Done with Leftflix

[clintonhater]

The simpler assumption is that barretcreek is a grown-up and knows what works for him.

What works for him AND you is avoiding unpleasant realities, such as the general debasement of American culture, by keeping your heads in the sand.

[togor]

What works for him AND you is avoiding unpleasant realities, such as the general debasement of American culture, by keeping your heads in the sand.

Bullsh*t. Just because someone doesn't watch cable news doesn't mean they can't keep their head on straight about the issues they care about. Like Red you're looking for wider acceptance for your chosen vehicle of information/disinformation uptake.

I got a book for you. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. You have an interest in the broad sweep of humanity across the world and this book gives that topic a deep treatment. Thick read so it will take awhile, but I think you'll enjoy it.

[clintonhater]

I got a book for you. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. You have an interest in the broad sweep of humanity across the world and this book gives that topic a deep treatment. Thick read so it will take awhile, but I think you'll enjoy it.

I've already seen the PBS series--it's a left-wing excuse for the Turd World's having remained mired in barbarism while the western world advanced & eventually created the modern world. All the accomplishments of the western world, beginning with the Greeks, are according to him mere historical "accidents" & "lucky breaks," and absolutely NOT the result of a superior cultural & intellectual outlook.

[togor]

I've already seen the PBS series--it's a left-wing excuse for the Turd World's having remained mired in barbarism while the western world advanced & eventually created the modern world. All the accomplishments of the western world, beginning with the Greeks, are according to him mere historical "accidents" & "lucky breaks," and absolutely NOT the result of a superior cultural & intellectual outlook.

Read the book if you don't want the "left wing" context. But I suppose if you want to funnel everything down the "Europe is superior" funnel then it might frustrate you. But consider: Europe didn't invent writing, or domesticate the animals and food crops. Those things happened elsewhere in Eurasia and spread to Europe. You reject Diamond's hypothesis for how these things happened, so if I may ask, what is yours?

[clintonhater]

But consider: Europe didn't invent writing, or domesticate the animals and food crops. Those things happened elsewhere in Eurasia and spread to Europe. You reject Diamond's hypothesis for how these things happened, so if I may ask, what is yours?

I remember my world history from Jr. High. The point is, look what the Greeks & Italians first, then later Europeans, DID with those cultural borrowings from the Middle East. They IMPROVED upon them, & eventually made those earlier civilizations their vassals. Meanwhile, even after western technology & cultural values was transmitted to the Turd World, the people there remain incapable of lifting themselves out of poverty & misery, instead seeking to become parasites of Europe & this country.

[togor]

I think you should read the book. Not to change your mind in any specific direction, but it may stimulate some new ideas. Diamond's thesis is pretty straightforward with respect to the Fertile Crescent. And it is scientific in the sense that he doesn't assume an intrinsic superiority at the outset, but rather looks for explanations in the natural world. The book is hardly a liberal treatise. For example, it makes no bones about the fact that the mass extinctions of large animals from North America after the last Ice Age was likely due to the fact that those animals had not evolved alongside H. sapiens, and hence did not have time to develop an avoidance response to them. In Eurasia, as humans gradually improved their hunting skills, animals adapted. With the large animals in North America hunted to extinction, there were none available for later domestication. The flip side of that is that of course once the Spanish introduced horses to North America, the Indians who encountered them learned fairly quickly to adapt them for their own uses. Same goes for firearms. North American Natives adapted firearms with a facility that was not all that different than that shown by the Europeans in adapting the wheel, writing, cereal crops or livestock, all things pioneered elsewhere in Eurasia.

My own preference is to try to understand durable reasons for the way things are the way they are. "Feel good" reasons that appeal to my sentimentality are less valuable to me. Just how I'm wired.