Go to kenforgold.com or text RETIRE to 35052 to learn more about Augusta Precious Metals CORRECTION: At 0:09, that cutout isn't "The Americas", it's Europe. Derp.
Random, but people like to argue that human societies could have existed 20-100 thousand years ago or more and we wouldn’t have proof of it today and the locations could all be underwater today or simply buried and lost… I think the best argument against that is: Well then where did all their crops go? Are we supposed to believe that all of their crops went extinct with them?
I don't like this book at all. The author goes out of his way to "blunten" the fact that the incredible "sharp" European mind, created the world we live in.
The most infuriating aspect of the whites as colonizers narrative is the idea that other cultures wouldn't have done the same given the opportunity. If the Comanche, Aztec, Mali, Mughal, name an empire, could have sailed to Europe and conquered and enslaved the population they would have done so. Quite a few even tried. It was a winner take all world and every empire that has ever existed exerted as much power as possible.
Or, which society in 1500 would have been better, more compassionate, more fair, etc if given the same technology and power? Answer: Zero. This is evidenced by the fact that the strongest critiques of the West come from the West. IMO, one of our biggest advantages.
Sounds like you’re paranoid that another group will try to do to you what you did to them. So you’re trying to justify your actions. Forget about the virtue signaling, this is more of an scientific analysis of human behavior and adaptation.
@mistasandman8996to be fair, every group is scared of that. History shows you have to protect yourself or else you will be taken. See Ukraine and how the rest of western Europe has responded or all the current African civil wars or Venezuelaa even. It's unfortunately a dog eat dog world.
Yeah, a European start 4000 years after the African start in an environment much more harsh with roaming bears and brutish winters vs. weather that was warm with food and open plains for hunting. Yet Europeans thrived and dominated anyway.
Usually that is true, but in this case a tremendous amount of incisive historical work has been done on the subject. More than even someone highly intelligent can cover and understand overnight!
I wouldn’t say good but they did learn to corporatize and profit from the white romans before them and we still see that today in America. Military and war as being a for profit industry is a western way of thinking which is why America has never ever not been in some type of military war or conflict somewhere in it’s entire history
Why? Whitie played the human game better for the last 200-300 years. Indigenous folks such as myself should stop whining, take the L like a man and just get good. Bitching about it isn’t going to help our cause.
I agree though it goes back to what he said I'm from sub saharan african and when we had crops to grow and good rains we built permanent structures and writing but our crops where weak and after a hundred years or so drought would come and wipe out the structures and ppl would go back to hunter gatherer that was the case till Europeans gave us seed
It is quite obvious he never read the book of Genesis. Who got the blessing and WHY. He knows nothing of ancient geography, the two major events that determined where each of Noah's sons settled and who they became. Yep, a parrot of 20th century 'modern' education. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
Another variable is proximity to other nations in close proximity. This creates numerous confrontations for resources and the drive to improve on ways to maximize resources and take them from neighboring nations. Whites had thousands of years practicing warfare in Europe. Was IQ a variable? Yes. Lack of abundant resources? Yes. Proximity to foreign interests? Yes (diversity is NOT a strength, it creates conflict) And likely more I’m not thinking of atm.
@JohnDoe-dr9ff White men had centuries of experience conquering and resisting the conquest of other white empires. We also had a lot of disease resistance.
I probably should've mentioned that, but I was already at heavy time. In the Andes, given the altitude, it was a big deal. But it was regionally concentrated, didn’t spread across the hemisphere the way wheat and barley did in Eurasia. But it's definitely an exception to the broad strokes I made.
@raymondqiu8202 How about sweet potato that can easily feed more people per acre then ANYTHING EU has? Also Acorn and edible cactus that were both farmed in mass and will produce more reliably then grains.
One theory I have from playing Risk on Warcraft III Frozen Throne for 20 years is that Europe had the best geography for a post agrarian society. There are perfect borders in Europe (alps separate Italy, sea separates England and nordics, tightened land mass and mountains, separate Spain and France). The lands were big enough to force ancient civilizations to expand but small enough to make expansion possible. Also, the natural geography was difficult enough to prevent a single power from taking over the whole continent thus ending war and development. The seas and navigable river systems also incentivized ship technology and ships let to wider travel an transference of ideas. People have made Americas, Asia, and African Risk maps but none have the same game play. Europe creates the best geography for war that incentivizes war but at the same time prevents a winner thus creating perpetual war and technological development.
I have thought this too. Europe was a pvp server. For example, medieval Africa had large swaths of land, thousands of miles, controlled by the Arabs who are thousands of miles away. This means that there really isn't that much violent conflict in this area. Over 500 years there are a handful of battles, usually because a local ruler wants independence from the Arabic empire. In Europe, 50 miles over there is some French guy trying to kill you, 35 miles over there is an Italian trying to kill you, 60 miles over there is a German trying to kill you. Since before ancient rome Europe has been a killing ground where violence is the norm and wars are perpetual for entire generations. This is especially true in Spain where the natives were forced to become monsters in order to defend themselves against Muslim invasion. The Spanish defeated the Muslims and reconquered Spain, but they still had a culture of military conquest, every major leader was a warlord first and his personal standing was based upon his capacity to be a psychopathic killing machine who extracted wealth at the expense of others. Other cultures through history that develop the same kind of mindset tend to conquer everything within reach until the empire is simply too big and collapses. Europeans cannot expand that much because of the natural barriers and so they all rest up and wait to fight again next year, every year from 10,000 bc until I guess you can say WW2.
Additionally, Europe has a lot of coastline and movement by water is the cheapest way of transport. It's the reason why the US is now dominant and will stay dominant unless it balkanizes.
I read Diamond's G,G & S when it came out---twice because it was so fascinating. I then had to dive into his "Collapse" which talks about the triumphs and failures of societies. Also good.Your 20 minute summary is a great refresher and a start for anyone interested in these "Elephants". An appropriate title for a wonderful channel. The young are into quick sound bytes. Let's hope their attention can expand to 20 minutes without them having to check their ego-driven social media "status". Good job,Ken. Signed, a new subscriber.
Didn’t the authors in the book “why nations fail” argued strongly against geographical factors as being the reason why nations fail? To me this seems to contradict what the video (e.g. the gun steel and germ book) claimed.
@yutengwangfrom memory ‘why nations fail’ explains the time after colonisation, in that for example the Spanish set up economic systems to exploit the denser populations, with more obvious wealth in South America, whereas in modern USA and Australia , populations were sparse, large populations couldn’t be enslaved, so more egalitarian governments and systems were set up. That book doesn’t really explain why it was the Spanish, British etc. came to colonize these areas in the first place
It started with Diamond's book but my entire life has been learning more about how geography is history. Human behavior is wild, but it all starts with geography. 'We are the mountain people', ' We are the fishing people', 'We are the farming people', etc.
Great Video, I know Jared Diamond work, the video does a great job of reflecting Jared book. There is also a thought that because of civilization, some portion of the population has a higher IQ.
@ElephantsInRooms but Asia is like huge. and Europe is the 3rd biggest. some part of Eurasia also have varried climates, like the fridgid climate of northern Europe probably isn't the same as that of the Arabian peninsula. don't you think Eurasia is a bit of a broad catagory?
@llj0055 it used to be. while Europe was in it's what they call the dark ages, the middle east was the world's superpower and was good at science and such. don't quite know what happened.
Their intellect is what dominated above else. They had to evolve to become smarter to deal with the harsh North European winters, and by default became the most innovative people on the planet. Everyone attempted to colonize everyone else, whites were simply the best at it
@caesaraugustus4563they're all descendants of northern Europeans, the type of people I'm referring to go back at least 100,000 years before any country was developed or states as such.
@hellotheee23455trust me you can think whatever you want of me, peoples opinion of me is not of my business, mainly because it changes nothing in my life, is 100% irrelevant....on the other hand you seem of the sensitive type and I can be a very effective ruthless troll when attacked but I'm not interested in amplifying your insecurities at the moment...Is just not worth it to go down to your level 😉
@Junisacamostrowhere did anyone say Europeans invented farming though? Even if they didn't invent it first... They still became farmers... So its not inaccurate to say farmers conquered the world
@cyborgchicken3502well farmers were already there without the conquering and they still are since when I passed farms usually most of the ones working it are Hispanics who where here way before Europeans, but that won't last nature always finds a way to get it right again!!
@dec3142 Lol, people make mistakes. I've made similar mistakes on essays and code, where I keep switching around words and ideas, or start copy-pasting different sections of code. Even after proofreading, I miss some obvious errors.
Just to give some additional information to the opening, and as a counterpoint to Diamond's book (which I did enjoy, though it has some inaccuracies), besides guns, germs, and steel, the 200' Spaniards also had 10's of thousands of indigenous allies of tribes and groups opposed to the Inca fighting (and providing logistics support in the form of food and such) for them. It wasn't JUST guns, germs, and steel that allowed the Spanish to conquer the various empires in the New World...besides everything else, there was a lot of luck involved too. But those 10's of thousands of indigenous fighters on the side of the Spanish is an often overlooked aspect (and was crucial), and you didn't mention it either (and it's not in GG&S either).
@fritzthecat8158 You have to look at where those 'uncontacted tribes' are. Mainly, they are in extremely isolated places...they are 'uncontacted' for a reason, and that's part of why they haven't really advanced, technologically. Every technological advancement in the world came about because of access to resources and, more importantly, exchanges of ideas either locally or further afield. Those tribes you are referring to don't have either thing...because places that have vital resources have contact, and have been overrun I suppose by waves of populations through history.
Jared Diamond theory only works up until gunpowder age. Because up until that, Europe was weaker that other civilization in Eurasia. Gunpowder gave Europe advantage, and it had nothing to do with agriculture and germs, since every other Eurasian civilization shared the same thing. What made the difference is the design of their civilization. Philip T. Hoffman define it as: - no hegemon - constant warfare - castle proliferation - no nomads - high taxation Those factors only available in Europe. China for example, have been a hegemon almost all its history, their constant warfare period ended one thousand years before gunpowder discovery, it fought mostly nomads from the steppe, which mean while they built castles, their enemy didn't, and finally their taxation system was not as harsh as European. While China discovered gunpowder, it's development was hindered by those factor that made them so comfortable to built a civilization (hegemon, nomad instead of castles). The only other civilization that close to Europe was India. They failed in one requirement, the Indian kingdoms had quite lenient taxation when compared to Europe.
You do understand that in Hunter cultures you had to move every few months. Again the advantage to agriculture was the ability to stay in one place long enough for other systems, and industries to be created at scale. Economies of scale, and exponential growth could all be exploited on the foundation of agriculture and drastic change in seasons.
You are absolutely right. In Hunter cultures, the men were the main providers and lived a general life of leisure. The women took care of all the domestic duties while the men lounged around. When food became scarce, they went on the hunt. Once an area was hunted out, they packed their shit up and moved on to the next place. They had it good and easy, with no motivation to advance as a civilization.
@PaidToBeYouThe point is that hunting based societies had no motivation to advance. When food became scarce, they just moved onto the next hunting ground. The population never grew higher than what their lifestyle could support. And to say that they hunted five hours a day is being generous. They often hunted 12 hours a week. The rest of the time was spent in leisure.
@JohnDaker_singerOr maybe it was spent fixing and building weapons. Fixing and building temporary shelters. Making and maintaining fires. Fishing. Cleaning and gutting meat and fish. Drying meat and fish. Making leather and other materials for clothing. Making pottery, instruments, toys and shoes. Carving with wood. Making rafts and small boats/canoes. Teaching young ones how to hunt. Fetching water. Watering animals like horses, camels, sheep etc if they had any. Guading the encampment with night shifts included. Helping to carry/move the injured or elderly. I wouldn't say that all the time they spent not hunting was spent in leisure as thst doesn't make sense. Food is not the only thing needed to survive.
@PaidToBeYou Hunters moved from hunting ground to hunting ground seasonally. They didn't just wander aimlessly. They had bases they used for thousands of years.
I think it would be worthwhile to do an episode on IQ, there was some conflictting ideas to your own I read in the book freakonomics. I'm not saying your wrong but I wish you would do a video so I can learn more!
I haven't read freakonomics but as a Psy student (last semester!), there's a lot of short falls with IQ Update: my minors are economics and computer science (yes, I have 2)😅
@R_U_Good There is only one social science, and it is economics. A Psy student saying there's problems with a book he didn't read is like an Astrologist having problems with an Astronomy book he didn't read.
I still didn’t get why white people specifically conquered the world especially in the last few hundred years, why not Persians or Arabs especially from the Levant and Iraq or Chinese or Indians ,I assume they all had farming and also acquired immunity from those diseases you mentioned
The Europeans went to Africa and prospered. They felt white guilt and let themselves be conquered. Now the Africans are doing the opposite of prospering. It has very little to do with geography and everything to do with culture. Ken is wrong.
My hometown mascot is the zebra, and people in the town raise zebras all the time. I wouldn’t call them domesticated per se, but they are very accustomed to being around people.
That's TAME, not domesticated. You can Tame nearly anything. But zebras have the personality of very angry donkeys and a ducking reflex that makes them hard to wrangle. They also don't take to orders or riding very well.
Maybe small herds that have in fact been raised in captivity for several generations, but I wouldn’t extrapolate that out to all zebras at large….. . Also; that’s super cool!! Where is this? 😊😮
@drjones762 No, I wouldn’t extrapolate that to all zebras either. The town is Grandview, Texas. It’s a small town of less than 2,000 people and has a ranch that breeds zebras like most people breed horses.
@brandymoore6599 That would make sense. Lots of donkey/horse experience and you can let the zebras learn from domesticated animals. You'll never break the more powerful instincts, but you can definitely take the edge off.
19:12 While some countries can overcome the challenges of their geography, it's still true that geography helps a great deal, even in the 21st century.
Native Americans migrated to the Americas via the Bering land bridge 20 to 30 thousand years ago. Sitting on the world's richest pile of natural resources and they were stuck at the stone age. Geography does matter but it also doesn't guarantee.
You missed the most obvious one. White people live where the cold is trying to kill you. That is your best example of "adapt or die". The winter. The winter drives all of this innovation (needing agriculture, needing to domesticate animals, needing to live in close proximity). It wasn't geographical "luck". It was geographical attempted homicide
If that was the case, we would have seen civilizations much earlier. But that is not the case. Trying to survive in europe is actually quite easy once you figure out how to survive in africa first. Finding food, shelter and fire is quite easy in europe because you dont need to create innovations, all the innovations were already known in africa.
@argonkrux9873Africa is vast, rich in food and has great weather. You only need to figure out how to survive with other animals. You get food that grows all year around. Europe is harsh and has long winters. Necessity is the mother of all invention. Europe was basically forced to farm and come up with new inventions.
First define "white people" - what we consider to be white now, 100 years ago, 500 years ago, a thousand... Then remember to include all the non-white people who lived in the same or harsher conditions.
Thanks, I'll look for that. Ken's video was helpful, but I have a lot of questions, such as, Why isn't the middle east dominating today, since they had the ultimate head start? Since Africa had their own deadly diseases that slaughtered Europeans, why wasn't that mentioned in the video?
@FRN2013the Arabs (during the Islamic golden age) and the Chinese were clearly in the top 3 (Indians here too) before. That was until the Mongols utterly decimated the Chinese and Arabs. Whites were largely spared. During that time frame Arabs and Chinese saw the white man as inferior and “lesser” to them simply because of their lack of technology and modernity. Everything is chaos theory and you will end up with different “winners” in different time frames if you run the simulation over and over again .
Yes but if you go to the Mongolians and Japanese for reparations they will laugh at you and call you slurs. It’s only white people who take that seriously. Huge difference
They did conquer what was reachable for them. Coming out of central Asia, Eurasia was their natural battlefield. The Europeans only started conquering overseas when they were denied access to Asia and India by the Ottomans.
They didn't go far into Sub-Saharan Africa. & neither did Europeans until the late 1800s, Africa is such a difficult continent to navigate with industrial transportation methods. Which is why no one conquered it until industrialization
The Incas had highly advanced agricultural practices that were central to their empire, managing to feed up to 6 million people in the harsh Andes mountains. They developed massive terracing (andenes) to create arable land, sophisticated irrigation canals, and crop rotation techniques, cultivating thousands of varieties of potatoes, maize, and quinoa.
The "nomads are disadvantaged" is kinda broken by the fact that the mongols beat the ever living crap out of almost everyone for almost a century, no? Or are the Mongols always the exception?
No . This video is heavily heavily generalised. But it wasn’t just Eurasia where men on horseback dominated entire regions. The richest empires in the world Ghana Mali and Songhai were the exact same thing. The thing is however there are extreme geographical changes. The steppe is a literal grass land belt where you can travel from Hungary to northern China non stop . This allowed everyone to have a horse . The Sahel though was a more brutal climate . Very thin belt. Extreme weather changes. The tester fly killed large animals . And to the north was the brutal Sahara and even worse to the south was rainforest. So this meant horses were only for the elites . So when they imaged semi agrarian civilisations in along the Niger River they would unite it and create trade empires. Whereas steppe people could quite literally come south with unlimited horses. Retreat back as far as they wanted. Eventually kill the elite in let’s say China. Displace them rule and then become assimilated . I’m missing a lot of details but you should look into it . The steppe people weren’t that disadvantaged just different in Eurasia.
Mongols weren't exactly self sufficient, though, since they relied heavily on resupplying with the agricultural products of those they conquered. If their only opponents were other nomadic bands, the spoils of conquest would not have been enough to keep it rolling.
@iReppoGamesI have not spent any time debunking Diamond, but I gravitate towards Evans's analysis. He focuses on the systems, institutions, technology, culture, etc that Europe developed at this time that helped power the engine of conquest and colonization. His analysis is for Post-Napoleon and Pre-WW1 Europe
@adamgray8996 You must not be very aware. Otherwise you would keep these comments to yourself. I doubt you can figure out why I'm saying that. Please keep saying stuff like this.
@gunsup0331Man, it's been a long time since I read it and it's from what I remember not quite as singularly focused as GGAS. I would recommend it if you're already inclined towards his type of writing, like combining many fields into one to try to explain a big, heady topic. Like the ultimate nerdy answer to those "Did you ever wonder why?" questions.
@AJHart-eg1ysI'd say a lot of them reflect the whining of peoples that want to feel their was something uniquely evil done by Europe versus what was done by empires in the past. Stems from bigotry.
He's only overstating it because he's being hate the idea that different groups for that one group can be better than the other group. There's so many easy examples of iqb real but he makes for example the lie here that the average question man would have trouble living in Africa and yet we go to third world countries in the middle of nowhere and feel things right away. Describe on ingenuity Innovation creativity and stuff that these people in Africa can't even dream of. And yet if you bring them over here you can well proven they don't get that much smarter. I believe there's one study that tried to determine if you raise somebody's IQ with a different geography and diet and it's only raised at about 10 to 15 points so there's a lot of them having active age having or below they barely get to average or still to pretty blow average level. Of course over Generations you can raise it but usually it has to be like interbreeding with others. She's a difficulty where the average is for example of Somali communities in the UK for an America or any other Western Country that have been there for Generations still on average are very low IQ He thinks just because they're functional and can have pattern recognition that that defeats IQ but he also lied and said that the IQ tests are the same in America and in Africa just using Africa as an example. But they are not the same and they do cater them to different regions. Nor are they even relying on mathematical equations at the level of trigonometry or whatever. When a person's too afraid to hurt feelings or to make it sound like you say one is your prayers in the other you ignore reality because you have to ignore reality. By the way he's also saying that Buddy can't get smarter but it keeps show there intelligence because they don't have a life that allows for it but which their excuse now where Africa does have the ability to have a society and what do people do they stand around or sit around and do nothing all the time. So he his own arguments fall apart when he just has to ignore reality
Diamond does indeed converge too heavily to environmental determinism. I think he, although having touched sensitive topics, in the end took the safe stance in order to avoid excessive criticism. I'm definitely gonna try Why Nations Fail - Thanks for the suggestion!
Practically all civilizations would have conquered/subjugated the whole world if they were actually capable of doing so. Historically look at the spread of Islam, conquest and subjugation of native populations in every instance that isn’t Arabia. Somehow that isn’t colonization to them and modern woke academia smh
that is not true. the arabs never invaded Indonesia, they invaded Persia, but left after establishing islamic law, but the Europeans established christian in America, but never left.
@alakazaam-n7c No. That is the most ignorant thing I have ever read. The Islamic Caliphate invaded from Morocco to SE Asia and down into the Sahel. And up into Europe. Try to learn something before you spew your ideological ignorance.
@alakazaam-n7c bro. Whaaaaat? If your take on this is genuinely based on your education as an Arab/Muslim/whatever connection you have to the area… That’s more of a smoking gun than anything. Literally, nobody, ever, invaded or pestered the Arabian subcontinent, then Mohammad pops on the scene, and within the next 200 years, the Arabs were knocking on modern day France’s front doorstep with intent to conquer the entirety of Europe. They already conquered Spain (hence El Andalus), northern Africa, the entire Levant, and Persia. Iran was Zoroastrian since time immemorial, and is only Muslim today because of this conquest in the 700s. Same with Morocco, Algeria, and any Muslim country in northern or eastern Africa. Muslim Arabs were akin to the Mongols with their tactics. They absolutely are some of the most brutal and prolific invaders and colonizers in world history, as their impetus comes from what Islam compels them and allows them to do.
Just like how no one seems to question Spain or Portugals colonization and slavery, you ever ask yourself why south american is full of spanish and portugese speaking latin people? And why there are so many black people in south america? Colonization and slavery.... worse than what the US did, yet only the US, UK and France are mainly blamed for it...
@damagingthebrand7387 i never denied that they invaded, straw man arguement. i said that they left persia after establishing Islamic law, but the Europeans never left after establishing Christianity in the americas. The arabs also established islamic law without invading Indonesia. The Europeans would have taken advantage of indosesia and simply occupy them.
Before I start watching this video Im gonna say: They're smarter and more adaptable than the competition. They had the drive to expand and push boundaries not only in territorial conquest but in academic, economics and technological domination. Im saying this as an Asian man living in Asia.
white man better than asians. Except when it comes to very hyper specific competition fields like a singular notch. Then asian fierce wins the gold. But in general, no. Asian hypercapitalized, white man better in general.
@topps19891 Slightly. I forgot to add another point: culture. A better cultural attitude compared to the rest of the world. While European civilizations have the benefit by being in the Eurasian supercontinent where exchange of technology and agricultural advancement is more readily accessible, this is a double-edged sword: they are subjected to wars and invasions by tribes from the Steppes and Empires from the Levant and Middle East. They had to content against foreign forces which wage wars in vastly different manner than they did. This forced their society to be more adaptable, resourceful and warlike. This is an important cultural characteristic in dominating the world. While the Muslim civilization begin stagnating and regressing, the Ming Chinese became more insular, Europe had the Renaissance. They shook off the malaise that had gripped them during the Medieval Dark Age and start innovating. It led to technological and intellectual advancements and that in turn enable advances in shipbuilding and navigation techniques, which in turn, led to the Age of Exploration that allows them to dominate the world. Unlike the Muslim empires and Chinese dynasties, the Europeans were the first to embrace change in the face of adversity during the early modern period.
@SteveMilo-p9q it is not about spreading, usually they used to go everywhere by civilian traders. The question is who domesticated them who started farming them
Not to mention that trade still happened crossing the Sahara and navigating through the coastlines. Ethiopia got Agriculture way earlier than most Europeans did, yet civilization didn't spread throughout Africa.
You’re not the brightest crown in the box are you? Obviously when Sahara was green and thousands of lakes they had an empire and built what mega structures? When climate changed, what happened. Just like he addressed at the end of the video. When things change, so does empires.
Perhaps they lack what we call "The Faustian Spirit". White people do all sorts of ballsy stuff that other people don't do. We put ourselves into a rocket and shot ourselves into outer space. We dive to the depth of the ocean. We jumped on clinker-built boats and simply sailed off to see what islands and lands MIGHT be out there. People call is crazy and foolish, but it's such risks that lead to great reward.
@MikeC-od9srthose things are all products of their circumstance. The circumstance allows them to take risks not the other way around. And those places in the fertile crescent were harmonious for a long long time, they didn't have much need to explore further if I had to guess, same as how the Chinese didn't feel the need to search for beyond. And all the wars fought in that region indicate that their land is valuable, but also a curse in that it caused wars to constantly be fought there. European climate is less desirable and comfortable so people didn't really feel the need to invade further into it
@raymondqiu8202The Romans were constantly trying to push north, as were the Huns and other Asiatic people from the east. And to the point of Europeans being willing to simply explore being linked to wanting to escape Europe, that doesn't explain space travel. It doesn't explain wild stuff like slinking into caves, skydiving, wingsuits and all of the other bonkers stuff that we do just to do.
@MikeC-od9srwhat a ridiculous comment 😂😂😂 you are joking right? You don’t think living with Lions, leopards, crocodiles, hippos, elephants endless snakes and soldier ants requires “balls” as your sexist mind puts it? It’s astonishing how people will post the craziest thoughts
Regarding your point about diseases, it should be noted that even Cortez's native allies the Tlaxcalans (who were the most powerful enemies of the Aztecs and were instrumental in his wars) were ravaged by the disease. Their numbers dwindled in the 16th century despite that they were considered almost equal to European settles in the new empire.
Well, Cortez tried as much as he could (there were few ressources from Europe, since they didnt have set supply chains) to save as many of his allies as he could. It was dangerous to be in foreign territory with little gunpowder, dulled blades, tropical diseases (their allies did likely provide native medicine against it) without any friends to help you against an entire Empire is a literal suicide mission. Cortez & Co. survived because they were on good terms with tribes that also really, REALLY didn't like the Aztec.
So were Europeans who traveled to Africa to pick up slaves. I guess Africans in those slave-trading countries were living in large cities teeming with livestock.
i always theorized that colder climates motivate innovation. people living in warmer climates were comfortable more often which caused them to not be motivated to invent new things
lmao "comfortable" more like occupied, warmer climate also mean increase variation for a magnitude species, co-existence with said species required vigilance, external planning revolving around environmental survival, not comfort, and you know this because most un-discovered life reside in warmer climates.
Nice job. Seems pretty fair. I heard one point that you didn’t include. Rivers. Apparently Europe and Asia had lots of waterways for navigation transportation and commerce. Same with North America Fewer waterways in Africa or they are not navigable. It’s really cool to have this understanding of things. Great info
If the Americas was so limited in resources and skills why Cortez wrote letters back to Europe suggest that Tenochtitlan was an incredibly advanced, organized, and affluent civilization that rivaled or exceeded European cities of the time in scale, beauty, and infrastructure. His accounts, particularly in his second letter to Charles V, highlight the city's sophisticated, immense, and clean urban design" You're essentially portraying the sophistication and civilization from an European perspective, In Africa and Asia How were the Pyramids constructed? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Algebra, Medicine, Great Wall, advanced engineering and astronomy? 🤔It appears that Europeans merely acquired the ability to appropriate what was not their own
When you take it and use it and then improve upon it, it becomes yours except in the eyes of the losers who were too stupid to take it, use it and improve upon it.
well based on your sub-elemmentary ignorant answer, let me keep it as simple as possible....The Aztec didn't loose because they were stupid if the were why Europeans have to take it, so just that defeat your uneducated comment but even more Conquistadors didn't defeat them head to head, the did what they always do, back stab people that helps them, and take advantage of empathy because their scavenger mentality won't allowed them to feel any...European illnesses resulted from lack of hygiene practices killed most and in battle they used rival tribes to win and then again back stab them...so if you think you are better and badass because of that, good for your low-selfestem, but a reminder or most likely this is new to you, that narratives don't last facts due and western civilization is on pace to be one of the shortest when compared with all the previous and obviously superior empire's before them...So I take stupid any day rather than back stabbing out of fear and cowardice💯@davekaelin9807
Remember: all land is stolen if you go back far enough. The Indians were brutalizing each other long before the white man introduced them to Christianity and gunpowder. Europeans were just tribes that came from farther away with paler skin. They fought and they lost. Too bad. That's history.
That’s exactly what I have been saying for years. Who knows if any person ancestors didn’t kick others off the land because it’s been going on since the beginning of time. There has to be a lot of time that we still have no idea of.
@AP-iu2ty “Better, more organized, and efficient” has nothing to do with it. Europeans had access to gunpowder, steel, oceangoing ships and brought diseases with them. The scale of dispossession in European conquest with empires spanning the globe, and the extent of it, is enough to attribute a greater brutality.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a great book, but I think you should have done more research for this video. There's been more written and learned about this topic since it was published. For example, domestication was not nearly so straightforwards even in the fertile cresent. Barley has an intresting story, it was originally a weed that grew amongst the wheat that was actually being cultivated by farmers. Farmers would try to get rid of the barley, but some looked too much like wheat and would get passed over. As wheat was selectively selected to have more yeild, barley that could look like high yeild wheat also got mixed into the harvest. Basically by accident, this weed ended up trying so hard to look like a farm plant that it eventually became a viable farm plant. I'm telling this story because it's an intresting tale, but the overall point is that most (if not all) of the plants that became farm staples did not start with the traits that make them good crops. They all had to go through selective cultivation for thousands of years to get to a useful state. On an animal example, horses were not easy to domesticate. Lamas in South America were domesticated before horses. They were originally hunted for food, and it's a miracle they weren't hunted to extinction like many other megafauna. To drive this point home, guess where horses first evolved. North America. They crossed over to eurasia through an alaskan land bridge millions of years ago, and eventually went extinct in the americas due to human hunting. Horses didn't get domesticated until late in the bronze age, because it took an advanced civilization with resources and dedication to be able to domesticate them. Before that process, they were hardly better than Zebras. It took over a thousand years to get them from wild animals, to cart pullers, to reliably rideable on their backs. Point is: you make it seem like eurasia had a bunch of advantages that allowed civilization to come about. But really, its kind of the other way around. Civilizations were needed to be able to domesticate these plants and animals. These were long, slow, and difficult processes which required organized efforts over generations. These advantages were man made, and they could have been made elsewhere. Had there been a group in North America that was early enough, organized enough, and dedicated enough we could have had turkeys, horses, and bison domesticated in North America before euroasians did any farming. Why was there not such a group? Well, why is it that modern humans have been around for 300,000 years but ancient egypt built the pyramids just 5,000 years ago? What humans were doing that other 295,000 years is kind of the biggest question in archeology at the moment. We simply don't know what really got the ball rolling on civilization, which makes it impossible to say why it didn't start in other places at other times. But it is obvious that once it was rolling and people had spent thousands of years cultivating and domesticating their chosen plants and animals; that mountain of effort gave a massive advantage to the generations and civilizations that would follow.
The last ice age ended roughly 11000 years ago, that might have kicked off agricultural revolution. That is when most of the domestication process happened imo.
Well thought out answer. (I also think Diamond’s book is a soft polemic against what he considers western snobbery. The fact that he decided to vent his anger in a format designed by and for westerners is quite amusing; he could have exorcised his demons in interpretive dance in New Guinea, but maybe there was an added incentive to market his thoughts in a salable medium? Soft polemics come easily, don’t they? :-)).
You forgot something, and I don’t know if it’s mentioned in the book, but, Europeans were very all in on using waterways and Navies to explore and project power. Africa struggles with geography because they have very few waterways that traverse the continent and there’s also very few natural deep water ports. For the most part, in Africa, the shoreline is also very rocky and mountainous. People in Asia did some sea faring, but clearly they didn’t even make it across the Pacific Ocean very often. You also have instances where China cut off sea exploration, almost completely. Europeans have been about using boats and ships to navigate the world since the Roman empire. They constantly fought naval battles and traveled around on ships to conduct diplomacy and warfare. World conquest began with Europeans, fighting amongst each other on ships, then they use that knowledge to conquer the Americas, then to conquer Asia, and then Africa. It was basically a big snowball of power.
That’s why the British, in particular, were very powerful. The defeat of the Spanish Armada shows us how powerful their navy was on the world stage, and they used that strength to create an empire where the sun never set
A thing to consider is that Europe had the Meterrainian sea and tHE English Channel which is easier to traverse with primitive ships. So this encourages work on ship building for both trade and conquest. China had the pacific which outside of getting to Japan, isn't going to be traversed with primitive ships. So for Europe getting from one empire to another at first manageable which encourages them to make better and better ships. For China outside of Japan there is no where major that you can travel without going like 8000 miles. So it quickly becomes a question of "why try?"
What about the Oceania? They were sailing the seas millenias before Europeans figured out how to build a proper ship. By that logic they would conquer the world long before Europeans.
Hi Ken! I love your analyses. They are generally well-documented and well-reasoned. I too loved 'Guns Germs and Steel' when I first read it. But as a geologist, I also saw some big holes in the author's 'geography is destiny' explanation. Take the supposed domestic animal shortage in the Americas for example. We know from fossil evidence that the horse evolved in North America but went extinct in the Americas between 10,000 to possibly as late as 6000 years ago, in part because of hunting by Native Americans. Fortunately for horses, some had migrated across the Bering land bridge, to be later domesticated by Asians and Europeans. As for the claimed agricultural advantage of people in the old world, the Americans had developed more than just corn. They also grew potatoes, squash, beans, tomatoes, chestnuts and chili peppers and they domesticated turkeys. Many of these became staples in the old world after they were transplanted from the Americas. They were much more calorie dense than tiny grains of wheat and rice. Natives in the South American rain forests grew pineapples, cashews, Brazil nuts and many other food crops. The early Americans had invented the wheel but had no durable metal to build axle hubs, so they never used it on carts or wheeled vehicles. Native copper was the only metal they mined and used in large quantities. Finally, steel blades ware not much of an advantage over chert and obsidian weapons in conflicts. When the Vikings tried to settle in Canada, without gunpowder or sufficient germs, their steel swords offered little advantage over the Native Americans. So aside from germs, it was primarily the Chinese invention of gunpowder and the Turkish invention of metal smelting that helped Europeans conquer the Americas. As you alluded to, some of the Americans had phonetic written language, accurate calendars, math including the concept of zero and some amazing architecture including earthquake resistant construction techniques throughout the Andes. As you stated, they were far from being ignorant savages.
@Edruezzi what a strange thing to say. I have two degrees in geology and had a very successful career working around the globe as a geologist. What are you, some kind of psychic with a crystal ball?
By that logic, shouldn’t the people in the Fertile Crescent be the most technologically advanced today? Either that or the whole world plateaus around the same time?
why did the Muslim world fall from grace? what happened, why did it get outclassed by the Europeans while when europe was doing witch hunts it was producing philosophers, astronomers, and was a world superpower. what went wrong? I've tried to figure this out for a while. I don't know why.
They had a good geographical starting point which set them ahead at the start, but when that technology and plant life spread through trade to populations evolved for different cognitive styles, but less material capability, they were able to use it better. That’s my theory
The most common theory is that the hardships of the poles force more efficient societies, as to why distance from the equator positively correlates with wealth.
Obviously you ignorant fool..You wouldn't understand if colonising and exploiting someone is "objectively bad" until someone enslaves you and u ur family XD.
@AkshR777You do know that whites did not “enslave” any Africans. Whites purchased from Africans and Arabs people who were already enslaved by said Arabs and Africans. (Not that that’s much better, but slavery has always existed, and does so today predominantly in Africa, ironically.) You really think white mother fuckers were running around the African jungle 400 hundred years ago capturing black people to enslave! 😂 That ain’t how it worked!
Why? Because Europe was a UFC ring with brutal fighters tightly packed and eventually they figured out they could get out of the ring and make franchises around the world. When the perfection of killing and defense against it is perfected for millennia, held in a small area, when they reach out, they are far more ready for the vigor of true battle and hardship than the rest of the world. Japan might be an exception with Korea and China behind. Internal conflict builds discipline to keep up. Hard enemies make you harder, if you can survive…
Go to kenforgold.com or text RETIRE to 35052 to learn more about Augusta Precious Metals
CORRECTION: At 0:09, that cutout isn't "The Americas", it's Europe. Derp.
There is another disease Europeans got from the Americas. Montezuma's Revenge.
What a brilliant analysis
Cover the truth of White genocide
Random, but people like to argue that human societies could have existed 20-100 thousand years ago or more and we wouldn’t have proof of it today and the locations could all be underwater today or simply buried and lost… I think the best argument against that is: Well then where did all their crops go?
Are we supposed to believe that all of their crops went extinct with them?
I don't like this book at all. The author goes out of his way to "blunten" the fact that the incredible "sharp" European mind, created the world we live in.
Ken, my first date didn’t go well. Turns out “who killed Jesus” wasn’t a good ice breaker. I’m going with white conquest on my next date for sure.
You'll find the one!
😂😂😂
Loool
If you find a woman who is interested in such topics, you have found a unicorn my friend. You better hold onto her with all your might!
That is good comedy!
The most infuriating aspect of the whites as colonizers narrative is the idea that other cultures wouldn't have done the same given the opportunity. If the Comanche, Aztec, Mali, Mughal, name an empire, could have sailed to Europe and conquered and enslaved the population they would have done so. Quite a few even tried. It was a winner take all world and every empire that has ever existed exerted as much power as possible.
Or, which society in 1500 would have been better, more compassionate, more fair, etc if given the same technology and power? Answer: Zero. This is evidenced by the fact that the strongest critiques of the West come from the West. IMO, one of our biggest advantages.
Sounds like you’re paranoid that another group will try to do to you what you did to them. So you’re trying to justify your actions.
Forget about the virtue signaling, this is more of an scientific analysis of human behavior and adaptation.
@mistasandman8996to be fair, every group is scared of that. History shows you have to protect yourself or else you will be taken. See Ukraine and how the rest of western Europe has responded or all the current African civil wars or Venezuelaa even. It's unfortunately a dog eat dog world.
I don't think they would have. That's a very white way of thinking.
@evanharrelson9908 Watch they say something to make this statement look bad
This is why you always rush building a granary in civ 6
Facts 💯
This!
🤣🤣 just 1 more turn
Also in Civ 2; granary = overpowered
And in Civ5. Then Library
I also think winter forces people to stop and just sit and think all winter and think of ways to make next winter less miserable
Grew up in rural interior Alaska, can confirm.
😂
Growing up in North Western Pennsylvania I concluded that long ago. 1/3 winter 2/3 getting ready.
Winter made us plan ahead and problem solve more than the other races.
Save dry food in proper shelters and create and circulate heat well.
The comments section is absolutely gonna be civil and logical.
Hah. It often depends if they comment before or after watching.
Looking forward to it
😂😂
@ElephantsInRooms Most of them come here with some predefined ideas and rush to the comment section first
@otakunankeng9698literally
So early that I caught the title before he changes it.
In fairness to you, I usually launch with 3 headlines that YT runs in rotation. (Sometimes different thumbs instead of headlines.)
Me too! It had incorrect grammar at first I was going to comment and then it changed when I clicked it
@ElephantsInRooms why is that?
@Heather-xm9ulit’s common practice, it’s just a way to find the optimal title/thumbnail for views
@Heather-xm9ulI'm not him but obviously to increase engagement.
If you’re a Civ fan, you know how much a good start matters.
When a third of the map is (functionally) uninhabited and two Ren-era civs pick it up for a song, that's game unless you're a masochist
This is why it's problematic to base intelligence on I.Q. tests. Intelligence more closely aligns with learning anything quicker than others.
Even the Civ II advisors couldn't have helped Montezuma.
If you played any tactical games, you know how much you win on the start.
Yeah, a European start 4000 years after the African start in an environment much more harsh with roaming bears and brutish winters vs. weather that was warm with food and open plains for hunting. Yet Europeans thrived and dominated anyway.
I just found your channel but I'm really liking it so far. No left or right bullshit. Just information. It's much appreciated.
Ken LaCorte covering the stories that most people are too afraid to produce. Great job as always.
why to conquer the world in current generation
Lots of channel talked it first hes not that special
Usually that is true, but in this case a tremendous amount of incisive historical work has been done on the subject. More than even someone highly intelligent can cover and understand overnight!
@SodomHusseinfr people always try to trash others but don't make sense in what they say. Plenty of channels already made videos exactly like this one
Read "Carnage and Culture" by victor Davis Hanson. He lays out this issue in very complete and compelling detail.
Europeans spent a lot of time fighting each other prior to the age of discovery and got REALLY good at war, among other things.
The native Americans and the Africans fought each other non stop and sometimes brutally.
@DWilliam1you're not supposed to mention that
I wouldn’t say good but they did learn to corporatize and profit from the white romans before them and we still see that today in America. Military and war as being a for profit industry is a western way of thinking which is why America has never ever not been in some type of military war or conflict somewhere in it’s entire history
No, literally every other tribe and nation did that with their neighbor. Everywhere. It's still going on in some parts.
@BiscayneSupercarsalmost all countries have been doing that. They are just not good at it. Most of the wars are fought over resources.
That title isn't an elephant. Its a Mammoth with Purple and Yellow stripes in the room.
Could you explain yourself?
What that even mean?
Azula reference? From avatar the last air bender when lying to Toph without a heartbeat skip.
Why? Whitie played the human game better for the last 200-300 years. Indigenous folks such as myself should stop whining, take the L like a man and just get good. Bitching about it isn’t going to help our cause.
@Gogo_Tomago Either nothing or a lot
Your assesment was very unbiased, excellent job elaborating on an extremely complex and uncomfortable subject matter.
Literacy, the capacity to transfer knowledge was a huge factor, compared to the verbal culture.
I agree though it goes back to what he said I'm from sub saharan african and when we had crops to grow and good rains we built permanent structures and writing but our crops where weak and after a hundred years or so drought would come and wipe out the structures and ppl would go back to hunter gatherer that was the case till Europeans gave us seed
@Edruezziwhat u saying?
China and Korea had the printing press long before Gutenberg did. It's just that their script was not suited for printing
@TadiwanasheMuchesa
I think you should speak for your own people. Not all black Africans lived that way.
My ass lmao.
Ken is speed running every polemic topic lmao
What does speed running mean?
@bbiancinidoing something as fast as possible, its Gaming related
It is quite obvious he never read the book of Genesis. Who got the blessing and WHY.
He knows nothing of ancient geography, the two major events that determined where each of Noah's sons settled and who they became.
Yep, a parrot of 20th century 'modern' education. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
@bbiancinisprinting instead of doing a marathon. Speed-running…
@Elias-f4hu cant use ur bullshit book as an explanation to why the world is the way it is
“There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.” ~ Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls (2016)
Dealing with harsh northern climate for tens of thousands of years probably played a roll.
I think that is main ingredient to why they were so ambitious about exploring. Nobody else sailed the way Europe did because there wasn’t a motive.
Another variable is proximity to other nations in close proximity. This creates numerous confrontations for resources and the drive to improve on ways to maximize resources and take them from neighboring nations.
Whites had thousands of years practicing warfare in Europe.
Was IQ a variable? Yes.
Lack of abundant resources? Yes.
Proximity to foreign interests? Yes (diversity is NOT a strength, it creates conflict)
And likely more I’m not thinking of atm.
Yeah, that's why Eskimos are the most advanced of the Native Americans.
Gotta cram a year's food and fuel production into 6 months. There is a REASON Basic Training does not include mints on your pillow and waking at noon.
@JohnDoe-dr9ff White men had centuries of experience conquering and resisting the conquest of other white empires. We also had a lot of disease resistance.
The americas had potatoes, potatoes are a wild superfood
Civilization based on 1 crop vs civilization based on 12
I probably should've mentioned that, but I was already at heavy time. In the Andes, given the altitude, it was a big deal. But it was regionally concentrated, didn’t spread across the hemisphere the way wheat and barley did in Eurasia. But it's definitely an exception to the broad strokes I made.
And yucca, chilies, strawberries, squash, amaranth etc.
@saucywench9122interesting few crops Americas had. Still don't think that's all as good as the Eurasian ones
@raymondqiu8202 How about sweet potato that can easily feed more people per acre then ANYTHING EU has? Also Acorn and edible cactus that were both farmed in mass and will produce more reliably then grains.
This is the exact same problem with companies. If you do everything yourself. You don’t grow.
Honda understood this the tough way
@viniciusbrito7512Mitsubishi too in 1945
@user-hs6vv7gn8p Or progress. Or aspiration. Or a future.
@D@DonLicuala these western companies that are self sabotaging because of hiring for the sake of DEI, they are doing it because they are intelligent?
One theory I have from playing Risk on Warcraft III Frozen Throne for 20 years is that Europe had the best geography for a post agrarian society. There are perfect borders in Europe (alps separate Italy, sea separates England and nordics, tightened land mass and mountains, separate Spain and France). The lands were big enough to force ancient civilizations to expand but small enough to make expansion possible. Also, the natural geography was difficult enough to prevent a single power from taking over the whole continent thus ending war and development. The seas and navigable river systems also incentivized ship technology and ships let to wider travel an transference of ideas. People have made Americas, Asia, and African Risk maps but none have the same game play. Europe creates the best geography for war that incentivizes war but at the same time prevents a winner thus creating perpetual war and technological development.
Europe has so much flatland that as long as times get slightly more stable it's easier for things progress.
You played one game for twenty years? There is not an ending to the game?
I have thought this too. Europe was a pvp server. For example, medieval Africa had large swaths of land, thousands of miles, controlled by the Arabs who are thousands of miles away. This means that there really isn't that much violent conflict in this area. Over 500 years there are a handful of battles, usually because a local ruler wants independence from the Arabic empire. In Europe, 50 miles over there is some French guy trying to kill you, 35 miles over there is an Italian trying to kill you, 60 miles over there is a German trying to kill you. Since before ancient rome Europe has been a killing ground where violence is the norm and wars are perpetual for entire generations. This is especially true in Spain where the natives were forced to become monsters in order to defend themselves against Muslim invasion. The Spanish defeated the Muslims and reconquered Spain, but they still had a culture of military conquest, every major leader was a warlord first and his personal standing was based upon his capacity to be a psychopathic killing machine who extracted wealth at the expense of others. Other cultures through history that develop the same kind of mindset tend to conquer everything within reach until the empire is simply too big and collapses. Europeans cannot expand that much because of the natural barriers and so they all rest up and wait to fight again next year, every year from 10,000 bc until I guess you can say WW2.
Additionally, Europe has a lot of coastline and movement by water is the cheapest way of transport. It's the reason why the US is now dominant and will stay dominant unless it balkanizes.
@williamwalsh1533 Battlenet will never fall
I read Diamond's G,G & S when it came out---twice because it was so fascinating. I then had to dive into his "Collapse" which talks about the triumphs and failures of societies. Also good.Your 20 minute summary is a great refresher and a start for anyone interested in these "Elephants". An appropriate title for a wonderful channel. The young are into quick sound bytes. Let's hope their attention can expand to 20 minutes without them having to check their ego-driven social media "status". Good job,Ken. Signed, a new subscriber.
The Book „Why Nations fail is also a good Explantation“.
Alfred Crosby's "Ecological Imperialism" from 1986 is another excellent book on this topic that pre-dates Diamond and also Acemoglu and Robinson.
yes! An excellent book indeed. And so is "Prisoners of Geography"
Didn’t the authors in the book “why nations fail” argued strongly against geographical factors as being the reason why nations fail?
To me this seems to contradict what the video (e.g. the gun steel and germ book) claimed.
why nations fail is not a good book. it's just an 'okay' book. there are a lot of good critiques
@yutengwangfrom memory ‘why nations fail’ explains the time after colonisation, in that for example the Spanish set up economic systems to exploit the denser populations, with more obvious wealth in South America, whereas in modern USA and Australia , populations were sparse, large populations couldn’t be enslaved, so more egalitarian governments and systems were set up.
That book doesn’t really explain why it was the Spanish, British etc. came to colonize these areas in the first place
10:43 Zebras are responsible for the most injuries on zookeepers at zoos
It is really annoying that such an adorable animal will happily kill you.
So you saying only biracial horses be hurting dem zookeepers? Sheeit, you be so rayciss, yo
@paulkolodner2445adorable?
Damn Striped horses
And mixed breed.humans .ARENT .what's .the majority.of the penitentiary..
It started with Diamond's book but my entire life has been learning more about how geography is history. Human behavior is wild, but it all starts with geography. 'We are the mountain people', ' We are the fishing people', 'We are the farming people', etc.
How eastern western religious and personal philosophies are based in the geography of those groups.
Wow, a sponsor ad I didn't want to skip. Never seen something like this before!
Great Video, I know Jared Diamond work, the video does a great job of reflecting Jared book. There is also a thought that because of civilization, some portion of the population has a higher IQ.
There's a pretty good argument for the Middle East and asia getting a Head Start. However, neither of those are European groups
Technically the term "Eurasia" was what Diamond used. It's more correct, but needs some explanation for most, so I shifted into that later.
So, the Middle East Should be ahead of the rest of the world, right?
@ElephantsInRooms but Asia is like huge. and Europe is the 3rd biggest. some part of Eurasia also have varried climates, like the fridgid climate of northern Europe probably isn't the same as that of the Arabian peninsula. don't you think Eurasia is a bit of a broad catagory?
@llj0055 it used to be. while Europe was in it's what they call the dark ages, the middle east was the world's superpower and was good at science and such. don't quite know what happened.
@llj0055no, they were ahead of everyone in the past, the topic is how groups in the past gained an advantage
Getting a Second Education
from Ken Lacorte ! 🤯 !
This video has forever changed my understanding of history.
Their usage of gunpowder is what empowered them. Inadvertently, the spread of sickness and disease helped them.
disease worked both ways. entire ships and expeditions were wiped out. but the discovery of quinine and advances in medicine helped manage it.
Their intellect is what dominated above else. They had to evolve to become smarter to deal with the harsh North European winters, and by default became the most innovative people on the planet. Everyone attempted to colonize everyone else, whites were simply the best at it
How did they get to the other side of the world in the first place?
@jamesmiller6829 romans, greeks, spainards... dident have harsh ivirment.....
@caesaraugustus4563they're all descendants of northern Europeans, the type of people I'm referring to go back at least 100,000 years before any country was developed or states as such.
The Aztecs also were disliked by their neighbors.
Disliked is a nice way to describe it.
all tribes "disliked" each other
The Europeans hated each other. France and Britain went to war for 100 years
Europeans hated each other so much they created two world wars. Before that, they have been fighting and killing each other for centuries.
@joshthejosh310 yea but they didn't cut the hearts out of people while they were still alive ritualistically for rain because they were educated lol
I've seen different versions of this over the years. This one was nicely done.
It's full of sh!t...read The Bell Curve for the truth.
Smart people innovate...invent...stupid people...create nothing...do nothing.
I just wanted to say thank you for the most concise informative conversation about civilization that I have seen in many years
13:00 so far it’s, How Farmers Took Over the World, and i’m here for it!
So Europeans invented farming?😂😂
@Junisacamostro you cant be that slow
@hellotheee23455trust me you can think whatever you want of me, peoples opinion of me is not of my business, mainly because it changes nothing in my life, is 100% irrelevant....on the other hand you seem of the sensitive type and I can be a very effective ruthless troll when attacked but I'm not interested in amplifying your insecurities at the moment...Is just not worth it to go down to your level 😉
@Junisacamostrowhere did anyone say Europeans invented farming though? Even if they didn't invent it first... They still became farmers... So its not inaccurate to say farmers conquered the world
@cyborgchicken3502well farmers were already there without the conquering and they still are since when I passed farms usually most of the ones working it are Hispanics who where here way before Europeans, but that won't last nature always finds a way to get it right again!!
This is one of your best videos. It's worth listening to multiple times to get all the details. Thanks for posting.
Wow, thanks!
Fascinating piece!! Thanks for the upload 🔥🔥🔥🔥
@3:45 I would say geography forces agriculture the first “basic” form of industrialization.
0:12 The silhouette of the Americas is actually a silhouette of Europe.
You’re so smart 🎉😊
@GavinDavis.Apparently the Uploader/editor not so much.
@dec3142 Lol, people make mistakes. I've made similar mistakes on essays and code, where I keep switching around words and ideas, or start copy-pasting different sections of code.
Even after proofreading, I miss some obvious errors.
@jacobshirley3457 That's what one calls a skill issue.
Just to give some additional information to the opening, and as a counterpoint to Diamond's book (which I did enjoy, though it has some inaccuracies), besides guns, germs, and steel, the 200' Spaniards also had 10's of thousands of indigenous allies of tribes and groups opposed to the Inca fighting (and providing logistics support in the form of food and such) for them. It wasn't JUST guns, germs, and steel that allowed the Spanish to conquer the various empires in the New World...besides everything else, there was a lot of luck involved too. But those 10's of thousands of indigenous fighters on the side of the Spanish is an often overlooked aspect (and was crucial), and you didn't mention it either (and it's not in GG&S either).
This is so true without the local tribes Cortez never would have taken down the aztecs
@fritzthecat8158 You have to look at where those 'uncontacted tribes' are. Mainly, they are in extremely isolated places...they are 'uncontacted' for a reason, and that's part of why they haven't really advanced, technologically. Every technological advancement in the world came about because of access to resources and, more importantly, exchanges of ideas either locally or further afield. Those tribes you are referring to don't have either thing...because places that have vital resources have contact, and have been overrun I suppose by waves of populations through history.
Jared Diamond theory only works up until gunpowder age. Because up until that, Europe was weaker that other civilization in Eurasia.
Gunpowder gave Europe advantage, and it had nothing to do with agriculture and germs, since every other Eurasian civilization shared the same thing. What made the difference is the design of their civilization. Philip T. Hoffman define it as:
- no hegemon
- constant warfare
- castle proliferation
- no nomads
- high taxation
Those factors only available in Europe.
China for example, have been a hegemon almost all its history, their constant warfare period ended one thousand years before gunpowder discovery, it fought mostly nomads from the steppe, which mean while they built castles, their enemy didn't, and finally their taxation system was not as harsh as European. While China discovered gunpowder, it's development was hindered by those factor that made them so comfortable to built a civilization (hegemon, nomad instead of castles).
The only other civilization that close to Europe was India. They failed in one requirement, the Indian kingdoms had quite lenient taxation when compared to Europe.
I saw this topic and figured channel going from elephant in the room to mammoth in the room.
Mammoths were of similar size to the modern African elephant.
@oktusprime3637 let’s assume Columbian mammoth rather than Woolly mammoth :)
Elephant in the room, but he only shines light on the tail.
They became meta in the past 500 years
He finally touched on the Elephant In The Room
And missed the most obvious explanation.
24 seconds, never been this early. Great topic lol
I would say the same, but my wife would call me a liar.
From what I’ve read is that hunters only went out for like 5 hours a day and had the rest of the day to relax with the family or group
You do understand that in Hunter cultures you had to move every few months. Again the advantage to agriculture was the ability to stay in one place long enough for other systems, and industries to be created at scale. Economies of scale, and exponential growth could all be exploited on the foundation of agriculture and drastic change in seasons.
You are absolutely right. In Hunter cultures, the men were the main providers and lived a general life of leisure. The women took care of all the domestic duties while the men lounged around. When food became scarce, they went on the hunt. Once an area was hunted out, they packed their shit up and moved on to the next place. They had it good and easy, with no motivation to advance as a civilization.
@PaidToBeYouThe point is that hunting based societies had no motivation to advance. When food became scarce, they just moved onto the next hunting ground. The population never grew higher than what their lifestyle could support. And to say that they hunted five hours a day is being generous. They often hunted 12 hours a week. The rest of the time was spent in leisure.
@JohnDaker_singerOr maybe it was spent fixing and building weapons. Fixing and building temporary shelters. Making and maintaining fires. Fishing. Cleaning and gutting meat and fish. Drying meat and fish. Making leather and other materials for clothing. Making pottery, instruments, toys and shoes. Carving with wood. Making rafts and small boats/canoes. Teaching young ones how to hunt. Fetching water. Watering animals like horses, camels, sheep etc if they had any. Guading the encampment with night shifts included. Helping to carry/move the injured or elderly. I wouldn't say that all the time they spent not hunting was spent in leisure as thst doesn't make sense. Food is not the only thing needed to survive.
@PaidToBeYou Hunters moved from hunting ground to hunting ground seasonally. They didn't just wander aimlessly. They had bases they used for thousands of years.
Complimenti per la produzione, 10/10
I think it would be worthwhile to do an episode on IQ, there was some conflictting ideas to your own I read in the book freakonomics. I'm not saying your wrong but I wish you would do a video so I can learn more!
I haven't read freakonomics but as a Psy student (last semester!), there's a lot of short falls with IQ
Update: my minors are economics and computer science (yes, I have 2)😅
do you want him to get banned from YT or what?
@R_U_Good There is only one social science, and it is economics. A Psy student saying there's problems with a book he didn't read is like an Astrologist having problems with an Astronomy book he didn't read.
I see where this is going if he argues I’m good faith u won’t get the answer ur looking for
@dna2dna275 Yes, there are limits to what truths even the bravest commentators can acknowledge. Look what happened to Watson and Shockley and others.
3:39 good point
That’s not an iq test
This was an amazingly informative video. Thank you Ken
I still didn’t get why white people specifically conquered the world especially in the last few hundred years, why not Persians or Arabs especially from the Levant and Iraq or Chinese or Indians ,I assume they all had farming and also acquired immunity from those diseases you mentioned
The elephant in the room guy is afraid to point out the elephant in the room. 🤣
Yes, Ken is quite America centred.
There’s still time for those groups to conquer the world. Our story as humans isn’t over yet we have millions of years ahead of us.
@Imjustobserving2facts cause we are seeing what has happened but not what's about to happen.
The Europeans went to Africa and prospered. They felt white guilt and let themselves be conquered. Now the Africans are doing the opposite of prospering. It has very little to do with geography and everything to do with culture. Ken is wrong.
My hometown mascot is the zebra, and people in the town raise zebras all the time. I wouldn’t call them domesticated per se, but they are very accustomed to being around people.
That's TAME, not domesticated. You can Tame nearly anything. But zebras have the personality of very angry donkeys and a ducking reflex that makes them hard to wrangle. They also don't take to orders or riding very well.
Maybe small herds that have in fact been raised in captivity for several generations, but I wouldn’t extrapolate that out to all zebras at large…..
.
Also; that’s super cool!! Where is this? 😊😮
@drjones762 No, I wouldn’t extrapolate that to all zebras either. The town is Grandview, Texas. It’s a small town of less than 2,000 people and has a ranch that breeds zebras like most people breed horses.
@brandymoore6599 That would make sense. Lots of donkey/horse experience and you can let the zebras learn from domesticated animals. You'll never break the more powerful instincts, but you can definitely take the edge off.
@brandymoore6599super cool. Pet them for me. 😊😊😊
19:12 While some countries can overcome the challenges of their geography, it's still true that geography helps a great deal, even in the 21st century.
Native Americans migrated to the Americas via the Bering land bridge 20 to 30 thousand years ago. Sitting on the world's richest pile of natural resources and they were stuck at the stone age. Geography does matter but it also doesn't guarantee.
@ExploratorVie Damn that's a good point
Great video, very interesting & easy to understand, it should be shown in all schools
You missed the most obvious one. White people live where the cold is trying to kill you. That is your best example of "adapt or die". The winter. The winter drives all of this innovation (needing agriculture, needing to domesticate animals, needing to live in close proximity). It wasn't geographical "luck". It was geographical attempted homicide
If that was the case, we would have seen civilizations much earlier. But that is not the case.
Trying to survive in europe is actually quite easy once you figure out how to survive in africa first. Finding food, shelter and fire is quite easy in europe because you dont need to create innovations, all the innovations were already known in africa.
@argonkrux9873Africans where the ones who built Europe and then the white man crawled out of the caves and took over. It was all set up for them.
@argonkrux9873Africa is vast, rich in food and has great weather. You only need to figure out how to survive with other animals. You get food that grows all year around.
Europe is harsh and has long winters. Necessity is the mother of all invention. Europe was basically forced to farm and come up with new inventions.
@thamimdlaminiThat is very wrong and simplistic look at civilization. Life is not simcity.
First define "white people" - what we consider to be white now, 100 years ago, 500 years ago, a thousand...
Then remember to include all the non-white people who lived in the same or harsher conditions.
I recommend Thomas Sowell’s culture trilogy for anyone wanting to dig deeper on this topic.
Absolutely!
Thanks, I'll look for that.
Ken's video was helpful, but I have a lot of questions, such as,
Why isn't the middle east dominating today, since they had the ultimate head start?
Since Africa had their own deadly diseases that slaughtered Europeans, why wasn't that mentioned in the video?
@FRN2013the Arabs (during the Islamic golden age) and the Chinese were clearly in the top 3 (Indians here too) before. That was until the Mongols utterly decimated the Chinese and Arabs. Whites were largely spared. During that time frame Arabs and Chinese saw the white man as inferior and “lesser” to them simply because of their lack of technology and modernity. Everything is chaos theory and you will end up with different “winners” in different time frames if you run the simulation over and over again .
Thomas Sowell is the man!
@OreoLynnk1v he's a total clown who's been wrong on a huge % of things. He appeals to people who already have certain preconceptions.
Guns, germs and steel is such an excellent book and more people need to read it. I’m glad you covered it in this video.
exactly you shouldn't just trust one source. it may be more nuanced than that.
I read it twice. The best researched book I ever read.
Genghis Khan was not white, the Japanese Imperialists were not white, the Ottoman's were not white... and they conquered vast amounts of territory
Yes but if you go to the Mongolians and Japanese for reparations they will laugh at you and call you slurs. It’s only white people who take that seriously. Huge difference
But did they conquer the world?
Everyone knows asians are just Temu white people😅
Exactly - and no one cares in terms of the B.O.A.T. debate
They did conquer what was reachable for them. Coming out of central Asia, Eurasia was their natural battlefield. The Europeans only started conquering overseas when they were denied access to Asia and India by the Ottomans.
I'm from Papua New Guinea, thank you for mentioning us! 🎉❤
Europe was at the tail end of the train when it came to conquering Sub Sahara Africa...looking at Arab Slavery.
Arabs are Eurasians.
They didn't go far into Sub-Saharan Africa. & neither did Europeans until the late 1800s, Africa is such a difficult continent to navigate with industrial transportation methods. Which is why no one conquered it until industrialization
Arabs are *your* asians
Europeans are the smartest people in the world.History shows that.
@marktrain9498Europe here means western Europe. Nothing exists outside of context.
Excellent video, sir, your site is a wealth of knowledge and very entertaining. THANK YOU!!!!
The Incas had highly advanced agricultural practices that were central to their empire, managing to feed up to 6 million people in the harsh Andes mountains. They developed massive terracing (andenes) to create arable land, sophisticated irrigation canals, and crop rotation techniques, cultivating thousands of varieties of potatoes, maize, and quinoa.
The "nomads are disadvantaged" is kinda broken by the fact that the mongols beat the ever living crap out of almost everyone for almost a century, no? Or are the Mongols always the exception?
Exceptions to the rule almost always exists somewhere
No . This video is heavily heavily generalised. But it wasn’t just Eurasia where men on horseback dominated entire regions. The richest empires in the world Ghana Mali and Songhai were the exact same thing. The thing is however there are extreme geographical changes. The steppe is a literal grass land belt where you can travel from Hungary to northern China non stop . This allowed everyone to have a horse . The Sahel though was a more brutal climate . Very thin belt. Extreme weather changes. The tester fly killed large animals . And to the north was the brutal Sahara and even worse to the south was rainforest. So this meant horses were only for the elites . So when they imaged semi agrarian civilisations in along the Niger River they would unite it and create trade empires. Whereas steppe people could quite literally come south with unlimited horses. Retreat back as far as they wanted. Eventually kill the elite in let’s say China. Displace them rule and then become assimilated . I’m missing a lot of details but you should look into it . The steppe people weren’t that disadvantaged just different in Eurasia.
Mongols weren't exactly self sufficient, though, since they relied heavily on resupplying with the agricultural products of those they conquered. If their only opponents were other nomadic bands, the spoils of conquest would not have been enough to keep it rolling.
@Just_Tey interesting about mongol tribes and different area climates sahel, Sahara, steppe
Where is the Mongol empire now?
An alternate book to explain this is Pursuit Of Power By Richard J. Evans. I personally think its a better explanation than Diamond.
Why is it better? I haven't read either, but I want to read one of them.
@iReppoGamesI have not spent any time debunking Diamond, but I gravitate towards Evans's analysis. He focuses on the systems, institutions, technology, culture, etc that Europe developed at this time that helped power the engine of conquest and colonization. His analysis is for Post-Napoleon and Pre-WW1 Europe
This is my favorite video of all times, thanks for your dedicated work 💐😊
The many natural Deepwater ports, and navigable rivers are huge benefits to European industrialization
No matter how you put knowledge is the number 1 thing.
Knowledge is software. Some groups lack the hardware, computational power. Hardware comes first.
@adamgray8996 you've watched this video and still stick by this mindset?
@animesapex he didn't watch it.
@animesapex Yes. I have observed this first hand over many years. I don’t fall for the propaganda.
@adamgray8996 You must not be very aware. Otherwise you would keep these comments to yourself. I doubt you can figure out why I'm saying that. Please keep saying stuff like this.
I loved reading Jared Diamond. I also have the follow-up to Guns, Germs and Steel, "Collapse".
Would you recommend Collapse? It's on my wishlist liat
@gunsup0331Man, it's been a long time since I read it and it's from what I remember not quite as singularly focused as GGAS. I would recommend it if you're already inclined towards his type of writing, like combining many fields into one to try to explain a big, heady topic. Like the ultimate nerdy answer to those "Did you ever wonder why?" questions.
@gunsup0331I would not recommend Collapse. I did not find it nearly as good as Guns, Germs and Steel, and was rather disappointed with it.
@glennbeard3462thanks for the response! I just finished a few of nIall fergusons books and have been looking to expand in the same genre
Damn…I saw the title and immediately wanted to mention Diamond’s book. Less than 2 minutes in and you’ve beat me to it.
OMG the comments on this episode are gonna be outrageous.
😂😂😂😂😂
I always enjoy the "reasonable sounding yet vaguely racist" ones, personally.
They reflect the level of excuse-making in the vid.
@AJHart-eg1ysI'd say a lot of them reflect the whining of peoples that want to feel their was something uniquely evil done by Europe versus what was done by empires in the past. Stems from bigotry.
You should read WHy Nations Fail. I think diamond overstates the geographic determinism.
He's only overstating it because he's being hate the idea that different groups for that one group can be better than the other group.
There's so many easy examples of iqb real but he makes for example the lie here that the average question man would have trouble living in Africa and yet we go to third world countries in the middle of nowhere and feel things right away.
Describe on ingenuity Innovation creativity and stuff that these people in Africa can't even dream of.
And yet if you bring them over here you can well proven they don't get that much smarter.
I believe there's one study that tried to determine if you raise somebody's IQ with a different geography and diet and it's only raised at about 10 to 15 points so there's a lot of them having active age having or below they barely get to average or still to pretty blow average level.
Of course over Generations you can raise it but usually it has to be like interbreeding with others.
She's a difficulty where the average is for example of Somali communities in the UK for an America or any other Western Country that have been there for Generations still on average are very low IQ
He thinks just because they're functional and can have pattern recognition that that defeats IQ but he also lied and said that the IQ tests are the same in America and in Africa just using Africa as an example.
But they are not the same and they do cater them to different regions.
Nor are they even relying on mathematical equations at the level of trigonometry or whatever.
When a person's too afraid to hurt feelings or to make it sound like you say one is your prayers in the other you ignore reality because you have to ignore reality.
By the way he's also saying that Buddy can't get smarter but it keeps show there intelligence because they don't have a life that allows for it but which their excuse now where Africa does have the ability to have a society and what do people do they stand around or sit around and do nothing all the time.
So he his own arguments fall apart when he just has to ignore reality
Diamond does indeed converge too heavily to environmental determinism. I think he, although having touched sensitive topics, in the end took the safe stance in order to avoid excessive criticism. I'm definitely gonna try Why Nations Fail - Thanks for the suggestion!
This might be my favourite channel on youtube. Keep up the good work.
All these connected dots are so interesting. I learned a lot. Thanks.
Practically all civilizations would have conquered/subjugated the whole world if they were actually capable of doing so. Historically look at the spread of Islam, conquest and subjugation of native populations in every instance that isn’t Arabia. Somehow that isn’t colonization to them and modern woke academia smh
that is not true. the arabs never invaded Indonesia, they invaded Persia, but left after establishing islamic law, but the Europeans established christian in America, but never left.
@alakazaam-n7c No. That is the most ignorant thing I have ever read.
The Islamic Caliphate invaded from Morocco to SE Asia and down into the Sahel. And up into Europe. Try to learn something before you spew your ideological ignorance.
@alakazaam-n7c bro. Whaaaaat? If your take on this is genuinely based on your education as an Arab/Muslim/whatever connection you have to the area… That’s more of a smoking gun than anything. Literally, nobody, ever, invaded or pestered the Arabian subcontinent, then Mohammad pops on the scene, and within the next 200 years, the Arabs were knocking on modern day France’s front doorstep with intent to conquer the entirety of Europe. They already conquered Spain (hence El Andalus), northern Africa, the entire Levant, and Persia. Iran was Zoroastrian since time immemorial, and is only Muslim today because of this conquest in the 700s. Same with Morocco, Algeria, and any Muslim country in northern or eastern Africa. Muslim Arabs were akin to the Mongols with their tactics. They absolutely are some of the most brutal and prolific invaders and colonizers in world history, as their impetus comes from what Islam compels them and allows them to do.
Just like how no one seems to question Spain or Portugals colonization and slavery, you ever ask yourself why south american is full of spanish and portugese speaking latin people? And why there are so many black people in south america? Colonization and slavery.... worse than what the US did, yet only the US, UK and France are mainly blamed for it...
@damagingthebrand7387 i never denied that they invaded, straw man arguement. i said that they left persia after establishing Islamic law, but the Europeans never left after establishing Christianity in the americas. The arabs also established islamic law without invading Indonesia. The Europeans would have taken advantage of indosesia and simply occupy them.
The answer is simple: gun beats spear.
Spear =lower IQ Guns=Higher IG there,I said it
Eventually. Guns were not a superior weapon right away, that took centuries of development.
Before I start watching this video Im gonna say:
They're smarter and more adaptable than the competition. They had the drive to expand and push boundaries not only in territorial conquest but in academic, economics and technological domination.
Im saying this as an Asian man living in Asia.
white man better than asians. Except when it comes to very hyper specific competition fields like a singular notch. Then asian fierce wins the gold. But in general, no. Asian hypercapitalized, white man better in general.
The video says thats incorrect
100% obvious
Has your opinion changed now that you’ve watched the video
@topps19891 Slightly. I forgot to add another point: culture. A better cultural attitude compared to the rest of the world.
While European civilizations have the benefit by being in the Eurasian supercontinent where exchange of technology and agricultural advancement is more readily accessible, this is a double-edged sword: they are subjected to wars and invasions by tribes from the Steppes and Empires from the Levant and Middle East. They had to content against foreign forces which wage wars in vastly different manner than they did. This forced their society to be more adaptable, resourceful and warlike. This is an important cultural characteristic in dominating the world.
While the Muslim civilization begin stagnating and regressing, the Ming Chinese became more insular, Europe had the Renaissance. They shook off the malaise that had gripped them during the Medieval Dark Age and start innovating. It led to technological and intellectual advancements and that in turn enable advances in shipbuilding and navigation techniques, which in turn, led to the Age of Exploration that allows them to dominate the world.
Unlike the Muslim empires and Chinese dynasties, the Europeans were the first to embrace change in the face of adversity during the early modern period.
I have read the book. You did a great job explaining it. Thanks.
Another brilliant video. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
The video is a farce. Now for real facts. ruclips.net/video/S8MeW8I6t0E/video.html
Donkey was domesticated in africa (Ethiopia) and later transferred to the outside, also coffee is from Ethiopia
What’s your point? Ethiopia didn’t spread coffee all over the world.
@SteveMilo-p9q it is not about spreading, usually they used to go everywhere by civilian traders. The question is who domesticated them who started farming them
@SteveMilo-p9q lol
The problem with your Sahara being a barrier doesn't fly. 6000 years ago the Sahara was green and had thousands of lakes.
Which is when the Sahara began undergoing rapid desertifcation. This is the same time when the earliest civilizations began emerging.
Not to mention that trade still happened crossing the Sahara and navigating through the coastlines. Ethiopia got Agriculture way earlier than most Europeans did, yet civilization didn't spread throughout Africa.
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
I have a feeling that had things gone some other way, this video would point out how obvious and unavoidable outcome it was.
You’re not the brightest crown in the box are you? Obviously when Sahara was green and thousands of lakes they had an empire and built what mega structures? When climate changed, what happened. Just like he addressed at the end of the video. When things change, so does empires.
Thank you for sharing this educational video. You answered a lot of questions I had.
So what happened to the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of civilization?? What has held them back?
Perhaps they lack what we call "The Faustian Spirit". White people do all sorts of ballsy stuff that other people don't do. We put ourselves into a rocket and shot ourselves into outer space. We dive to the depth of the ocean. We jumped on clinker-built boats and simply sailed off to see what islands and lands MIGHT be out there. People call is crazy and foolish, but it's such risks that lead to great reward.
@MikeC-od9srthose things are all products of their circumstance. The circumstance allows them to take risks not the other way around. And those places in the fertile crescent were harmonious for a long long time, they didn't have much need to explore further if I had to guess, same as how the Chinese didn't feel the need to search for beyond. And all the wars fought in that region indicate that their land is valuable, but also a curse in that it caused wars to constantly be fought there. European climate is less desirable and comfortable so people didn't really feel the need to invade further into it
@raymondqiu8202The Romans were constantly trying to push north, as were the Huns and other Asiatic people from the east. And to the point of Europeans being willing to simply explore being linked to wanting to escape Europe, that doesn't explain space travel. It doesn't explain wild stuff like slinking into caves, skydiving, wingsuits and all of the other bonkers stuff that we do just to do.
@MikeC-od9srwhat a ridiculous comment 😂😂😂 you are joking right? You don’t think living with Lions, leopards, crocodiles, hippos, elephants endless snakes and soldier ants requires “balls” as your sexist mind puts it?
It’s astonishing how people will post the craziest thoughts
Religion.
Regarding your point about diseases, it should be noted that even Cortez's native allies the Tlaxcalans (who were the most powerful enemies of the Aztecs and were instrumental in his wars) were ravaged by the disease. Their numbers dwindled in the 16th century despite that they were considered almost equal to European settles in the new empire.
Well, Cortez tried as much as he could (there were few ressources from Europe, since they didnt have set supply chains) to save as many of his allies as he could. It was dangerous to be in foreign territory with little gunpowder, dulled blades, tropical diseases (their allies did likely provide native medicine against it) without any friends to help you against an entire Empire is a literal suicide mission. Cortez & Co. survived because they were on good terms with tribes that also really, REALLY didn't like the Aztec.
So were Europeans who traveled to Africa to pick up slaves. I guess Africans in those slave-trading countries were living in large cities teeming with livestock.
@AJHart-eg1ysmosquitoes
i always theorized that colder climates motivate innovation. people living in warmer climates were comfortable more often which caused them to not be motivated to invent new things
Indeed. Discomfort is the single-biggest motivator to do something about your misery.
Exactly he didn’t mention coastal populations that ate from the sea and land.
lmao "comfortable" more like occupied, warmer climate also mean increase variation for a magnitude species, co-existence with said species required vigilance, external planning revolving around environmental survival, not comfort, and you know this because most un-discovered life reside in warmer climates.
Eskimos didn’t exactly drive technology and imperialism.
By that logic, Antarctica should be the tech capital of the world. I'm exaggerating but all the more still, I have to respectfully disagree
Just to say I think your content is top notch. Subscribed. Binge watching has commenced!
You are truly doing amazing work. I'd like to come work for you honestly. Please let me know if you have openings for even part time contributions.
I guessed this video almost exactly and the only reason why is my extensive time on Civilization games 😭😭😭
Nice job.
Seems pretty fair.
I heard one point that you didn’t include.
Rivers. Apparently Europe and Asia had lots of waterways for navigation transportation and commerce. Same with North America
Fewer waterways in Africa or they are not navigable.
It’s really cool to have this understanding of things. Great info
If the Americas was so limited in resources and skills why Cortez wrote letters back to Europe suggest that Tenochtitlan was an incredibly advanced, organized, and affluent civilization that rivaled or exceeded European cities of the time in scale, beauty, and infrastructure. His accounts, particularly in his second letter to Charles V, highlight the city's sophisticated, immense, and clean urban design" You're essentially portraying the sophistication and civilization from an European perspective, In Africa and Asia How were the Pyramids constructed? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Algebra, Medicine, Great Wall, advanced engineering and astronomy? 🤔It appears that Europeans merely acquired the ability to appropriate what was not their own
When you take it and use it and then improve upon it, it becomes yours except in the eyes of the losers who were too stupid to take it, use it and improve upon it.
well based on your sub-elemmentary ignorant answer, let me keep it as simple as possible....The Aztec didn't loose because they were stupid if the were why Europeans have to take it, so just that defeat your uneducated comment but even more Conquistadors didn't defeat them head to head, the did what they always do, back stab people that helps them, and take advantage of empathy because their scavenger mentality won't allowed them to feel any...European illnesses resulted from lack of hygiene practices killed most and in battle they used rival tribes to win and then again back stab them...so if you think you are better and badass because of that, good for your low-selfestem, but a reminder or most likely this is new to you, that narratives don't last facts due and western civilization is on pace to be one of the shortest when compared with all the previous and obviously superior empire's before them...So I take stupid any day rather than back stabbing out of fear and cowardice💯@davekaelin9807
The Bell Curve would have been a good suppliment to this book however
Remember: all land is stolen if you go back far enough. The Indians were brutalizing each other long before the white man introduced them to Christianity and gunpowder. Europeans were just tribes that came from farther away with paler skin. They fought and they lost. Too bad. That's history.
That’s exactly what I have been saying for years. Who knows if any person ancestors didn’t kick others off the land because it’s been going on since the beginning of time. There has to be a lot of time that we still have no idea of.
I’m not sure why people who say this seem to be willfully ignorant of the scale and brutality of European’s introduced.
@Ajtheman11 Scale, sure. We were better, more organized and efficient. Brutality is completely arguable. Compared to the Mongols? Aztecs? Arabs?
@AP-iu2ty “Better, more organized, and efficient” has nothing to do with it. Europeans had access to gunpowder, steel, oceangoing ships and brought diseases with them. The scale of dispossession in European conquest with empires spanning the globe, and the extent of it, is enough to attribute a greater brutality.
@Ajtheman11 they had the same " access" as everyone on earth had for the entire course of human history.....they were just better at inventing them👍😘
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a great book, but I think you should have done more research for this video. There's been more written and learned about this topic since it was published. For example, domestication was not nearly so straightforwards even in the fertile cresent. Barley has an intresting story, it was originally a weed that grew amongst the wheat that was actually being cultivated by farmers. Farmers would try to get rid of the barley, but some looked too much like wheat and would get passed over. As wheat was selectively selected to have more yeild, barley that could look like high yeild wheat also got mixed into the harvest. Basically by accident, this weed ended up trying so hard to look like a farm plant that it eventually became a viable farm plant. I'm telling this story because it's an intresting tale, but the overall point is that most (if not all) of the plants that became farm staples did not start with the traits that make them good crops. They all had to go through selective cultivation for thousands of years to get to a useful state.
On an animal example, horses were not easy to domesticate. Lamas in South America were domesticated before horses. They were originally hunted for food, and it's a miracle they weren't hunted to extinction like many other megafauna. To drive this point home, guess where horses first evolved. North America. They crossed over to eurasia through an alaskan land bridge millions of years ago, and eventually went extinct in the americas due to human hunting. Horses didn't get domesticated until late in the bronze age, because it took an advanced civilization with resources and dedication to be able to domesticate them. Before that process, they were hardly better than Zebras. It took over a thousand years to get them from wild animals, to cart pullers, to reliably rideable on their backs.
Point is: you make it seem like eurasia had a bunch of advantages that allowed civilization to come about. But really, its kind of the other way around. Civilizations were needed to be able to domesticate these plants and animals. These were long, slow, and difficult processes which required organized efforts over generations. These advantages were man made, and they could have been made elsewhere. Had there been a group in North America that was early enough, organized enough, and dedicated enough we could have had turkeys, horses, and bison domesticated in North America before euroasians did any farming. Why was there not such a group? Well, why is it that modern humans have been around for 300,000 years but ancient egypt built the pyramids just 5,000 years ago? What humans were doing that other 295,000 years is kind of the biggest question in archeology at the moment. We simply don't know what really got the ball rolling on civilization, which makes it impossible to say why it didn't start in other places at other times. But it is obvious that once it was rolling and people had spent thousands of years cultivating and domesticating their chosen plants and animals; that mountain of effort gave a massive advantage to the generations and civilizations that would follow.
From what he said, the book should be titled, "Guns, Germs, Steel, and Serendipity."
The last ice age ended roughly 11000 years ago, that might have kicked off agricultural revolution. That is when most of the domestication process happened imo.
Well thought out answer.
(I also think Diamond’s book is a soft polemic against what he considers western snobbery. The fact that he decided to vent his anger in a format designed by and for westerners is quite amusing; he could have exorcised his demons in interpretive dance in New Guinea, but maybe there was an added incentive to market his thoughts in a salable medium? Soft polemics come easily, don’t they? :-)).
It’s a bad book.
Perfectly said…
western Society (whites)
have lived in extremely cold climate, but they had the foresight to prepare for the winter with food storage.
Wow that is awesome. I bought guns, germs, and steel at a thrift store for 5$ and also thought kt was a terrific book.
*conquer
Fuuuuuuu .... so glad I read these early comments!
The enduring nature of these techniques shows how propaganda can be repurposed across different eras to create and sustain inequalities...
You forgot something, and I don’t know if it’s mentioned in the book, but, Europeans were very all in on using waterways and Navies to explore and project power.
Africa struggles with geography because they have very few waterways that traverse the continent and there’s also very few natural deep water ports. For the most part, in Africa, the shoreline is also very rocky and mountainous.
People in Asia did some sea faring, but clearly they didn’t even make it across the Pacific Ocean very often. You also have instances where China cut off sea exploration, almost completely.
Europeans have been about using boats and ships to navigate the world since the Roman empire. They constantly fought naval battles and traveled around on ships to conduct diplomacy and warfare.
World conquest began with Europeans, fighting amongst each other on ships, then they use that knowledge to conquer the Americas, then to conquer Asia, and then Africa. It was basically a big snowball of power.
That’s why the British, in particular, were very powerful.
The defeat of the Spanish Armada shows us how powerful their navy was on the world stage, and they used that strength to create an empire where the sun never set
A thing to consider is that Europe had the Meterrainian sea and tHE English Channel which is easier to traverse with primitive ships. So this encourages work on ship building for both trade and conquest. China had the pacific which outside of getting to Japan, isn't going to be traversed with primitive ships. So for Europe getting from one empire to another at first manageable which encourages them to make better and better ships. For China outside of Japan there is no where major that you can travel without going like 8000 miles. So it quickly becomes a question of "why try?"
You’ve read Thomas S.
What about the Oceania? They were sailing the seas millenias before Europeans figured out how to build a proper ship. By that logic they would conquer the world long before Europeans.
Empires with slaves from conquest go back 6,000 years way before Europe existed.
Hi Ken! I love your analyses. They are generally well-documented and well-reasoned. I too loved 'Guns Germs and Steel' when I first read it. But as a geologist, I also saw some big holes in the author's 'geography is destiny' explanation. Take the supposed domestic animal shortage in the Americas for example. We know from fossil evidence that the horse evolved in North America but went extinct in the Americas between 10,000 to possibly as late as 6000 years ago, in part because of hunting by Native Americans. Fortunately for horses, some had migrated across the Bering land bridge, to be later domesticated by Asians and Europeans. As for the claimed agricultural advantage of people in the old world, the Americans had developed more than just corn. They also grew potatoes, squash, beans, tomatoes, chestnuts and chili peppers and they domesticated turkeys. Many of these became staples in the old world after they were transplanted from the Americas. They were much more calorie dense than tiny grains of wheat and rice. Natives in the South American rain forests grew pineapples, cashews, Brazil nuts and many other food crops. The early Americans had invented the wheel but had no durable metal to build axle hubs, so they never used it on carts or wheeled vehicles. Native copper was the only metal they mined and used in large quantities. Finally, steel blades ware not much of an advantage over chert and obsidian weapons in conflicts. When the Vikings tried to settle in Canada, without gunpowder or sufficient germs, their steel swords offered little advantage over the Native Americans. So aside from germs, it was primarily the Chinese invention of gunpowder and the Turkish invention of metal smelting that helped Europeans conquer the Americas. As you alluded to, some of the Americans had phonetic written language, accurate calendars, math including the concept of zero and some amazing architecture including earthquake resistant construction techniques throughout the Andes. As you stated, they were far from being ignorant savages.
@Edruezzi what a strange thing to say. I have two degrees in geology and had a very successful career working around the globe as a geologist. What are you, some kind of psychic with a crystal ball?
@markorgren4752C
@markorgren4752X
Phonetic written language? Ehh, maybe technically, but no. Practically useless.
By that logic, shouldn’t the people in the Fertile Crescent be the most technologically advanced today? Either that or the whole world plateaus around the same time?
why did the Muslim world fall from grace? what happened, why did it get outclassed by the Europeans while when europe was doing witch hunts it was producing philosophers, astronomers, and was a world superpower. what went wrong? I've tried to figure this out for a while. I don't know why.
They had a good geographical starting point which set them ahead at the start, but when that technology and plant life spread through trade to populations evolved for different cognitive styles, but less material capability, they were able to use it better.
That’s my theory
Resources in the Fertile Crescent were siphoned by conquering warrior empires: Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantine then Islamic kingdoms.
The most common theory is that the hardships of the poles force more efficient societies, as to why distance from the equator positively correlates with wealth.
@AmazingAnes sometimes being the first to peak is a curse. Life isn’t a sprint it’s a marathon & Europe definitely won the marathon.
The next question should be whether colonization is objectively bad
Yes
Conquest and Cultures by Thomas Sowell.
Obviously you ignorant fool..You wouldn't understand if colonising and exploiting someone is "objectively bad" until someone enslaves you and u ur family XD.
@AkshR777You do know that whites did not “enslave” any Africans. Whites purchased from Africans and Arabs people who were already enslaved by said Arabs and Africans. (Not that that’s much better, but slavery has always existed, and does so today predominantly in Africa, ironically.)
You really think white mother fuckers were running around the African jungle 400 hundred years ago capturing black people to enslave! 😂 That ain’t how it worked!
Yes, MAGA wouldn't be scared of non whites if it was good. They fear what their ancestors did to other people it's going to happen to them
I love this channel already.
0:50 guns germs and steel
Good book, tough to get through but it was solid
Why? Because Europe was a UFC ring with brutal fighters tightly packed and eventually they figured out they could get out of the ring and make franchises around the world. When the perfection of killing and defense against it is perfected for millennia, held in a small area, when they reach out, they are far more ready for the vigor of true battle and hardship than the rest of the world. Japan might be an exception with Korea and China behind. Internal conflict builds discipline to keep up. Hard enemies make you harder, if you can survive…
@j@joshuabouley7674meant the book was dense, verbose and there were a lot of facts to keep track of, it wasn’t your Sunday pre afternoon nap read
Germs are so overrated
@artdent1557I only managed to read it once….it was probably 20 years ago now. Your observation rings true: verbose and dense and difficult.