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Jun 19, 2013 09:21
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Doesn't Jared Diamond also think that agriculture is a terrible mistake, despite it being why most of us are alive? He seems pretty dubious to me, though I agree that his books brought up (or rather, popularised) some interesting points. It is pretty fair to say that he is a geographical determinist, though, so I'm not sure what you people are so worked up about - as usual. Have some Lloyd George election posters: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20963100
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Jun 19, 2013 11:27
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advokat posted:Doesn't Jared Diamond also think that agriculture is a terrible mistake, despite it being why most of us are alive? He seems pretty dubious to me, though I agree that his books brought up (or rather, popularised) some interesting points. It is pretty fair to say that he is a geographical determinist, though, so I'm not sure what you people are so worked up about - as usual. The reason most of us are alive today is thanks to us converting fossil fuels into food, and when fossil fuels become harder to procure on that scale, so food becomes harder to create on that scale. There are billions more people alive who are going to die than there would have been without it. More people is not an unmitigated good. 
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Jun 19, 2013 13:32
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Ronald Nixon posted:The reason most of us are alive today is thanks to us converting fossil fuels into food, and when fossil fuels become harder to procure on that scale, so food becomes harder to create on that scale. There are billions more people alive who are going to die than there would have been without it. More people is not an unmitigated good. It seems profoundly silly to call a perfectly logical course of technological progress a mistake, though. Basically, I rather doubt that if you explained all this to people in any society that has lived on agriculture after it had at least a short while to enjoy it, they'd settle for going back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle with the amount of food that would give them. Humanity at large switched over to agriculture over centuries for fairly good reasons (i.e. supporting a population growth that was happening anyway), even if that did cause some problems - technological progress always does. 
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Jun 19, 2013 13:46
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I would suggest you read Craig Dilworth's 'Too Smart for Our Own Good', which makes the point that technological progress is a response to population pressure that temporarily alleviates that pressure. In this way, technological progress is a sign of a society in distress. Why would you take up farming if you could harvest enough from the surrounding wilds? Why would you design diabetes treatments etc if people weren't suffering lifestyle diseases?
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Jun 19, 2013 13:54
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Arglebargle III posted:I don't see the conflict in their theses. Yes, the native Americans were doing more complex things than traditional historiography gives them credit for. They also got rolled by extremely aggressive societies with a massive advantage in wealth and population, plus huge epidemics, for reasons that no one at the time had much control over. To quibble, what I got out of 1491 is that the white imperialists weren't necessarily more aggressive, weren't necessarily richer, and one of the main points is that they didn't have a population advantage, before 1491. It was pretty much only disease that moved faster than the expansion of the colonialists by decades. Geographical determinism didn't affect any of the other things, except there's evidence that Native immune systems were slightly more geared to fighting parasites than fighting novel diseases. Here's a passenger pigeon. Before disease crippled the populations of the first peoples, the passenger pigeon didn't exist in large clouds that could block out the sun. In fact, it was kind of rare.  That was my reading of 1491, but if I'm off someone please chime in.
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Jun 19, 2013 14:02
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Ronald Nixon posted:Why would you design diabetes treatments etc if people weren't suffering lifestyle diseases?  Still, I guess if you're going down that route, why design diabetes treatments if you can just let people die of treatable autoimmune illnesses and relieve some of that population pressure.
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Jun 19, 2013 14:07
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advokat posted:It seems profoundly silly to call a perfectly logical course of technological progress a mistake, though. Basically, I rather doubt that if you explained all this to people in any society that has lived on agriculture after it had at least a short while to enjoy it, they'd settle for going back to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle with the amount of food that would give them. Humanity at large switched over to agriculture over centuries for fairly good reasons (i.e. supporting a population growth that was happening anyway), even if that did cause some problems - technological progress always does. Here is the article you should probably read it. Its a huge simplification to just say he thinks agriculture a mistake and I think its more of a rhetorical flourish on his part, his main point is that for the individual that lived in early agricultural societies their livelihood and health seems to have been quite a bit worse off than someone who still lived as hunter gatherers. People made the switch less because agriculture is totally awesome and grants everyone long and healthy lives but because it was the only possible way to support large population densities. 
khwarezm fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 14:15
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Ronald Nixon posted:I would suggest you read Craig Dilworth's 'Too Smart for Our Own Good', which makes the point that technological progress is a response to population pressure that temporarily alleviates that pressure. In this way, technological progress is a sign of a society in distress. Why would you take up farming if you could harvest enough from the surrounding wilds? Why would you design diabetes treatments etc if people weren't suffering lifestyle diseases? Seems to be quite the assumption there, that the trade-offs weren't worth it. I don't think many people would agree. 
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Jun 19, 2013 14:19
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Grandola Vila Morena was song...in Germany, during Die Linke's congress https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0QT70T4FKY
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Jun 19, 2013 14:41
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Is this meant to be Trotsky? Or a generic antisemitic caricature?  
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Jun 19, 2013 14:46
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Ronald Nixon posted:Why would you design diabetes treatments etc if people weren't suffering lifestyle diseases? Hahahahaha. Look at this dumbass kid with a bad lifestyle that gave him Type 1.  This guy went blind from Type 1, which he was diagnosed with as a child. He'd probably be better off dead, right? 
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Jun 19, 2013 14:55
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Knockknees posted:To quibble, what I got out of 1491 is that the white imperialists weren't necessarily more aggressive, weren't necessarily richer, and one of the main points is that they didn't have a population advantage, before 1491. It was pretty much only disease that moved faster than the expansion of the colonialists by decades. Geographical determinism didn't affect any of the other things, except there's evidence that Native immune systems were slightly more geared to fighting parasites than fighting novel diseases. I agree. I dislike Diamond because he smacks of Eurocentrism to me, and the whole idea of geographical determinism seems like a smokescreen for that fact.  Thomas Sankara
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Jun 19, 2013 15:58
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlUhjXILXqs
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Jun 19, 2013 16:16
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Badera posted:I agree. I dislike Diamond because he smacks of Eurocentrism to me, and the whole idea of geographical determinism seems like a smokescreen for that fact. Pointing out that Europeans had a head start in the imperialism game over much of the rest of the world due to an accident of geography and good luck doesn't seem like Eurocentrism at all to me. 
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Jun 19, 2013 16:33
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Jun 19, 2013 17:16
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 "S. Walter, The Wasp, 1885" We've come full circle in that this is relevant to racists again today in a weird way.
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Jun 19, 2013 17:19
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Badera posted:I hadn't heard that about the Naxalites. It isn't necessarily that they abandoned Maoism, I think it's more that the whole rural resistance movement wasn't ever completely composed of Maoists to begin with. That has necessarily been obfuscated by the Indian media/government in much the same way that every person who gets blown up in a drone strike in Yemen is an al Qaeda combatant. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeracorrespondent/2011/10/20111019124251679523.html It seems that like any other protracted conflict, here ideologies have broken down and a dynamic of reciprocal violence and extraction of wealth from the local population by both sides has arisen instead. The Naxalites seem to have at least partly degenerated into armed thuggery while preaching ideology, while their government counterparts might be even worse thugs. The Indian officer showing up at around 27 minutes in is super shady.
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Jun 19, 2013 17:38
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 American photograph Lee Miller in Adolf Hitler's bathtub the day he shot himself.
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Jun 19, 2013 17:47
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Ronald Nixon posted:I would suggest you read Craig Dilworth's 'Too Smart for Our Own Good', which makes the point that technological progress is a response to population pressure that temporarily alleviates that pressure. In this way, technological progress is a sign of a society in distress. Why would you take up farming if you could harvest enough from the surrounding wilds? Why would you design diabetes treatments etc if people weren't suffering lifestyle diseases? Just gonna note that your quasi-authoritative catchall of 'technological progress' belongs in the same bucket of undefined poo poo as this:  Go into the woods and die, primitivist scum. 
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Jun 19, 2013 18:06
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Guns, Germs, and Steel is an exceptionally good book, and people calling it racist likely have ether not read it, did not understand it, or have some odd preconceived notions that they don't like facts and reality clashing up against. Also it was a few pages ago but did I actually see some idiots rag on a poster for saying that the loss of art at the Hagia Sophia was a historical tragedy? Some of you people are so eager to jump on "racism" that you must see it in every little shadow. How you go about functioning in the world must be fascinating to observe.  Badera posted:I agree. I dislike Diamond because he smacks of Eurocentrism to me, and the whole idea of geographical determinism seems like a smokescreen for that fact. I don't think you know what "Eurocenterism" means then. Saying that factors largely beyond the control of the people involved and lucky timing are the biggest factors for European "success" is not Eurocenterism in any sense of the word that is normally used. Although some people in this thread are so eager to get into a pointless leftist slap fight lately that they are likely to call any history book that doesn’t tell all of world history from the point of view of an undiscovered tribe in Indonesia “Eurocentric”. Seriously, some of the harmless poo poo you goons are taking offense at smacks of old ironic LF posting it’s that bad. Cesar Cedeno fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 18:20
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Badera posted:I agree. I dislike Diamond because he smacks of Eurocentrism to me, and the whole idea of geographical determinism seems like a smokescreen for that fact. I suppose you have to be "Eurocentric" when you are trying to explain why Europeans were able to subjugate almost the entire globe. I haven't heard any other arguments outside Diamond's that actually attempt to use a non-racist explanation of why Europe came to be so powerful. I haven't read the 1491 book yet so if someone wants to give a synopsis of what they think the reason is, please do. I mean, if it wasn't because of geographical determinism, what was it? 
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Jun 19, 2013 18:26
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Pobama posted:Some of you people are so eager to jump on "racism" that you must see it in every little shadow. How you go about functioning in the world must be fascinating to observe. It's almost as if people were culturally trained to ignore it by characterizing people who try to systematically weed out prejudices as "jumping at shadows." 
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Jun 19, 2013 18:26
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Internet Webguy posted:It's almost as if people were culturally trained to ignore it by characterizing people who try to systematically weed out prejudices as "jumping at shadows." When people start calling a guy who briefly lamented that the destruction of mosaic art in the Hagia Sophia was a historical and artistic loss, I think a line has been long ago crossed. If you call everything racist then the god drat word ceases to have any meaning. In this thread I find myself rolling my eyes more often than not at the pathetic slapfights that posters who really should be getting along keep getting into in some kind of "NOT RACIST" race to the bottom.  On a different note, if anyone is interested in the Fall of Constantinople, this book is amazing and one of my favorite historical reads. Takes you blow by blow into the battle for the city and the factors that lead up to it. You feel like you're there sometimes. 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West http://www.amazon.com/dp/1401308503 Cesar Cedeno fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 18:32
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Sorry that this thread is turning you racist because of your inherent contrary nature. One wrong accusation of racism by a random person completely makes the argument illegitimate, you're right.
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Jun 19, 2013 18:39
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Jun 19, 2013 18:40
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Honestly I think accusing the dude who's talking about context and moderation instead of just jumping straight to whatever anti-European rhetoric someone can conjure up of being contrarian is sorta silly. I'm not sure exactly what this says beyond "20 cents, the tip of the Iceberg"
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Jun 19, 2013 18:41
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Internet Webguy posted:Sorry that this thread is turning you racist because of your inherent contrary nature. One wrong accusation of racism by a random person completely makes the argument illegitimate, you're right. LOL. You're not even making sense now. Honestly, read what I posted then re-read your statement above. What the hell?  More on topic. The fall of Constantinople is really a fascinating historical tale. The cannons built by the Ottomans were the largest ever used at the time and we're incredibly impressive. Although they could explode and kill the operators from time to time. 
Cesar Cedeno fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 18:47
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Internet Webguy posted:Sorry that this thread is turning you racist because of your inherent contrary nature.  Come back and save D&D from tumblr idiots, W! Bush/Cheney 2016.
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Jun 19, 2013 18:47
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Exclamation Marx posted:Is this meant to be Trotsky? Or a generic antisemitic caricature? It's meant to be Trotsky. Anti-semitism is a big theme in White propaganda, and you'll see a lot more Trotsky caricatures than Lenin or other leading Bolsheviks for precisely that reason. 
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Jun 19, 2013 18:50
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Fandyien posted:Honestly I think accusing the dude who's talking about context and moderation instead of just jumping straight to whatever anti-European rhetoric someone can conjure up of being contrarian is sorta silly. I'm guessing it's referring to the protests in Brazil over the transit fair hikes saying that although the protests bubbled up over this there is a huge amount of police brutality, corruption and oppression that caused this to happen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQyQnXrLb0
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Jun 19, 2013 18:51
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TenementFunster posted:Come back and save D&D from tumblr idiots, W! Bush/Cheney 2016.  Make peace with your false gods
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Jun 19, 2013 18:52
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Fandyien posted:Honestly I think accusing the dude who's talking about context and moderation instead of just jumping straight to whatever anti-European rhetoric someone can conjure up of being contrarian is sorta silly. Reis $0,20 Corruption Taxes Low quality of education/schools and public health Impunity Politician's Salaries Low quality of infrastructure of public transportation Violence Oppression PEC 37 - I don't know what that is, I expect a bill/law  From some of my friends in Brazil Akilles fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 18:58
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Pobama posted:The cannons built by the Ottomans were the largest ever used at the time and we're incredibly impressive. Although they could explode and kill the operators from time to time. Other 'Tsars' built just to be big, to the point where they became unfit for purpose:  Tsar Bell  Tsar Tank  Tsar Bomba - Also only fired once  (At 50MT, half the design energy.)A relevant comic: 
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Jun 19, 2013 19:06
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Deleuzionist posted:India's Silent War, Al Jazeera 2011 I'm not trying to be contrarian for its own sake, but this video seems to be aching to say that the truth is somewhere in the middle. In fact, the correspondent uses that exact phrase over and over ("the people caught in the middle!") I appreciate that the Naxalites may not be actively working for class struggle as the former fighter says, etc, but it simply asserts that fact and then breathlessly tells us about some bad poo poo that they've done, which I have a very hard time comparing to the state's violence because of the scale and resources of the two sides. Anyways, I'll shut up about it now and go check out the Asian politics megathreads. 
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Jun 19, 2013 19:12
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The Read Menace posted:I haven't read the 1491 book yet so if someone wants to give a synopsis of what they think the reason is, please do. I mean, if it wasn't because of geographical determinism, what was it? 1491 doesn't really conflict with Guns, Germs, and Steel at all, they're both great if non-academic history books. Diamond obviously focuses more on European civilizations and his book kind of falls apart when discussing China and India, but some idiots like to think the only reason for European dominance was a uniquely white rapacity and desire for conquest. 1491 does claim that the Amerindian susceptibility to disease was probably more a legacy of limited genetic diversity thanks to the small population that crossed over the Bering strait, rather than a lack of domesticated animals. It also goes into how complex Amerindian civilizations were, and how absolutely destructive and apocalyptic European diseases proved to be.  An earthwork structure in the Brazilian state of Acre, believed to belong to an almost entirely unknown developed civilization that lived in the area.
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Jun 19, 2013 19:15
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Rogue0071 posted:It's meant to be Trotsky. Anti-semitism is a big theme in White propaganda, and you'll see a lot more Trotsky caricatures than Lenin or other leading Bolsheviks for precisely that reason. It's really hard to overstate just how much the Whites played the "Trotsky = Satanic Jew" angle.  
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Jun 19, 2013 19:17
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  Hugo Selling, prominent figure of a Swedish conservative student group, driving the free-of-charge vans that replaced the regular bus line this morning after the drivers went on strike around Stockholm this morning. Dubbed the "Amalthea line" after the famous bombing of the Amalthea ship in Malmö port in 1908. The original Amalthea was a British ship filled with scabs brought in to combat the striking workers. A young syndicalist, Anton Nilsson, rowed out to the Amalthea and threw a box of chocolates filled with dynamite on board, killing one and injuring 23. Nilsson was one of the last people sentenced to death in Sweden, later having his punishment commuted to a lifetime of penal labour. The conservative student group eventually ended up cancelling the bus line after a reportedly very intense backlash a few hours ago. widunder fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jun 19, 2013 |
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Jun 19, 2013 19:18
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Guavanaut posted:Ottoman artillery was impressive, but that there is Tsar Cannon, a Russian cannon built simply to be big. It was never used in war, and probably only fired a couple of times. Ah you are right, although the Ottoman cannons would have looked similar. 
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Jun 19, 2013 19:19
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Guavanaut posted:
I love reading about nuclear testing and Tsar Bomba is probably my favorite of them all just because of how insane it was. The fireball had a radius of 5 miles, enough to nearly destroy the plane that dropped it. Its zone of total destruction had a radius of 22 miles. A town 34 miles away was completely destroyed, third-degree burns could have occurred 62 miles away, and windows in Norway and Finland broke from the shockwave. Had it been detonated underground it would have produced an earthquake of around 8.1 magnitude. Here's a video of it being detonated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu88gb1EpmI The world will end in fire, not ice. Sorry Frost.
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Jun 19, 2013 19:21
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