Three hundred years ago something big happened.
The western world began to look at the world
with new scientific eyes.
There was a problem with this, though.
As scientists began to classify the world
into different categories, they also began
to divide the human species into sub-species.
Because of this an authoritative justification
of slavery and colonialism happened.
People have suffered because of this for over
three hundred years.
And while many people back in the day argue
that the dominance of Europeans was because
its race was “superior” to those of Africa,
China, the Americans, etc.
The truth is that their power really came
from luck.
Thought Monkey here.
This episode is all about outlining a theory
that tries to explain why Europeans have been
so dominant over the past five hundred years.
In 1997 a man named Jared Diamond published
a book called Guns, Germs, and Steel.
The book was inspired by a question that a
New Guinean man named Yali asked him.
One day Yali asked Diamond, “why is it that
you white people developed so much cargo and
brought it to New Guinea, but we black people
had little cargo of our own?”
Diamond spends his book answering this question.
He details evidence that points to the environment
rather than biological differences between
different groups of people, for their success.
He goes back over 13,000 years to discover
why the west rather than the east, Africa,
or the Native Americans, have dominated the
world.
The argument he points to is the European
dominance is a result of opportunity and necessity
rather than any kind of particular ingenuity.
That there was a chain of events that led
them to the position they are in.
If we go back far enough into history we can
look at these developments.
The road to such inequality began when people
stopped being hunter-gatherers and started
farming.
When this happens, people don’t have to
spend all their time looking for food to eat
and instead can plant, harvest, and store
a surplus of food.
With enough food stored, people can have free
time and do stuff like build cities, develop
states, and consolidate those states into
empires.
It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, however.
A number of factors must be in your favor
in order to make the transition from hunting-gathering
to farming.
First you have to have crops that are high
in nutrients which can also be stored.
And you need a climate that is dry enough
that will allow storage.
You also need animals that can be domesticated
by humans and used to help with the farming
process.
When you have control of these things, you
can make extra food which can be used to feed
lots of people who can grow the population,
learn other things, and innovate socially
and technologically.
At this point societies start to become hierarchical
and political structures develop that lead
to nations being built.
The problem with most places around the world
is that they aren’t even stuitable for the
first step in builing a civilization.
They simply can’t develop a system of agriculture
based on their environment.
On the other hand, Europe and Asia which we
will call Eurasia, was perfect.
It had a relatively dry climate and lots of
plant and animals that could be domesticated.
For example it had barley, two kinds of wheat,
beans, flax, goats, sheep, cattle, donkeys,
horses, and more.
Diamond discovered that while Eurasia had
14 animals that were able to be used by humans,
there was only one in South America –the
Llama and none in all other parts of the world.
Some might argue that Zebras and African Elephants
could be domesticated, but Zebras have been
found to be untamable.
And while African Elephants are tamable – they
are nearly impossible to breed in captivity.
It is also probably true that both North America
and Australia had animals at one point that
could be domesticated, but due to what looks
like over hunting – both regions lost any
animals that could be used by humans.
Another key in explaining that dominance of
Europe is disease.
And animal domestication had a lot to do with
this.
Many of the diseases that have wiped out enormous
populations in Europe and Asia are a consequence
of people living in close proximity with animals.
Diseases like smallpox, measles, and influenza
all come from living close to animals.
Over hundreds of years exposure to these diseases
have allowed Eurasians to develop resistances
toward them.
As they traveled they also took these diseases
wherever they went – and when they came
into contact with people who have never been
exposed to them, the deaths of millions resulted.
Eurasia’s geographical location also promoted
cultural exchange between its people in a
way that the rest of the world lacked.
The fact that it stretches west to east instead
of north to south like the Americas and Africa
do, allowed for a greater variety of plants
and animals that could be domesticated to
be exchanged.
It also allowed its people to trade both innovations
and diseases more easily than a north to south
continent.
Let me explain.
By being orientated west to east, domesticated
breeds in one part of the continent could
be used in another location on that continent
due to the seasons and climate being relatively
similar.
On the other hand, the Americas and Africa
are both geographically fragmented.
In the Americas it proved difficult for crops
to be adapted from one latitude to another
and in North America, from one side of the
Rocky Mountains to the other.
Traveling from North America to South America
was also extremely difficult.
Africa’s extreme variations in environment
also made it pretty much impossible to use
domesticated plants and animals from different
locations.
Unlike these two places, Europeans were able
to adopt the animals and plants of Southwest
Asia, and their agricultural techniques over
thousands of years ago.
By 1000 CE pretty much all of Europe had adopted
the plants and methods of Southwest Asia.
Because societies in Eurasia were able to
produce a crop surplus and develop cities,
people were able to specialize in skills outside
of basic survival.
People like craftsmen and scribes made Eurasian
societies grow economically and technologically
much faster than hunter-gatherers.
These advantages eventually led the people
of one part of Eurasia – Europe – to conquer
the world using technological advances like
guns and steel.
Some might ask why it was the European powers
rather than the Asian powers of Eurasia who
dominated the world.
After all China has historically been one
of the most powerful and stable places in
the world.
Diamond proposes that there are geographical
explanations.
In Europe there are lots of natural barriers
like mountains, rivers, the sea, etc. which
allowed societies to develop independently
of each other.
At the same time competition between these
societies were massive and ensured that those
who didn’t develop quickly would soon be
conquered.
In other words it was a natural selection
of societies – only the most economically
and militarily advanced societies survived.
Unlike in Europe, Asia had large isolated
empires which deprived them of as much competition
and led to policies that sometimes hindered
their economic development.
One example is when China banned ocean going
ships in the 16th century, just as the Europeans
were beginning to explore and colonize the
world.
Western Europe also benefitted from a mild
climate that was suitable for agriculture.
In southwest Asia or what we sometimes call
the Middle East, intense agriculture eventually
damaged the environment enough that the desertification
of the region was encouraged.
Even today as the world has entered a more
globalized era, the difference in wealth and
power is huge between people who have descended
from western Europeans and everyone else.
In fact if you look at a list of the richest
people in the world, the majority are people
who have descended from western Europeans.
Most of us don’t stop to think about it,
but the consequences of geographical and environmental
luck have had a lasting impact on each and
every one of our lives today.
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