[quote]method_man wrote:
[quote]dshroy wrote:
thanks bro, we couldnt have done it without you[/quote]
You’re welcome whitey, but I “thank you” doesn’t make up for 400 years of slavery and oppression.
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not white bro.
[quote]Stan Darsh wrote:
Doesn’t matter if your black white or yellow just as long as your aren’t from jersey.
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You son of a …
NY eh? Please tell me you’re from Long Island.
[quote]Cheeky_Kea wrote:
Has anybody read the book Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond?
What follows is a brief synopsis.
The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations (in which he includes North Africa) have survived and conquered others, while refuting the assumption that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops.
When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians (for example, written language or the development among Eurasians of resistance to endemic diseases), he asserts that these advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures, and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes.
I highly recommend a read of this.
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I haven’t read it. I watched a documentary on the book of the same name and read some stuff about it. It’s the biggest load of horseshit I’ve come across in a while and there’s such a wealth of criticism of it that the theory has been relegated to the fringe of historical revisionism. I highly recommend you read the criticism of the theory too.
Diamond is NOT an historian for starters. Here’s what military historian Victor Davis Hanson said about Diamond’s work: He’s ‘terribly confused’ about history, and that environment was ‘almost irrelevant’ to Western success’. Diamond is a Professor of Geology and Physiology. He is completely unqualified to write on this subject and doesn’t know what he’s talking about - even in relation to environmental factors. There are so many holes in his theory you could use it as a tea strainer.
Racism is necessary as war is. Not perfectly ok, but necessary.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
I highly recommend you read the criticism of the theory too.[/quote]
I have done and also the numerous excellent refutations of those critiques.
All the counter-examples and critiques I have read do not make nonsense of Diamond’s observations, but they do show that the complexity of history defies attempts to deduce universal laws from its complex patterns.
No decent historian is going to let him get away with the deductivist framework that he appears to have tried to shoehorn history into. Even within the traditional historical discipline, the “ultimate causes” of historical events, rather than mere “proximate causes” debate rages on…
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Diamond is a Professor of Geology and Physiology.[/quote]
Correct, he has a BA from harvard and a PHD in physiology and membrane biophysics from cambridge and holds joint Professorships at UCLA in physiology and geography.
But…he is a widely recognised polymath (or Renaissance man in old fashioned parlance) and also studies, undertakes numerous research projects and has developed parallel careers in the following…
Ornithology
Evolutionary biology
Anthropology
environmental history
Biophysics
Ecology
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
He is completely unqualified to write on this subject and doesn’t know what he’s talking about.[/quote]
Two of the leading theories that are diametrically opposed to Diamonds and also make “perfect sense” are from political theorist Albert Jay Nock and the economist Murray Rothbard. Are they qualified to make historical judgments based on their fields of study?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Here’s what military historian Victor Davis Hanson said about Diamond’s work: He’s ‘terribly confused’.[/quote]
Victor has his own book- Carnage and Culture- which I have also read and it has almost as many critics. Here is one comment just for laughs “A historian writing on war and culture today must confront Hanson’s argument, for it is the most intellectually grand theory on the subject currently circulating but in the most literal sense of the word, the theory is full of holes, great gaps where it claims to see an unbroken record.”
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
There are so many holes in his theory you could use it as a tea strainer.[/quote]
In the end the book contains valuable insights and should be seen as another interesting vantage point from which to contemplate humanity’s past as a counter-measure to the orthodox, mainstream interpretation of history (which is equally as flawed).
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
the theory has been relegated to the fringe of historical revisionism.[/quote]
Really? by whose definition? yours? the guy who hasn’t even read the book?
The guy who watched a doco and read some crtiques but without reading the source material they pertain to has no real intellectual framework or foundational referent to decide wether those critiques are valid or not?
I understand Diamond’s theory that was described in a multi-episode documentary on the book. I have also read Hanson’s ‘Carnage and Culture’ and whilst I don’t agree with everything he says it’s a serious historical work as opposed to some pseudo-academic’s pet theory that’s outside of his qualified field.
Your point on actually reading the source is valid but in the case of this documentary they literally explain the theory from beginning to end straight from the book. I have a good understanding of Diamond’s theory.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
some pseudo-academic’s pet theory that’s outside of his qualified field.
[/quote]
Pseudo academic? are you fucking serious? Once again, thanks for providing a good laugh.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Manning[/quote]
[quote]Cheeky_Kea wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
some pseudo-academic’s pet theory that’s outside of his qualified field.
[/quote]
Pseudo academic? are you fucking serious? Once again, thanks for providing a good laugh.
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Actually I believe they’re called ‘lolz’ today.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Cheeky_Kea wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
some pseudo-academic’s pet theory that’s outside of his qualified field.
[/quote]
Pseudo academic? are you fucking serious? Once again, thanks for providing a good laugh.
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Actually I believe they’re called ‘lolz’ today.
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Or teh lulz.