In subsaharan African tropics, South and Central America, Australia and tropical islands, there were no seasons. Game and plants were available year round. There was no winter to survive. they could hunt and gather year round. This produced little incentive for a written language or an organized situation beyond the small wandering tribe. If the tribe got too large, they would exhaust the food in their immediate vicinity very quickly and have to move often. It was more efficient to travel in smaller tribes.

In my mind you are both right, if you define western culture as more highly developed it is thanks to all the things you mention plus a few men signing a paper in 1776. But it is happen stance that the people who ended up in the temperate time zones were us.

At one time the equatorial areas were undoubtedly preferred. If say the Caucasians had ended up in equatorial areas and driven Negroes to the temperate north, we Caucasians would have been hunting and gathering in 1776 while Negroes would have been signing the Declaration of independence or a similar document.

It gets to be one person’s speculation against another person’s. The argument is not really winnable.

He goes into great depth about the kinds of plants and animals that thrive in the temperate bands of the northern hemisphere, and he claims that almost all of the food that the world eats today come from that band. As a small example, zebras, giraffes and hippos cannot be domesticated, but horses, goats, pigs, sheep and oxen can be domesticated. Hence, people who were living in climates with the animals that were the ancestors of our primary meat sources today had a big advantage. Like plants, the ability to domesticate animals meant that everybody no longer needed to be engaged full-time in food gathering.

I can’t remember what he says about your point that people in the Northern Hemisphere had to learn to plan ahead because food gathering in the Winter is more difficult, but I agree with you and think that is a contributing factor as well.

The “conservative” argument against Diamond is that he doesn’t give credit to Christianity and Western Political systems. Diamond is essential an uber-liberal, and argues that the differences in cultural achievements is strictly a matter of happenstance……in other words, it doesn’t have anything to do with Western culture.

My view is that his thesis (with some additions as you point out) is sound, but that cultural factors like rule-of-law (England), democracy (the Greeks), and Judeo-Christian (the Jews) values accelerated the process.

Also, to be more complete about Diamond’s thesis, he also claims that disease and military prowess were also huge factors. His points on disease are interesting. He claims that agriculture and animal husbandry exposed western people to diseases and allowed them to develop immunities. Once Westerners began conquering other people, those people usually succombed to disease more than Western dominance (note again how he gives Western ideas no credit. It’s just happenstance, you see.). And his ideas on military prowess essentially condemn the West for being the only violent people in history. Which of course, is ludicrous.

By the way, he has probably advanced his ideas beyond what I’ve said here. My information is from books he published decades ago. But one thing for sure is that in whatever new variations he has come up with, the West will be the bad guys.

There were a number of successful Mediteranean cultures during the early Roman era, but Rome emerged. Why? I’m saying because they had a political system that was able to refresh it’s ideas because citizens had the ability to contribute. Later, after Caeser, Rome gave up it’s republican political system for a dictatorship. Inevitably then, it went into decline, culminating in the Dark Ages.

There is a massive lesson in that. Prevent the ability to evolve politically, and a country will not survive. Dictators cannot possibly be smart enough. By definition, it’s their way or the highway. A dictatorship might be ragingly successful at various points in time (see the Medieval Period or pre-Roman history), but eventually a new dictator will come along and screw things up. Not to be too obvious about it, we are seeing the early stages of a transformation from a Republic to a dictatorship in the US right now. And that is why people like ourselves are so concerned.

One other point, regarding creativity, I don’t think barbarity is evidence of Muslim creativity. Barbarity was fully developed millenia ago. Perhaps the Muslims are now leveraging modern technology to find new ways to be barbaric, but the basic themes have been there forever.

The creativity I’m talking about is technical, political, and cultural innovation. I don’t see any evidence of that in Muslim countries. Mohammed wrote everything down from Allah after all. Perfection has already been achieved. For example, I’ve read that Muslim countries average something like 5 patents a year. Yes, 5. The only way they advance technologically is by adapting Western inventions. And a lot of that is accompanied by kicking and screaming. If the West falls, that is the reason the world will fall instantly into a new Dark Age.

In the Subsaharan Africa, when food ran out in one area, they simply moved to another. If food became scarce, they raided another camp. No written language or banking system ever developed.

An interesting theory told me by a physician friend is that the people of the north developed some ability to hibernate during the winter. The decreasing available light triggers this hibernation especially in older people. This hibernation is now known in medical circles as depression. A promising cure for depression is light therapy – which is also known as moving to Florida.

No one is exactly sure why the Dark Ages permeated Western man’s existence but it’s undeniable that the Muslim community lives in it right now. Their ability to innovate and be creative is not in doubt as is evidenced by the new and different ways they come up with to kill people. Their use of airplanes to kill masses, though absolutely reprehensible and beyond criminal and absolutely fetid with evil, was a stroke of tactical genius. Truly, though, you’re correct in that they follow dogma and tradition more closely than the desire to explore new ideas and invention. (Unless you’re Barry the wonder boy and you’d believe they came up with the compass, among other things.)

Therefore, as many have theorized, it’s their oppressive system that keeps them under. Not unlike the serfdom of the Dark Ages where tyrants ruled the land and tribal wars abounded, led by the landowners. Interestingly, idealism and the desire for freedom started to take hold when more people learned to read and the Bible became more familiar to those who could read it, instead of having it interpreted for them by the local church leaders. Much as what you see in current day Islam.

Thus, by keeping the masses uneducated and ignorant and telling them only what you want them to know, you set yourself up for being the king. It can’t last forever. Just as soon as it becomes more desirable to be free than it does to have your lives decided for you, Islam will have to deal with what the Christian church did…and still is: Women’s rights, birth control, death penalty, and so on. Christian leaders argued and still do over the roles of women, and God in government. In the Middle Ages, punishment for criminals was no less barbaric than Sharia law is now. Stockades, real torture…not waterboarding…but real, slowly-watch-you-die torture….burning “witches” etc. Thankfully we grew out of that. But the Muslim world is still smack-dab in the middle of it.

The ongoing human condition is interesting to observe from afar…but also heart-wrenching. It’s as if we’re two different planets, truly.

Just for the record, I used the term “primitive culture” deliberately, because it accurately reflects the cultures that are dominantly Muslim. And there are more reasons than barbarity to call those cultures primitive. For example, their legal and banking systems prevent the people from innovating. The entire Muslim world invents nothing. But place Muslims in the West, and the people are capable of innovation. Also observe the willingly slavish devotion to absolute rulers. With the possible and probably temporary example of Iraq, every Muslim country is ruled by tyrants.

If the West willingly subjagates itself to these primitive cultures, as is happening right before our aghast eyes, there is no question that the world will quickly fall into a new Dark Age, and one that will force civilization back to pre-Roman life styles. That is, if the world isn’t quickly destroyed by nuclear weapons. There will be a period of about 20 to 40 years when the nuclear weapons will be usable. After that, the primitive new rulers won’t be able to maintain them. So the most serious risk to humanity will be that 20 to 40 years period. It’s hard to envision a scenario where they won’t be used, but perhaps humanity will get lucky. (note: I’m assuming that after the knowledge is quickly lost about how to maintain and build nuclear weapons, the threat will be minimized to accidental explosiions, which, although really bad, wouldn’t be as disastrous as deliberate use.)

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Islam itself is primitive. It’s easy enough to find parallels between the Koran and other holy books, particularly the Bible, since those books spring from the same roots.

But I just happen to notice that there aren’t many hands cut off or heads cut off or women killed for having sex, and on and on, in countries where the dominant culture is based on Christianity; whereas all of that and more happens in countries where the dominant culture is based on Islam.

The reasons may go beyond the religion, but there can be no question that Islam is a major cause.

The most interesting question is really why Christian based cultures have been able to quickly innovate so much faster than other cultures. Jared Diamond thinks it is related to climate. Essentially, he says that Western cultures developed in climates with abundant plants and domesticatable animals, which allowed people to spend less time growing things, which in turn freed geniuses to turn to innovation. I like his thesis, but a lot of conservatives disagree.

My own view on this matter is that Diamond is largely correct, but that the West got lucky in two other respects…..the Greeks and the Jews. Those two peoples/cultures had unique characteristics that encouraged freedom and innovation. Look outside. Walk around. We owe the lives of luxury that we live to them.

Anthropologists, like many elites, only deal in the theoretical, never having to be faced with reality. They’ll write a textbook and be lauded as geniuses and thus live on the hill of intellectual superiority.

As for your term “primitive cultures” anthropologists would find it arrogant and vulgar. Who do you think you are to call someone else primitive? Why are you better than they? You live in a culture that is silently polluting their earth and killing the planet.

Once you have labeled them “primitive” you have laid the ground work for some to call for, and eventually carry out, their genocide.

As for the cutting off the hands, an anthropologist would answer – the punishment is real and effective. People do not steal when facing such severe punishment. Punishing a few will convince many. Social order is maintained.

And American prisons are in someways less humane. Confinement, prison rape. forced tattooing and other brutality often leaves one more crippled psychologically than losing a hand and a foot.

Did you notice the mercy displayed in only taking off the hand of the already crippled man? American courts make no such allowances,

I agree with you but in a world gone mad – the sane get sent to the asylum.

You don’t hear about it much, but human sacrifice, torture, killing imperfect babies, killing girl babies, animal sacrifice, genital mutilation, head shaping, brutilization of females, trial by fire and torture are the norm for cultures throughout history, up to and including recent centuries. Libwits like to pretend primitive people are just peace-loving flower children, but it’s pure propaganda bullshit. The anthropolists who spout out the nonsense are like the global warmists. Lying is how they make their livings.

The jihadists are just doing what aboriginal people have done forever.

Easy…easy.

VMAN was being sarcastic. He’s on our side.