Eugenics. So, you think some humans are genetically dumber than others? Genetically less creative than others? Genetically more resistant to advancement than others? I do not believe any of those things are true. In fact I think they’ve been thoroughly, scientifically debunked.

I absolutely believe the thesis of guns, germs, and steel. Hunter gatherers innovate less - they are consumed with subsistence and tended not to gather in large groups permanently, as first started happening in the Fertile Crescent. Something like 90% of all modern day domestic plants and animals originated there. Then, writing was invented due to the need for bookkeeping - that’s what launched that innovation in our earliest non-Hunter-gatherer settlements. That led to exchanges of ideas in ways that didn’t exist before.

The topographical path to Europe for these plants and animals was open. It was blocked into Africa by the Sahara. It was blocked to the east by mountain ranges like the Himalayas. Although a similar evolution of domestication occurred in China, which spawned all kinds of innovation. China though lent itself to continental unity. So political dysfunctionality spread easily. Europe was the Goldilocks zone. It had the Mediterranean and rivers throughout for spreading Fertile Crescent innovations, but the Alps and other features preventing continental political unity. When Spain imploded because it didn’t think it had to pay its debts, and lost its creditworthiness, that only infected Spain. Spain’s former province, Holland, overtook its former master by being credit worthy, England was the same. More of a competition of ideas than in China.

In the new world, the Aztecs and Incas among some others formed civilizations around domestication, mainly of maize, but topography like jungles and mountain ranges kept it from spreading.

The Asians who crossed the Bering Strait were the same genetic stock as those who stayed in Asia, who became the first to domesticate horses. Yet their brethren in the new world hunted horses there to extinction. The explanation is not genetic.

Genetic superiority or inferiority, innovativeness or lack of creativity, etc - these are long debunked ideas, 81. Again, how is it that within one generation, you couldn’t tell the difference between German Americans and Italian Americans and French Americans. Because there’s no genetic predetermination of capabilities.

Do yourself a favor - give the book another shot. It’s a much better explanation than the summary I just attempted - I read it decades ago.
[Post edited by hoolstoptheheels at 01/31/2024 3:43PM]