Great documentary: "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

**bulrush** · 03-25-2008, 08:21 AM

This docu asks the question "Why did some civilizations flourish while others are still stuck in the iron age?" The answer:

- Access to Protein. Because protein is calorie dense, access to protein allows people to spend less time eating and more time developing other technologies. Cultures with little or no protein spend more time gardening and eating to get the calories they need.

- Access to steel. Allows a culture to develop weapons to defend against marauders, and develop better tools.

- Germs. Exposure to many germ vectors allows the immunity of a culture to build up and withstand attacks by new germs. Because the American Indians were so isolated on the American continent, when the white man came over with his new germs, the indian had no immunity and were virtually wiped out.

Great documentary from National Geographic and Netflix.

**Rick** · 03-25-2008, 08:25 AM

Bulrush - That's the title of a book written by Jarod Diamond. Excellent book! You will have a new vision of why Europeans advanced so rapidly. A simple accident of geography. A really good read.

**trax** · 03-25-2008, 12:54 PM

My understanding has been that cultural anthropologists have used a rule of thumb that a civlization's development is based on how difficult it is to meet their lower order needs. The less time a society has to dedicate to food and shelter the more time available to dedicate themselves to their sciences, arts, philosophies etc.

Of course, the extension of that is what resources are available balanced with necessity being the mother of invention. Why were so many cultures still what we consider "stone age" cultures when Europeans started sailing around the world and sticking their noses into other people's business? Because they had a more holistic relationship with their environment, there was no need to develop more scientifically to address their lower order needs. Europeans assumed that any society that lived in a "stone age" diaspora had to be less advanced in their higher order community levels as well. Huge mistake. Massive mistake, in fact spectacularly arrogant and stupid.

For those of us truly interested in living in the wilderness, it might be interesting to note that a study in the 1960's, I believe it was, ( I apologize I don't recall the researchers' names) determined that prior to contact with Europeans and post-contact as well, that the Ojibway of north-western Ontario living their traditional lifestyle required only 2 hours out of 24 to address their basic survival needs. Now, that doesn't break down into 2 hours a day every day obviously, but it does stem from living in collaboration with, rather than competition with, their environment.

**Rick** · 03-25-2008, 01:37 PM

Trax - At the primal level (Maslow's level) it is that. But it's a lot more, too. Without giving the book away, it has to do with the ability to move across a continent unchanged. Think about Europe vs. Africa for example. It has to do with predator species on that continent. It also has to do with political and tribal divisiveness within a continent.

**trax** · 03-25-2008, 02:25 PM

The political and tribal divisiveness develop with and within the society, after the basic needs are addressed. After all, why did people form into groups in the first place? Hunting in packs, safety in numbers, someone to call bingo....

**Rick** · 03-25-2008, 04:19 PM

We're on the same page. It's just past that point. For example the reason Columbus was able to acquire funding was because the Queen of Spain financed him. He was Italian. He had approached the King of Portugal and was turned down. He also tried to gain funding in Italy and from the King of England. My point is had Columbus been Chinese and the Emperor turned him down, SOL. But because Europe had advanced more politically, he was able to scour around until he found someone to back him.

**trax** · 03-25-2008, 04:37 PM

I always thought he was...you know....sneaking in the back of the royal bedchamber....providing services above and beyond the call of duty. I wish she'd made the SOB stay home personally, but hey, what's done is done. I don't necessarily agree with your description though Rick, you just described Europe as being more divided politically. I don't know that makes it more advanced politically. Not stating a case....just sayin.....

**Rick** · 03-25-2008, 04:48 PM

Only that they weren't under the thumb of a single ruler or had no system in place with which to back exploration. That allowed folks to set out, pilage and plunder. Neat, huh?

**trax** · 03-25-2008, 05:11 PM

Only that they weren't under the thumb of a single ruler because of a few hundred years of warfare that kept dividing them up, maybe a few thousand years. I'd probably feel a lot better about the whole pillaging and plundering thing if I didn't have so many relatives on the wrong end of the pillaging and plundering.....let's ask MW!

Anyhoo, I know your point, I'm just playing devil's advocate (why? part of my theory that everyone is a better actor than Keanu Reeves)

**Rick** · 03-25-2008, 07:37 PM

Yea, but that Pacino guy is da bomb!

**Ole WV Coot** · 03-25-2008, 09:50 PM

I was taught, and it seems to make sense that people from a temperate climate advanced faster. Warm climates provided food with little problem, no real need for substantial housing to darn hot to be inventive or work. The colder climates was a constant struggle for food and shelter plus a lack of lots of natural resources. A temperate climate forces man to learn to prepare for bad weather by learning to store food, better housing etc. Limited growing season plus cooler summer temps kinda taught them to look ahead, be more inventive and use the natural resources available.

**bulrush** · 03-26-2008, 10:02 AM

the Ojibway of north-western Ontario living their traditional lifestyle required only 2 hours out of 24 to address their basic survival needs.

Very interesting. Let's contrast that with an American lifestyle:
8 hrs to work, plus 1 hr average commute (1/2 hr each way)
1 hr per day to cook and clean, do chores
That's a minimum 10 hrs per day to meet basic needs.

OTOH, Americans, compared with a technologically primitive society, have advanced medicine (antibiotics), higher work efficiency (computers, machines), and in general a longer life span and lower death rate, despite the effects of stress. However the machines also allow the high-tech societies to pollute more quickly. Each type of society has its pros and cons.

Personally I think we should use good idea from both camps: we should really learn to control our pollution for one thing.

**trax** · 03-26-2008, 11:41 AM

Originally Posted by bulrush

Very interesting. Let's contrast that with an American lifestyle:

OTOH, Americans, compared with a technologically primitive society, have advanced medicine (antibiotics), higher work efficiency (computers, machines), and in general a longer life span and lower death rate, despite the effects of stress. However the machines also allow the high-tech societies to pollute more quickly. Each type of society has its pros and cons.

Personally I think we should use good idea from both camps: we should really learn to control our pollution for one thing.

I think it goes back to the other piece I mentioned about necessity being the mother of invention, we've created a society where we believe we need those machines, haven't we? Work efficiency would have be determined based on the work that needs to be done. Anyone think they could say...create an actuarial table on Excel faster than I can skin a rabbit and start a fire to cook that little bugger? Advanced medicine? Well, after that workshop I just attended last week, I'd take issue with that. Bear in mind that the diseases that wiped out Indians were brought here by the Europeans, so again, necessity for those medicines came with the diseases. If you want to compare life spans, compare them again at the time of contact and you'll find the Europeans on the "short end of the stick"

I have no doubt that there are plenty of things in that lifestyle that I would have loved to have seen improved upon, but for the most part I still think a lot of how societies developed has a lot to do with their relationship with the earth. As societies moved away from hunter/gatherer to agrarian one generally notices paradigm shifts in what the society's priorities are and how the members of the society addressed them.

**Rick** · 03-26-2008, 12:12 PM

Trax mentioned a key phrase....work efficiency...and that goes to profit.

Let's use a wilderness example and stay away from money. Suppose I'm an indigenous dude that wants to make an arrowhead. I grab a piece of sandstone and a rock and start hammering away. If I work hard enough and long enough I can probably turn a piece of sandstone into an arrowhead. I might crumble eight or ten in the process but I eventually get it right. Someone else picks up a piece of flint and a rock and turns out a nice arrowhead in fewer attempts and in less time. His profit is his time. And someone else used the flint and a deer antler and turns one out much quicker and nicer and I throw down my sandstone in disgust.

It works just that way in business. It's not about making more of a product but about making a single product more efficiently x number of times. The more efficiently you make it, the higher the profit margin.

Trax is also right about the paradigm shift. We need to understand at some point that efficiency comes at a cost. So far, we've been willing to pay it in fewer jobs and increased pollution. We just need to strike an equitable balance between efficiency and cost so we can live like our indigenous folks above. In a little more peace and harmony.

Well, kids. That my rant for the day....

**trax** · 03-26-2008, 01:13 PM

And it was a lovely and educational little rant too, Rick, but it was bulrush who first mentioned work efficieny. I was responding. So, I guess....it really wasn't an efficient rant was it?

**Rick** · 03-26-2008, 02:10 PM

Mea Culpa, Bulrush. Credit where credit is due.....

**Catfish** · 03-26-2008, 07:15 PM

Originally Posted by Ole WV Coot

I was taught, and it seems to make sense that people from a temperate climate advanced faster. Warm climates provided food with little problem, no real need for substantial housing to darn hot to be inventive or work. The colder climates was a constant struggle for food and shelter plus a lack of lots of natural resources. A temperate climate forces man to learn to prepare for bad weather by learning to store food, better housing etc. Limited growing season plus cooler summer temps kinda taught them to look ahead, be more inventive and use the natural resources available.

That's covered in the book and the documentary too Coot. Diamond explores the reasons why some societies became hunters, others crop growers and attributed a lot of it to geography. Furthermore, the societies which became crop growers tended to settle in the same place and as a result, had the leisure to develop writing and the information sharing benefits it brought. Hunter societies tended to stay on the move and over the course of eons, missed out on some of the advances made by their stationary contemporaries.

**trax** · 03-26-2008, 08:27 PM

Or maybe it isn't because according to hopeak in that other thread, I might not exist. Nevertheless, if I don't exist, I'll fill in for me. The thing is, the advances you guys keep alluding to seem to me to be technological more than anything and I still don't see that as necessarily moving forward. What about advances philosophically, spiritually, grammatically (with apologies to Johnny Depp) ?

**Rick** · 03-26-2008, 08:50 PM

It wasn't just techno stuff. For example, you can move your sheep flock from Russia to Portugal and still have about the same temperature and grasses for the flock to feed on.

You can't do that from Egypt to South Africa. And you can't do that from Bolivia to Argentina. So geography was very important. Since Europe spans, more or less, the same horizontal plane you can move from one end to the other without dramatic changes in weather.

And you won't find lions and cheetahs and water buffalo in Europe. Instead of screaming and running for your life you can sit around and hammer out bronze spears for killing rabbits.