other cultures. For example, "Empire of the Su…

Yeah. The Mongols were on a summer vacation, the Persian Empire wasn't invading ancient Greece, they were just sightseeing, the Vikings (Scandinavian not central european IMO) were just doing some exuberant boating, the Hans just wanted to sojourn in the Jungles of Vietnam, the Ottomans were just misguided proseletyzers, the Rus were just bored from Winter, etc. The Japanese in WWII were just looking for some iron an…

I recommend the Fall of Civilizations Podcast, to pile on with more podcasts.

Their episodes on Aztec and Inca civilizations, that were brought down to large extent by the spanish, they make you notice that what Aztecs and Inca had in common was that they were the regional powers. The podcast mentions the active local conflicts going on while this went down. They were dominating their neighbors, warrning and at this particular time they were the leading powers in their regions.

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