It definitely did start out with a question about disparities traditionally thought to be explained by race. If we believe the science that racial differences are not really valid - there is no “race” that can be genetically shown to be more left or right brained, which I think we know now to be true - then there has to be other explanations. Why did Asians in Asia first domesticate horses, when their relatives crossing the Bering strait hunted them to extinction? There’s no racial difference between those two sets of peoples. Why did those same people instantly take to domestication of horses when reintroduced by Europeans?

I think Kahoonah’s wrong in his belief that a dictatorship could easily have done the same thing, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I think topography explains a ton. In Europe, it caused domestication from the Fertile Crescent to reach it first, before Asia. It also helped prevent political dysfunctionality from spreading easily throughout the continent, unlike China. But in the US, it helped keep budding empires apart, and any sort of evolution and exchange of ideas like we saw in Europe.
[Post edited by hoolstoptheheels at 01/31/2024 11:44AM]