As the World Turns. Turns. Turns . (Life's lottery)

Washington Post ^ | June 11, 2005 | Stephen Reiss

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It turns out your real estate agent was right. In determining the historic reasons why societies thrived and conquered, while others stayed backward, the answer is: location, location, location.

At least that's the persuasive theory advanced by Jared Diamond, a UCLA professor, MacArthur "genius" grant winner and author of the best-selling book "Guns, Germs, and Steel." Now, Diamond's book has been adapted into a three-part television series by National Geographic that begins tonight at 10 on Maryland Public Television (Channel 22) and tomorrow at 9 p.m. on WETA (Channel 26). The shows strive for an epic feel, hopscotching the continents and bouncing from demonstrations of how to make food from a sago palm to how to wield a rapier while on horseback.

Diamond's argument is ambitious, the anthropological equivalent of the long-sought unified field theory in physics: It seeks to explain everything that matters. Essentially, he says that climate and accidents of ecology are the main reasons why the native peoples of Eurasia, particularly Europe, came to run the world, and not the equally industrious and capable people of Africa, Australia or the Americas.

When our hunter-gatherer ancestors made their first tentative steps toward farming, they were dependent on the native plants that grew in the world they happened to roam. The people of the Middle East won the real estate lottery: It was there that grains such as wheat and barley offered a happy combination of traits. They are relatively high in protein, easy to sow and productive compared with, say, the squash of Mesoamerica or the yams of West Africa

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Last year The National Geographic cover story about global warming had me stop my 30+ year subscription to the magazine.

[rawcatslyentist]

>"It turns out your real estate agent was right. In determining the historic reasons why societies thrived and conquered, while others stayed backward, the answer is: location, location, location."

Another fake but accurate* MSM story. Lets ask the indiginous American occupants about their location advantage then vs now.

*(accurate may not actually be accurate)

ABC CBS NBC CNN its all the SAME, Propaganda.
Might as well call them all AmeriJazerra.
Show them how much Gravitas Hugh Bris has. Vote with your remote! Shut down the Alphabet channels.

He's Got A Plan
Zippo Hero

Kill A Commie For Mommie
Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes

http://www.takebackthememorial.com/

[Reeses]

The advantages of a 4,000-year head start in technology were dramatically illustrated by the events of November 1532, when Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and 168 Spaniards defeated the 80,000 soldiers of Inca emperor Atahualpa without losing a single man.

Only technology separates the Spanish from the "equally industrious" Incas? You have to add in culture and evolutionary enhancements selected for during thousands of years of prior war making. Most human evolution occurs during war, and the Incas were selected out.

[cvq3842]

Good point.

Also, I believe Africa is incredibly rich in natural resources, but i don't think anyone considers that continent on the forefront of progress.

[Mack the knife]

"The advantages of a 4,000-year head start in technology were dramatically illustrated by the events of November 1532, when Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and 168 Spaniards defeated the 80,000 soldiers of Inca emperor Atahualpa without losing a single man."

Why doesn't the author also note that the 158 Spaniards were at the head of an army of 120,000 natives who had been suppressed by the Aztecs for years? I guess it wouldn't have made his point.