Reddit mentions: The best history of civilization & culture books

We found 681 Reddit comments discussing the best history of civilization & culture books. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 122 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

1. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

    Features:
  • Age of Exploration
  • Colonization
  • Culture
  • Infection
  • Armament
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Specs:
Height9.2999814 Inches
Length6.0999878 Inches
Number of items1
Weight1.31 Pounds
Width1.499997 Inches
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2. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

    Features:
  • Harper Books
  • It comes with proper packaging
  • Ideal for Gifting
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Specs:
Height9 Inches
Length6 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateFebruary 2015
Weight2.66375 Pounds
Width1.37 Inches
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3. The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

    Features:
  • Basic Books AZ
The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution
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Height9.1 Inches
Length6.1 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateOctober 2010
Weight0.8 Pounds
Width0.9 Inches
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4. The Gene: An Intimate History

Scribner
The Gene: An Intimate History
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Height9.25 Inches
Length6.125 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateMay 2016
Weight2 Pounds
Width1.6 Inches
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5. The 10000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

The 10000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution
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Length7 Inches
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Weight1.18 Pounds
Width1.25 Inches
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6. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

    Features:
  • NORTON
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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Height9.3 Inches
Length6.1 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateMarch 2017
Weight1.25 Pounds
Width1.4 Inches
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8. Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950

    Features:
  • FF Strapless Strap On W/Anal Stimulator
Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950
Specs:
Height9 Inches
Length6 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateNovember 2004
Weight1.57410055068 Pounds
Width1.1 Inches
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9. The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community; with a Retrospective Essay

The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community; with a Retrospective Essay
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Length6 Inches
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10. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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Height9.24 Inches
Length6.34 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateOctober 2014
Weight1.65 Pounds
Width1.36 Inches
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11. Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections

    Features:
  • Used Book in Good Condition
Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections
Specs:
Height9 Inches
Length6 Inches
Number of items1
Weight0.86200744442 Pounds
Width0.5 Inches
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12. After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000
Specs:
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Length6.2799087 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateAugust 2009
Weight1.1 Pounds
Width1.5799181 Inches
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13. The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (Compass)

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (Compass)
Specs:
ColorBlack
Height8.39 inches
Length5.52 inches
Number of items1
Release dateSeptember 1999
Weight0.99 Pounds
Width1.09 inches
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15. Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations
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Height9.5 Inches
Length6.75 Inches
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Weight1.04940036712 Pounds
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18. Who Built the Moon?

    Features:
  • Watkins
Who Built the Moon?
Specs:
ColorMulticolor
Height9.2 Inches
Length6.1 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateDecember 2006
Weight0.85098433132 Pounds
Width0.84 Inches
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19. The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization

The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization
Specs:
Height8.5 Inches
Length5.5 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateDecember 2004
Weight0.63 Pounds
Width0.77 Inches
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20. The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
Specs:
Height8.2901409 Inches
Length6.4901445 Inches
Number of items1
Release dateMarch 2009
Weight0.58 Pounds
Width0.8350377 Inches
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🎓 Reddit experts on history of civilization & culture books

The comments and opinions expressed on this page are written exclusively by redditors. To provide you with the most relevant data, we sourced opinions from the most knowledgeable Reddit users based the total number of upvotes and downvotes received across comments on subreddits where history of civilization & culture books are discussed. For your reference and for the sake of transparency, here are the specialists whose opinions mattered the most in our ranking.
Total score: 34
Number of comments: 4
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 21
Number of comments: 4
Relevant subreddits: 3
Total score: 13
Number of comments: 4
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 12
Number of comments: 3
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 11
Number of comments: 3
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: 9
Number of comments: 3
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 5
Number of comments: 3
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 5
Number of comments: 3
Relevant subreddits: 2
Total score: 3
Number of comments: 2
Relevant subreddits: 1
Total score: -8
Number of comments: 4
Relevant subreddits: 2

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Top Reddit comments about History of Civilization & Culture:

u/LaskerEmanuel · 5 pointsr/MultipleSclerosis

I have been struggling with the same thing, after years of being what some people might think of as a bit of a workaholic, once I got to “Now I can’t work, what do I do” (After I got done struggling with “Now I can’t work, who am I), this is what I came up with:

 


Exercise: Everything I have read thus far, highly encourages persons with MS to get as much exercise as they can get. All of the stories I read about MS that make you think “I would like to experience what that person is experiencing” start out with “I got MS, and I thought my life was over, but then I got very serious about sleep, diet, and exercise”) This gentlemen just posted a very nice one on this very subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MultipleSclerosis/comments/ca5lem/something_uplifting_after_two_and_a_half_years_i/
One of the challenges for me was as someone who used to be fairly athletic years ago, for me exercise was a way to enjoy the wonders the human body was capable of, and going for a short, shuffling walk at the end of which I was exhausted felt… I don’t know, not great. At that point I went to a talk on MS and one of the doctors that was speaking talked about the importance of exercise, and relayed a series of stories about exercise and MS. One of them was about a gentlemen who had lost the use of everything but his left arm. His words were something like “That arm is one of the most important things going on in my practice, it’s the arm he uses to order food, to facetime with his children…”, and then he went on to describe the stretching and exercise he would do to try to preserve as much function as possible.
Some days of course are better than others, on the good ones I try to get in as much exercise as possible. On the bad ones, well I can do less, but I try to do what I can. One thing that has helped for me is thinking of the MS like a foe. It wants to destroy you, take things away, crippled you (I realize this is silly anthropomorphizing, but I feel like it helps me maintain a good state of mind). On the days I feel good, it makes it easier to go out and do what exercise I can, it feels like I am gaining on my foe. On my bad days, I think “Alright, you got me today, but let’s see how I feel tomorrow, perhaps the MS leaves a hole and I can slip through”. Somehow approaching it this way makes me feel slippery and determined, rather than crippled.

 



Reading: When I was younger I read a great deal, but it fell off as my career picked up. I got to a point where I would only read a handful of books a year. Now with more time, I have been spending more time with a book.
I recently finished Sapiens, and very much enjoyed it: https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095
I am now working my way through the histories of Herodotus (and am finding them fascinating): https://www.amazon.com/Landmark-Herodotus-Histories-Robert-Strassler/dp/1400031141/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=landmark+histories&qid=1562946514&s=books&sr=1-1

 


Watching: The wife and I watch some TV together, and we have both been on history kick. We have been watching some of the great courses, and really enjoying the experience. Some of our favorites:
https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/show/the_rise_of_rome?tn=Also+By+This+Professor_0_3 Everything I have seen by Greg Aldrete is good, he seems to conduct creditable scholarship (For example, he calls out when historians disagree on some topic, shares the views of both camps, and THEN shares his thoughts), and he tells a fantastic story.
https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/show/living_history_experiencing_great_events_of_the_ancient_and_medieval_worlds?tn=The+Great+Courses+Plus+Online+History+Courses+_0_70 Robert Garland takes moments out of history and works to make them come alive. I would argue that (at least for me) he succeeds spectacularly in this series.
https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/food-a-cultural-culinary-history The history of food, and history told with an eye to how everything has been shaped by food.
In addition to these, there are countless other good ones. As someone who purchased some great courses in the past (at what were some fairly exorbitant prices even on their sales), I very much like their new subscription model where you pay a fee each month and have access to everything. You can try out a lecture and see if you enjoy the lecturer style.

 


Gaming: Weirdly, being sick has destroyed a lot of the fun of gaming for me. Before I got sick, gaming was a thing I enjoyed “After I did my work”. Now that I don’t have work to be done with, someone how I don’t feel like I have “Earned the right to game”. Not saying this makes sense, necessary, but of course we feel how we feel. I have continued to play EVE Online (which I played before I got sick), albeit at a much lazier pace. I played through much of the latest Zelda with my 6 year old, which was fun, and recently played through FAR: Lone Sails which is a quiet, atmospheric puzzle solving game that involves piloting a vehicle through a post apocalyptic wasteland. Despite that description, I feel like the game is more soothing then it is anything else. It’s beautiful made, it was an enjoyable experience.

 


In addition to this jazz, I have of course been spending time with my wife and children. After my last flare I was spending a lot (almost all) of my time in the house, and more recently I have been making plans to see friends. Because my energy does not last so long, I have been trying to do lunches, perhaps meet a friend on their lunch break at work. The lack of outside the family adult contact once I stopped working has been weighing on me, and having a chat with an old friend has been a real boost.

u/LindsayHansenPark · 40 pointsr/exmormon

Great question. Again, I struggle with being concise but I will try.

Belief is hard. I'm still trying to understand it myself. The short answer is, at the end of the day- I still feel like a believer. Like, I wake up many mornings and feel like nothing has changed for me. I think this suggests that Mormonism is far more than just a belief system. I still feel Mormon. It's still a very natural instinct to pray when I'm stressed.

Logically, I don't believe in God, but I still feel like I do and so I still pray. I think this is the actual definition of Mormon faith- a hope for things. I hope that someone or something hears my prayers, but I know it is very unlikely. But it's a habit and practice I value.

I don't believe in the literal truth claims of most things, only because I have a very different understanding of how to view it thanks to my professional historian friends who have taught me how to think of things from a sort of dispassionate, scientific way.

That shows me, and experience has shown me that things don't have to be literal to have meaning. Have y'all read Sapiens? I love the way Harari talks about constructs and myths. Everything is a myth- everything- equality, human rights, religion, all of it. I sort of take that approach.

So what do I believe? It's hard to pin down. I have a testimony in the messiness of it all. I bear my testimony that humans are super illogical and messy and broken, acting out of hurt and scarcity sometimes, and other times acting out of generosity and kindness. I see this acted out through Mormonism daily. It certainly isn't specific to Mormonism, but I've learned it all through a Mormon lens and I really value that.

So I believe in the Mormon movement. In Mormon people to do good and bad things in a very Mormon way. I love the Mormon communities we have and actually feel spiritually fed in seeing the complexity of it all. To me, divinity is found in collective human experience and I see that in Mormonism.

I know that doesn't make a lot of sense and isn't sufficient. We want temple recommend answers to this sort of thing. Everything else feels like deflection. But the reality is, it's not deflection- I just am not sure how to articulate that my mind and body are very complicated in Mormonism. So the easiest thing to say is that I still feel Mormon and I still feel like a believer. My brain is just more naturally oriented towards belief than skepticism. That's caused me plenty of problems along the way.

I certainly also have a lot of harmful scripts I'm still unpacking but I'm committed in a very Mormon-dilligence sort of way to deconstructing that so i reserve the right to constantly change my mind.

Belief really is complicated and complex. But I certainly no longer believe in a literal, traditional way we usually define belief. But I think that sort of belief requires a very underdeveloped way of looking at the world and most believers I know these days don't subscribe to a sort of blind-faith, immature, take-your-word-for-it belief. There are certainly many that do, but there are also very smart and thoughtful people who let belief be complicated.

u/JCCheapEntertainment · 1 pointr/aznidentity

>As for your “race realist” beliefs, the way I see those theories is that they are backwards rationalization of “innate” human capacities based on results of recent history (a time period that accounts as a mere tick on the entire span of human time-line). It also does not take account the effects of disparity in starting points of geography and environment, and different available starting packages offered by said environments.

They're not backwards rationalizations for the results of recent history. Evolution never stopped, different selection pressures have been placed on different lineages of humans ever since they diverged some 40-50k years ago when the group that became our ancestors (all none Africans) marched out of Africa. And the theory of course takes into account varying geography and environments, in fact they were the very driving force behind the evolution of different population traits or averages. Culture and biology are intertwined, they can and in fact have co-evolved with each other throughout our evolutionary history. If you're open to learning more about this, The 10,000 Year Explosion is a good primer on the topic of recent human evolution. It is an easy (even if you have little knowledge on genetics) and succinct read, but is definitely compelling in the theories it puts forth as they are backed up by ample evidence.

>if you want to subscribe to “race-realist” beliefs, then you might as well save the effort and just kowtow to the white man's self-researched “Goldilocks superiority”, and accept your current lot in life as a second/third class worker drone. After all, if “race-realism” is real, then everything as manifested in the status quo is the natural order of things right? Why struggle instead of just accepting the world order? It's yet another comfortable trap of contentment to curl up in after all.

You speak of "subscribing to 'race-realist' beliefs" as if it's some religion one can just choose to follow or not. It's either science or it's not, and if the former, then I have no choice but to "subscribe" to it. For every group of people, there are theories in the race realism framework that would make them uneasy and perhaps feel some sort of immediate revulsion to. But at the end of the day, how one feels about these theories are completely irrelevant, if the research methodologies are sound (which after having read many books and studies on both sides of the debate, I've deemed to be so), then the ensuing results and conclusions must be incorporated into our understanding of the world. Admittedly not all aspects of racial differences are well studied, which is exactly why they should be, science and knowledge in itself is neither good nor evil, morality only comes into play when it's time for their application. And again, just as evolution never stopped at the advent of human cultures, it continues to enact itself even today, and will continue to do so for as long as humans exist. So just because the white man might be the "Goldilocks" currently, doesn't mean Asians cannot become strictly better in every genetic metric that matters via the application of science. So no, understanding race realism does not at all necessitates one to "just accept the world order".

>Empathy could be useful for knowing your enemy, know what makes them tick, and devise how to deal with them. Going beyond that becomes sympathizing with them, a pit of no return where you become their useful idiot.

Yes point taken. But again, I'm not at all advocating for Asians to put their necks out on the line for them right now (or ever if one chooses not to), but rather once our position is secured, why not help the other groups of people? It is the moral thing to do. There's little to be gained from being cruel masters.

>As for morality, I got only one word: Lol. We Asians are family-oriented though, so save that morality for your loved ones.

This ties back to my earlier point that humanity is an extended family. You don't treat all members of your family the same, do you? Of course not, that would be impossible. Some you like more, some you like less. Some you treat better and help out more, others you're simply indifferent to. But at the end of the day, they're still your family members. Barring unforgivable transgressions, you would not usually wish irreversible ills upon any member. And so it goes for me when it comes to humanity.

>Why is it always individuals from the losing side that talks about reconciling with everyone to sing cum bah yah? Why is it that Asians, the most ridiculed race on planet earth, who have the least reason to want to reconcile, have most people among them that want reconciliation?

Hopefully you realize by now that's not the message I was trying to convey. No illusions of pleading and begging the victor for pity and scraps on my end here. The future goal is exactly that, for the future, after we get our own shit taken care of. East Asians are well on their way to reclaiming the throne for the top civilizational center of the world. The dominance of the West over Asia is an aberration through the lens of history.

>You want to change the rules of the game from zero-sum (the way history and nature had operated since inception) to something else? At the very least, you have to be in charge in order to have any chance of changing the rules.

Precisely. This was implicitly stated in my previous comment, guess it wasn't clear enough.

>And all this without even having to look at how all utopian ideals fail to address how to change human nature to make that utopia work.

I don't believe in Utopias, because that implies there is some idealized final destination for society, which goes against science. And yes human nature needs to be changed for the better, it will continue to evolve, just as it has always done so. But if science and technology grants us the choice to direct it to a course that would be beneficial for all of humanity, why not take it?

>then we are eagerly wanting to break bread and seek commonality with white nationalists.

In general, Nationalists (who love their own) are not Supremacists (who hate and oppress others), this applies to nationalists of all races, whether they be Asian, white, brown or black. And if they follow similar core beliefs as those that I outlined, which many do, then they can definitely be reasoned with and made into allies for the common Human Nationalist cause. I'd die for my family, have love my people, and do good for humanity.

>What “unique strengths” would that be? Whites are more adept at leadership? Asians at being mental workhorses? Blacks at being physical workhorses? Latinos at keeping the spaceship decks immaculate?

Lol. Not everyone needs to work or even be on the spaceship. In any case, by the time such efforts become feasible, the state of science and technology (especially wrt automation) would likely be very different from that of today, so it's rather pointless to speculate about it now.

u/rebelrob0t · 3 pointsr/REDDITORSINRECOVERY

I went to one AA meeting when I first got clean and never went back. I understand people have found support and success in it but to me, personally, I felt it only increased the stigma of drug addicts as these broken hopeless people barely hanging on by a thread. It's an outdated system that relies on little science or attempting to progress the participants and relies more on holding people in place and focusing on the past. Instead I just worked towards becoming a normal person. Here are some of the resources I used:

r/Fitness - Getting Started: Exercise is probably the #1 thing that will aid you in recovering. It can help your brain learn to produce normal quantities of dopamine again as well as improve your heath, mood, well being and confidence.

Meetup: You can use this site to find people in your area with similar interests. I found a hiking group and a D&D group on here which I still regularly join.

Craigslist: Same as above - look for groups, activities, volunteer work, whatever.

Diet

This will be the other major player in your recovery. Understanding your diet will allow you to improve your health,mood, energy, and help recover whatever damage the drugs may have done to your body.

How Not To Die Cookbook

Life Changing Foods

The Plant Paradox

Power Foods For The Brain

Mental Health

Understand whats going on inside your head and how to deal with it is also an important step to not only recovery but enjoying life as a whole.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

The Emotional Life Of Your Brain

Furiously Happy

The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works

Educational

If you are like me you probably felt like a dumbass when you first got clean. I think retraining your brain on learning, relearning things you may have forgot after long term drug use, and just learning new things in general will all help you in recovery. Knowledge is power and the more you learn the more confident in yourself and future learning tasks you become.

Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse

Why Nations Fails

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

Thinking, Fast and Slow

The Financial Peace Planner: A Step-by-Step Guide to Restoring Your Family's Financial Health

Continued Education / Skills Development

EdX: Take tons of free college courses.

Udemy: Tons of onine courses ranging from writing to marketing to design, all kinds of stuff.

Cybrary: Teach yourself everything from IT to Network Security skills

Khan Academy: Refresh on pretty much anything from highschool/early college.

There are many more resources available these are just ones I myself have used over the past couple years of fixing my life. Remember you don't have to let your past be a monkey on your back throughout the future. There are plenty of resources available now-a-days to take matters into your own hands.

*Disclaimer: I am not here to argue about anyone's personal feelings on AA**







u/Vailhem · 1 pointr/energy

if Hillary hadn't made corn a product of choice for ethanol, we probably wouldn't have an agriculture industry right now. Or, rather, there would've been an even larger consolidation of the agriculture industry than there has been in the past 10 years to the point that it would become very very difficult to pull it out of that depression.

Switchgrass and other products for ethanol make more sense on a multitude of levels (EROEI, cost, resources, etc) but one of the major, and oft overlooked reasons is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchgrass#Soil_conservation

it would allow for new lands (otherwise not dedicated to farming) to be used, as well as allow lands that have been overworked, over fertilized, and otherwise leading to the death of soil, ( dated, and modern techniques allow it to be rebuilt... read: switchgrass/biochar/etc, but a good example is the first few chapters of this )
Switchgrass can prepare new lands for food-crop growing, it can repair old lands, and it otherwise can be grown on lands that most likely will never be suitable or economical for food-crop growth but perfectly fine (and profitable/sustainable) for switchgrass (or hemp, take your pick, I think switchgrass is more realistic in this environment).

This would allow for lands to be redirected back to their original purposed to begin with: growing crop to export (for profit). US agriculture exports have plateaued and even dropped over the past decade. There was supposed to be a major Gulf port facility upgrade back in 2000 that Bush didn't sign because he only agreed to build it if he got offshore drilling (a few hurricanes and an oil spill later, he got his offshore drilling... though port facilities still haven't been upgraded)

This was going to overhall all the shipping lanes on the major rivers (Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi, etc) as well as increase road width from the southeast to three lanes to allow for the increased trucking as well as rail line upgrades. Also, and the major plug to the whole thing, the port facilities from the Gulf out were supposed to be upgraded to be larger than the LA port upgrades happening just before then (same crews were to move from LA to New Orleans, etc after the LA ports were finished).
When this happened, plus some trade agreements between the US and China, combined with arrangements between US/China/Brazil... we cut our exports at the same time that Brazil was investing heavily in theirs (with money from China... ultimately, from US and Bush investors who'd bought up large swaths of brazilian rainforest and otherwise destroyed it for farmland under Bush-ite control (yes, I'm saying that Bush and friends own and control the Brazilian agriculture industry). Brazil was able to grow well beyond our capacity and to become the major exporter of food-crop to China and Africa (as well as pretty much everywhere else). Essentially, Brazil replaced the US as China/the world's breadbasket.

Now that their industry is up and running, and running strong and profitably, and likely to continue to grow at a controlled rate, I wouldn't be surprised if a major agriculture bill in the US as well as infrastructure projects weren't pushed by Obama/democrats to overhaul and increase our shipping/handling facilities and infrastructures as well as readjust our farm subsidies so that farmers can profitably stop overworking their land, and begin to grow on currently undeveloped land, as well as..... you get the general idea

Then again, with the repub's winning control of the Senate, and ganking so much from the house, it'll prob be a fairly difficult beast to wrestle away from them.... read: we will most likely be locked in stalemate until 2012. Personally, fine with me (i hate neocons, tea party is stupid, Obama is almost as incapable and... Hilary or Ron Paul are my two choices for pres in 2012. And, I'm from KY, I voted for his son... who, despite the rhetoric, is not a (modern incarnation of the) teaparty nut case though he did use them for votes... and I would imagine thinks Sarah Palin is a whore, and used her as such to get votes.). With any luck, a vote of no confidence will come up for Obama forcing him to compete in dem primaries in 2011/12 and Hillary will win. The ag industry has been hers since 2004 anyway, and its only likelyhood of moving forward with any stability or chance for success is by something she proposes (no longer a senator so easier said than done) or, in fact, pushes through as president.....

either way, its form will most likely include a switch of subsidies from corn to switchgrass, at least until the infrastructure for corn export is increased to allow for imports to come back in and help the industry grow w/out them (subsidies).

u/ciarao55 · 33 pointsr/worldnews

I think part of the problem is really that people are looking at only granular parts of problems today and don't have enough historical context. Its useless to follow every story about everyone and every little thing. There are lots of ups and downs in politics and there's no reason to be so reactionary to every single new and probably manufactured "scandal".... that's what's exhausting. I like to keep updated on a few big issues, I follow the careers of a few people I find inspiring (and follow a few that do things that worry me), and spend the rest of the time reading up on topics in book form... they have the advantage of being written over time, and with more vigorous standards for accuracy. The news, while still important where immediate info is necessary, is essentially click bait now. You don't need to get caught in the rip tides that pull you everywhere constantly, just understand the general trajectory of the important things.

edit: to those curious about some book recommendations: I'm by no means an expert in anything really, and the books you read should really be about the topics you personally are interested in, so don't take my word as gospel (or any author's). I like American history, ancient history, international relations, and though I think they're more boring I force myself to read about the health care system and the American education system because I feel they're important. I'm also looking to read some books on the military industrial complex and cyber security/ big data because I don't really know anything about them other than the stuff I see in passing on the news or here on Reddit. So if anyone knows a good overview of those issues, feel free to let me know.

  • For a good start on human history and the beginnings of modern economics/ intl relations (basically why the West has historically dominated), try Guns, Germs, and Steel I believe there's also a documentary if the book is too dense for your taste (it is pretty dense).

  • Perhaps if you're interested in why people get so damn heated talking politics, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

  • If you wonder why people vote against their own social and economic interest: What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America Full disclosure: I liked this book, but I lean left. I'm not sure if it matters, the point of the book is just to track how the Republican party went from being the party of elites, to the party of blue collar workers.

  • If the Supreme Court interests you at all, I liked Jeffrey Toobin's, The Nine

  • The achievement gap? Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria

  • Health care? There's a lot, but this one is an easy read and it compares the systems of Britain, Japan, Germany, and I believe Cuba (which is very good for their GDP!) and the US's. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid

    This is just some stuff I've listed off the top of my head. Another thing that I find helpful to better understanding intl relations are books about the major genocides of the past few decades, which are hard to get through (because of the brutal content) but... What is the What (Sudan), First they killed my father (Cambodian genocide), Girl at War (more of a autobiography, but still chilling) there's a couple of others I've read that I can't remember now.

    Anyway, just go to Good Reads and look at Contemporary Politics. Perhaps Great Courses has a political philosophy course too that you can draw from if you wanna go even farther back into the origins of society's structure and political thought.

    Also podcasts! I've just discovered these but there's a lot of audio content (FREE!) that you can listen to on your commute and whatnot. I like Abe Lincoln's Top Hat right now.

    Edit edit: wow thanks for the gold!!
u/weirds3xstuff · 12 pointsr/changemyview

There are two books that I have read that have done a great deal to help me understand the dynamics that allowed Europe to rise to dominance starting in the 17th century: Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Why Nations Fail. The former talks about the geographical and ecological considerations that stifled development outside of Europe. The latter talks about the role if extractive institutions, set up by colonial powers, that remained after decolonization and prevented previously-colonized nations from developing. I can't do their arguments justice here, but if you are sincerely interested in changing your view I strongly recommend reading those books. I'll try to address your specific points:

> it seems to me that those of European heritage have made the most long-lasting and significant contributions to mankind. To name a few: space travel, internet, modern technology and medicine.

All of these marvels are founded in the scientific method, which developed during the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment has been successfully exported to multiple non-European countries, most notably Japan. So, it's not just Europeans who are able to appreciate Enlightenment values. But the Enlightenment did start in Europe. So, to believe that the Enlightenment proves that Europeans are superior you must prove that the cause of the enlightenment was the innate character of Europeans, and not any contingent factors. That is...very difficult to do. And, yes, the burden of proof is on you, here, since the null hypothesis is that the biological distinctiveness of Europeans is unrelated to the start of the Enlightenment.

> I realize Arabs of ancient times also contributed a lot in the realms of mathematics and medicine.

Yes. Different civilizations have become world leaders at different points in history, which makes the idea of some kind of innate superiority of one civilization really hard to believe. It just so happens that the Islamic Golden Age occurred at a time when it was impossible to communicate over large distances, while the European Golden Age (which we are now in) occurred at a time when communication is instantaneous and we can project military power across the entire world. In other words, the global dominance of Europeans is historically contingent, not an immutable fact of biology.

>One argument I frequently hear to counter this position is that other nations have failed to develop due to colonization and exploitation.

This is an excellent argument, and is, essentially, correct.

> if they were on the same level as Europeans intellectually and strength wise, why couldn't they have found the means to fight back and turn the tables?

Although they were at the same level as Europeans "intellectually and strength wise", they were not at the same level technologically. Europe was in a golden age, Africa, India, and China were not. Again, the key here is that the European Golden Age occurred at a time when it was possible to travel the oceans and project military power worldwide. That was not the case in the Islamic Golden Age or the Indian Golden Age, which explains why those civilizations didn't conquer the world in the way the Europeans of the 19th century did.

>Instead of Europeans doing what they've done to others, why couldn't it have been the other way around?

Guns, Germs, and Steel does the best job of explaining this. In short: Europeans were blessed with livestock that could be domesticated and a consistent climate that allowed them to produce lots of food more efficiently that other regions of the world could, which allowed them to spend more time on other things, like technology. Again, the full argument is the length of a (very good) book, so I suggest you pick it up to get more details.

u/OrbitRock · 3 pointsr/onehumanity

Book list:

Nature and the Human Soul by Bill Plotkin. The author discusses this same theme of The Great Turning. Argues that people in modern western society are pathologically orientated towards adolescent things, and among our main problems is that few of us mature fully, and few of us can ever be considered elders who guide each other towards a wise way of life. He also argues that we historically have developed equally in both nature and culture, but modern people spend their lives solely in culture, and lack understanding of the natural world.

Future Primal by Louis Herman. The author lays out a big picture view of human history and how the solutions for the future we face can be found in the past among primitive cultures. He links his own personal struggles to the planetary struggles we face, and shows that it is true that the personal and planetary are linked.

The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein. Lays out huamn history, and "how the illusion of a seperate self has led to our modern crisises".

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein. Looks at how primitive economies differed from our own, and how we can come to a different understanding of economics and wealth in our own society.

The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible by Charles Eisenstein. Lays out a vision for what the world could be and how we could organize ourselves in a wiser way.

Limited Wants, Unlimited Means an analysis of the economics of hunter-gatherer societies by an actual Economist. Very in depth look at the different foundational beliefs and practices. This is the most scientific and in depth book I've ever come across on this subject.

Eaarth by Bill McKibben. Goes into great detail on the the stark reality of the effects that climate change have already had and will likely have over the next decades and century. Finsihes by making reccommendations for how to make a life on a rough new planet.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. A look at the deep history of our species. This book presents an understanding about what humans are and where we've come from that I think is hard to get anywhere else, really great work.

Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken. Very similar to the theme of my above post, the author explains how this new movement is much larger than you might think, and could soon become one of the largest cultural movements in all of human history.

Active Hope by Joanna Macy. On "how to deal with the mess we are in without going crazy".

Greening of the Self by Joanna Macy. An exploration into the idea that we are interdependent with the ecology around us.

Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken and others. A look at how we can start a green industrial revolution.

The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones. Lays out the idea that one solution- work on constructing a sustainable infrastructure- can fix our two biggest problems: the ecological crisis, and the rampant poverty and inequality in our society.

Spiritual Ecology: the cry of the Earth by Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and others. Outlines a spiritual perspective of what is happening to the world, and how we can remedy it, rooted in Buddhist thought.

Changes in the Land by William Cronon. A look at how the ecology of New England has been altered since Europeans first set foot there.

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. This is one of the classics of nature writing by a great naturalist. I include it here because I think it fits, and shows how much of this in not new thinking. Leopold talks about his experiences in nature and from living off the land, and lays out his own 'land ethic' for how best to coexist in nature.

The Evolving Self: a psychology for the third millennium by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi. Explains the authors view of psychology and how to find meaning in the modern world. Talks about playing an active role in the evolutionary processes of life, and linking that up with your own personal evolution.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimerer. Brings together scientific understanding, indigenous wisdom, and respect for nature and for plants, in a very poetic book.

The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson. Wilson is one of the greatest biologists of our time, and gave us many of the foundational concepts that we use today, such as popularizing the idea of "biodiversity" and the desire to preserve it. Here he talks about the future of life and the challenges we face in preserving the Earths biodiversity.

Half Earth by E.O. Wilson. Here Wilson lays out his strategy for saving the biodiversity of the Earth and preserving it through the hard times it will face in the future, by devoting fully half of the surface of the Earth to wildlife habitats. This book just came out so you might not be able to order a copy yet.

If you know of any other books or media in this sort of genre feel free to post it.

u/Axvelk19 · 1 pointr/uncensorednews

https://www.amazon.com/Human-Accomplishment-Pursuit-Excellence-Sciences/dp/0060929642

This is the book in question.

> European people's relied on circumstance?

Once it is a happening. Twice it is coincidence. Thrice it is a pattern. The European land is the best as far as evolutionary benefits goes. Best nutrition, weather, resources etc. Yes. This is why we are here today. This is why by the evolutionary process the achievements of Europeans number 90-95% of all.

> How much of it was won through the spoils of war instead of self innovation?

Precisely? No clue. However when are the means more important than the end? And by what metric do you judge war to be inherently negative? By war men know the fullness of life. By war we reveal the worst of humanity yes, but also the best minds, the most innovative discoveries and forms of progress.

> This "my people" shit just seems like a way for people who haven't accomplished shit to feel a part of the accomplishment of their ancestors.

The idea is simple. Our ancestors fought, bleed, sacrificed and constantly pushed for better. We live on their shoulders and the greatness that was their existence. What we have today: safe and prosperous societies, those things came about because of their goodwill. The conclusion is that we should strive to be as best as we can be. To honor them and ourselves. To match their greatness and eventually surpass it. That is the idea of "my people". A never ending passion to better yourself and what is yours. I believe this is what everyone of all people on Earth should be doing. Love for your own does not need hatred for others.

> However culture is learned and not predetermined by your genetics.

To some degree yes. However genetics dictate the level of intelligence of the individual. They tell about the likelihood for addictions, the speak of capability to understand and innovate. Genes are everything. If the genes of humans coded for roughly the same capacity all across the board then how come there are still groups of people in Africa that are living in mud huts? Surely if the biological capacity were there, they would have evolved beyond that point a long time ago. 5,000 years ago. Culture is an expression of genetics.

u/PMme_Your_Problem · 1 pointr/pics

Ahahaha. Ha.
Your bullshit theory that you use to justify the blatant racism of yours is not going to get you far, amigo. Stop trying.

Have you ever heard of the Guns, Germs, and Steel theory? I don't count on it, so I'm going to educate you on it if you would like to consider some truth for a change. Guns, Germs, and Steel (hereafter referred to as "GGS") states that no race is superior to another due to its genetics or culture, but rather due to being incredibly lucky in geography, wildlife, plant-life, and their culmination with farming and so forth. The GGS theory is constantly getting stronger with every circumstance it is applied to. It does state that Caucasian people have essentially 'won' the literal human race, as Caucasian people were the ones to settle an entirely new continent, have won every colonial battle, and have propagated their religions the furthest.

To start off with a very shortened version of world's history with relation to man, people first moved out of Africa and into the Middle East. There they let go of their nomadic lifestyles and settled next to rivers and took advantage of crops like barley and wheat, which could have multiple harvests, easy planting styles, and could last long times in grains reserves before becoming inedible. They also were the first to domesticate animals that were around them, like cows, sheep, goats, pigs, horses. This was due to them being herd animals, and once they controlled the leader of the herd they could control the entire herd. Thus they had plentiful food, plentiful meat and milk, and this created a loop of positive feedback, with animals feeding on harvest leftovers and then fertilising the fields. This eventually allowed room for creativity within the small communities, as there was no need for every person the a farmer now. They started specialising in different skills, and then invented plaster, by hearing rock rubble and mixing with water (my knowledge of plaster is limited, correct me if needed). These skills branched out widely. But eventually they had to move out of the Fertile Crescent. Evidence suggests that this was due to over-farming and unrestrained use of surrounding natural resources. They moved eastwards and westwards. In this they had their second major advantage; their continent itself, Eurasia. Eurasia is spread out majorly on the east-west axis. This provides an advantage in that those people could take their crops and animals with them and not worry about growth of them, as the climate does not change greatly along line of latitude, but not so for longitude. This allowed them to settle in the Europe proper and east Asia.

So to summarise so far, the early people have had advantages with agriculture, domestic animals, and geography. But it only goes further. Some of the broader ideals is that due to their close contact with animals, these people contracted diseases from their animals, but eventually gained immunity to these diseases. People they would eventually come in contact with would contract these germs, and because they have no natural immunity, would start dying off. Guns have been instrumental in their progress, as there has only been one battle in history where the side with guns lost against those without guns (The battle of blood river). Steel has led to the production of guns, of plate armour, and of trains which have been vital to the creation of larger empires and countries.

So read up on the topic! Educate yourself! I'll make it easier. Here: Buy a copy of it on Amazon, its worth it. , or just read the Wikipedia page, I'm not a cop. So maybe one day, instead of posting on a thread like this, you can post on a thread like this

No one needs to 'win' this debate. We can both leave with newer opinions, not necessarily for worse or for better.

u/omaca · 4 pointsr/history

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (an Oxford professor of history) has written several books you might like.

The World - A History, a two volume work, is very well regarded in teaching circles. I have heard great things about this book, but I haven't read it myself.

I have read his Millenium - A History of the Past One Thousand Years and can highly recommend it. Looking at Amazon though, it looks like it might be out of print. He also wrote Humankind - A Brief History.

A Terrible Beauty - The People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind. A History by Peter Watson may also be of interest; though it focuses exclusively on the 20th century. In it, the author attempts to provide a history of the twentieth century that does not focus on 'wars and dates', and that addresses an alarming lack of focus in many recent history books. As Watson puts it himself in the Introduction "In one recent 700-page history of the first third of the twentieth century, for example, there is no mention of relativity, of Henri Matisse or Gregor Mendel, no Ernest Rutherford, James Joyce, or Marcel Proust. No George Orwell, W.E.B. Du Bois, or Margaret Mead, no Oswald Spengler or Virgina Woolf. No Leo Szilard or Leo Hendrik Baekeland, no James Chadwick or Paul Ehrlich. No Sinclair Lewis and therefore no Babbit." (He was referring to Martin Gilbert's The Twentieth Century - Volume 1, 1900 - 1933). I highly recommend this book. Another example, but of a far more personal nature, would be Clive James's Cultural Amnesia, a fascinating collection of biographical essays on some of the 20th century's greatest thinkers, musicians, artists etc. James is justifiably famous (in the UK at least) for his prose and erudition, as well as his humourous critical columns.

Finally, the much lauded trilogy by Daniel Boorstin sounds like a good fit too. The Discovers, The Seekers and The Creators are excellent. Personally, Boorstin's style is not my favourite, but there is no arguing the value of these books; superb works of learning.

If you want more recommendations, just ask. :)

EDIT: Kenneth Clark's famous TV series Civilization may also interest you. It is primarily a history of western civilization and, by implication, a history of western art & culture. It's also from the 1970's so it is considered a little dated in some circles; Clarke certainly shows his western bias. But nevertheless, it is wonderful TV, remarkably interesting, well produced (though not HD!) and a fascinating subject.

u/jchiu003 · 1 pointr/OkCupid

Depends on how old you are.

  • Middle school: I really enjoyed this, this, and this, but I don't think I can read those books now (29) without cringing a little bit. Especially, Getting Things Done because I already know how to make to do list, but I still flip through all 3 books occastionally.

  • High school: I really enjoyed this, this, and this, but if you're a well adjusted human and responsible adult, then I don't think you'll find a lot of helpful advice from these 6 books so far because it'll be pretty basic information.

  • College: I really enjoyed this, this, and started doing Malcolm Gladwell books. The checklist book helped me get more organized and So Good They Can't Ignore You was helpful starting my career path.
  • Graduate School: I really enjoyed this, this, and this. I already stopped with most "self help" books and reading more about how to manage my money or books that looked interesting like Stiff.

  • Currently: I'm working on this, this, and this. Now I'm reading mostly for fun, but all three of these books are way out of my league and I have no idea what their talking about, but they're areas of my interest. History and AI.
u/sapiophile · 2 pointsr/todayilearned

My assertions are axiomatic, and quite obviously so, at that. This is not a wise battle for you to pursue, unless you wish to descend into colonial European notions of manifest destiny and the white man's burden.

>>Those people are just as advanced as any other
>
>No, they're not.

Tell me, then: in a contest of using indigenous medicinal plants, who would prove "more advanced" - you, or these tribespeople? In determining who has superior herding techniques, which party would be the victor? In a comparison of familial kinship and relations? Spearcraft? Long-distance hiking? Animal husbandry?

There simply does not exist any way to declare any of these criteria "unimportant" without making a subjective assertion of your own personal values. And the people we're talking about would most certainly have a different class of values about those things. Why would your values be "more objective" than theirs - or anyone's? The answer is that they cannot be. It is your own opinion, and with any degree of humility, all genuinely reasonable people recoginze that, as I hope that you will, too.

>>Civilization and technology are specific types of advancements, but they are not objectively superior to any others
>
>Yes, they are.

Funny - there sure seem to be a great many very well-reasoned arguments against civilization and technology, even from those who have experienced the very height of their "advancement".

I certainly see no evidence for an objective declaration, even just by examing the meta-issue of the debate itself, which is undeniably still open.

>>to add "culture" in there is frankly just plain racist.
>
>No, it isn't.

Yes, it is. You have virtualy no notions of these people's culture. The very definition of "culture" practically prohibits the very idea of it being declared "advanced" or otherwise. It is simply the collection of common and traditional practices of a given group. I would even go so far as to say that if one were to make judgments of "advancement," surely a culture that has been largely uninterrupted and un-usurped for a period of thousands of years has matured and "advanced" far more than a culture which is ever-shifting and highly dependent on technological advances that didn't even exist a generation prior. But even to make an assertion such as that is meaningless, because the criterion "advancement" simply does not make sense when applied to culture - any culture. The only role that such a declaration can fulfill is to demean and devalue another group of people completely arbitrarily, as to support a racist or otherwise xenophobic worldview.

>By what standard are modern Western civilization, technology, and culture objectively superior to barefoot African tribesmen? By the only objective standard of value: their success at meeting the requirements of human life.

And just what are those "requirements of human life?" These tribespeople might tell you some very different things than what you would tell them. Would either of you be "right?" Absolutely not.

As for the rest of your points, they are all similarly obvious - and highly subjective, though largely incontroversial in our demographic - subjective and personal value judgments. Adding the word "objectively" to your statements does not make it so. Even such criteria as you have mentioned - lifespan, "individualism," property rights (lol), etc., are not objectively "advanced." After all, what are the "objective" benefits of a long lifespan if it is filled with ennui, alienation and oppression? What is the value of "individualism" to a person who cherishes deep bonds and shared struggle with others? How can one declare "property rights" to be an objective good when the very concept of such has only existed for a few hundred years, and has arguably led to the greatest ongoing extinction of species in millions of years?

You see? Value judgments, all of it. And for someone who might call themself a "libertarian," you certainly seem not to understand the true spirit of the credo, "live and let live."

u/mementomary · 2 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

I pretty much only read non-fiction, so I'm all about books that are educational but also interesting :) I'm not sure what your educational background is, so depending on how interested you are in particular subjects, I have many recommendations.

Naked Statistics and Nate Silver's Book are both good!

Feeling Good is THE book on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is good, as is Eating Animals (granted, Eating Animals is aimed at a particular type of eating)

Guns, Germs and Steel is very good.

I also very much enjoyed The Immortal Live of Henrietta Lacks, as well as Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman :)

edit to add: Chris Hadfield's Book which I haven't received yet but it's going to be amazing.

u/ChaosFearsNone · 3 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

And done!!!

  1. Blue the best for obvious reason.

  2. Summer what’s better than beer pong? Pool beer pong.

  3. Usual Food the best because it’s a local thing.

  4. Gift for another for my love of Disney animation.

  5. Book to read great insight into the human race.

  6. Cheap because yummy.

  7. For the doge because adorable.

  8. Useless yet so awesome.

  9. Movie because it’s my favorite.

  10. Zombie to destroy their brains.

  11. Life changing to adapt to in work life.

  12. Add on because my kids are always getting sick.

  13. Fandom because it’s an awesome show and these are in apparently.

  14. Pricey for when the lights go out.

  15. Sharks because it’s badass and my daughter would love it.

  16. Good smells one of my favorite scents.

  17. Childhood feels spent so many playing games on this.

  18. Writers was helpful for me once upon a time.

  19. Obsessed my life of Disney is strong right now.

  20. Weird because lol.
u/antonbe · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

I've immersed myself in science and history my whole life and quite possibly the best book I've ever come across that condenses everything in a sequential order is "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.

> In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail—well, most of it. In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, traveling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.

The book is simply amazing. I learn something new from it everytime I read it and I highly recommend it to everyone from an uneducated teenager to a PhD carrying senior!

While you're at it, I would also recommend the rest of his books. Bryson is an amazing nonfiction writer (I daresay one of the best in the world) and his penmanship will captivate you. Just search for him on Amazon and pick another one of his books up in a category that interests you as he writer about a very broad range of topics.

Edit: Also, I highly recommend "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared M. Diamond. and Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt

u/bwv549 · 1 pointr/exmormon

First off, I think a person can develop/maintain a robust spiritual outlook on life, even while being skeptical of unsubstantiated supernatural claims. On the more extreme side (for a secular person), is the author of Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari, who claims to meditate for 2 hours every day, and goes on a meditation retreat for a month or more, which he claims has helped him to achieve the kind of focus he needed to write his ambitious books. On the less extreme side, you have people like Noah Rasheta who tends to spend maybe 5-15 minutes in set-aside meditation a day (from what I can gather) and often practices mindfulness as part of his day-to-day activities.

---

What I do now (not as systematically as before, but when I feel like it) to cultivate useful spirituality in myself (mostly for how it can serve me and others, but to a lesser extent for its own sake):

  1. Exercise regularly. Running, particularly at low speeds [so maybe we'd call that "jogging"], can be highly meditative.
  2. At least one time per week I go on long walks with my wife (3-7 miles) where we talk and enjoy the neighborhoods or nature together.
  3. Read and reflect on ancient or modern "wisdom" literature: meditations of Marcus Aurelius, aesop's fables, the triple path, the tao te ching, brene brown, sam harris, ted talks, etc, etc., etc. I also listen to lots of podcasts on topics of interest.
  4. Spend time engaging with my children and/or wife. Try to listen to them and see what they're interested in.
  5. Spend time thinking about or writing about mormon/exmormon issues.
  6. Listen to transcendent music (lots of classical and old choral stuff, but sometimes newer stuff and crazy stuff, too).

    There seems to be a propensity for a checklist mentality in LDS culture, and I've enjoyed not doing the above things in any checklist kind of way. I just do them, but mostly when I feel like it. It's not to say I don't push myself to do some things on schedule or that are difficult (I woke up before 6am this morning to play racket-ball, for instance), but I am less worried that I will fall into the clutches of Satan if I neglect something for a day or even a week. Even if I forget or am too busy to shower for a day or two, I still always end up showering; the same can be said for all these kinds of spiritual activities. I should note that much of my current mindset and activities were derived from watching or being with my wife and seeing how she does spirituality.

    Also, I do almost everything barefoot (running, cycling, hiking, walking, racketball, around the house, driving, [but not mowing, because safety first] etc), which is a great way to connect with the world, at least for me. The thermo-tactile feedback as the world progresses through its seasons is really invigorating to experience on one's feet. Warning: if you choose to do this, please know it comes with risks (I broke a toe playing ultimate frisbee, and I've gotten frostbite running too long in the snow once--but the black tips fell off and my toes healed up very nicely) and give your feet time to build up to it (take it slow at first).

    ---

    > I would also be interested in peoples theories on why prayer and scripture study can help you even if they are not "true".

    They (can) emphasize free-will (encourage pro-activeness), the inherent worth of other humans (one of the pillars of moral conscience), help a person to become more aware of the short and long-term consequences of their day-to-day actions, and give examples of self-deprecating behavior which can help a person swallow their ego when it is necessary or helpful. Reading classic novels and meditating are likely to achieve similar ends.

    ---

    Keep us posted on how your spirituality develops!
u/NAM007 · 1 pointr/Christians

I'd suggest first reading a book called "Who Built the Moon" and then watch a video called "The Real Star of Bethlehem", and posit the idea that from the beginning of time, God may have provided and did in fact provide, a recognizable message or a signature, yes right here in the Earth/Moon/Sun configuration, so that it would be unambiguous and unmistakable that mankind was created and included, by anticipation and with intent, along with the Son of God / Son of Man to make the predicament of standing right next to the Godhead less prone to possible satanic outcomes and more enjoyable, let us say, within the framework of reconciliation/atonement.

I realize you were talking about something in contrast to so-called Christian reality, but the truth of the matter is that Christian reality might be rather far reaching in it's cosmological implications..

You could then have these observers or watchers who "left their estate" (that's somewhere in the Bible) and became jealous of God's latest and greatest creation, whereby Satan, as their leader, refused to bow (I can find the reference for that if you like, which I think is from the excluded book of Enoch), once at the time of Adam and then again at the cross of Jesus Christ, the first time perhaps seen as not unreasonable (since we are newer and 'younger') and thus the rebellion of other angels and/or created beings, the 2nd time, caught up in a double-bind from which there's no escape, within a satanic 'blindspot' that was anticipated by God and Jesus from the beginning of time or "before the foundation of the world".

You could then have this Universal Controvery surrounding the issue of Spiritual Authority resolved by what might be thought of as Jesus Christ's Superdeterministic, Cosmological, Magnum Opus (Great Work).

So that might be part of a Scifi/Fantasy as seen within a Christian worldview, that isn't out of congruent alignment with the funamental principal at the heart of it, nor with the Biblical narrative of the Gospels themselves.

If this interests you and you'd like to learn more, just read my posting history over the last month or so, and/or PM me for more ideas.

Good luck with your project - wouldn't it be fun though to confound many self-professed 'Christians' while placing the context and framing in a Cosmic/Scifi setting or a "world" that works and that jives perfectly with scripture?

The climax could involve the rising of the lunar eclipse at the 6th hour with Jesus crying out the first line of Pslam 22.. oh, they must have been so freaked out by that and the timing of the eclipse... those who were there, or were observing.. OMG it was a HOODWINK!!! We're screwed what do we do what do we do?!!

The resolution then becomes like a cosmic practical joke seemingly told at the expense of human ignorance (and resulting sin and evil), but in truth only using us as a foil by which to "punk" the devil and the watchers, so while it might orginate here, it's good enough to traverse the whole of it all, and ring a note that might still resound to this very day about 35 human generations later, throughout all the spheres of the heavens, both to laughter, and, sadly for some, to groans. Elements from C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" could also be employed. So it would be a type of scifi humor or satire in it's assessment both of the human and the non-human condition.

What do you think?

u/albino-rhino · 3 pointsr/AskCulinary

Coming to this a little late but wanted to say that (a) I completely agree, and (b) I'd take it a little further.

The thought that there was some Valhalla of wonderful food in earlier days is easily proven wrong. We live in the best time for eating there has ever been. For instance this article explains at some length and convincingly to me that food has only improved. Think about it - name one major city in the US where food was better 15 years ago. I can't think of any.

And if you go back further in time, you find that agriculture is coincident with higher population but also with malnutrition. This book is awful in some parts but it explains at length the accepted knowledge that agriculture = more people, but is also = disease and malnutrition at significant levels.

Skipping forward, I think 'modern' agriculture starts with crop rotation, Source, and pretty soon you have the British Agricultural revolution that kickstarts the industrial revolution.

Coincident with that you have the greatest rise in per-capita GDP there has ever been. Source, The Great Divergence.

And then that's why I get to work at a desk instead of doing mind-numbing, back-breaking work in the fields, and that's why I enjoy more material plenty than anybody could imagine 200 years ago, and why I can choose among multiple places, in my major urban center, to get pretty damn good pho. Lo those many years ago when I was young, sushi was a foreign concept. Now I can get it (or a rough approximation of it) in a strip mall in the middle of nowhere.

There is a downside to removing people from their food. There is also a downside to industrial agriculture. A lot of folks eat out more often. We have lost the spiritual connection to our food in large part that is created by hunting for your food or growing it and shepherding it the whole way through. We don't take food as seriously, and we don't contemplate as closely where it came from. We are complicit in the dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi and in the overuse of antibiotics in, and ill-treatment of, our livestock, to name but a couple examples.

But come the fuck on. I more than likely owe my life to my forebearers moving away from the fields and working in factories. I certainly owe my material comforts to that. I don't have to wonder whether I'm going to have a crop failure and starve to death.

That some of us can turn back and re-discover a better connection with food is a wonderful luxury. Appreciate it as such.

u/MiffedMouse · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

Not books, but I recommend CGPGrey's videos on topics such as the formation of the commonwealth for some anecdotal discussion of how modern states are structured. Crash Course World History is another good series that gives extremely quick (~10-15 minutes) overviews of a variety of topics historians like to discuss.

As for books - many of the more interesting books are on specific topics. Guns, Germs, and Steel is an interesting discussion on why some societies do better than others. Stuff matters is a neat discussion of how modern materials came to be. Honestly, I think it is more fun to pick a topic that interests you and dig into that topic specifically. You will probably learn about other things as necessary along the way. One of Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcasts, Controlling the Past, discusses this very idea.

Some of my favorite "history" books aren't even sold as "history" books. The Emperor of all Maladies is a fascinating look at the history of cancer. As a kid I loved David Macaulay's Building Big, which discusses large structures in America. And an embarrassing amount of my knowledge on other countries comes from folktale anthologies.

If you are interested in international politics specifically, I would suggest looking for books on the UN and NATO (two of the biggest international organizations right now).

u/caffarelli · 26 pointsr/AskHistorians

How to Judge a Book Without Even Reading It


Do you think librarians read all those books they buy?? Heck no. Yes, collection development librarians rely heavily on library review journals, but you can pretty successfully judge a book before you even read the intro. And how!

1. Try a Little Intellectual Snobbery


Basically with this you need to try to smell out the people who are saying “I’m not a historian but…” when they start their books. Who wrote this thing and why? Is this a historian going for tenure, is this maybe a historian trying to write more popular history, is this a historian at the end of their life putting out a magnum opus, is this a journalist? Who published it, academic press or regular press? Does this person have Something to Prove with this history book?

Now, I’m a little leery of recommending this method first, because I’ve seen some pretty shitty books published by big academic houses from heavily degreed people, and I’ve seen some very nice historical work put out by tiny publishers you’ve never heard of or self-published, and written by people who just decided to write a book because they cared deeply about the history of something that few others cared about. Good work absolutely stands on its own merits, and independent scholars are important animals in the academic ecosystem. But there is a correlation here, and not necessarily a causation, between academics working with academic publishing houses and the production of rigorous history, and you can lean on it a little.

2. Give it the Vulcan Citations Pinch


Flip to the back of the book. Where does the actual book stop and the endmatter start? Basically the more endmatter the better. You want maybe a good solid half centimeter of paper between your fingers, preferably more. If you start seeing appendices in addition to citations and index that’s very good.

3. Scope-to-Cred Ratio


This one’s hard to quantify but basically, the more modest the book’s scope the more modest of arguments and credentials the author needs to pull it off. So a book about say the importance of paperback books for soldiers in WWII, this is a pretty modest scope, and it’s not making any very bold claims, there’s no real reason to be suspicious about the arguments made in this book, although it’s absolutely a popular history work. A book trying to explain the history of everything, get suspicious.

4. Read the Intro


Okay after the first three bits you’ve decided this book has merited your attention enough to open the thing. The intro to a book should give you the outline of the major argument and you can decide whether the argument passes a basic smell test of not being total bullshit. If you find the argument compelling and you want to see how they are going to argue it in the knitty gritty, it’s time to commit to checking out/buying the book and seeing what’s up. (Intros are usually available for new books on Google Books or Amazon previews.)

4b. Read the Acknowledgments


You can tell a lot about a person from their acknowledgments section. I’ve seen books where the author specifically thanked the ILL staff of their local library. They should ideally be thanking an archives or two if it’s a modern history book, because that means they’ve done Real Research.

5. Have a Good Idea of How One Does History


This one takes a little time investment, but having a basic idea of what makes a good historical argument and what makes a bad one will serve you well for judging any history book, from any topic. Maybe just spend some time on the logical fallacies section of Wikipedia. Just knowing to run away when you hear someone start yammering about glorious progress or indulging in extended hero-worship will serve you remarkably well in the history section at Barnes and Noble.

6. Nothing Wrong with Reading a Bad Book


Okay, so you did all this pre-judgement and you still managed to read a real turd. Ah well. You always can learn a lot from something done poorly. They’re a certain grim joy in hating a bad book, especially if you get to feel smarter than an author, so just treat yourself to a really firm critical dismissal of the work. Maybe leave a real stinker of a review here on a Saturday or /r/badhistory.

u/Nrussg · 2 pointsr/AskThe_Donald

No problem - like I said, history is my jam so I never mind talking about it.

In terms of history subs - I think /r/AskHistorians is great, and usually really well sourced - they have an FAQ that is fun to browse and a cool collection of best answers.

In terms of books, I would recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel - it is far from a perfect book (I don't agree with a lot of it) but it presents a very interesting perspective, and based of the types of things you were asking, I think you would really enjoy it. It's also fairly accessible as far as these types of books go. Just make sure you think of it as a starting point rather than an end point.

I would also recommend both Mike Duncan's podcasts (the History of Rome - dealing with Roman History, and Revolutions - dealing with various historical revolutions) Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast is also pretty good and spans a lot of topics.

If you're in college or have the opportunity to attend classes, I'd also recommend just trying out a class on non-European history.

If you ever have any questions feel free to message me.

u/dange-the-balls · 3 pointsr/Damnthatsinteresting

It’s not post modern at all :) it’s incredibly relevant and contemporary primatology, as well as some philosophy especially in the realm of ethics. There’s some wonderful books on the this and I’ll list the links for them if you ever want to check them out

In the Shadow of Man (1971) this one is a bit old but incredible considering it was one of the first accounts of primate behaviour so accurate.

Sapiens (2014) now this book is an incredible read if you want a brief , easy and wonderful account of humans over our evolution. And what makes us “different.”

Primates and Philosophers (2006)

A personal favourite of mine, an excellent account at how something as “human” as morality is something perhaps shared amongst at least some great apes


The Metaphysics of Apes: Negotiating the Animal-Human Boundary(2005)

And a rather analytical text, tracing the interpretation of the human-like great apes and ape-like earliest ancestors of present-day humans, this study demonstrates how from the days of Linnaeus to the present, the sacred and taboo-ridden animal-human boundary was constantly tested. The unique dignity of humans, a central value in the West, was, and to some extent still is, on the minds of taxonomists, ethnologists, primatologists, and archaeologists. This book thus offers an anthropological analysis of the burgeoning anthropological disciplines in terms of their own cultural taboos and philosophical preconceptions.

u/fridgidfallus · 1 pointr/alaska

I agree with you that equality is a fallacy that doesn't really exist. Some people are simply born with better tools in their toolbox. Some people are nicer, smarter, better looking, and some people are are dumb, ugly, assholes. That's just the way of the world. However, the notion that race determines any sort of objective intelligence characteristic has been roundly rejected by the anthropological, biological, and sociological communities (read: all of credible science). Yes, race can determine your height, color of your skin, your hair type, but it does not determine your intelligence. Any studies that claim that race does this have been show to be using a biased test. Giving a kid from the Sahara a #2 pencil and asking him to complete an IQ test in English, isn't really a fair measuring stick. One also has to remember that race and culture are two related but different things. You are born WITH your race INTO your culture. There can definitely be cultures that place different levels of value on certain types of intelligence, decorum, physical beauty, etc and therefore cause their cultural members to strive for/away from those certain characteristics. But the thought that onc group is inherently better or smarter based on their race is the textbook definition of racism and asking for a separation of people based along these lines is extremely racist. Most of the differences that are apparent today have a lot more to do with opportunity, access to resources, geography, and well.. simple luck. I recommend Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. In there he very eloquently explains a lot of the factors that lead to Europeans finding their way to the top of the heap.

That being said, if you want to have one country that is whites only that's totally fine for you to want it. But you gotta realize that's a pretty racist thing to want. I don't accept the notion that a homogeneous society is inherently better than a mixed race one. I have heard you claim that no one has provided tangible evidence of the benefits of a mixed race society. That is very difficult because the main benefits are acceptance and open mindedness and those are not very tangible benefits in the sense you are looking for. But I would ask you to explain to me the credible and tangible benefits to a homogeneous society. And we have to remember that correlation does not equal causation. Show me something credible that proves the link.

u/simmelianben · 1 pointr/writing

> do you know of any helpful formatting guides?

Here's a google search
that may help you get started. That said, just getting the words onto paper will be the hardest, longest portion of the work.

I would also suggest reading some non-fiction books for ideas of how you can layout your ideas.

"Group Theory in the Bedroom" for instance uses essays with postscripts/afterwords for each chapter. Each 'chapter' is it's own, self-contained work. You could yank out any chapter and have a cohesive work.

Meanwhile, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" breaks down more by topic/question and ties them together for a summary "the whole is greater than the parts" ending. You cannot take out a portion and still get the whole idea. They all intertwine.

Then you have biographies of all sorts that basically start with "So and so was born" and tell the story from there. You can yank out a portion and get a cohesive idea about "so and so's" high school years or education, but not the entire person.

I'd suggest leaning towards a Guns, Germs, and Steel style if you can. Tying together how fried chicken carries across cultures, connects huge portions of the planet, and carries an huge amount of "cultural capital" in popular culture and real life would be huge.

Some examples you can borrow/develop:

  • KFC is huge in China, bigger than McDonalds even.
  • The Japanese celebrate Christmas by eating KFC
  • The film "The Help" includes Fried Chicken as a crucial plot point as a black woman teaches her white employer how to make it properly. Fried Chicken is a form of "Cultural capital" in the film.



    Last words: You're looking at the phenomenon of Fried Chicken, so sociological concepts like Phenomenonology and other Sociological terms will help you in the research phase of your question. Cultural rifts about fried chicken and "the right" way to make it for example will likely be discussed using terms like "cultural lag" and "norms".
u/MyDogFanny · 2 pointsr/atheism

In his book Sapiens, Harari talks about this issue at length.

>As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched, or smelled. Legends, myths, gods, and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution. Many animals and human species could previously say ‘Careful! A lion! Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo sapiens acquired the ability to say. ‘The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe.' This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language…You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.

>Any large-scale human cooperation — whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city, or an archaic tribe — is rooted in common myths that exist only in people's collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common religious myths. Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag. Judicial systems are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights, and money paid out in fees.

Blog source for the above quotes and an excellent review of this topic from the book.

A quote from the above blog:

>Harari is quick to point out that these aren't lies. We truly believe them, and we believe in them as a collective. They have literal truth in the sense that if I trust that you believe in money as much as I do, we can use it as an exchange of value. But just as you can't get a chimpanzee to forgo a banana today for infinite bananas in heaven, you also can't get him to accept 3 apples today with the idea that if he invests them in a chimp business wisely, he'll get 6 bananas from it in five years, no matter how many compound interest tables you show him. This type of collaborative and complex fiction is uniquely human, and capitalism is as much of a collective myth as religion.

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/Fitness

The large number of cultures achieving the purported health benefits of paleo without eating anything remotely like it is a good starting point.

The people promoting the diet also pretty much come out and say "hurrr, we're guessing what ancient man ate based on modern hunter-gatherers", which is a silly fucking rationale for living your life by. "Paleo will change your life because it is how we imagine people used to eat!"

We have evolved pretty rapidly in a dietary sense - the "health effects are the result of a modern diet" statements are pretty silly when you consider things like milk, which we've clearly adapted to using entirely within the Neolithic era.

For further reading, I'd suggest Catching Fire, or The 10,000 Year Explosion.

Paleo is a good diet, but the rationale used to promote it is in the same league as something like creationist dogma. If the belief helps people eat better and move away from a shitty diet, great - but beliefs aren't facts, and the evolutionary ideas used to promote it are pretty bankrupt.

As an endnote, I'm miffed that paleo helps promote the weird anti-gluten hysteria some people have latched onto.

u/SanguineHerald · 1 pointr/DebateAnAtheist

I am a particular fan of the Atheist Experience. It is a weekly call in show that takes calls from theist and atheists to discuss whatever is on their mind.

I am currently reading [Sapiens](sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062316117/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Y-SKBbFXAPM0Y). This books takes a deep dive into the origins of humanity. It's not particularly about religion but it does make some mention of it. I really like this book because it addresses why Humans are the way we are, what seperated us from our ancestors, how the way we think influences every aspect of our society today.

Talk Origins is an excellent resource that has cited knowledge for just about any topic you could think of.

I am not gay and don't have any real insight into that situation nor have I done much reading or research into that. I do know that the Bible is not friendly to the LGBT+ community, particularly those of the Baptist variety.

Never stop looking for the truth. Evaluate whether the facts you find mesh with your beliefs, if they don't, evaluate your beliefs to see if that is something you can actually believe in.

Remember your parents may never come to accept you as you. I hope they are able to see past their beliefs to still love you but they might not. I have been unable to convince my Father, who is an otherwise brilliant man, that evolution is an actual fact and that the earth is older than 6,000 years old. And I might not ever be able to. You cannot allow your families unwillingness to seek truth and accept you as you to dictate your life. The people I consider my family now are unrelated to me, my brothers and sisters are the ones I have chosen.

Remember, even if you conclude that Christianity is the truth, there is not a single atheist I know that will condemn you for being you. We may argue against beliefs we view as false, but that will not change your value as a human being.

tl;dr seek out facts, evaluate your beliefs against the facts. Repeat till you die. Find people worthy of your time that respect you for you, not their vision of you.

u/DavidByron · 2 pointsr/AskReddit

For politics there's a lot of heavy heavy stuff which is good but if you want something light and more story orientated but still good try Confessions of an Economic Hitman It's about how America came to dominate and exploit the third world.

If you can handle something a little heavier I'd suggest the free on-line copy of A People's History of the United States. It's an upbeat history of ordinary people struggling for their rights against the rich - stuff you don't get told at school.

Many people will suggest George Orwell's 1984 which is also free on-line but I'd read only half way through if you want to keep it a bit lighter because the ending is pretty goddam nasty and all the buzz words that the book entered into the English language (apart from "Room 101") are in the first half of the book.

For a great book on pre-history try Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. Famous book with ideas you'll find very useful in conversations. It answers the question as to how come it was White Europeans going and beating up on everyone else instead of vice versa?

If you're not a conservative (and why would you be) you'll enjoy Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians. It's his research on why some people seem to act in irrational ways and it's free on-line again. Bonus: his writing style is very easy to read and it's short.

u/CrimsonGear · 7 pointsr/AdviceAnimals

So, all white people in America have the same culture? A culture that values education and politeness? What about the deep south, where, let's be honest, higher education is not overly stressed? Or how about the differences between a person from New York and a person from Idaho?

"White" is a homogenized term that refers to skin color only. The culture you speak of is "American".

I'll also just point out that Africa is not a uniformly shitty hellhole, and the parts that ARE hellholes are like that largely due to outside influences. I'd also point you toward places like Egypt, with cities like Alexandria that were the once the center of knowledge and learning in antiquity. If you're interested in learning why certain cultures seem to be underdeveloped while others thrive technologically, you should read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. There's also a movie version on Netflix.

Anyway, let's get down to brass tacks. When I see a "black cultural event", I see a group of people with common interests and common troubles who come together to support one another. The fact that they feel the need to do this tells us more about the environment they exist in than it does about their culture. If I were in another country - one that did not support or welcome me as an American - I would probably find other Americans or like-minded people to hang around.

During the time of slavery, the ONLY people that would support black people was other black people. They formed a culture that meshed (mainly southern) American elements with their African heritage. Because they had no real support from the outside, they had to support themselves from within, and that leads to a very strong cultural identity - one that still exists. And a big reason that it still exists is because, by and large, they are still not completely welcomed or accepted.

Now, when I hear a white American complaining about black events, I think of a child who has always gotten his way, who throws a tantrum when someone else gets to do something that he can't. Largely because he, and people like him, created a NEED for those sorts of things in the first place. Black people wouldn't feel the need to form these groups and events if the larger population accepted them the same way they accepted other cultures. And regardless of what you, personally, may feel or believe, there is still a very large group in America that sees blacks as foreign and thuggish. It's a foolish thing to think, and is clearly untrue.

And it's this "why do they get an event, I want an event!" mentality that makes anyone who wants to form a "white culture" event or group seem like a spoiled brat who wants something solely because someone else has it.

u/randysgoiter · 3 pointsr/JoeRogan

I'm in the middle of Homo Deus currently. Its great so far, Yuval is a great writer and his books are a lot more accessible than traditional history books. I'm sure there are a lot of liberties taken with some of the history but I think Sapiens is a must-read. Homo Deus is more assumption based on current reality but its very interesting so far.

Gulag Archipelago is one I read based on the recommendation of Jordan Peterson. Awesome book if you are into WW1-WW2 era eastern europe. being an eastern european myself, i devour everything related to it so this book tickled my fancy quite a bit. good look into the pitfalls of what peterson warns against.

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning is another history book discussing that time period and how it all transpired and the lesser known reasons why WW2 went down the way it did. some surprising stuff in that book related to hitler modeling europe around how the united states was designed at the time.

apologies for inundating with the same topic for all my books so far but Ordinary Men is an amazing book chronicling the people that carried out most of the killings during WW2 in Poland, Germany and surrounding areas. The crux of the argument which I have read in many other books is that Auschwitz is a neat little box everyone can picture in their head and assign blame to when in reality most people killed during that time were taken to the outskirts of their town and shot in plain sight by fellow townspeople, mostly retired police officers and soldiers no longer able for active duty.

for some lighter reading i really enjoy jon ronson's books and i've read all of them. standouts are So You've Been Publicly Shamed and The Psychopath Test. Highly recommend Them as well which has an early Alex Jones cameo in it.




u/LarParWar · 2 pointsr/TheRedPill

Words such as "race" are used to draw dividing lines between genetically dissimilar populations. How dissimilar varies over time. Europeans and Africans are clearly of different races, for example. Nor would Europeans and Arabs ever be mistaken. When you compare West Europeans (core Europeans) and Eastern Europeans (Slavs, mostly), the water gets a little murkier. They certainly fall under the "white" umbrella, but how much? For instance, I have a good eye for this, and can tell them apart with ease. The average white person cannot. So is there a grand unified White Race™? Probably not. But there are white races, of which the label "white" can be reasonably applied to all of them.

What seems to have happened to most of the ancient world—through Europe, Asia, the Middle East—is that the Indo-European people(s) swooped down and conquered, established civilizations, and then gradually, over many generations, "melted" into the conquered peoples. The white phenotype was probably as fragile to intermixing then as now, and besides, though most similar to Europeans (or "whites") they were forerunners, "prototypes".

Historical genetic overlap, though important, is not the whole story, as evidenced by convergent evolution, which can form nearly the same structure from totally unlike ancestries; see sharks, which once were fish, and dolphins, which once were deer-like ungulates. Not the same, but remarkably similar in some important ways. Put differently, a group of stone-age Europeans living in Africa would lose their essential European characteristics over time, slowly becoming more and more like Africans.

And the ancient Romans were right: the tribes that inhabited the island of Brittania were incapable of being civilized. They are the ancestors of modern Britons, yes, but not the same. They have changed—genetically; they literally evolved—rather substantially in the past two millennia. Read The 10,000 Year Explosion for a better idea, it's quick and easy.

Re: Iraqi vs Iranian. I can tell them apart, but again, convergent evolution.

Yes. Do you have two thousand years to wait while the harsh European environment civilizes the Semitic tribes currently colonizing it? I don't. (And even then they'll still be largely Semitic in nature and temperament, just see the Ashkenazi jews.)

The Japanese are indeed distinct from all other Asian races. They alone were subject to similar environmental conditions as Europeans over the millennia. The small island of Japan just off the Asian continent is remarkably similar to the small island of Britain just off the European continent.

u/rdar1999 · 4 pointsr/btc

As she said, the potential to do harm and to do good is huge. This is in all dimensions.

The good side is to make the world even more connected for mutual enrichment. Our species's great leap was the ability to cooperate with large amounts of unknown people, this means trade with them (see https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095).

We want to interact with other groups because we want to trade with them. To do this, we need communication, which is flexible but also standardized: languages. Trade is the biggest drive to language, the same way trade is the biggest drive to money (and only from this we derive the concept of store of value BTW).

All of this makes me pretty confident that we need bitcoin (cash), it is the natural step forward. We can only cooperate in higher degree if we can eschew the trust element, that's why national issued "cryptocurrencies" are an uninformed move to keep the obsolete alive, it won't work, I'm 100% confident of that.

The "evil" part of it is the perception that if I control communication, I control the economy. If I control money, I control trade, I control cooperation, I control an important part of communication.

Hence the tension.

ps: that's why I always agreed with Ver on how stupid core's concept of "bitcoin as reserve of value" really is, it is fundamentally flawed.

ps2: Teal Swan, whoa, what an alluring human being :D

u/WarwithintheWalls · 31 pointsr/writing

I like thinking about culture. We tell the story of people, real and imaginary, and we should know where they come from.
I believe culture is driven by the head, the heart, and the belly. So if an idea comes into my head for a culture I ask five questions:

  • What do they eat?
  • What do they believe in?
  • Where do they come from?
  • Where are they going?
  • What do they consider family?
  • How do they court, marry, fu...nction in a relationship?

    You'd be amazed how much you can inform yourself there.

    That gives me a nice start. Then I start to ask other questions on themes. Ask the 5W1H (Who What When Where Why How) questions about 6 random subjects based on what you now know

    For instance, Death:

  • Who handles the body?
  • What is done with the body?
  • When is this done?
  • Where do they put a body?
  • Why do they do these things?

    It's a never fails way of going about things. Now come up with the life of five people living in a society based on this information. Use Proust's questionnaire and Gotham's questionnaire to frame them.

    Do all of this with first thoughts. Look it over. Think about it. Look at common travel questions like "What's the best place to eat?" or "what should I not do to piss off the locals"?

    You can get the true feel for a society in hours. Then put your characters who are in that culture through those same questionnaires, same random questions. You'll know them from head to heart to belly, and you're golden.

    EDIT: I just saw some other information. DO NOT READ GENRE FICTION FOR WORLD IDEAS. Read history, philosophy, anthropology. Pick up a history of food ,Guns, Germs, and Steel, other books that give you overviews on specific topics in history and anthropology.

    Tolkien wasn't reading Kingkiller Chronicle, he was learning about hillbillies, ancient languages, and living in WW1 England. Pratchett was a polymoth. Heinlein dug in on so many topics it's unbelievable. Inform with ideas, write from your head and not someone else's.
u/MayCaesar · 1 pointr/Anarcho_Capitalism

The Rise of The West is probably the best book on general history I've seen anywhere:

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-West-History-Community-Retrospective/dp/0226561410/ref=sr_1_36?keywords=history+of+west&qid=1572706758&s=books&sr=1-36

It does not talk specifically about the Russian revolution that much, but it goes very deep into analysing how the modern world became what it is, starting at the very beginning, at the time of primal hunters, and going all the way to the modern times. It is not an easy book to swallow, and you have to do a lot of thinking and reading suggested sources to start getting the whole picture. But the central message is this: very early societies split into two groups, free trade-based and crony market-based, and that split sent ripples throughout the history, affecting the evolution of every single society profoundly.

The author is absolutely impartial in his analysis, and while he demonstrates that free trade-based systems have significant advantages over crony market-based ones, he never really states it explicitly, letting the reader form their own opinion. This is another aspect making this book so amazing: no opinion is ever forced on you. The author lays down facts, states possible interpretations of them and lets you judge which interpretations are more reasonable.

In terms of the writing style, I would say that this book is somewhere between academic and popular writing. If you are a history major, the writing will probably seem a bit light to you, but you still can get a lot of information and ideas out of this book. And if you've never read a history book before, then the material might be a bit challenging, but you absolutely can read this book recreationally, as long as you don't mind putting in some effort.

This book is HUGE, over 800 pages, so don't expect to finish it in one weekend. :) But if you do go through all the material, your knowledge and understanding of history will have grown dramatically.

u/I_just_made · 1 pointr/BlackPeopleTwitter

>"Fake news" and "alternative facts" actually prove that you can't revise recent history. Regardless of what you say, you can't change the events if people are alive who witnessed it. That's why any one who uses those terms aren't taken seriously.


The problem with this is that people read what agrees with them and disavow any differing opinions. If people look no further than their normal news source, then they could be misunderstanding current events. Have to read multiple several news sources, as many different angles as possible, to infer what you believe is an accurate representation of the event.

>Then why even provide the source?

I do not want to pretend to be an expert. This is provided as an entry point for people interested in further reading and what the current state of the situation is.

>The fact is Egypt is in Africa, and Europeans/Arabs didn't invade until millenia after the pyramids were built. Things are a black and white issue because it's the world we live in. I'd never have to even make this argument, if it weren't about black & white to begin with. Ancient white civilizations are credited with these discoveries and advancements, not because they were first, but because they were white.

This saddens me to read it. We will never get past these issues when people are too stubborn to see it any other way. And I never debated that humans didn't originate in Africa. Science agrees with that, and I'd hope most people are in agreement as well. For an interesting read that goes into a bit more detail about this, check out "Sapiens:
A Brief History of Humankind"
. Issues will always be black and white as long as you use a filter to see them that way. And to briefly revisit your response about white civilizations stealing Egyptian discoveries; that is just patently false. You learned about papyrus and mummification for instance? Egyptians were hosts to all sorts of discovery that is to their credit.

>Yes, because those events are fairly recent in human history and include genocide, slavery, and oppression of my ancestors. I can't move on from it because the ancestors of the people that committed the atrocities, and their descendants, never made things right.

And does the same go for genocidal events throughout history like that in Rwanda?


>You don't know that for sure, and even stated that you can't say with absolute certainty that some other ethnic or racial group would have done the same thing, because there's no reset button.
Violence is a part of our nature, but so is the dignity, compassion, and love that comes with "helping your fellow neighbor" that you speak of at the end of your argument.

And you don't either. That's the point. If you push the reset button time and time again, you may get a different outcome. But given how human history evolved during those critical points, it is a reasonable assumption that any group outstripping their competitors in weapons and innovation would have done what they could to secure their dominance/future.

>I'm not gonna pretend like I have the solution, but I know at the very least, reparations and the end of white supremacy is where it begins. These two things lie in the hearts of white people, and aren't something black people can give themselves.

You see the white supremacists on the news right now, but those people are not what we feel. We abhor those people, we want just as much for them to go away, and I do think that we need to do more to stand up to them and move them out. People need to understand that Trump has done this nation no favors by giving them a voice.

Social reparations are a great idea. But monetary reparations are not. Who gets it, how much? Who has to pay? What if there is no trace of slave ownership in your history? What if you are a recent immigrant? What happens to the people who don't get the money?

>We can build our way out of poverty, rebuild our communities, end drug addiction, and gang violence...but there'll still be a white person somewhere to call us all niggers.

Sure, there will always be a racist somewhere. It is a numbers game. There will always be someone believing something; that is the problem we face with religious extremism. But how do you effectively combat it? That is not so simple, and it is a problem we all desperately want to solve.


>The solution to the revision of history being carried out is to educate our children at home. Buy them books and teach them about the other ancient civilizations.
There are more and more black people doing that every day, and there'll come a time, when they'll show up in your classrooms and correct the teacher when they begin their lessons on revised history. How do you think those teachers are going to treat them?

YES YES YES YES YES!!!!! That is EXCELLENT! We have to realize that education does not stop at the parking lot of the school! Foster curiosity, education, learning in the home, it will benefit everyone. Can you imagine what this world would be if people did that? It would be so much better. We wouldn't have many of the petty divides that exist today. Creationism vs Evolution as an example.

>White supremacy is a problem, and it's ubiquitous. It's not just the cross burning, violent shit you see on TV, or at Charlottesville. It's in our education, our media, our tastes, it's to a point where even non-white people unknowingly take part in it through their own language, beliefs, and attitudes.

I agree with the first part, and want to do everything reasonable to put an end to it. But your second part edges on a racist remark. Where is the line drawn between white people allowing to have a culture and it becoming white supremacist?

>That's the truth, no matter how many accounts you long on to downvote in disagreement with.

I only have one account, I could care less whether there is a positive or negative number there. It is about discussion.

>I'll leave you at it. You can have the last word and log onto your other accounts to downvote me if you want.

Again, not doing that. I'm sorry this is your first thought.

>You clearly just wanna argue and gaslight. You've moved so far from my original point, that I've had to argue prehistorical remains, textbook publication, human nature, and what we're doing to fix it.

Come on, really? Why does an opposing viewpoint have to lead to petty insults and character attacks? There is no gaslighting here. I saw you said things that I believed were very biased in a way of misrepresenting historical events, I responded with a point of view to counterbalance that. If you treat everyone who doesn't hold your view as a gaslighter or agitator, then you are closing the door to open discussion; and that is exactly what this country needs right now. I'm really sorry you feel this way, I do not deny that there is a lot of work to be done. But let's work together to do it right, and to be proactive in avoiding these events in the future.

u/WhiteDove · 2 pointsr/atheism

If you are very curious I'd recommend reading Guns Germs & Steel for a fairly accurate (and interesting) summery of why Europe pretty much won Civ V. If you are only moderately curious the documentary is pretty informational as well.

TLDR; Europe is wide, and had more resources due to natural selection having more contiguous territory to play with.

Edit: Also, the southern hemisphere mostly consists of narrow landmasses. The argument is essentially that because the basic biomes are much larger in the northern hemispheres they had more 'advanced' plants and animals, essentially wolves, cattle(cows, sheep, pigs etc...) and grain. This jumpstarted northern societies so they were able to have the excess resources to develop technology (the guns and steel part). The germs were because they domesticated (and lived closely with) animals as well as traveled extensively. Once the oceans were conquered it was pretty much settled.

u/Folkariffic · 1 pointr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

Hey! This is my kind of contest. Here's my list:

  1. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Horari -
    From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.”
    One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? (copied from the Amazon page)

  2. [Name of the Wind - Kingkiller Chronicles by Pat Rothfuss] (https://www.amazon.com/Name-Wind-Patrick-Rothfuss/dp/0756404746/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537668772&sr=1-1&keywords=name+of+the+wind) -
    My name is Kvothe.
    I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.
    You may have heard of me. (copied)

  3. [The Golem Cypher: T.R.I.X. by B.V. Bayly] (https://www.amazon.com/Golem-Cypher-T-R-I-X-B-V-Bayly-ebook/dp/B072C11JJS/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537668912&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=golem+the+trix+cypher) - Once one of the best assassins in the galaxy, Cadell is now the hunted. The Ascendency, the ruling galactic empire and Cadell’s ex-employer, has stripped him of everything and placed a significant bounty on his head. Forced to live with the shadows of his past, Cadell hides on the backwater planets of the outer rim. Away from anyone who would recognize him.
    When his old friend and mentor, Salis, dangles a job in front of him that will get him an Ascendency pardon and let him clear his name, Cadell is ready to take it on. Armed with his constant companion, a strange alien symbiote named T.R.I.X. and his skills as an assassin, Cadell sets off to complete the strange job. ( A nifty book but a relatively new author, worth the read!)

  4. [I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid] (https://www.amazon.com/Im-Thinking-Ending-Things-Recommendation/dp/1501126946/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537669080&sr=1-1&keywords=i%27m+thinking+of+ending+things) - All I'll say about this is that it's quite volatile when it comes to the reviews it's received. I enjoyed it, but many other didn't... It's quite a ride if you end up enjoying it.

  5. [Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer] (https://www.amazon.com/Into-Wild-Jon-Krakauer/dp/0385486804/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537669320&sr=1-1&keywords=into+the+wild+book) - In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild. (One of my favorite books/stories of all time. I
    also hold the movie close to my heart.)



    This took me a good few minutes, I hope you find something you like through this contest :)
u/davidsa35 · 3 pointsr/Israel

>Who/which are the best Israeli musicians/bands in your opinion?

I like Avraham Tal (singer) he has unique and stirring songs

>How much can you understand Arabic (or other Semitic languages) just basing on Hebrew?

While watching "Fauda" last year (an Israeli tv series about Israeli unite disguised as Arabs to collect intelligence and make operations and arrests in the Palestinian authority) I realized that there are many words in Arabic which resemble Hebrew

>How are the relationships between the Mizrachim and the Ashkenazim?

As the time goes by the differences between the two are blurring more

>How are the Ethiopian Jews treated in your opinion?

There is some racism from private people and not from the government which gives them many privileges as scholarships and affirmative actions

>What's the greatest thing about living in Israel? What's the worst thing about living in Israel?

The greatest thing in my opinion (as one who had also lived abroad) is to feel Jewish pride, to see the renascence of the ancient Jewish identity in Israel (Judea) after 2000 years and having our own country and military to take care of ourselves
The most irritating thing in my opinion is the feeling that here is too much corruption, especially on the municipal levels, I've seen many bribery and such stuff that I feel that it's not fair for the law abiding citizens who work their ass off for a decent salary. I also think that some of the public sector is not efficient in that there is much hidden unemployment. People who literally contribute nothing and get large salaries just because they have "connections" with the right people - although those phenomenons here aren't as bad as in 3d world countries and I think there is some improvement and efficiency under Netanyahu's tenures

>Got any good (and translated) Israeli poets or writers to recommend?

Edit: in second thought I remember that Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by prof. Yuval Noah Harrari was a good read

>Why are Israeli girls so cute?

I think that it's because of 2 main causes:

  1. "Intermarriages" between Jews of different backgrounds in Israel (Europeans with North Africans and so) which make some amazing kids with unique facial features - reminds me a little of Brazilians

  2. Military/civil service - this period in their lives is shaping their personalities and make them grown up women in their early 20s

    >I've got to say that your national anthem is sick wicked. Fucking a+ music.

    This is my favorite performance, by the Jewish community in Moscow

    I hope I was informing, take care.
u/blackcatkarma · 3 pointsr/history

Sapiens is a general history book about humanity, not so much traditional countries' history. It explores things like how did agriculture and warfare start, why is homo sapiens the only surviving human species etc.

For fun reading about history, I recommend anything written by Robert K. Massie. This is not general history; he wrote mostly about Tsarist Russia, but Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War is a good starter for pre-WW1 European history.
I say "a good starter" because Massie's approach is very biographical - he mostly tells the story through the lives and actions of the decision makers, with less "modern" emphasis on economic factors etc. But he's a really good writer and it's the kind of history book you can read on a beach.

u/JaccoW · 1 pointr/todayilearned

Shot put is a very specific athletic sport to stack hunter gatherers against? It's like complaining that they are not the greatest basket ball players, are noobs in eSports or suck at cycling.
Of course a trained professional will win from a layman especially in areas where skill becomes more important.
Certain martial arts such as Jiu Jitsu and Wing Chun favor smaller or more skilled performers.
But even the best female female martial artist will struggle against a stronger opponent if she is 1.50m (4.9feet) and up against a 2.2m (7.2feet) male. Myths of the short person in martial arts

All I am saying is, when given similar training, ancient hunter gatherers would dominate our current day athletes.

Fossil records shows that after we started with agriculture our bones and muscle mass started to dwindle. We did get very efficient in specialised areas such as our brains which shrunk 10% in the past 20,000 years and processing certain food that became important to ancient famers such as corn and milk. (Though to be fair it is uncertain if our minds became more efficient or if we basically domesticated ourselves)

Sources:

u/DeviousBluestocking · 10 pointsr/AskFeminists

> What you say would only makes sense if germs guns and steel would have been unrelated to immigration

My point is that immigrants to the US will not be able to colonize us using superior weaponry, resources, or immunity asymmetry. They will not be able to overpower us with their superior numbers. We are in no danger of going the way of Native Americans or Texas. With or without a more secure border.

>native Americans who were so stupid to think the refugees they helped would be grateful in the long run and treat them with respect and behave as guests?

Well, for one thing, Native Americans were so outmatched that they could not have prevented us from immigrating, as many attempted to do throughout the the Continent. Particularly after we unleashed several deadly plagues.

>By contrast the Africans who did resist immigration/conquest still have their culture and way of life

Your example of African is not nearly the gotcha you think it is. People on the African continent traded with Eurasia for thousands of years and built up an immunity to diseases like small pox, what's more many African regions had their own deadly diseases that Europeans were not immune to. A big part of the reason that Africa put up a better resistance to colonization was that they had the same type of immunity asymmetry that Europeans had in North and South America.

Source

More info


>A lot of them quite prefer living under white rule and emigrate to white areas like South Africa and Europe and most people would say their life would be better off if we accept our way of life (doctors transportation jobs economy all around whiteness) as better, but they have a choice to live like their forefathers or not.

This really has nothing to with your point, but it is still a profoundly ignorant understanding of colonization. For one thing, South Africa is a majority black state. Doctors, transportation, and jobs are not exclusively the white way of life. Just ask China who had such advanced "transportation" that they could have make a trans Atlantic or trans Pacific voyage several hundred years before Europeans.

What's more colonization is the systematic pillage and dominance of another country. African countries did not have to be invaded and stripped of their sovereignty and resources in order to import European innovations such as cars.

There are many people all over the continent of Africa that do choose to follow a more traditional way of life. And, like you said, many African countries have economies that are prosperous and culturally more similar to European and Asian countries. There are also a number of countries and regions that are still struggling with the atrocities of the past five centuries, and do not "chose" to lack jobs, doctors, and "transportation"(cars?, highways?).

u/Rhianu · 2 pointsr/Alabama

Actually, their ancestors DIDN'T start out in the same socio-economic situation as everybody else. In fact, there isn't even a standard starting point for anyone. Each continent had different natural resources, and those people who happened to be lucky enough to be born on continents with better and more plentiful resources became more prosperous. The only reason white people became the most prosperous race is because Europe had better natural resources than any other continent on Earth (though Asia was a close second). The book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond reveals the absurdity of racial meritocracy.

Also, legal rights mean nothing if those in power still want to keep you down. The book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander exposes how white politicians have used all sorts of creative and underhanded methods to keep black people uneducated and poor, despite the passage of apparent equal rights in the legal system.

u/Ned_Shimmelfinney · 6 pointsr/PipeTobacco

Some personal favorites:

u/brownribbon · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

There are too many reasons to post here. I recommend reading the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (or at least the miniseries--available on Netflix last I checked).

Some of the main reasons include:

  • No domesticable pack animals in the Americas to do work. Eurasia has things like cows, horses, etc. that could be tamed and trained to do hard labor like plowing fields and hauling carts. The closest such animal in the Americas is the llama/alpaca, native to northern South America. This made food production in the Americas more human labor intensive which took away time from other endeavors.

  • The Americas are "taller" than they are "wide." That is, they cover a greater range of latitudes than longitudes. The opposite is true of Eurasia. As it turns out, crops, technology, and people diffuse less efficiently north/south than they do east/west. This is primarily due to climates being more even along latitudes than longitudes. This retardation in trade would slow the exchange of ideas, and therefore technological development.

  • The Americas have fewer cereal crops (rice, wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, etc.) native to them compared to Eurasia. These are the crops that are responsible for the establishment of agriculture and, as a result, sedentary societies. A sedentary society (i.e., one that is not picking up and moving itself every few months to follow food supplies) is one that can allow for specialization. Some people will become really good farmers and can produce enough food such that others can pursue different fields. With fewer available crops there were fewer opportunities in the Americas to establish such societies.

    Again, there are reasons beyond these and everything I just listed is conjecture. Human development was an incredibly complex process and for every example supporting one argument there is another example that refutes it.
u/ghintp · 1 pointr/science

> Gnosticism is actually really interesting once you get deep into it, and I say this as an atheist. Tons of focus on dualities.

Excellent. Have you heard of or read Dr. Shlain's book?

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess : The Conflict Between Word and Image by Leonard Shlain
“Making remarkable connections across brain function, myth, and anthropology, Dr. Shlain shows why pre-literate cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain modes that venerated the Goddess, images, and feminine values. Writing drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking and this shift upset the balance between men and women, initiating the decline of the feminine and ushering in patriarchal rule."

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."
The Gospel of Thomas

u/MisterE_MD · 1 pointr/history

After I graduated high school/college, one of the first books I picked up for myself was A Short History of the World by H G Wells. It's ~300 pages and, I'm sure, is not a perfect account of world history... but, Wells takes the universe back to its origins to his present day (post WWI).

If you just want an explanation as to how civilizations formed and why some seem more successful than others, I loved Guns, Germs, & Steel. My world history teacher used it as a template for our course, and I read it after. Excellent book.

u/WikiRelevance · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

The relevant wikipedia article on domestication explains that there are several traits that a species typically possess that enables them to become domesticated. For animals they should preferably have: a flexible diet, reproduce in captivity, fast growth and reproductive rate, pleasant disposition and good temperament, and should have a social hierarchy that humans can become apart and "alpha" of.

Some species don't have these traits, for example the Indri lemur of Madagascar does not breed in captivity. Another good example is the Zebra: "Attempts to domesticate many kinds of wild animals have been unsuccessful. The zebra is one example. Despite the fact that four species of zebra can interbreed with and are part of the same genus as the horse and the donkey, attempts at domestication have failed. Factors such as temperament, social structure and ability to breed in captivity play a role in determining whether a species can be successfully domesticated".

Domestication differs from taming. "the process whereby a population of living organisms is changed at the genetic level, through generations of selective breeding, to accentuate traits that ultimately benefit the interests of humans. A usual by-product of domestication is the creation of a dependency in the domesticated organisms, so that they lose their ability to live in the wild. This differs from taming in that a change in the phenotypical expression and genotype of the animal occurs, whereas taming is simply an environmental socialization/behavioral trait; the process by which animals become accustomed to human presence."

In actuality only a handful of animals have been truly domesticated. "In human history to date, only a few species of large animal have been domesticated. In approximate order of their earliest domestication these are: dog, sheep, goat, pig, ox, yak, reindeer, water buffalo, horse, donkey, llama, alpaca, Bactrian camel and Arabian camel." Jared Diamond's book guns, germs and steel explores how the natural distribution of these species influenced how cultures arose and how some gained dominance over others...simply because they were located in the right area where a domesticable species lived. It is one of the explanations he gives for the development of great city states in Eurasia, as opposed to say...Africa. Guns, germs and steel has also been made into an excellent movie by PBS

Domestication and Evolution

Domestication is an event, not a trait. There are certain heritable traits that make a species better suited for domestication (e.g. flexible diet). In those specific species these traits were selected for other reasons (e.g. a flexible diet is a good thing in a highly variable habitat where food resources fluctuate), specific to that species within its niche - not for some unforeseen future domestication event by humans. Remember that evolution has no goals or directions. And evolution cannot select something from nothing. First a trait or behaviour must exist within the population, then selective forces within their social or natural environment will dictate whether that trait remains or disappears. Domestication can also be described under aritifical selection which differs from natural selection in that the actor is not nature, but humans.

u/Banzeye · 4 pointsr/gameofthrones

Shit, some interesting reading material is Guns, Germs, and Steel.

It's an interdisciplinary work but it's pretty fascinating and its a good read.

Interested in a fun East Asian account? Try reading The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori. This is the book that the movie of the same name was adapted from. (I seriously mean ADAPTED, by the way.) It's an interesting read about the Meiji Restoration and how the Japanese countryside reacted.

How about something from Africa? Read Sundiata: an Epic of Old Mali. It's an epic poem about the founding of the African state of Mali (MANSA MUSA DA GOD). Captivating read.

Get cracking.

u/BionicTransWomyn · 3 pointsr/DebateFascism

>And how can colonization make the African nations all inferior to the European nations?

Because when you litterally enslave millions of people and force them to work for you without providing their offpspring with education, it might harm their long term potential for a bit. As for Africans themselves, are you even kidding? We basically took over their entire continent and kept them in abject poverty, actively creating colonial institutions that worked against their betterment. What African kingdoms were actually doing well, we quashed with superior technology (ie: Zulus)

>Why are Europeans richer and brought up in better circumstances than Africans? Who creates these circumstances? Europeans built the strongest nation on Earth today, the USA, on the same land that Native Americans lived on for thousands of years while accomplishing little. Africans or Native Americans have done this no where.

A combination of geography, access to natural ressources and communication with every part of the world. This is a question that would require a small book to answer on its own, so I'm simply going to link you to some of the more prevalent theories:

https://www.caltech.edu/news/why-did-western-europe-dominate-globe-47696

http://www.amazon.ca/Guns-Germs-Steel-Jared-Diamond/dp/0393317552


>I don't know if I should bother arguing with someone who just claimed that most of Europeans great generals were of African descent.

What? Can you even read. Here's the quote for you, emphasis mine:

>Some of Europe's most talented generals and officials were of African descent.

--

>Surely the Africans wouldn't have been so badly defeated and enslaved if they were truly equal with the Europeans.

Actually, it turns out that when they are given a good education and the tools to succeed, they can hold their own quite well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_Louverture

Also, it might surprise you that for a long time, Europe was basically irrelevant and weak. Its ascent really doesn't start until the 16th-17th century, and even then, most empires were able to marshall, by then, ressources that Europe could not dream to match. Already, Western Europe is weaker than China and Russia, and depends on the US to prop itself up.

>The different races of humans are certainly genetically different and have different traits.

Physical traits certainly, but there's a marginal difference between a half-black/half-white kid and a kid from either ethnicity.


PS: You should probably source your claims, I'm sure Darwin would love to have a word with you about the misinterpretation of his theories.

u/Fireclave · 1 pointr/worldbuilding

This might be overkill to suggest, but you might be interested in the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel", by Jared Diamond. It's an archaeological exploration of causes behind why power, wealth, and technology became so unevenly distributed around the world. It explores factors such as environment, resources, agriculture, and culture. It's certainly good food for thought for these kind of questions.

u/yo2sense · 1 pointr/AmericanPolitics

> "Why did Europeans rule the world, more or less, at one time? Because of Evolution and they were superior, or because God blessed them?"

So either whites are naturally superior or are superior because God has given some special blessing to whites? I reject both racist options. And so does science. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a good place to start informing yourself about these things before you put your foot in your mouth again.

u/Nobusuma · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

As stated Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. The region played a factor. Focusing on Europe, Europe had easy access of travel due to the Mediterranean sea. In broader view they had the silk road. There is a book called Why Nations Fail. A very interesting read. Out of dozens of examples the book shares, I will point out two that help shape Europe; the first being the story of Hercules and second the Black Death. The story of Hercule enabled a change in thought over the centuries as greek men went to the Olympics trying two win fame and glory for themseleves. The individual. The Black death on the other hand destroyed the working class and enabled a change in the current western system.

u/Redfel · 0 pointsr/WTF

>Firstly, a higher IQ is closely correlated to factors beyond genetics.

Wrong. The American Psychological Association puts the heritability of intelligence at around 0.75 for adults. Based on the available research, I'd say intelligence is somewhere between 70-80% heritable.

>Diet and education are by far the most important.

Not even close:

>The role of nutrition in intelligence remains obscure. Severe childhood malnutrition has clear negative effects, but the hypothesis that particular “micronutrients” may affect intelligence in otherwise adequately-fed populations has not yet been convincingly demonstrated.

Look, I don't doubt that nutrition has some role to play in the development of intelligence, but to claim that nutrition is more important than genetics is absurd.

>Both suffer in poor communities.

As Murray and Hernstein wrote: "The average black and white differ in IQ at every level of socioeconomic status (SES) , but they differ more at high levels of SES than at low levels." Impoverished whites do better on tests like the SATs than upper-middle/upper class blacks.

>But beyond that, in the amount of time the various human races were separated from each other, evolution simply couldn't have made people THAT different.

Obviously, you haven't read the book The 10,000 Year Explosion. It argues that human evolution rapidly increased thanks to civilization.

I think that the cognitive differences between the races are quite minimal when compared to the physical differences. Still, it seems quite evident that the cold northern environments of Asia and Europe would select for intelligence and cooperation. The idea that evolution worked its magic on skin color, facial structure, bone density, penis size, etc. but stopped at the brain is a farce.

>We know there is no mechanism in Asians' bodies that makes them smarter than anyone else.

Yes, but nobody has ever claimed there is a mechanism in Asians' bodies that makes them smarter than anyone else. What people claim is that the races have a different distribution of gene frequencies, and some genes that are correlated with intelligence are more common among some population groups.

>But, I like how you think 100,000 Japanese Americans to represent the entire Asian community in the United states

I was specifically talking about Japanese-Americans.

>then compare them to the plight of 39 million African Americans living today.

My point was that there are Americans who have had it much worse than blacks and yet they've been able to thrive. Of course, I attribute this mostly to their higher average IQs.

>And yes, there are poor Asian communities riddled with crime. Look at the LA neighborhoods rife with Asian street gangs.

There will always be a large number of low IQ members of any race or ethnic group. Still, I'd bet the poorest 90% Asian neighborhood will be safer than the average 90% black neighborhood.

u/xandarg · 2 pointsr/IAmA

I know exactly what you mean! I'd call myself a monkey when explaining my desires/belief structures all the time, even before my first experience with hallucinogens.

I think my thought process in nightclubs or parties was always more self-scrutinizing, due to approach anxiety, so it was easy for me to sit there and start philosophizing about the social dynamics, and how this guy was trying to seduce this girl, and whether it seemed to be working or not, and what signals I was putting out by acting uncomfortable, etc. And how weirdly simplistic it was, on some level (and I'm sure there was also some aspect of belittlement out of sour grapes as well).

You'd probably like this, if you haven't read it yet. It sort of gives me hope that even though we might all be monkeys clamoring for power now, there are other, more healthy ways for monkeys to feel good and live in harmony with each other, too: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC387823/

Oh, and you might also like the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (it's soooo interesting!!)

u/brinstar117 · 15 pointsr/todayilearned

I'd imagine it's more of a generality than anything else. I'd wager that it is partly based on the fact that certain latitudes were more conducive for successful colonization by European powers. Those latitudes closely approximated the seasonal conditions in which their draft animals and crops thrived. This lead to a larger and more stable base in which to built wealth upon.

I recommend reading Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond as he details reasons why environmental factors are major contributors to why certain societies (ultimately countries) are wealthier than others.

u/Mythpunk · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

What would be considered safe for retirement plans? There aren't any other investments available that can be liquidated on the spot at the decision of the retirees that also provide the amount of growth necessary to have a retirement plan worth anything.

I don't really see how this law would destroy Comcast, at all. It would radically harm working class people with retirement plans, but the wealthy people in control of Comcast would develop complex legal arrangements via contracts and insurance to ensure that their business would continue otherwise.

For example: suppose such a law passes and all shareholders are held directly liable in proportion to their ownership. This effectively destroys limited liability capitalism. Share prices of every company would drop as every charity, retirement fund, investment bank, and regular person sells as fast as they can. The economy suffers another Great Depression due to the sell-off. Smaller firms die. The larger ones, like Comcast, will have the capital to buy back their shares and "go private." The individuals owning those shares could then put the shares into a trust - they would be the grantors and trustees, but the beneficiary (the individual with legal title to the property) would be a well-paid fall guy. That fall guy would likely never have the money necessary to cover any of a company's legal obligations; the company would become judgment proof.

Destroying limited liability capitalism in this way would not kill Comcast. But it would essentially halt all economic growth and cement wealth even more firmly into the upper classes. Before limited liability, economic growth was essentially zero. Limited liability capitalism (read: the distribution of risk and reward behind an artificial legal entity) is the engine that enabled the global economy to grow so rapidly since the 1500s. This is what enables the vast majority of humans to have the wealth necessary to be something besides subsistence farmers. Check out Sapiens for an explanation.

u/bethelmayflower · 1 pointr/exjw

I listening to http://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-Humankind/dp/0062316095 which i'm pretty sure you would like.

One point that was of interest to me is that the whole point of science could be said to be the acceptance of ignorance.

During the dark ages even up to Christopher Columbus most people believed that old sacred texts contained all knowledge that would ever be needed.

As soon as the idea became popular that it was important to admit not knowing and just looking and seeing where the evidence leads that real progress happened.

If you only pick and choose evidence that supports your preconceived conclusions knowledge stops.

The fundamental problem is the idea that the Bible is true.



u/gibberfish · 2 pointsr/Documentaries

Haven't yet watched the documentary, but the description reminds me of Guns, Germs and Steel, an excellent book on the same subject.

The fact that Western culture dominates the world (for now) seems a given, but it's not so easy to explain why it wasn't, say, Sub-Saharan Africans or Native Americans that conquered the world.

If you're at all interested in how geography defines societies, why inventions were or weren't made by them, why conquests happened or didn't, and so on, I can really recommend this book. Easily one of the most fascinating I've ever read.

u/attofreak · 3 pointsr/india

Wow, I didn't know he wrote a book dedicated specifically to "the Grandest Society of Merchants in the Universe". East India Company has been a subject of intrigue for me since the first time I got to know of its exploits during school. This company had an army (not mere mercenaries) to fight kingdoms! Imagine that in today's time. In Sapiens, Harari briefly mentions them, and the trinity of Imperialism-Capitalism-Scientific Revolution that swept the entire globe from Europe. Reading John Keay's unbiased narrative and propensity to be poetical in A History, The Honourable Company looks like an amazing read. And something that I naturally want to know more of, once getting at least some idea of the grand history of this country. Thank you!

u/_xGizmo_ · 12 pointsr/comedyheaven

It’s crazy to think about, but during the dawn of mankind (a couple hundred thousand years ago) there were actually several sapient species on Earth at the same time.

Homosapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and a handful of others all lived on the Earth together. There’s a lot of evidence of them intermingling, socializing, and mating with one another. Some of these species didn’t die out until relatively recently (30,000 years ago). There were also notable physical differences between them, such as Neanderthals being significantly stronger and more robust (and contrary to popular belief, equally or more intelligent) than their Homosapien counterparts.

No one is entirely sure why, but our species ended up dominating and the others went extinct. The theory I personally believe is most likely is a combination of two:

  • Homosapiens tended to socialize in very large groups (a couple hundred) compared to Neanderthals (groups sized around 30) which gave us a huge edge for obvious reasons.
  • Unlike Neanderthals, which due to their robustness, were able to face large prey with a head on melee approach, homosapiens were too weak and fragile so they had to invent alternative methods. This led our species to develop very effective ranged throwing weapons that led us to be able to out-hunt the Neanderthals. Our weakness ultimately led to our domination, because it forced us to think outside the box, unlike Neanderthals.

    If stuff like this interests you, I strongly recommend the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

    Some more fun facts:

    Humans are able to throw projectiles farther and with more power than any other animal on Earth due to our superior balance.

    Humans are better at stamina running than any other land animal due to our unique ability to regenerate stamina while running (because of our high concentration of sweat glands). In fact, some ancient African hunting techniques involved chasing after prey for over 15 miles until they collapsed from exhaustion.
u/fallenpollen · 2 pointsr/arabs

This author is right on the money! So many of us blame the current Arab situation on some kind of moral failing on the part of the people, but the reasons are usually tied to the bigger picture and the world around us.

'Guns, Germs, and Steel' by Jared Diamond expands on this so much in terms of the basic idea. Although its not specifically about the arab world and about all societies in general, its a fantastic read and i recommend it wholeheartedly.

And the take from all of this is quite positive in my opinion. The Arab world is currently undergoing a fundamental shift in terms of demography, economics, and education. As the Arab world starts to reach its full potential in these areas in the coming decades, I foresee wonderful advancement in our societies and resurgence of our historical status in the world as a whole.

u/000000robot · 1 pointr/exjw

May I suggest that you read The Oxford Annotated Bible.

Once you are done with that ... may I suggest

u/kalimashookdeday · 1 pointr/AskHistorians

There are lots of different theories out there, some stronger than others. One that you may find interesting and that I enjoyed reading and getting more insight on is that of Jared Diamond. He has a book called, Guns, Germs, and Steel I would recommend as a good read for a theory about this. There are some criticisms of Diamond, but most theories have a few.

Diamond's book discusses plenty of reasonings and ideas for why societies in Europe/Asia developed. He starts by explaining ideas of a hunter gathering society's limitations on technological advancement as well as the society/cultural connotations versus those of agrarian societies (who invented farming). A huge difference being farming societies had more time to develop other areas and skills (technology, art, etc.).

Another one of his compelling ideas is that horizontally oriented societies benefited more from similiar plants, animals, and trade versus societies who were oriented vertically. Due to climate and simliarities in culture (in horizontally oriented societies) the spread of technology, domestication, and availability of different animals and resources aided man's ability to develop faster than Native cultures on North America for instance.

u/sojjos · 5 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

This is a loaded question. As you can expect, there are many reasons, some of which are still being debated.

One main thing to remember about the Native Americans is that they, until the first Europeans began to come (1500s ish?) and interact with them, didn't have any contact with the the rest of the world. Contact between Asia and Europe and even Africa spread many cultural ideas and innovations. The native Americans didn't have the Silk Road. Simply put, it's hard to be as advanced as the rest of the world when you're working all by yourself.

Why didn't the inuits in the north trade and diffuse "advancement" with the Iroquois in modern New York, or with the Incans and Mayans? An interesting (and probably true) theory is that this is due to the axis of the americas versus the axis of the rest of the world.
Throughout the rest of the world, people spread and migrate easily because they generally are moving on an east to west axis with much less change in latitude. The Americas are relatively narrow in comparison to the "Old World," and most "spreading out" would be done on a north-south axis. This is MUCH harder to do on a large, noticeable scale because different latitudes come with different temperatures, climates, etc. People in modern day New Mexico did not have the necessities to travel to modern day Alaska, and vice versa.

It's important also to note that while the native Americans as a whole weren't as "advanced" as the rest of the world, certain societies (specifically the Incas and Aztecs) built massive and advanced cultures and civilizations that awed even the Spanish conquistadors.

Edit: I'm so happy that everyone is mentioning Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. This is truly a great book that broadens your world view!!

u/NewbombTurk · 1 pointr/religion

> How do you explain the beginning of human civilisation? Did it automatically start?

We were discussing the origins of the universe, not human civilization. Why the hard left turn? However, unlike the origins of the universe, which we know almost nothing about, the development of human civilization is better understood. I imagine you’re a young person. Can I suggest that you read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, and Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind? They’re both brilliant. I’d send you copies of both if you were in the US.

The short version is that we evolved as social, tribal, animals. We were nomadic, hunter-gatherers for tens of thousands of years. But, after the discovery of agriculture, we could settle in one place. This allowed specialization of work. People no longer had to do everything. Hunting was done by those good at hunting, for the whole group. Farming was done by those good at farming, for the whole group. And, maybe most importantly, this created more time to innovate. To test out new ways of doing things without jeopardizing the tribe. Out of this, civilization was born.

u/BitcoinAllBot · 1 pointr/BitcoinAll

Here is the post for archival purposes:

Author: Jebick

Content:

>A few of my assumptions.

<ul>
<li>The oldest coin currency that we know is a Sumerian bronze piece dating from before 3000 BC. </li>
<li>The Sumerians also created writing which was a basic form of accounting. </li>
<li>Humans were able to grow, in part, beyond what normal forces of natural selection because our ability to believe in intersubjective</strong> realities. The are subjective realities shared between many people. Such realities are money, gov., and countries. (talked about in Sapiens by yuval noah harari)</li>
<li>These intersubjective realities allowed us to cooperate in scales unknown to other animals. </li>
<li>Money is an intersubjective reality</li>
<li>Money only has value because people all believe it has value (intersubjective)</li>
</ul>

>These intersubjective realities take decades to build and are a function something like this:
time to build = ((impact on people) * (inherent trustworthiness)) / (quantity of people involved in the reality)</strong>. The problem is Bitcoin's trustworthiness is low, because it's not backed by an established asset such as gold. The impact on people is critical, because money... and the quantity of people in the reality is **everyone on earth</strong>. If Bitcoin can provide legitimate value to our world and annihilate other currencies, I think it will take decades for the world to adopt it.

>Next, the electricity per transaction is 524kWh per transaction (on average) per this . That's enough energy to power 5000+ 100 Watt lightbulbs. How is that sustainable when you scale up to billions of transactions per hour on a global scale?

u/RobertGreenIngersoll · 1 pointr/exatheist

>rather suddenly, came abstract thought, art, religion, jewelry, and eventually things like language and alphabets. Our consciousness greatly leaped forwards, and began exponentially increasing on such a level that it still hasn't stopped. Interestingly, interference from something like Set is by far more parsimonious than the entire humans species magically sharing the same mutation which overwrites the previous genetic makeup of the whole species, or even worse, having a massive leap forwards as some sort of uncaused event.

Some have argued that not all ethnic groups were equally involved in that leap, and that we only know of the advances of those which did.

>Scientists have long believed that the 'great leap forward' that occurred some 40,000 to 50,000 years ago in Europe marked the end of significant biological evolution in humans. In this stunning account of our evolutionary history, top scholars Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending reject this conventional wisdom and reveal that the human species has undergone a storm of genetic change much more recently. Human evolution in fact accelerated after civilisation arose, they contend, and these ongoing changes have played a pivotal role in human history. They argue that biology explains the expansion of the Indo-Europeans, the European conquest of the Americas, and European Jews' rise to intellectual prominence. In each of these cases, the key was recent genetic change: adult milk tolerance in the early Indo-Europeans that allowed for a new way of life, increased disease resistance among the Europeans settling America, and new versions of neurological genes among European Jews. Ranging across subjects as diverse as human domestication, Neanderthal hybridization, and IQ tests, Cochran and Harpending's analysis demonstrates convincingly that human genetics have changed and can continue to change much more rapidly than scientists have previously believed.

u/worlds_of_smoke · 13 pointsr/occult

I don't think so.

I took an online class based on this book and it has a good theory in it. It's been a few years but, IIRC, Harari says that the followers of monotheistic religions are almost required to suppress or eliminate other religions and their deities. If your god is the only true god, all other gods must be false gods or your entire religion is false. Nobody likes their religion being called a false religion, especially when they're deeply emotionally invested in the religion.

Basically, IMO, calling pagan gods "demons" is the result of a smear campaign against those gods and religions tied to them by monotheistic religions. Polytheistic/pagan religions are much older than monotheistic religions, but one of the results of this drive to prove that YHWH is the one "true god" is that some of the other deities became "demons". And the Bible, of course, has to reflect this bias.

Yes, you have some people who believe in monotheistic religions and are more secular. But this smear campaign was run by the church and people who were/are deeply religious and fundamentalist.

u/hallonkatastrof · 1 pointr/RandomActsOfGaming

If you like reading I highly recommend this book! It's taught me some very valuable things and increased my understanding of society, as well as giving me a new way to look at society. :)

https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095

u/metatron-one · 8 pointsr/badhistory

I've been reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, due to an interest in the history of the human species brought about by an Intro to Biological Anthropology class I'm in. I'm maybe three chapters in so far, but I'm engrossed. Harari theorizes that the reason that Homo Sapiens were able to outlive all the other Homo species is our ability to conceive fiction, our ability to conceptualise things that don't exist, like religions, nations, etc. This isn't really a historic text, but it's well written and seems to be worth reading if you have an interest in the topic. I'd like to read some critical reviews from experts in the field, though.

u/TheAbyssGazesAlso · 2 pointsr/starcontrol

I highly recommend both Sapiens, and also The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker (which Bill Gates calls "the most inspiring book I've ever read")

They'll make you think (a lot) but they're good reads and super interesting.

u/ktool · 3 pointsr/evolution

The 10,000 Year Explosion answers your exact question.

> Scientists have long believed that the “great leap forward” that occurred some 40,000 to 50,000 years ago in Europe marked the end of significant biological evolution in humans. In this stunningly original account of our evolutionary history, top scholars Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending reject this conventional wisdom and reveal that the human species has undergone a storm of genetic change much more recently. Human evolution in fact accelerated after civilization arose, they contend, and these ongoing changes have played a pivotal role in human history. They argue that biology explains the expansion of the Indo-Europeans, the European conquest of the Americas, and European Jews' rise to intellectual prominence. In each of these cases, the key was recent genetic change: adult milk tolerance in the early Indo-Europeans that allowed for a new way of life, increased disease resistance among the Europeans settling America, and new versions of neurological genes among European Jews. Ranging across subjects as diverse as human domestication, Neanderthal hybridization, and IQ tests, Cochran and Harpending's analysis demonstrates convincingly that human genetics have changed and can continue to change much more rapidly than scientists have previously believed. A provocative and fascinating new look at human evolution that turns conventional wisdom on its head, The 10,000 Year Explosion reveals the ongoing interplay between culture and biology in the making of the human race.

u/WhineyThePooh · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

I remember really liking Lies My Teacher Told Me, which debunks common misinformation found in U.S. History text books. Though it might be not be as intellectual as he likes. Check it out, though.

There is another one my father-in-law gave great reviews, but I can't remember the title. I'll ask and edit if I figure it out.

Edit: Guns, Germs, and Steel!!! I haven't read it myself but it sounded interesting.

I also thought of The Master and Margarita, if he hasn't read it already. I bought this version, and a lot of the footnotes go into how the Russian political climate at the time influenced the novel. I thought it was very interesting.

u/jvlpdillon · 4 pointsr/40something

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind: This is the best book I have read in a very long time. This is about how our cultures, religions, and values were formed based on biology and psychology theories. I know that sounds boring but it is very interesting.

A Higher Loyalty: If you believe Comey your opinion will not change and if you do not believe Comey your opinion will not change. Meh, skip it.


[Dune] (https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Frank-Herbert/dp/0441172717/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524527285&sr=1-1&keywords=dune) I do not read a lot of Sci-Fi but with the expected move coming u in a few years I thought I might get ahead if it. It was interesting but not exactly action-packed.

Leonardo Da Vinci The Walter Isaacson biographies about "geniuses" Steve Jobs, Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein are all interesting.

u/Gorm_the_Old · 1 pointr/history

There's a lot of discussion on this subject, and a lot of debate between academics, but no real consensus. Some people think they have the answer - William McNeill is an older example and Jared Diamond is a more recent example - but the debate is still ongoing.

I would say, though, that at a very basic level, the Old World was simply larger and more interconnected than the New World. With more people in the Old World and more people connected to each other, technology was developed more quickly and transmitted across a wider distance. That meant that even though the Old World had its ups, like the dramatic technological advancement of the Roman Empire, and its downs, like the Mongol conquest, it more or less moved forward.

The New World actually had significantly better technology several hundred years prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. The Mayan civilization was much more advanced than the Aztec civilization, including a much more sophisticated system of writing that let them preserve knowledge. But the Mayans went into a long-term decline for reasons that are still not entirely clear. They didn't have as much contact with neighboring groups as civilizations in the Old World did, so when they went into decline, they took much of their technology with them. Contrast that with the fall of Rome - even as Rome fell, much of its knowledge and technology was preserved in the Islamic world or in the monasteries of Europe. That didn't happen for the Mayans, and so the native peoples that were met by the conquistadors were significantly behind where they had been a thousand years previous.

u/Leisureguy · -2 pointsr/wicked_edge

Synthetics started getting actually good around 2011, with at least some if not most of the impetus coming from a feeling that the EU might prohibit the use of badger hair (cf. ivory prohibitions). Mühle took an early lead, but quite a lot has happened. Check out, for example, these articles in Sharpologist, and note the dates.

Memes (in the Richard Dawkins sense—cf. Chapter 11 of The Selfish Gene) are subject to the Darwinian laws that follow from inheritance with some variation and limited resources, which brings natural selection into play: those memes with variations favoring reproduction will survive, just as is true for lifeforms, only memes evolve at a MUCH faster rate. The recent book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is, in effect, a history of the evolution of memes. It seemed to me that many of his insights and much of his account required looking at things from a meme point of view, though he doesn't even mention memes until the middle of the book, and then only briefly and diffidently. (Bayesian statistics was initially looked down upon by classical statisticians as not quite the thing, but quite a few found that Bayesian statistics actually worked really well, so they started using it in secret and, when publishing, translated their results back into classical statistical terminology and methods. It seems that the same dynamic is at play here, with a reluctance to talk explicitly about memes, even though they explain a lot.)

u/ambivalentacademic · 4 pointsr/biology

The Selfish Gene is of course great, but I thought Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker was a better written book.

However, a new and really really great book is "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Just a gorgeous book, and full of history that any biologist should know.


u/fallflight · 3 pointsr/Anthropology

For books, The Fossil Trail and The Complete World of Human Evolution are good overviews, while Sapiens and Lone Survivors are interesting accounts of evidence about the emergence of our species.

I also really recommend the CARTA lectures available on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1B24EADC01219B23.

You can browse through that playlist to look for interesting topics, or search for something like 'carta university california' or 'carta uctv' or 'carta uctv [topic]' to see what's popular, or follow YouTube's recommendations between videos. Each one is pretty short at ~20 min, with 3 sometimes linked in hour-long videos.

There's a wide range of evidence and interpretations about things like coexistence of varieties vs intra-population diversity, the general nature and causes of genetic structure between populations, extinction due to direct conflict or competition vs. other factors, and so on - so it helps to see the range of viewpoints between different researchers, and range of evidence and interpretations from different fields.

These are some examples:

Emergence of Homo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W005V6OV_E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CazsHKnxmHQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5vOgDK3BKs

Sapiens origins, population movements, non-sapiens admixture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdP-Wjd1qSY&t=888s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ2H9NUn150&t=2343s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzcPSMz1tA

'Self-domestication':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaS-teo33Zo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaS-teo33Zo

Climate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcBMrw9JQgA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLmCbBVq0xM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRk_gcNf7jo

Violence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRsQDfgwP08&t=12s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGaQ-oEpNG0

Art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCuQw5I1-z0&t=423s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0TKYxAYGGA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2rodmJcn7g

u/Fraek · 0 pointsr/Conservative

"no scientific consensus that black people are genetically predisposed to lower intelligence"

The report is by the APA from 1996. The APA in 96 to even acknowledge that there was a gap was a huge thing, considering its bias. Discoveries have ramped up in the last few years so I don't know why wikipedia is relying on sources from 94 & 96 considering the human genome mapping wasn't completed until 2003. Discoveries since then have been one after another.

It's no surprise wikipedia comes to the PC conclusion, but it suffers from problems. It acknowledges that the black-white test gap exists. Either it is genetic, or environmental. There has been decades of money, and time thrown at fixing the environment by rich billionaires like Gates, and others. Dozens upon dozens of education, nutrition, parent swapping (giving black babies to whites), and other experiments, and they all failed. There is not a single study in the world that can claim lasting gains in the IQ gap. This bit of evidence would point to a genetic basis right? That and the fact that twin studies (the only proper studies that can control for genes) shows intelligence, among other dispositions, are highly heritable. In that wikipedia page, they link to the actual numbers from the APA study: "A 1996 statement by the American Psychological Association gave about .45 for children and about .75 during and after adolescence."

Finally, does that statement even pass the laugh test? "Science" doesn't work by consensus, but if it did, wouldn't it be relevant to ask the actual scientists involved in intelligence research?

There are people with very high intelligence, very low IQ, and everyone between. Most people can recognize that height is highly heritable, but it isn't a guarantee, sometimes you are taller than your tallest parent, sometimes you are shorter than the shortest parents. Most times you regress towards the mean. The idea that the brain is a blank slate has been discredited by Steven Pinker, Noam Chomsky, and others. The brain comes with innate abilities, abilities that are partly inherited from your parents genes.

If you are actually concerned with finding the truth you can read Nicholas Wade, who writes for the NYTimes. The 10,000 Year Explosion. Or Gene Expression1. Or Gene Expression2. Rather than having your views filtered by whoever happens to be editing one of the many wikipedia pages.

u/100dylan99 · 3 pointsr/AskReddit

None of these answers are good. The reason why light skinned people have succeeded more than to darker skinned people is because of geography. Before I start, it is face that the farther you get from the equator, the lighter skinned people get. Now, while I don't remember exactly what diseases, I do remember that the farther you get from the equator, the lighter skinned you generally become, and vice versa. That was a simple answer.


Now, people started farming around nine thousand years ago in many places around the same time, like in China, North America, and the Middle East. However, while farming was a big advancement and led to to things like villages, war, and diseases, which are very, very important for the development of humanity, there were two big factors to how successful a civilization got. The second was how many domesticated animals you had in your area. In the middle east, where humanities first big civilizations started, you had four domestic animals. They had sheep, cattle, pigs, and horses. In other places, you only had one dmosticated animal. For example, the Inca had one domesticated animal, which was the llama. The Middle Eastern's got lucky, because they had horses, and cattle, two very strong animals. This allopwed them to have a plow, which revolutionized farming and was used from prehistory all the way up to the industrial revolution. Not only that, but they could move faster on their horses, which allowed them to hunt and war better. About a thousan years after the middle easterns developed farming, they started migrating because their land was similar to the US's in the 30's. Some of them went west, to conquer Europe, and some East, to conquer China. I can elaborate further, but I am a mere freshman. If you want more information I reccomend:

Bill Nye's The Eyes of Nye, Episode 108, "Race"

Guns, Germs, And Steel. Also a documentary on Netflix.

Mankind, the Story of All of Us. A truly wonderful History Channel documentary that was released this year, covering all of humanities's achievements.



Also: This was all of the top of my head, so please tell me if something I said was inaccurate or wrong. And if you want me to elaborate more on something, ask.

u/_Different_T · 1 pointr/Absolutistneoreaction

>So, if we can agree that being bereft of a shared language for discussing human dignity and flourishing is itself detrimental to human dignity and flourishing, then to that extent at least, I have made the case.

But you haven't. You're implicitly claiming that the center is, in fact, empty until and unless someone occupies it; while simultaneously claiming there is always, already a center.

From such a perspective, the statement:

>We can formulate the discrepancy as follows: the more the distribution of goods and status is centralized, the more vehemently we deny the existence of any center.

is reinterpretation of the lack of any such center's justification; or even more accurately, the meaninglessness of justification itself. This appears like Postmodernism 101.

>But the reliance of a political order on hysterical and escalating delusions is an indictment of that order.

According to whom? You're presupposing exactly what you've previously claimed doesn't exist:

>But we don’t have such a shared language, precisely because the effect of the direct relation between state and individual created by the system of rights makes any such shared language impossible: any assertion of shared values or virtues would inevitably privilege one group over others and therefore be the ground for a claim that the former were violating the rights of the latter.

In fact, assuming you agree with bobby’s statement:

>Language transcends the physical; we merely associate physical marks or sounds to "get" a meaning that inheres in nothing but shared conventions of attention.

This “shared language’s” absence is indicative of the dominance of your own perspective. Why would you expect language users to accept “shared conventions of attention” which mark such users as “hysterical” or “delusional?” Especially if these conventions prohibit the most grand resentment and desire.

u/TroyMendo · 1 pointr/exjw

For anyone interested, this TED Talk is awesome. It talks about turning on genes in chickens to bring back some of their dinosaur traits.

EDIT: On an ever so slightly related note, I am currently reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and it's fascinating. It points out how what differentiates homo sapien from other species (there are around 15 in all) was the cognitive ability to use fiction in everyday lives.

Typical primates stay in groups of a few dozen or so, and they all know who they can and can trust. Any groups larger than that tend to have problems because there is no way to control the group.

The ability to create mythologies and stories (religion) allowed for far greater control of much larger groups of people because they collectively believe in the entity (whether good or bad) on a collective level where no one has proof of the story or myth, but everyone around you believes so it's all good.

u/russilwvong · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

"The March of Folly" is a pretty easy read. A good place to start. The focus is primarily on the Vietnam War, though.

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel argues that the origins of civilizations are closely tied to the invention and spread of agriculture. Also an easy read. Won the Pulitzer Prize.

I'd also recommend William McNeill's A World History for a broad overview of human history, starting with the ancient civilizations.

u/css4517 · 3 pointsr/slatestarcodex

Since it hasn't been mentioned, Cochran has a blog called "West Hunter", which I consider recommended reading -- although many posts are sadly a bit low effort, compared to e.g. SSC, Overcoming Bias, or other favourites among the rationalist crowd. Still definitely worth adding to your blog roll.

And his book with Henry Harpending, "The 10'000 Year Explosion", is required reading for anyone curious about the HBD debate, of course. :)

> (2:07:00) A few people bet on Trump winning after Greg wrote predicting the “shy Trump voter” would put him over the top despite the polls, and then tipped him for it.

Just to pat my own back here: I made about $4000, betting on Trump winning. Not because of Cochran, I hadn't read his post, but because I noticed there was a huge gap between the bookmakers and the exit polls reported at Nate Silver's 538. So betting big on Trump late on election day seemed like a no brainer. In particular so because exit polls usually underestimate the most controversial pick, due to social desirability bias.

Also, I've never seen such an edge at a bookmaker before, compared to an "expert opinion", and I bet professionally on sports for about a year (until I quit when it became too much effort to work around the bookmakers' restrictions on winning players). IIRC, bookmaker odds had Trump at about 16-17% of winning, late on election day, while the exit polls indicated about a 28% chance of winning.

By the Kelly criterion I should have bet way more on the outcome than I did, btw. Assuming the exit polls were right, I should have gone in for about 13% of my betting bankroll. Considering the known bias of exit polls, I should probably have pushed for more like ~25% of my bankroll. But I chickened out, for personal reasons. Being a father of 3 young kids combines badly with being a gambler, so I just played my scared money and bet the $600ish I happened to have sitting around in an online bookie account from old.

u/thatcat7_ · 3 pointsr/HOLLOWEARTH

Moon was likely put into perfect orbit around earth and perfect distance from earth and the Sun for perfect eclipse. I think moon was a natural satellite of some another planet, moon was turned into a spaceship and it wandered through space for long time until earth, and perhaps seeded earth.

Check https://www.amazon.com/Who-Built-Moon-Christopher-Knight/dp/1842931636

u/Berenor · 1 pointr/gaybros

Joe, 26, Albuquerque, New Mexico (though spending a few days in Pasadena, California visiting family for the holidays)

Picture of me from Thanksgiving

  1. My parents got me a book they thought I'd be interested in (The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddhartha Mukherjee) and a bottle of Glenlivet 12-year single-malt scotch. Home run on both counts!
  2. Moving to Albuquerque - my parents helped me pack up my life into a U-Haul and we made the 14 hour drive to start the newest chapter of my life. :)
  3. I'll be ringing in the new year with my California friends!
  4. Current celebrity crush is Rain Dove because holy shit.
  5. I'm working on a demo app with a friend of mine who is teaching herself how to code. We're re-implementing tetris, with graphics, on pc, mobile, and web, with a tie-in to a leaderboard website (REST API) and a few other bells & whistles.
  6. I finally got around to watching Stranger Things last month, so still in love with that - especially the soundtrack. Also the band Autoheart (in particular their single Oxford Blood - featuring Rain Dove in the video!)
u/DrImpeccable76 · 1 pointr/HistoryWhatIf

http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CroplandsMap_GriddedCartogram.jpg

Why exactly do you think that North America, Europe and Asia have so much more cropland than Africa and South America?
What do you think people do when they are more fertile land which requires fewer farmers to keep them alive? They become more educated, develop more advanced infrastructure, create technology at a much faster pace, etc. Just as an example, about 2% of the US population works in agriculture, 15% of Brazilians do the same.

And since you seem to like books so much (despite not even linking one that backs up your statments): https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466407800&sr=8-1&keywords=guns+germs+and+steel

Anyway, I don't want to act like cultural factors don't make any difference in the economic development over long periods of time becaue they certainly do, but you should not ignore the fact that certain parts of the world (such as Europe and North America) have climates and natural resources that are much more conducive to economic development.

u/celeritas365 · 3 pointsr/changemyview

This is a really complex question that doesn't have a single answer. I do think it is a stretch to say that the exploitation didn't help at least a little bit. There are also other factors than economic policy, innovations, and social institutions. You should check out Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond if you are interested in this kind of stuff. I don't agree with all of it but it is pretty interesting. If you are more into documentaries PBS made some documentaries based off of the book that are also pretty well done. CGP grey also made a video summary of a small section of the book's argument.

u/dizzyelk · 1 pointr/Christianity

So far the best book I've read has been Guns, Germs, and Steel. Right now I'm reading Botany of Desire, which is pretty interesting. And after I finish that I think something old-fashioned and cheesy would be nice. So I'm probably going to read Edgar Rice Burroughs's Venus series.

u/Brainkandle · 1 pointr/Showerthoughts

Well every thing on the planet that has cells, has DNA, right. DNA is the blueprint that tells each cell what to do, be, perform, etc. So you and I have 99.9% the same DNA cause we're both humans. You and I have 60% the same DNA as both a chicken and a banana.

But start going up the mammalian ladder and our DNA similarities get higher and higher because- 2 legs/2 arms/1 head/2 lungs/1 backbone/hair/carry our young/warmblooded etc everything that categorizes us as mammals comes from a very very similar set of DNA. Again, every cell has this code in it so that it knows how to perform its job.

Us and cats are 90% similar. It just happens that us and chimps/bonobos have the most DNA in common. Not something we purposely set out to prove, but once we mapped the genomes and stuck all of them side by side, that is where the data arranged itself.

Back to DNA - this is why stem cells are so fascinating, we can alter the DNA and tell the stem cell how to be, what to be, cause we already have all the DNA mapped so we're really just copying off of original DNA.

If you are interested in DNA and its complexity and how we figured all of it out, I highly recommend The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee. You will understand it so much more and appreciate all the folks who moved along the science until now. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

u/joepyeweed · 3 pointsr/AskHistorians

Thanks for the detailed reply! It's interesting to get another opinion on these topics. I just read [After Tamerlane by John Darwin]( https://www.amazon.com/After-Tamerlane-Global-Empires-1400-2000/dp/1596916028) and (to me, as a history enthusiast at least) it seemed like he was taking a different view on these subjects - that the Indian market was pretty crucial to the British Industrial Revolution.

u/Reputedly · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

Something like that! There's a lot more to be said on the topic, if you're interested. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel talks about a lot of what I mentioned above in greater detail (there's also a pretty good PBS Documentary based on the book).

u/joeythegingercat · 606 pointsr/AskHistorians

Also, fur, with the fur turned in, next to the body. You get an amazing amount of warmth next to the body, try it. Layers, lots of layers, look at some Renaissance outfits, they wore a lot of layers for many reasons, one was warmth. (A lot of Rennies complain that historically accurate Renaissance clothing is very hot because of all the layers and the fabrics.) That was the during Little Ice Age, people were cold. So, lots of layers, fur, wool, keeping dry kept people from freezing to death. (It was not always cold, previous to the Little Ice Age the climate was relatively warm.) Staying inside a warmish, somewhat windproof structure helped. Housing and warming technologies greatly improved during the Little Ice Age, they had to!

Cotton is not good for warmth. It absorbs sweat and keeps it next to the body, making it colder. (Cotton was relatively rare in the past, in our current times, cotton is ubiquitous, but it will not keep you as warm as wool or other animal products.) Wool wicks sweat away from the body. A dry body is easier to keep warm than a damp body.

Even with all this, people were cold. The idea was not to be "warm," but to not freeze to death so one could make it to the spring.

Sorry for being so Euro-centric, but that is what I know.

A couple of the books I have read on the subject:
The Little Ice Age
The Long Summer

u/Carrue · 5 pointsr/Survival

Here is how I would organize it:

Physiological needs of survival.

  • Temperature
  • Water
  • Food

    Techniques for temperature

  • Basic principles of heat transfer, warmth, and cold
  • Techniques for clothing
  • Techniques for shelter
  • Techniques for fire

    Techniques for water

  • The importance of water purity
  • Water purification, sanitation, and filtration

    Techniques for food.

  • Foraging
  • Hunting
  • Trapping and fishing
  • Primitive cooking

    Miscellaneous techniques

  • Wilderness hygiene
  • Hiking properly
  • Land navigation
  • Things idiots do

    Psychology of survival

  • The importance of optimism and never quitting.
  • The parasympathetic nervous system and you.
  • Operant extinction and how it makes you crazy, plus how to survive through it.
  • The Basil Ganglia and automation, the strength of habits, and how to learn and maintain skills effectively.

    Each numbered section could be a book of its own, and some of them have already been written. I think this is a good way to organize wilderness survival for the short term. I think once you start thinking about preserving food you are entering a new realm where you'll need a new, more complicated organization. Maybe I'll write the psychology one some day, as I haven't seen a good survival psychology book out there, just a bunch of bullshit.

    Now I don't agree that society has failed us. I think you would really like to read Guns, Germs, and Steel. It will put societies into a perspective where they are just groups of people providing themselves with the same physiological needs of survival, in ways most efficient for their environment. But I also think it's best for society that individuals can carry on in the event of a problem. So I hear what you're saying. Anyway, I hope you find this helpful.
u/SerratusAnterior · 2 pointsr/TrueReddit

There are lot of popular books that venture into these type of topics. I recommend The 10,000 Year Explosion, which is about how civilization and agriculture shaped recent human evolution. It's very interesting, though at the same time it sometimes creeps me out thinking to much about human biology in this way. I might add that they have a chapter on human intelligence which is controversial because of the nature of the topic. Anyway it's a good read, just don't turn into an eugenicist. ;)

I also the often recommended Guns, Germs and Steel on my reading list, which looks on how biology and illness shaped human civilizations.

u/thecave · 2 pointsr/Psychonaut

I'd recommend you read Yuval Noah Harari's, "Sapiens." It's a great perspective on where we came from and how we got here and whether or not we're better off. It may help you put your observations in context better.

In India it's not uncommon for older, upper-caste men to quit everything and take to the Himalayas to live out their lives in prayer, meditation, and reflection - living entirely on charity. I've met some of these guys in Rishikesh. I'm sure there's a lot of bullshit and phoniness in that scene. But it's sort of reassuring to know that the option is there, you know? They're called renunciates, because the renounce all this BS, right?

But anyway, Sapiens. I think you'll find a lot in it. It's from a scientific rather than a mystical point of view. So I think it anchors psychedelic observations within a factual framework.
https://www.amazon.ca/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/077103850X

u/gblancag · 6 pointsr/AskWomen

I'm traditionally more into literary fiction, but I've been exploring non-fiction recently.

Currently Reading: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Recently Finished: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration and Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy

Next on the List: Either Guns Germs and Steel or Devil in the White City. Haven't decided yet

u/golden_canary · 2 pointsr/TrollXChromosomes

Not u/misyo but I'm also a historian. Best overarching history series is [Blood, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond] (http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552) imo. It touches on a bunch of different historical eras and locations so it's pretty diverse. It is western-centric however, so you won't learn too much about any eastern history. That being said, the book doesn't ignore it either, so if it's relevant you'll get it. :)

u/HippyCapitalist · 22 pointsr/collapse

Plants pull CO2 out of the air and use around half of it to build their bodies. They exude the rest of the carbon into the soil as simple sugars to feed the microbes that live in the soil. The microbes eat the sugar and excrete acids into the soil, breaking down the rock to get the minerals they need in addition to carbon to build their bodies. When the microbes die, the plants can absorb the minerals the microbes collected.

People have degraded topsoil so much that we have a huge opportunity to remove CO2 from the air and store it in soil by restoring soil health, which would happen if we could/would restore the native ecosystems. David Mongomery has some great books and videos explaining where we are and how we got here.

Trees have an enormous amount of solar collecting leaves powering the photosynthetic machinery that converts atmospheric CO2 to wood and carbon in the soil. Compare that to the photosynthesis a lawn cut a few inches high can do. People need to plant as many trees as possible, and even more importantly save every bit of old growth ecosystems we can.

u/CharlesAnonymousVII · 1 pointr/atheism

Now I hate to break up the like-fest, but a theist could argue maybe that modern man is not exactly or substantially the same as the species of homo sapiens which inhabited the earth during those hundreds of millenia of which Hitchens speaks. Cochran & Harpending's The 10,000 Year Explosion (an excellent, relatively new publication garnering high-acclaim) truly provides a lot of evidence for the idea that Man has evolved rapidly since as recent as the advent of agriculture and argues that we're actually quite different from the typical human who lived just 10 centuries ago. So I see no reason to think that homo sapiens couldn't have undergone any subtle alterations, throughout those 98,000 years of miserable "indifference", that could've been important re: the farming revolution(s) and nonetheless significant enough to undermine the sentiment behind this quote. Along similar lines, then, this devil's advocate might object that God perhaps waited until the end of earth's last major ice age before instituting some grand change and fulfilling the divine plan in question.

A number of explanations/rationalizations could plausibly survive definite -- i.e., undeniably compelling -- debunkery; and that'll forever suffice to sanction faith for the majority of religious believers. But the difficulty w/the atheist's logic here, for me, lies w/the apparent imposition of thoroughly anthropomorphic standards upon this alleged, presumably super-ethical deity of Christianity (viz., one which would probably not be held to the same norms of morality and justification as we social humans of fragile civilizations are and always need to be). Ultimately, in this case, if I were Hitch I would've restrained my urge to announce any bold claims about which theoretical notions are indubitably out of doxastic bounds for what's supposed to amount to the entire class of existing rational agents.

u/terpichor · 1 pointr/geography

Great Maps seems to come up sometimes when people are talking about good geography books, as well as Maps: Their Untold Stories. I have a list somewhere of good map books, I'll check when I get home.

For geology, Assembling California is pretty accessible, as are most of his books.

If they haven't read it, Guns, Germs, and Steel is pretty great for people who are interested in geography. It's more anthropology, but he talks a lot about how the physical spaces people built settlements in affected how they developed.

Do you know any more details of what kind of geology in particular they like?

u/JacksonMiholf · 1 pointr/beholdthemasterrace

Except yes: https://www.amazon.com/000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated/dp/0465020429/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0/135-3519047-9083569?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QPWTKJN7TEEGM5CF53ZH

Evolution and biology explain the differences much better.

> comparing tests from the 20's to the tests of the 70's as if the testing hasn't changed at all since then

> socioeconomic status improved

So if it's just culture then why did Jews and Italians increase in SES but so many others didn't? Wouldn't they all increase since the environment is shared? Why just them?? Seems like a hole in your narrative.

u/PublicolaMinor · 3 pointsr/politics

Not OP, but based on the words on top of each page, it looks like it's taken from Charles Murray's book "Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences".

Presumably, pages 252 and 296. Just guessing.

u/tgeliot · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Anything by Stephen Jay Gould

The Scars of Evolution -- What Our Bodies Tell Us About Human Origins by Elaine Morgan.

The Ten Thousand Year Explosion

Anything by Richard Feynman. Not always science, but brilliant and entertaining.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is on my list to read.

u/Trent_Boyett · 1 pointr/audiobooks

Depends on what you liked about it I guess. It's a bit unique in the way it covers so many topics.

If you liked the stuff about evolution, check out https://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0307277453/

If you liked the history:
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393354326

If you like true crime:
https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Beside-Me-Ann-Rule/

Or if you just liked how it went from topic to topic and you could never really predict what would be next, try this podcast:
https://stownpodcast.org/

u/CertifiedRabbi · 3 pointsr/DebateAltRight

Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950 by Charles Murray (of The Bell Curve fame).

Alt-Hype made a great video which referenced Charles Murray's work and convincingly debunked the popular leftist argument that non-White civilizations greatly surpassed White Europeans technologically in the past. As you'll see in the video, virtually all of the technological developments that were made before the White European Industrial Revolution were relatively insignificant in comparison. And even the so-called "Dark Age" of European history really wasn't as backwards and primitive as popularly claimed by the left. As soon as civilization reached Europe, Europeans have pretty much always been on par with India, China, and the Middle East. And then White Europeans left everyone in the dust with the Industrial Revolution. And only a couple of Northeast Asian countries have caught up to White Western countries in the last few decades.

u/scientificarchama · 3 pointsr/AskAnthropology

I am most familiar with the climate changes of the Medieval Warm Period (ca. AD 800-1200) and the Little Ice Age (ca. 1200-1900). Some great pop science books about those two have been written by Brian Fagan: 1 and 2. For modern climate change, if you are really wanting to get in depth, you can check out the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. I realise that present-day climate change is an incredibly controversial topic among some sectors, so keep in mind that there are lots of competing viewpoints out there.

Please let me know if you want something less pop science-y about those two past events -- I've got some great textbook and article recommendations too for the specialist.

u/vinterzun · 2 pointsr/shittyaskhistory

If you really want to know, read Guns, Germs and Steel
Your question is what this book is all about. It's super interesting and the author does an amazing job of explaining it.

u/alpacIT · 2 pointsr/geography

You've already had some good suggestions, which I'd suggest following. I have a BA in geography and even after school found these interesting reads.

Cultural and Historical Geography

Eratosthenes' "Geography"

The World of Gerard Mercator: The Mapmaker Who Revolutionized Geography

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Race And Culture: A World View

Technical, GIS, Cartography

How to Lie with Maps

Thinking About GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers

An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems

I know most of these won't be of much use with a BS degree, but gives you a good foundation for thinking geographically. For the more science aspects; a good understanding of physics, chemistry, and to a lesser extent biology, will really give you a leg up when starting out.

u/charlie_mar · 2 pointsr/NoStupidQuestions

There is a great chapter about this in the book Sapiens. If this is your kind of thing, you will probably love that book. Basically, humans drove them to extinction through hunting and habitat loss due to farming and agriculture. As humans became better hunters with more advanced tools, it became more advantageous to be smaller and hide than it did to be large and able to fight. As human communication and cooperation advanced, they became better hunters through teamwork and coordination. They also began to desire a greater prize (a large kill that could feed their booming population). The evidence in support of this is the fact that large species thrived in places where humans were not. As humans expanded across the globe, the large species began to vanish from those places.

Highly recommend the book, but you can read about it here too.

u/KingGilgamesh1979 · 1 pointr/worldnews

Well, then I recommend you read this book so that you'll ready for the possible coming apocalypse: The Little Ice Age.

It's a great read. You can follow it up with this: The Long Summer.

u/DeaththeEternal · 5 pointsr/badhistory

https://www.amazon.com/After-Tamerlane-Global-Empires-1400-2000/dp/1596916028

^A modern history-focused look but it's a nice practical example of a non-Eurocentric thesis that doesn't treat history like it has a single teleological arc that all the world must follow or else.

https://www.amazon.com/Gunpowder-Age-Military-Innovation-History/dp/0691178143/ref=sr_1_25?keywords=rise+of+the+west&qid=1573350651&s=books&sr=1-25

^This presents a nice revision of some older narratives and gives the Qing Dynasty more of its own due in military terms.

A broader global standard across the entire expanse of European and Chinese history is too broad a category across too much of a timetable to really be useful in more than a popular historical sense, if that. Historians always select what to omit, and that's where the problems begin and they go downhill from there.

Depending on what's omitted and how it's omitted from either Europe or China either way you get a skewed perspective that raises more questions than it answers.

u/rukus23 · 1 pointr/INTP

https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095

A great book. Awesome big picture perspective and helps put so many different ideas in place. Almost done reading it.

u/Pertz · 3 pointsr/geography

I think you're mixing up two visually similar maps, with two highly different concepts.

This one that you're talking about. http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/a/aa/Annual_Average_Temperature_Map.jpg

And this that I think you should be focusing on: http://www.authentichistory.com/1914-1920/1-overview/1-origins/MAP-1914_Colonization.jpg

Also: here is a rough map of your observations about general wellbeing. http://debitage.net/humangeography/images/GDP_per_capita.png

Countries with low levels of prosperity generally have relatively recent history of slavery or other types of subjugation effecting large swathes of the population. Africa is a perfect example as shown on the second and the third map.

There are exceptions to everything, but countries with high quality of life were either colonizers (Spain, UK, Holland), or were colonized mainly through genocide (Canada, US, Australia, some southern countries in South America).

The purposeful destruction of culture and the devaluation of whole peoples seems inseparable from the process of colonization, and it sets back the people effected for over a hundred years. Take a look at what has happened to remaining native populations of Canada, the US, and Australia, and you'll see the same patterns as what you're observing in what is called "The Global South". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_divide

I could go on forever but I think studying colonization and oppression will help you explore the concepts you brought forward. This is a good resource on oppression: http://www.amazon.com/Challenging-Oppression-Confronting-Privilege-Mullaly/dp/0195429702

Remember the important difference between correlation and causation!

A different question you may also be asking now is "Why did the Northerners get to oppress the Southerners?" A lot of it has to do with luck (to have metal, to learn to use it, and to be accustomed to filthy diseases), and I think this book gives a really interesting starting point. http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552



u/Catamount90 · 6 pointsr/barstoolsports

Sapiens is an excellent book about the history of humans and it is a super easy, thought-provoking read. Puts into perspective how short modern humans have been around in the scheme of all humankind

u/Rose1982 · 2 pointsr/booksuggestions

Your dad sounds like my dad, and he loved this book that I got him- Guns, Germs and Steel.

It has great reviews.

u/hucareshokiesrul · 2 pointsr/neoliberal

It's not really a philosophy book, but I've really enjoyed reading it, and it may be along the lines of what you're looking for.

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

u/Your_Favorite_Poster · 1 pointr/history

There are all kinds of obscure forces at play. You'd probably love this book - it's written by a historian, and it's one interesting story after another, all tied up tightly with a few bows (also a top pick by Obama, Gates and Zuckerberg):

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

u/jones1618 · 4 pointsr/history

I'd really recommend Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

It's one of the rare history books that takes on the grand sweep of human history, upending a lot of what you were taught and weaving it all together in a highly-readable and entertaining way.

u/magusj · 0 pointsr/science

yes, among other things (selection over past 20k-50k years, larger population size in certain populations over past 10k years leading to more mutations and adaptations, etc.).

I'd highly encourage reading :

http://www.amazon.com/The-000-Year-Explosion-Civilization/dp/0465020429

Cochran was one of the first to hypothesize sapien-neanderthal interbreeding. He touches on several interesting topics in the book.

his blog (WestHunter) is a must read for speculation, comments, etc.

u/ThrongSong- · 1 pointr/ufc

You have no fucking clue what the "research shows." Again, you're a brainless NPC spouting politically convenient gibberish. If only all humans had an equal capacity for high intelligence the world would be a much better place, but that's not how it is.

Where do you get the idea that because the brain is complex it would be less susceptible to mutation as opposed to more susceptible? After all, which would you say has had the greatest impact in the past 100,000 years, our legs, our opposable thumbs, our livers, or our brains? As Harpending and Cochran demonstrated in 'The 10,000 Year Explosion' humans have been under intense evolutionary change in regards to the brain most of all.

Here you go, if you weren't a dogmatic dimwit who wants to believe idealistic lies, you could always start here:

https://www.amazon.com/000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated/dp/0465020429

u/CleverPunWithBadWord · 1 pointr/AskSocialScience

I think you might enjoy some books that often serve as a learning tool for many sociology students.

A Shopkeeper's Millennium by Paul E. Johnson.

Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

War and Empire by Paul Atwood.

Each book is either a study to prove or present a hypothesis, so naturally tries to present evidence in a simple and clear way. No extended parts on boring sociological theory. The books are all easy to read and understand, and most importantly they are all a pretty good read.
One thing they all have in common is that their value or methodology is often controversial and highly debated in many crowds.

For instance, the Milgram book is the foundation for the famous Milgram Yale Shock Experiments in the 60's, so naturally there is the issue with ethics and methodology. If I remember correctly, this study is the reason any scientist today has to have his/her work approved by an Ethics Committee every time human subjects are involved.

War and Empire is a bit far-fetched at times, but is still very engaging, and at times hard to put away. Some might argue that it falls under 'History' more than 'Sociology', but because of how recent a lot of the topics are, I think there is real value there within sociology.

Guns, Germs and Steel is basically an overly simplified answer to a very complex and multidimensional question, but it's still a very fun idea to explore when you read it. Most people in the social sciences have heard of this book, and with it most people have also heard a lot of criticism.

The Shopkeeper's Millennium is probably the "best" of the four, as it often used as a "benchmark" for many sociology students on how historical research is conducted and used to present a study. The book is old, but it's still taught at many colleges to this day.

Based on your request, I think the Milgram book would be the most interesting for you to start with. Simply put the purpose of the study was to see if there is a correlation between obedience and the presence of authority.

I've also read a few books on poverty and unemployment in the Black and Latino communities. If that sounds interesting, let me know and I'll see if I can dig up some titles and names for you.

EDIT: Fixed some words.

u/Darwins_Beard · 1 pointr/evolution

If you're really interested in the evolution of the human brain and how evolution has shaped our psychology, I suggest reading Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works." It's not a light read, but it's incredibly fascinating.

For a more general look at recent human evolution, I enjoyed "The 10,000 Year Explosion." The authors argue that genetic changes have led to higher than average IQs among European Jews.


u/juliebeen · 7 pointsr/books

Jared Diamond - Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel

Both are great. Not at all boring. Both are favorites of mine.

u/QuirrelMan · -79 pointsr/MapPorn

You are asking me to condense Early Modern History to a comment on Reddit? Uhh, no. But you can read a book if you are interested!

Try After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000

Great read, with a new Global perspective on the rise and fall of Empires.

If you want to continue, you should then dive into the arbitrary/flexible notion of the Empire and read The Comanche Empire

Good stuff.

u/Strid · 0 pointsr/collapse

Massive immigration has never been a gain for the host society. In Roman society, they had both massive immigration AND accumulation of wealth at the top.

Have you read John Zerzan? He writes something similar like your quote.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Running-Emptiness-Pathology-Civilization-Civilisation/dp/092291575X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1368215938&sr=8-3&keywords=john+zerzan
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Against-Civilization-Reflections-John-Zerzan/dp/0922915989/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368215938&sr=8-2&keywords=john+zerzan


Very good books.

u/ragsoflight · 2 pointsr/biology

My favorite text on science as a whole is Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, by Ludwik Fleck. He describes the evolution of scientific ideas (and the cultural morass surrounding them) in elegant anecdotes that are, to me, more effective than many other philosophers of science that came after him.

In terms of recent popsci, The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee was exceptional.

u/Vaxthrul · 7 pointsr/conspiracyundone

We need lots of the basics, MKultra, JFK assassination, Operation Northwoods, Iran-Contra, GLADIO, Project Paperclip, etc.

One thing I feel strongly about is history white washing, so I recommend A People's History of the United States, which is also available from amazon in book format.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is another good book to read once you understand the flows of political power.

Also a shout out to Noam Chomsky, Lots of his books are worth reading and going over, however for those that don't wish to read, I recommend the documentary based on his book Manufacturing Consent, which I hope you were going to include anyway :P

EDIT: Here's a decent source for ebooks - b-ok.org

u/Billmarius · 3 pointsr/Futurology

>TIL solar and other progress in reducing CO2 aren't progress.

You claimed that the technological triumph over "Peak Oil" was a good thing. There has been no reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere, and very little reduction in emissions (which continue to rise, year by year.) Meanwhile the growing Chinese and Indian middle classes - hundreds of millions of people - will intensify both CO2 emissions and the over-consumption of natural resources.

http://e360.yale.edu/features/how-the-world-passed-a-carbon-threshold-400ppm-and-why-it-matters

> food security is getting better and better over time.

This is a temporary phenomenon. See the sources I cited, the ones you haven't read yet. 20% of the world's arable cropland has been ruined due to salt degradation. This trend is accelerating due to the pressures posed by exponential population growth.

>I much prefer academics. Please cite those instead.

I did, but you didn't bother to read the multiple sources I cited. You haven't cited a damned thing while making sweeping claims.

Ronald Wright was chosen as the 2004 CBC Massey Lecturer and delivered his lecture series at major universities across Canada. All were sold-out, standing-room only. Here's his introduction written by the former Master of Massey College. He has done graduate-level work in both Archaeology and Anthropology, has published several books, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of Calgary. I don't have to defend this man; physically half of the print version of A Short History of Progress is bibliography. You can look up the sources by using the citation numbers in the text and finding the corresponding citations in a physical copy of the book.

http://www.bcachievement.com/nonfiction/intro.php?id=4

I can't argue with pie-eyed optimism. Global civilization is lurching from crisis to crisis and will do so until we reach a breaking point (see the Oxford report I provided). The soil is going saline; it's why we have to talk about eating bugs now. It's sad- if we had been conscientious about our reproductive and consumption habits we wouldn't be in this mess, or it would be going a lot slower.

Edit: My sister is a Master's level geologist focused on soil science. Here's a book she recommended to me that corroborates Mr. Wright and the other sources I cited.

https://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Civilizations-David-R-Montgomery/dp/0520248708

u/Rab-bit · 3 pointsr/science

If anyone is curious about this stuff, there's a good book that goes into great detail about this called Guns, Germs and Steel: The fates of human societies.

u/InscrutableTed · 5 pointsr/todayilearned

Oh geez, who invited Stormfront?

If anyone would like a less bigoted examination of history: http://www.amazon.ca/Guns-Germs-Steel-Jared-Diamond/dp/0393317552

(But if you would rather trust a GIF on the internet than a Pulitzer-prize winning book, go ahead. It's a free country. Be as dumb as you want.)

u/iStandWithBrad · -1 pointsr/politics

Okay, first of all, there was a long period of time where Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean was booming and Europe was in the dark ages. So I find it's generally best to specify what time period you're talking about when making blanket statements.

Secondly, you're wrong when you say always a "festering shit-hole" compared to the rest of the world. There were major cities with sea ports on both the West coast and the East coast of Africa, where people came from other parts of the world to trade. This was before Europeans ever managed to settle Africa. I recommend a couple of books for you:

http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/00033704.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552

Where do I get my connection to this issue? Anthropology major in college, with a concentration on Africa. Also lived in an African city for 5 months. Happy to answer questions about that.

u/kandoras · 1 pointr/books

The (mostly complete) collection of works by Mary Roach. They're pop science, but great reads.

Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. Both great books on how different cultures either became more or less powerful than others (how come large civilizations took longer to rise in sub-Saharan Africa than in Europe) and why some societies just failed completely (Easter Island).

Lies My Teacher Told Me. It shows a lot of details that a typical high school American History textbook just glosses over or ignores.

u/umbrellapower · 1 pointr/asianamerican

So Nigerians aren't representative of African-Americans despite your entire argument being based on race? I agree that these two groups shouldn't be compared, but you're the one who brought up race. If I'm not mistaken, the majority of African-Americans can trace their lineage to West Africa.

Of course intelligence has a base in genetics, but genes mutate all the damn time. And there's now evidence that civilization contributes a significant portion. Take a look at this:

https://www.amazon.com/000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated/dp/0465020429

What I'm trying to get at is that intelligence - as defined by Western academia - may not be distributed evenly across the races, but it's not magic. It is cultivated and it is most definitely not an inherent property of any race, contrary to what racists might believe.

>You stated that the school a student goes to results in similar kinds of students.

Take a look at the usernames.

u/LoomisDove · 21 pointsr/socialism

Brian Fagan actually talks about the possibility that the Mongolian invasions were related to climate change in his book The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. It is well worth reading:

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Warming-Climate-Change-Civilizations/dp/159691601X

u/hailmurdoch14 · 1 pointr/TopMindsOfReddit

Race IS a euphemism for sub-species. Saying "no it's not" isn't exactly a compelling counter-argument. Every species has sub-species within it. Have you really not ever noticed that we don't call anything else on this planet another human sub-species? Do you think we are the one species on earth that is magically not subject to evolution, and that we don't have any diversity? The reason you never hear this is because we use the term race, to de-animalize the language when dealing with people.


And if you don't deny that the African Lion and the Asian Lion have real and meaningful differences between them, then why would you argue that an African Human and an Asian Human have no difference between them. The African Human and the Asian Human are MUCH more distinct than an African Lion and an Asian Lion are from each other.


And humans DID need to adapt. Obviously. Why do you think some groups developed light skin and dark skin? Because in different parts of the world, people needed different melanin levels to appropriately let in the right amount of vitamin D, while also guarding against harmful UV rays. Why do you think some people developed an epicanthic eye fold and some did not? The East Asians, evolving on the desert steppe there in Asia, had to deal with an unusual amount of glare compared to any other human group, which lead to more narrow eyes. You are deeply underinformed if you aren't aware of the fact that the different human groups faced vastly different selective pressures, having traveled to wildly different environments. You think that a Black African moving up to icy Scandinavia wouldn't need to adapt to the new environment? Are you twelve?


And they DO die out, that's how evolution works. The creature doesn't morph like a pokemon. Ones that are maladapted to the new environment do not survive and do not reproduce, and the few that ARE properly adapted bottleneck the genome and reset the species at a new normal, in a relatively quick time.


You think meaningful evolution takes millions of years? At least learn something about the subject before attempting to speak with some authority. Evolutionary changes happen very quickly, they are just usually few and far between due to the relative stability of environments. As soon as a massive environmental shift happens, evolutionary adaptation to that change will happen very quickly. An animal species can change core attributes within a very short time, as humans have proved through breeding wolves into all the different dog breeds we have today. Or by experiments where we put creatures in certain environments, and find that they can physiologically adapt within decades.


"Rapid Evolution Changes Species in Real Time"


http://discovermagazine.com/2015/march/19-life-in-the-fast-lane


"Instant" Evolution Seen in Darwin's Finches, Study Says


https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/07/060714-evolution.html


"Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island"


https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.html


Watching Evolution Happen in Two Lifetimes


https://www.quantamagazine.org/watching-evolution-happen-in-two-lifetimes-20160922/


Lastly, interbreeding and producing fertile children in absolutely NO WAY interferes with the fact that the different human populations are all branching evolutions of the species Homo Sapiens. By definition, sub-species of the same species can of course interbreed with each other and produce fertile offspring. That's what makes them sub-species, and not different species.


Two animals are considered sub-species of the same species, when they could interbreed and produce fertile offspring, but are still distinguishable from each other with over 80% accuracy. So the African Lion and the Asian Lion are both obviously Lions, they could both obviously breed with each other and produce fertile offspring, but they are also distinct enough from one another, than humans can tell the two breeds apart with over 80% accuracy.


Now ask yourself. Can African Humans and Asian Humans interbreed and produce fertile offspring? Yes, they can. Which means we know that they are the same species. Now ask yourself, can you distinguish between an African Human and an Asian Human with over 80% accuracy? Then you know that by the rules of science, African Humans and Asian Humans are both members of the species Homo Sapiens, and are two different sub-species of that species.


Also, your implication that there aren't major genetic differences between the races is false. Scientists, forensic anthropologists, and other important fields regularly use DNA evidence to determine the race of a subject. The race of a person can be determined from their DNA with extreme accuracy, and can even tell what race the father was (by checking the Y chromosome), and what race the mother was, (by checking the Mitochondrial DNA).


You really should read a book called "The 10,000 Year Explosion" by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending.


https://www.amazon.com/000-Year-Explosion-Civilization-Accelerated/dp/0465020429


This book details how humans have evolved a great deal over the past 10,000 years. I really hope you take a look, because your idea that evolution is a slow process that takes millions of years is just patently wrong, and your idea that humans didn't evolve and adapt to wildly different environments in isolation from each other over a long enough period to become distinct enough from each other to be worth mentioning is ridiculous.

u/Poland_Is_Kill · 1 pointr/worldnews

Any history text book ever and literally a quick google search would confirm what xboxmodscangostickit (sorry if I misspelled that) said but anyways if your really interested I recommend this book Guns, Germs, and Steel it goes into detail on why the native Americans did not develop technologically as much as Europe and how foreign diseases helped wipe them out. http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425368583&sr=8-1&keywords=Guns%2C+Germs%2C+and+Steel

u/Zulban · 3 pointsr/nottheonion

I'm currently reading this good book on the history of genetics, that's certainly my impression. Very surprising.

u/jaghutgathos · 2 pointsr/opieandanthony

Yo, dopey. Do some research. Believe it or not, languages are often related. Think of a set of grandparents. In Europe you might have two sets of grandparents and in Sub-Saharan Africa you might have 6 sets of grandparents. Even if Europe has more languages, if they are related (as they are) its easier to communicate than with fewer languages that are totally unrelated.

As to the animals - why do people not ride zebras? Do you think its from lack of trying? The domesticated animals that we have now were domesticated because they COULD be domesticated. Dummy.

Here is a good book related to the subject - its a wonderful read (seriously):
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552

u/this_is_poorly_done · 3 pointsr/SecurityAnalysis

1)Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1926-1945 - David Kennedy

2)From Colony to Superpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776 - George Herring

3)History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective - E. K. Hunt and Mark Lautzenheiser

4)When Washington Shut Down Wall Street: The Great Financial Crisis of 1914 and the Origins of America's Monetary Supremacy - William Silber

5)Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond

6)A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present - Howard Zinn

7)20th Century Baseball Chronicle: A Year-By-Year History of Major League Baseball (what? you asked for history books sitting on my shelf)

8)Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics : The History of the Explosive That Changed the World - Jack Kelly

and currently I've just started working on U.S. Bank Deregulation in Historical Perspective - Charles Calomiris. Should be interesting since it was published in 2000...

edit: I like Drited's idea, so I'll take some time to add on some stuff. 1, 2, 4, and 6 give me perspective on how government institutions interact with each other and with the public they are supposed to serve as time and events take place, shaping the history of the US. 3 has given me insight into the evolution of Neoclassical and Labor-value (Marxian) economics. Though Hunt writes with a very heavy labor bias, his book has shown me how a persons beliefs affect there analysis, even when claiming to be value-free. In it he discusses the origins of marginal productivity and efficient markets, and his writings have allowed me to grasp in economic terms why certain ideas are flawed, even though I already knew them to be false after I had studied Psychology. 5 and 8 are a bit different because to me, they remind me that it's not what actually happened that matters, our interpretation of history relies solely on the importance we give those events. All and all, the above texts give me a longer time frame in which to view current events. In fact that's why I like companies such as GOOG and GS so much is because the above readings allow me to look beyond balance sheets, and gives me alternative ways to judge a potential investment. I understand GOOG's importance to the internet world, and the internets importance to our world, and how that relationship might continue on into the future. Stuff like that

u/Aussiewhiskeydiver · 6 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

Great question and a good answer. It's called the Cognitive Revolution and is described in more detail here

u/-MadGadget- · 1 pointr/ArtefactPorn

You should read Guns Germs and Steel! It's a super interesting analysis of why it happened that way.

u/CrosseyedAndPainless · 8 pointsr/askscience

Probably the most well-known example of recent and ongoing human evolution is lactase persistence (aka lactose tolerance). Ordinarily humans lose the ability to digest lactose fairly soon after being weaned. However, among populations of pastoralists more than once a beneficial mutation has appeared and spread that conferred the ability to digest lactose throughout adulthood. But there are still large human populations (most notably East Asians) for whom lactose intolerance is still the norm.

For more on this, and other topics related to your question, I highly recommend The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending.

u/katabaticpat · 2 pointsr/suggestmeabook

I suggest, if you have an interest in human evolution from an anthropological or biological perspective, that you check out The 10,000 Year Explosion.

I don't know that it discusses human love or relationships, but it does focus on variations in populations in build, problem-solving ability, etc., and hypothesizes on how they might have arisen. If you have more of an interest in looking at the biology or evolutionary side of things, you could always take a look at The Selfish Gene by Dawkins (depending on how you feel about him).

u/NYC_summer · 4 pointsr/history

I would recommend you read Guns, Germs and Steal by Jared Diamond. Talks about this subject and it is an easy read.

u/Just1MoreYear · 1 pointr/Anarcho_Capitalism

Which time periods and which parts?

This has already been explained throughouly by so many people. A great resource is this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552

There are several factors including geography, environment, and so on.

I'm certain you've never been to the Middle East or Africa.

u/poopascoopa69 · 2 pointsr/Random_Acts_Of_Amazon

Oh, jeez. Just one?

I might as well say the one I'm reading now. It's Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Everybody knows that Western Europe took over the world because they had better technology. Diamond tries to find out what factors led to that state of affairs, though. He gives a biologists' view of the last 13,000 years while also drawing on his experience with history and language.

u/manatee1010 · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

If this sounds interesting to anyone, I highly recommend the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

It covers a lot of early evolutionary characteristics around and after the Cognitive Revolution (when we arguably "became human"). Some of my favorite parts are in depth discussions around how evolutionary prepositions like a belief in the supernatural/religion may have increased odds of survival (although may or may not have improved individual life quality).

u/freshthrowaway1138 · 9 pointsr/worldpolitics

Never had enduring stability? Are you kidding? I mean if you think that area is unstable then what do you think Europe was, a paradise of reason and peace? And you can't just dismiss the West's involvement in the region.

u/AwesomePurplePants · 2 pointsr/FragileWhiteRedditor

Mostly just googling, combined with half-remembered facts from reading.

The 10,000 year explosion was good for info on this IIRC. Though mostly focused on the European evolution of lactose tolerance.

Everything is educated guesses. The known fact is that Africans have more genetic diversity than Europeans. Simplest explanation for that would be that humans started in Africa and left.

u/pencilears · 16 pointsr/TrueReddit

to be fair, while a giant monocropping farm can produce a shit-ton of corn or soybeans, in terms of efficiency of soil conservation and total possible calories to be derived from that soil, small multi-crop mixed farms do a lot better both over the short and long term.

source

over the next century I expect a return to traditional farming methods as we run out of oil and need to produce more calories per acre as the population continues to grow.

u/DeusExCochina · 3 pointsr/atheism

Parent gives a few good likely reasons. But just to clarify:

UCLA Professor Jared Diamond has written a whole book with his hypotheses on this topic: Guns, Germs and Steel. I'm not qualified to guess whether he's correct, but that there's whole books dedicated to the topic shows that it's not the kind of simple question that can be answered with any depth in a Reddit comment.

u/the_calibre_cat · 1 pointr/PurplePillDebate

>Evolution takes hundreds of thousands of years.

I love it when liberals invoke arguments that, in other arguments, creationists invoke. Basically, humans have been around for more than thousands of years (2 million, approximately), human civilization has been around for more than thousands of years, and honestly? If we can see significant changes over thousands of years, we can see less significant changes over hundreds of years - and we do.

It should also be noted that more interacting samples increases the rate of mutation, and tests of fitness - which is exactly what happened during the agricultural revolution. More food meant more humans meant more evolution, and this is the premise behind the book The 10,000 Year Explosion discusses.

>By that logic, if choose to rob a bank, to home and fuck my wife and get her pregnant, my kid has a higher chance of growing up to be a bank robber. Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

No, not whatsoever, since that crime was likely motivated by aggression and a lack of respect for social norms that is behaviorally coded for somewhere in your genetics - and that will be carried on if you planted your seed in a woman who bore your child.

Rather than ridiculous, it's basically "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior," which apart from being true within generations, is pretty fucking true across generations thanks to our awareness of genetics, which demolishes blank slate theory that nonetheless dominates the cultural signaling apparatus.

u/Iamaleafinthewind · 1 pointr/todayilearned

You keep focusing on race.

It had nothing to do with magic race powers. White folks aren't magically superior, Islanders aren't magically inferior.

A low-tech culture encountered a high-tech culture. It had nothing to do with the specific cultures in play - the dynamics are universally bad for the low-tech / undeveloped culture in these situations, from the perspective of retaining independence.

The reality is that they now have self-rule, which monarchy ISN'T, and access to all the benefits of the higher-tech culture, which are desirable by people in general, regardless of WHO manages to develop them first. Yes, new problems arise as technology advances, but that's part of life.

In any case, my point stands - race isn't a determinant in the outcome of these situations. Read Guns, Germs, Steel sometime if you want a better idea what is.

u/mynuname · 1 pointr/DebateAChristian

>I don't mean this in a smart ass way...but that is insanely false.

I don't mean to be rude, but if you are going to contradict me, you had better show some evidence, or at least a source. Otherwise, it sounds like I interrupted your paradigm, and you are just mad about it.

>Who? If you don't mind me asking. I think reading some of their work would prove to be very interesting, if nothing else.

My sources for this information (beyond my friends who actually study anthropology) are Jared Diamond, author of Guns, germs, and Steel, and Steve Taylor, author of The Fall. Both of them are non-Christian anthropologists who studied the agricultural revolution.

u/homo_homini_lupus · 2 pointsr/PurplePillDebate

Actually, evolution happens very quickly as populations are isolated and new technology emerges cf. cochran and harpending's "10,000 year explosion"

Those are fictional characters. To say that honor is a masculine virtue isn't to say all men display virtue.

u/alarmmightsound · 2 pointsr/SubredditDrama

Holy fuck, man.

> Typically they're defined by factors like economic performance, social stability, resources, political structure, etc.

So what made their economic performance, social stability, and political structure that of a 4th grade level? Who did that?

Here's something you should read to help you, and here's another, and I guess even this one, although it's not nearly as good. But I'm sure you won't- you just stumbled into a very complex topic with the faintest of knowledge- so it really doesn't matter. What you'd learn from it is that geography is about the only thing that is really deterministic in human development- everything else is what you decide to do. And geography isn't what's determining the difference between North and South Korea, so...

It seems as if we should be comparing them all, instead of infantilizing whole nations of people so you can make some awkward and cringeworthy conspiracy that isn't even correct anyway.

Wow. Just wow.

u/ShootTheChicken · 28 pointsr/gardening

Is that by the same guy that did this book? Because that book is excellent, I highly recommend it.

u/artearth · 2 pointsr/ranprieur

In Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari writes about the birth of language as instrumental to human cooperation beyond the tribal level, including the capacity to create and share complex stories that create meaning for people beyond food, shelter and sex.

This ties into the idea of Egregores, autonomous psychic entities created from groupthink who take on a life of their own.

u/Soperman223 · 4 pointsr/CGPGrey

So I recently read Sapiens, which is a book that attempts to explain human history from a bit more of a cultural perspective.

I found it absolutely fascinating (and started reading guns, germs, and steel afterwards because I wanted more), and I was wondering if you’ve read it and what you thought about it.



Also, in terms of relating to the podcast, I kind of agree with Grey on just disconnecting (from social media at least). I don’t think it’s psychologically healthy to be exposed to that as often as we are

u/str8baller · 2 pointsr/dataisbeautiful

That's an excellent question. If you'd like to broaden your thinking a bit, check out:


http://www.amazon.com/Against-Civilization-Reflections-John-Zerzan/dp/0922915989

u/fiendlittlewing · 1 pointr/AskHistory

According to historian Jared Daimond, it's because of geography and resources. In his book, Guns Germs and Steele, Daimond argues that Eurasia had more species of domesticateable animals and plants, and could spread these resources and ideals better because the continent existed on an East/West orientation rather than the North/South orientation of the Americas and Africa. (this is an advantage because climate is more similar across the same latitude than it is across the same longitude.)

For some details, the youtuber CGP Grey has some good videos. For all the details, you could read Dimond's Book.

u/meekrobe · 209 pointsr/Showerthoughts

This book is similar. Basically, we're happier as hunter-gathers, but you could never go back unless you're OK with 90% of people dying off due to starvation.

u/nc863id · 6 pointsr/politics

I strongly recommend reading this book. The super-short TL;DR for it is that Europe sort of hit the jackpot in terms of geography, biodiversity, natural resources available, etc., which gave the people settling there an inherent leg up versus other areas of the world.

u/Schytzophrenic · 1 pointr/todayilearned

Evolution keeps disease-causing genes around because in their recessive genotypes (non-disease causing) there is some benefit that we cannot readily see. For example, cystic fibrosis, in its pathological phenotype, will cause people to sweat out all their salt, cause organ failure and death. But if that cholera hits, those with the recessive CS genotype will be able to withstand bouts of diarrhea much better. I highly recommend The Gene, which goes over the history of how humanity came to discover heredity, DNA, etc. Well written, fascinating story. First science page turner I've read.

u/Vladha · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

It was a combination of multiple factors. In short, humans have reached North America and the American continent in general much later than humans reached Europe. By the time Native Americans managed to develop crops and livestock, Europeans were way ahead of them with much better food, weapons and with diseases that the Native Americans were not used to.

If you are interested in this topic, I would recommend this book,
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.

u/Ainatuoretta · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

I highly recommend read this book about this topic : Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. This book is very easy to reed and explain a lot about Religion and gods.

u/katsuhira_nightshade · 4 pointsr/DebateReligion

This is actually the thesis of Yuval Harari's book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Essentially, he believes that what separates humans from other animals is our ability to create and collectively believe in common fictions, allowing for greater social cohesion.

u/Lord-Talon · 1 pointr/unpopularopinion

Yeah I agree.

It's also really, really unnatural.

A lot of people don't believe it, but with every human step we actually had to work more. Initially a farming society might have worked less than a hunterer & gatherer society, but after a few decades they actually had to WORK MORE than earlier, mainly because of the growing living standard and society. Same goes for the industrialisation.

If you compare our live to that of a stone-age civilization, you'd actually find that we work far more than them. Obviously that has granted us a FAR higher living standard, but it's still unnatural.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316117/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2Z3M16F84J3NM&keywords=a+short+history+of+humankind&qid=1556869021&s=gateway&sprefix=a+short+history+of+human%2Caps%2C255&sr=8-1

u/buddhafig · -5 pointsr/AskHistorians

Sorry I don't have the short answer, but Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared M. Diamond is a good source for crop development over history and how it affected various cultures.

u/urish · 1 pointr/books

The Rise of The West by William Mcneill. A grand narrative history of the entire human civilization. Very humane, thoughtful, and relevant (I am reading it for the second time these days).

u/CKtheFourth · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

There's a really good book that answers this question and a whole lot more

Jared Diamond - Guns Germs and Steel

u/machete_io · 1 pointr/history

If this topic really interests you, you'll really like the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. It discusses the multitude of ways that make some civilizations spread and dominate others. IIRC, a contributing factor for the "migration" to Europe was that originally the Tigris/Euphrates had a ton of forrest and as the society advanced they essentially cut it all down and it turned into a desert.

Here is a link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552

u/Morazan1823 · 1 pointr/history

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York:Norton, 1999. Print.

Paperbacks on Amazon selling from $5.50

E:

If you're into Mythical Legends, The Nobel Literature Prize winning author, Miguel Angel Asturias wrote Legends of Guatemala, a collection of Mayan Mythical Legends. I highly recommend it, it's a bit trippy, and surreal. $13 on Amazon.

... And there's Popol Vuh, The 'Book of Genesis' for the Mayan people. It's FREE via PDF, starts at page 51. If I recall my favorite story, two brothers (Xb‘alanke & Junajpu) avenge the demons who killed their father. They are summoned to the seven level of Hell and are forced to play an ancient form of what is soccer (World's first sport, Mayans invented the rubberized ball), for their lives... they failed purposely and escape with their lives to accept harder challenges, in order to find the head demon and obtain sweet revenge, It's an epic.

u/FThumb · 1 pointr/WayOfTheBern

As an amateur anthropologist with an interest in evolutionary psychology, this was one of my favorites:

https://www.amazon.com/Alphabet-Versus-Goddess-Conflict-Between/dp/0140196013

u/apullin · 1 pointr/AdviceAnimals

That's where it starts to get pretty tricky. I assume that you've read Guns, Germs, and Steel, wherein the domestication of plants and animals is talked about, and reminds me of the very point that you're raising.

I'm not sure. Would the corn propagate without our intervention? There are seedless plants that wouldn't, for example. But I'm not sure, I don't have a great answer here.

Consider the native American Three Sisters method, where they specifically use systems of natural occurrence for the benefit of the crops.

u/mistral7 · 2 pointsr/booksuggestions

Try his other books as well. I've enjoyed the 2nd: Homo Deus and recently purchased the 3rd: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

u/frooben · 1 pointr/DebateFascism

If you can read German get Solzhenitsyn first, it has not yet officially been translated into English because the Jews control all publishing. I have also refrained from providing books on science and philosophy and kept it to history because it would become too expansive:

u/annagri · 6 pointsr/financialindependence

I'm currently reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, and he spends some time discussing the collective myths we invent (money, countries, religion, etc.). I would highly recommend the book, it's quite interesting.