[HN Gopher] Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics
___________________________________________________________________
Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics
Author : rufus_foreman
Score : 42 points
Date : 2023-06-09 20:25 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.daviskedrosky.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.daviskedrosky.com)
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I had a hard time interpreting the various criticisms from
| academics of Diamond in a way other than: _This goes against our
| field 's dogma, so I will fight it_. Ie, I'm suspicious that,
| given the conclusions he came to, they would argue against it
| regardless of methods or the strength of his case. Eg, _He
| underplays the role of culture? He 's wrong._
| kgwxd wrote:
| So like... Diamond is Jared's last name? I can't be the only one
| just finding this out today.
|
| Edit: Oh, this person has nothing to do with a jewelry store that
| I mistakenly thought was called Jared Diamonds. I'd like to leave
| this here in shame.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Diamond also attempts to explain why European, rather than
| Chinese, conquerors were the ones who did all the colonizing.
| This is a simple balkanization theory--Europe divided into many
| areas conducive to states, China formed a great homogenous core--
| that does not need lengthy restatement. Europe has a highly
| indented coastline with multiple large peninsulas, all of which
| developed independent languages, ethnic groups, and governments,
| plus two large islands.
|
| Roberts' "The Triumph of the West"
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Triumph-West-Press/dp/1842124...
|
| has a quite different take on this. He says the difference comes
| from a different cultural perspective. It's been a long time
| since I read it, but I'll try to summarize it with the Chinese
| perspective was that phenomena could not be modeled. Everything
| was a unique creation. I.e. the behavior of a model could not be
| extrapolated to explain other behaviors, while the European
| perspective was always trying to explain things with models.
|
| Another cultural difference was the European notion (intentional
| or otherwise) of free markets. This is expounded upon by another
| book, "The Victory of Reason" by Stark
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Victory-Reason-Christianity-Freedom-C...
|
| My own observation of history is that the key factor is
| recognition of and protection of the rights of life, liberty and
| the pursuit of happiness produce massive technological progress
| and the uplifting of society.
|
| Societies that recognize these rights thrive, those that do not,
| fall by the wayside as they are unable to compete.
| soperj wrote:
| > > Diamond also attempts to explain why European, rather than
| Chinese, conquerors were the ones who did all the colonizing.
| This is a simple balkanization theory--Europe divided into many
| areas conducive to states, China formed a great homogenous core
| --that does not need lengthy restatement. Europe has a highly
| indented coastline with multiple large peninsulas, all of which
| developed independent languages, ethnic groups, and
| governments, plus two large islands.
|
| It's like he knows nothing about China. There's lots of
| different dialects, Mandarin wasn't the main language used by
| Government until around the time that the Americas were being
| colonized by the Europeans.
| civilized wrote:
| Nothing in the quoted passage suggests that China does not
| have different dialects. But it doesn't take a history
| professor to recognize that China has been under centralized
| governments of much more comprehensive reach in space and
| time than Europe ever has, and it is with these periods of
| unity and stability that Chinese culture most identifies
| itself.
| contingencies wrote:
| This is true _now_. But before, most people would have been
| loyal firstly to their area, speak a (quite possibly non-
| Chinese or even Sino-Tibetan) language or dialect only
| understood in their area, and at would at most have heard
| the names of some far-off places. It was not that different
| to Europe. And that 's the relatively Chinese areas. Don't
| forget also that up until the 20th century large areas of
| present-day China were demonstrably _not Chinese_ , in that
| nobody could speak or read Chinese in the area and they had
| adopted virtually zero Chinese language or culture.
| soperj wrote:
| > China formed a great homogenous core--that does not need
| lengthy restatement. Europe has a highly indented coastline
| with multiple large peninsulas, all of which developed
| independent languages, ethnic groups, and governments, plus
| two large islands.
|
| This right here more than suggests that China speaks one
| language, also suggests that it's never split apart, which
| it has multiple multiple times.
| swombat wrote:
| I read Diamond a long time ago but what he was contrasting
| was that the Chinese Empire was centralised and so when they
| decided not to expand, that applied to the whole empire,
| while the Europeans were fragmented so even if Germany and
| France and England didn't want to send any ships, Portugal
| and Spain could be convinced to take a risk.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Columbus' 3 small ships were also vastly cheaper than Zheng
| He's large fleet that had some really large ships in it
| (even if we dismiss the reported sizes as utterly
| unrealistic).
|
| There's also the fact that the European ships at the time
| were more robust than the Chinese ships -- because robust
| ships had been really useful for sailing along the Atlantic
| coast for trade/fishing.
| soperj wrote:
| I also wonder which two islands are considered large out of
| GB, Ireland, Iceland, Corsica, Sicily... I feel like
| there's a couple of big islands around China too... Taiwan,
| some in Japan, Borneo, Philippines for instance. Indigenous
| Taiwanese settled the whole south Pacific.
| swombat wrote:
| The Roberts explanation is subsumed by the Diamond explanation.
|
| More fragmentation meant more competition. This helped ensure
| that states which, like China, might have sub-optimal belief
| systems (like "it's not worth trying to explain things") were
| outcompeted and conquered by states that did. Similarly, states
| with markets that were more free outcompeted those that were
| less free, and so the innovation spread. The Dutch invented the
| modern stock market and the public company, and ruled the world
| for 100 years with that, but soon enough that spread to the UK,
| and then rest of the western world, and gave them all a huge
| competitive advantage compared to countries that didn't have
| that.
|
| And all that comes from the fragmentation. No need to postulate
| cultural differences - the cultural advantages come out of the
| fragmentation.
| WalterBright wrote:
| N & S America civilizations were quite fragmented, as well as
| African ones.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is too abstract to be an explanation of anything. Chinese
| philosophers and logicians, before the arrival of formal logic
| in China (or the world probably) made _constant_ references to
| the "sage kings" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sovereig
| ns_and_Five_Empe...) to justify every argument, because 2500
| years ago, that's how argumentation worked. Almost _purely_ by
| model.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _He says the difference comes from a different cultural
| perspective. It 's been a long time since I read it, but I'll
| try to summarize it with the Chinese perspective was that
| phenomena could not be modeled. Everything was a unique
| creation. I.e. the behavior of a model could not be
| extrapolated to explain other behaviors, while the European
| perspective was always trying to explain things with models._
|
| This makes me believe Diamond over Roberts even more. I don't
| think cultural philosophical beliefs matter _that much_. They
| can be arbitrary and stick around for long if they don 't make
| much of a difference in daily lives - but anything that _does_
| make a difference will get more accurate with time rather
| quickly. This is to say, humans aren 't dumb - and because of
| that, economics is stronger than faith or custom.
|
| > _My own observation of history is that the key factor is
| recognition of and protection of the rights of life, liberty
| and the pursuit of happiness produce massive technological
| progress and the uplifting of society._
|
| I'm a much less experienced observer, but my current view is
| that... it's mostly the other way around. Life, liberty and
| pursuit of happiness is the kind of stuff that mostly flows
| from people's emotions and social intuitions. People try to
| pursue those naturally. How far they go is determined by their
| economic situation - Ancient Rome afforded for different levels
| of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" than early agrarian
| settlements did; different still than what was possible in
| Feudal Europe, and different from what was possible after the
| Industrial Revolution.
|
| Technological progress reshapes the economical landscape,
| allowing people to achieve more "life, liberty and pursuit of
| happiness". Specialization of labor, agriculture optimization,
| the printing press, industrialization, engines, washing
| machines, electricity - all created conditions that allowed
| people having _more_ rights, liberty and happiness than they
| could 've before.
| j-bos wrote:
| I guess this is the historians' orangutan.
| thatoneguy wrote:
| All those words and not a peep about his board game Darwinopoly.
| I played it in college with some members of my anthrpology class
| as part of a class exercise and let me tell you, asking random
| classmates if they want to have sex and then rolling for
| paternity is a thrill that's hard to replicate 20 years later.
| [deleted]
| aslfjiasf wrote:
| This review suggests that the game is now called "Tribes":
| https://amzn.com/dp/1556343558, but the author is not Jared
| Diamond. Is this the game you remember?
| worik wrote:
| > But Guns, Germs, and Steel--which is explicitly anti-racist
|
| Reminds me of: "I'm not racist, but...."
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| It's frustrating when people take scientific inquiry and
| dispassionate plausible explanation of historical circumstances
| as some sort of identity politics cudgel to bash a scientist over
| the head with erroneous value judgements like they're canceling a
| Neonazi.
|
| GGS was a good book. Independently, 2 MDs at my gym also came up
| and mentioned they thought it was a fascinating work. And my dept
| chair also thought it was a insightful work. In fairness, the
| last 1/3 of it kind of falls flat. Collapse isn't all that
| engaging.
| George83728 wrote:
| I never bought into the claims that Jared Diamond is some sort of
| racist; he book is plainly anti-racist and anybody who says
| otherwise probably never read it. Honestly.
|
| That said, some of Jared Diamond's arguments are really lame..
| just poorly thought out. For instance, is claim that the use of
| wheels for transportation is in some way gated by the
| availability of pack animals. This guy has never used a wheel
| barrow I guess... of course he has and mentions them much later
| in his book, but dismissing the point as a "puzzling non-
| invention". This realization doesn't seem to have him question
| his earlier assertion that wheels for transportation would only
| be invented where pack animals are available.
|
| I think it's got nothing to do with pack animals, and the truth
| is that wheelbarrows, and wheels for transportation generally,
| are one of those inventions that are obvious only in retrospect.
| Even after you've invented wheels on toys, it isn't necessarily
| immediately obvious that wheels could have practical applications
| as well. A very small handful of people in the history of
| humanity had this idea and most people never did (and just copied
| it from other people). It's not because of geography or ecology,
| just shear dumb luck.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| > For instance, is claim that the use of wheels for
| transportation is in some way gated by the availability of pack
| animals. This guy has never used a wheel barrow I guess...
|
| I pulled up a PDF of GG&S to search through and I can't see
| this argument in the book. What I can see is him making the
| observation that the wheels invented in mesoamerica didn't make
| their way north or south to be paired up with pack animals, and
| that this showed how hard it was for technological discoveries
| to travel vertically through climates.
| zen_of_prog wrote:
| His arguments definitely don't have the same academic rigor as
| someone in their own field, but I felt like they were pretty
| defensible.
|
| Looks like the oldest wheelbarrow that we know if is from ~200
| BCE, the oldest chariots from ~2000 BCE.
|
| You're right that it often comes down to dumb luck, but I think
| those lucky moments are usually facilitated by other factors.
| That's why there are often simultaneous and independent
| inventions (multiple discovery). Ox-drawn plows are also at
| least 4000 years old, and I feel like seeing an animal pulling
| a plow all day begs for wheels so you can pull anything
| anywhere, much more than the combination of a wheel and a stick
| to apply mechanical advantage.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Graeber/Wengrow's Dawn of Everything is a good critical
| examination
| jrh3 wrote:
| Wow. I read that book in college. No idea a backlash like that
| developed... That is crazy if that is how skewed university's
| have become. Guns, Germs, and Steel is an incredible academic
| work. Dang.
| [deleted]
| angst_ridden wrote:
| I think Diamond's greatest fault as a researcher is his
| reliance on reductivism. Anyone can cherry-pick history to
| support "5 simple rules that explain X" if the rules are even
| reasonably sane.
|
| It may be satisfying and entertaining to read, but human
| history is much more complex than just a few rules.
| jrh3 wrote:
| I took his rules as high level observations of the
| environment's impact on human evolution. But human experience
| is much more nuanced like you say. I do remember thinking
| some of the observations could come across as very blunt.
|
| There is a video on the internet of him trying to shoot an
| old style gun... pretty funny... needless to say it's not his
| greatest skill.
|
| Jared Diamond Funny video: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxm-
| OUN3XNSdXmZ_fkXs1zZUQziwjaLZN...
| [deleted]
| civilized wrote:
| I bet I can take anyone's favorite history books and paint
| them as reductivist.
|
| The charge of reductivism can be made against anyone who
| attempts to explain big patterns in comprehensible ways.
|
| In fact, isn't it reductionist to claim that a historian's
| entire view on a topic can be reduced to theories they
| developed in a single book?
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Exactly. Have you seen how many WWII or Civil War books
| there are. Do I need to read them all before I am allowed a
| valid opinion? All history gets condensed and interpreted.
| This thread isn't really do a very good job arguing that
| Jared is wrong, it seems much more like they disagree with
| some particular point politically, thus he must be wrong.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| the irony is that I've seen Guns, Germs, and Steel get trashed
| by people on the right for downplaying the idea that Western
| culture was/is special and the key to success/wealth/innovation
| and attacking Diamond for saying it was only due to geography
| and other random factors rather than Western culture itself
|
| Universities and academics have shifted so far left that they
| are increasingly eating their own, the entire point of the book
| was to try and say that race and Western culture wasn't a
| factor. It's a pretty obvious argument against most right wing
| talking points, but apparently that isn't enough anymore in
| academia
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Yep. It said Europe's balkanized geography (islands,
| peninsulas) begat literal balkanization, which begat
| competition, which begat innovation, which begat exploration
| and technology which dominated the world despite all other
| European failings.
|
| Meanwhile, Asia's geography lent itself to unifying
| monopolization, which begat immense totalitarian states which
| were more complacent.
|
| Both geographies fostered dense cities with draft animals,
| creating plagues and immunity to those plagues, which let the
| Old World dominate the New in numbers, technology, and
| immunology (nevermind that they had a few thousand years'
| head start in technology since they didn't have to switch
| continents).
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Are you active in any of tho relevant fields? If not, then why
| do you think you are better qualified to judge the academic
| quality of his work than actual academics with the proper
| background?
| angst_ridden wrote:
| I always found McNeill's "Plagues and Peoples" a much better read
| than Diamond's book on semi-overlapping topics.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Knew there were some detractors, didn't know it was so wide
| spread and vindictive. Glad this sets out more current arguments.
| yyyk wrote:
| The author needs to look at this in a wider context. _GG &S_ may
| be defensible, but _Collapse_ is pretty horrible, trying to force
| environmental explanations at the cost of downplaying European
| slave raids (Easter Islands) or utter absurdity (Diamond 's
| suggestion that Viking Greenlanders preferred to starve than to
| eat fish). Diamond had a thesis and forced the facts to fit in
| the expense of integrity. After _Collapse_ , it made much more
| sense to look askance at _GG &S_.
| api wrote:
| I always get a little suspicious of big nonfiction books
| arguing some big thesis that arrive with fawning reviews from
| all the right places and whose authors immediately get crowned
| as important public intellectuals.
|
| These books often seem to have a life cycle: sensation, canon,
| "but wait a minute," and then lastly forgotten.
|
| I figure the initial splash might mean the author just knows
| the right people in New York. They seem like the nonfiction
| equivalent of what someone I know once called a "tobadny" which
| stands for "trendy overhyped book about dysfunctional New
| Yorkers." These are the occasional literary fiction sensations
| about... well... dysfunctional New Yorkers that arrive with
| gushing reviews in The New Yorker.
|
| A merely very talented author outside the New York scene
| usually has to wait until they are dead to be noticed.
|
| In our scene the equivalent would be an overhyped overfunded
| startup run by someone who knows the right people in the Valley
| that is the hot thing for five minutes. Meanwhile someone in
| Nebraska who invented a working Alcubierre Drive will never get
| funding.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| This seems more like sour grapes. Is "A Brief History of
| Time" in this category? Who's to say. There are a ton of non-
| fiction books that are written for popular audiences that do
| not make it big. If they are all equal, than all the ones
| that don't make it should also end up being wrong. That
| doesn't seem right, why is it only the ones that do become
| popular must turn out wrong.
|
| This seems more like moralizing on the public being idiots,
| and so if a book is popular it must be wrong.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| It is hard to tell because in the current political climate,
| there is such animosity against anybody mentioning human
| impacts on the 'environment', that someone could just state
| something obvious, like maybe we should stop polluting so much,
| and be called a 'woke liberal elitist'.
|
| So is his book Collapse forcing an environmental theory, or are
| you so against any theory of 'human caused environmental
| problems', that you can't see past your own bias. It is hard to
| tell online. I mean, his book was totally about environmental
| problems, so to criticize it for outlining environmental
| problems is bit much.
|
| It has been awhile but think the Vikings had more variables,
| like weather that prevented fishing. And, don't think slave
| raids negates there were other variables, why can't slave trade
| and environment both have contributed. So he didn't highlight
| what you wanted to hear about enough, isn't an argument that
| slave raids contributed more.
| czzr wrote:
| I agree his later books were not as good, but this argument is
| ridiculous - evaluate GGS on its own terms, those don't change
| if the author later writes poorer books.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Diamond absolves Europeans of blame for the crimes of
| imperialism through his geographical determinism, since the
| conquerors couldn't help but seize the helpless Americas.
|
| Running through the article is the notion that somehow Europeans
| were uniquely interested in brutal empire building. I can only
| infer that such notions stem from never having read history books
| about other cultures.
|
| For example, "Empire of the Summer Moon", by Gwynne
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Summer-Moon-Comanches-Powerful...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-06-09 23:00 UTC)