Blog Response #3 - Guns, Germs, & Steel Excerpts 7-9
Blog Response Part A
Part A: Which excerpt did you most enjoy?
Excerpts 7-9 deliver a wide variety of information, starting with the development of writing which led to other forms of technology, and then wrapping everything up with an examination of Africa and how Diamond’s “Geography Theory” impacted that continent.
Choose the excerpt that is most interesting to you. What do you particularly appreciate learning about? Why does this interest you? Include at least one piece of evidence from the text to support your thoughts.
Blog Response Part B
Part B: Identifying Emerging Topics
Review your list of Emerging Topics for Excerpts 7-9. Which one are you most interested in pursuing at this time? If this topic is related to what you already wrote about in Part A, be sure to explain that connection.
1. Identify the topic and which excerpt it came from (this should include a quote).
2. Explain why this topic is "speaking to you."REPLIES - DAY 2: Read through the posted blog comments. Reply to TWO: one you agree with and one that you disagree with and/or can followup with a clarifying question. Clearly explain why you agree or disagree with the author of the blog comment AND/OR explain your question in detail.
The excerpt that interested me the most was excerpt 8. This excerpt interested me because it explains how the different cultures communicated with each other. A quote that explains this topic is, "“For historians of technology, the Phaistos disk is even more baffling; its estimated date of 1700 B.C. makes it by far the earliest printed document in the world. Instead of being etched by hand, as were all texts of Crete’s later Linear A and Linear B scripts, the disk’s signs were punched into soft clay (subsequently baked hard) by stamps that bore a sign as raised type”.
ReplyDeleteA topic that interested me was pottery from excerpt 9. A quote that explains this topic is, "Pottery, recorded in the Sudan and Sahara around 8000 B.C., did not reach the Cape until around A.D. 1. Although writing developed in Egypt by 3000 B.C.". This topic interested me because pottery seemed so useful to make to put certain objects in and keep them safe or just for decoration. They were able to trade pottery sometimes for materials from other cultures or groups.
I agree that some people could find that interesting. After all it does talk about how languages were written back then.
DeleteI agree that excerpt eight was the most fascinating of the three, learning about the early beginnings of writing. I found it very interesting that the Phaistos disk mentioned in your quote had a type of writing on it that has never been seen again or identified.
DeleteI agree. I think excerpt 8 was interesting. It's cool that even though different cultures didn't speak the same language, it didn't stop them and they found ways to communicate with each other
DeleteI found the early developments of writing very interesting as well because of how it was mentioned that people made stamps to stamp into clay to make a printed document.
DeleteI disagree with you, as much as learning how different communities communicated with each other, I don't see hoe learning about how they did trades or took over territory is important to research
DeleteI agree with you because writing was a major impact as it contains valuable information for the people who were able to read it, spreading the knowledge.
DeleteI agree with you because writing was a major impact as it contains valuable information for the people who were able to read it, spreading the knowledge.
DeleteI agree with you because writing was very important for developing civilizations. I think it is interesting to see how different cultures came up with different ways to communicate and write.
DeleteIn addition to your thought, excerpt 7 can also be connected to the idea of how communication evolved throughout different cultures. For example excerpt 7 states, “The second strategy uses so-called logograms, meaning that one written sign stands for a whole word... Before the spread of alphabetic writing, systems making much use of logograms were more common and included Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs, and Sumerian cuneiform.” This quote shows how logograms could have evolved from the Phaistos disc. They both used distinct signs similar to the alphabet to communicate. Furthermore, the Phaistos disc was found on the island of Crete which is in Greece, and the logograms were used in Egypt which is south of Greece. Thus showing that they were both found in approximately the same parts of the world which could connect to the origins of different writing styles.
DeleteI agree with you because writing had a big part of the culture and it's very interesting how writing changed so much from back then to now. In addition, it is interesting to think that if maybe there was no communication between people, we may not be as advanced as we are today.
DeleteI agree, learning how documents were made back then is very interesting and it's even more interesting that it is one of the earliest printed documents.
DeleteThe excerpt I enjoyed reading the most, and found the most interesting, was excerpt 9. I enjoyed learning about Africa and the animals and the conquering of its regions. I also enjoyed reading about how many of the plants and domesticated animals were brought to Africa from Eurasia, and this is what helped civilizations start to modernize in Africa. Learning about why a region was so far behind another in development is pretty interesting to learn about. It seems that everything comes from one area that developed a lot faster than others. I wonder if Eurasia hadn’t spread animals, plants, and knowledge in general, if other regions in the world never would’ve developed. One interesting topic Diamond discussed was the animals in Africa compared to Eurasia, an interesting idea he states was, “Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents — such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus — have never been domesticated, not even in modern times.” The idea that animals have such a big part in peoples development, is a very interesting one to me.
ReplyDeleteThe emerging topic that was most interesting to me in excerpts 7-9 was the idea of domesticated vs. tamed animals. An example of this was in excerpt 9 where Diamond states, “Hannibal enlisted tamed African elephants in his unsuccessful war against Rome, and ancient Egyptians may have tamed giraffes and other species. But none of those tamed animals was actually domesticated” I think this is interesting because I would like to know more about what the difference between the two is. What constitutes a tamed animal compared to a domesticated animal? Diamond talks about this a little but it would be very interesting to find out more on the differences and see what animals fall under each category. The idea that animals may be tamed but not domesticated is an interesting topic. I would love to research and learn more about the differences and the animals that fall under each, and how things can be changed so tamed animals may one day be domesticated too.
The emerging topic you found is quite interesting, I'd like to know the difference between domesticated and tamed animals too. I was wondering, what “other species” do you think the author meant when saying, “Hannibal enlisted tamed African elephants in his unsuccessful war against Rome, and ancient Egyptians may have tamed giraffes and other species”? It says on excerpt nine, page one, that African equivalents of Eurasia’s domesticated animals had never been domesticated before because their animals do not meet the list of requirements: “to be domesticated, must be sufficiently docile, submissive to humans, cheap to feed, and immune to diseases and must grow rapidly and breed well in captivity”. So, it left me curious as to which ones are easier to tame, and how the difference between the requirements of taming animals and domesticating animals will impact this.
DeleteThe emerging topic was interesting to me too. I wonder how things would be for them if they were able to domesticate more animals than they did. I think it would have been beneficial but would probably cost them a lot more money and time to take care of them.
DeleteI also found excerpt 9 the most interesting since areas of Africa and Eurasia had to have the same climate and geography to be able to have the same plants and animals and sustain a more agricultural lifestyle. Those areas were bound to develop better and faster than other places that didn't have domestic plants and animals.
DeleteI agree with you that excerpt 9 is very interesting, learning how Africa and why the civilizations who live there are behind places like Korea or the US. Its also interesting that the plant and animals that inhabit Africa can affect how the economy and the well-being of those communities
DeleteI agree that the emerging topic is very interesting because it proves that places that evolve faster are places that are or have been explored and met by foreigners and that is also how animals and resources moved from one county to another along with animal counter parts.
DeleteI agree with your emerging topic because its interesting to think that if more animals were domesticated civilizations could develop faster
DeleteI also found excerpt 9 the most interesting because of the impact the domesticable animals may have had on Africa. Jared Diamond brings up a very strong answer to the question of why some places have so much technology compared to another when he says “Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents — such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus — have never been domesticated, not even in modern times”(excerpt9). These native African animals would make it impossible to domesticate food or work animals. Because of the inability to have a direct food source, it may be the cause of why Africa fell behind.
DeleteI found that all the excerpts were equally as impact with information about why civilizations are at the state that they are. I think there's a little piece of all the theories that cause civilizations to grow into big corporate state like we are today. We as humans directly impact each other as well, I found that I could appreciate the excerpts that talked about Europeans impact on different civilizations because it wasn't glorified by someone that needs a filter. It directly shows how we interfere as humans in others lives and that life and forming a civilization is more than being able to provide all the basic needs ie food water shelter. “Africa was the sole cradle of human evolution for millions of years, as well as perhaps the homeland of anatomically modern Homo sapiens. To these advantages of Africa's enormous head start were added those of highly diverse climates and habitats and of the world's highest human diversity. An extraterrestrial visiting Earth 10,000 years ago might have been forgiven for predicting that Europe would end up as a set of vassal states of a sub-Saharan African empire.”
ReplyDeleteUse the same quote… This is the first part of excerpt 9. It really intrigues me why people think they way they do, and how that impacts us throughout history. A topic that I would like to dive deeper into is the mindset of people trying to form a civilization what were their morals and real intentions and how did that play a role in why we are here today.
I will have to disagree on this. I do not really find any of them interesting to me. I just do not see why I would need to know these things.
DeleteI agree with you but I find some stuff more interesting except the excerpt that talks about language. because the topic of language tends to be boring for me.
DeleteI agree with you that many of these excerpts have parts that contributed to the growth of big nations, many of it doesn't come from just one thing. looking back though, it seems like America, and Europe have always been ahead.
DeleteI agree that all of them had parts that were interesting however I personally did not find excerpt 7 all that interesting. It might have just been me but I found it boring and I couldn't get into it.
DeleteI agree with you, all of the excerpts really play their own role in contributing to how everything is the way that it is, to me it makes me question what is the answer to what is what and what goes first and what is last.
DeleteI kind of agree to your claim about how all the excerpts have parts that contributed however my question is I know you said everything had "Little pieces" however Do you think some of the roles had a bigger impact than others? In my opinion I believe some had much bigger impacts than others or as you said "pieces" for example in excerpt 8 a lot of what I read was based on creating new technology one that got my attention the most was how they created bombs it said "In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. government set up the Manhattan Project with the explicit goal of inventing the technology required to build an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany could do so." I think as technology advances it impacts us a lot more. Because just like the atomic bomb it impacted every country around the world to create new destructive types of military firearms and I know there's plenty of other types of new technology like phones and other types of devices which impacted our world too dramatically because we’re able to communicate to people that are in the other side of the planet.
DeleteAgain like the last two blogs I did not fond any of them interesting at all.
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ReplyDeleteThe excerpt I thought was most interesting was excerpt 8, on the topic of writing. I enjoyed learning that the earliest writing ever found was punched into a clay disk, its estimated date being 1700 bc. It wasn’t until 2,500 years later in China, and 3,100 years later in medieval Europe that they applied this idea with paper and ink. Sensibly enough, after this, different societies adopted the solution if it worked with their values and other technologies. On page one, it says, “The number of distinct signs (45) suggests a syllabary rather than an alphabet, but it is still undeciphered, and the forms of the signs are unlike those of any other known writing system. Not another scrap of the strange script has turned up in the 89 years since its discovery.” This was my favorite to read about because it makes me curious about who wrote this script and why there was no more to be found.
ReplyDeleteThe topic I am most interested in pursuing comes from excerpt eight: advancing technology and overlooked historical figures. On page four it states, “Unfortunately for this splendid fiction, Watt actually got the idea for his particular steam engine while repairing a model of Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine, which Newcomen had invented 57 years earlier and of which over a hundred had been manufactured in England by the time of Watt’s repair work.” This sparks my interest because it brings me to wonder how many people were not given full credit for their discoveries/inventions, like Newcomen with his engine, and the false claim that Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean first. A couple other questions that came to mind were: Does this mean that advances in technology are because people want to make something better than before? And, if that’s the case, doesn’t it just prove that we do not advance because of need, but for wanted improvement in efficiency?
I disagree, a lot of cultures didn't get the chance to use writing technology until after other cultures taught them how to use it, they never used paper and ink they used clay to punch out what they were saying.
DeleteI disagree because a lot of cultures never used writing they used a form of verbal language's or just silent communication so they never got the chance to make or tell their history or their cultures story to the outside world.
DeleteI agree with you on this. I think that it is not fair to take credit for something else, also to make sure that they get some sort of money or credit for the work they did is really important.
DeleteI also agree with the part of giving credit I believe a lot of the inventions that were invented shouldn’t be fully credited to one person since a lot of them used things that were already created in the past. One thing I also noticed was in excerpt 8 “The hero customarily credited with the invention followed previous inventors who had had similar aims and had already produced designs, working models, or (as in the case of the Newcomen steam engine) commercially successful models.” this quote basically confirms that many of the things that were “created” used things that were already made but nobody really gave credit on the things people used.
DeleteI agree with you. I think its not fair that most of the inventors in the olden times like back in the 1800s- present, the people who crated the invention didn’t get the credit for and other people who fixed one little issue on the invention got the credit for it. To me this doesn’t make sense but okay I understand because the people who fixed the one little issue they actually got it to work.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you because writing had a big part of the culture because they had to have some way of communicating with other cultures and with others in the group. Drawing maps to plan where to go.
DeleteI also find it interesting that communication impacts a society as much as it does. There are so many things that impact each society and the fact that there are so many different languages and communication styles that have come about. It is interesting to think about that maybe if there was no communication between people, we may not be as advanced as we are today.
DeleteThe excerpt I found the most interesting was excerpt 7. I find it interesting how writing has evolved and became what it is now because that's a form of communication and education to us. “Hence writing brings power to modern societies, by making it possible to transmit knowledge with far greater accuracy and in far greater quantity and detail, from more distant lands and more remote times.” (P.g 1) This quote speaks to me because without writing we wouldn’t be able to express ourselves the way we do. We probably wouldn’t be as advanced either.
ReplyDelete“To these advantages of Africa's enormous head start were added those of highly diverse climates and habitats and of the world's highest human diversity. An extraterrestrial visiting Earth 10,000 years ago might have been forgiven for predicting that Europe would end up as a set of vassal states of a sub-Saharan African empire.” I find it interesting how Africa had a “head start” and instead of evolving into something bigger, surrounding continents have surpassed them in many categories and Africa is falling behind.
I also find it interesting that Africa had a head start but then fell behind everyone else. It's crazy how quickly a society can advance and still other societies may advance even faster and surpass them. This would be a very interesting topic to research.
DeleteI also agree that excerpt 7 was the most interesting. Writing has been around since the beginning of time and has impacted the past and the present. For example the text states, “Here we have to remind ourselves that the vast majority of societies with writing acquired it by borrowing it from neighbors or by being inspired by them to develop it, rather than by independently inventing it themselves. The societies without writing that I just mentioned are ones that got a later start on food production than did Sumer, Mexico, and China…” This quote can connect to your thought of writing impacting the advancement of civilizations because it shows that writing did in fact impact these civilizations advancement. Writing led to an early start of food production so places without writing fell behind like you thought.
DeleteI agree with you that excerpt 7 was the most interesting. The evolution of writing has been amazing. By writing evolving and continuing from generation to generation, we are able to hear and read stories of other adventures and knowledge. Jared Diamond wrote, “Hence writing brings power to modern societies, by making it possible to transmit knowledge with far greater accuracy and in far greater quantity and detail, from more distant lands and more remote times.” Writing is a very big part of most peoples days; writing can be very powerful and meaningful.
DeleteI agree that evolution is key part humanity but I personally feel that it all simplify down to communication. people evolve to solve the problem of death and stabilize the food chain. so communication would be a problem if you couldn't pronounce half the alphabet.
DeleteDuring the time I've spent reading the excerpts from the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond one of the many things I found fascinating was in Excerpt Nine where Diamond talks about how the Europeans discovered that the climate was reasonably similar to their own home land's climate when the landed on the beaches of Southern Africa. They also learned that Africa has a lot of animals that were unsuited for farming. This is also interesting to me because I always thought you can use animals like Rhinos and elephants to transport materials to places easily. Apparently, they weren’t used because the amount of food needed to feed and breed animals of that size. Thirdly and another thing that got me surprised in excerpt nine was that Europeans were also unsuccessful to have horses pass an area of Africa where the tsetse fly is a common in the Equatorial parts of Africa.
ReplyDeleteThe connection to why excerpt nine is speaking to me is because the fact that Africa isn’t a forgiving place where animals like goats, pigs, cows, and horses were never introduced to Africa before the Europeans went to Africa to conquer it.
I also found excerpt 9 to be the most interesting. It talked about many interesting things, from crops and livestock to domestic and tamed animals. Both of which are discussed near the end of the first page and the beginning of the second page on excerpt 9. Overall I think that excerpt 9 covered more appealing topics than the other excerpts and I look forward to learning more.
DeleteI agree that it is pretty interesting that the Europeans discovered those things about climate. It also is pretty interesting that they used animals as transports for supplies.
DeleteI would say that excerpt 9 is the most interesting to me because I enjoyed learning about how two or more geographical areas could have similar climates, crops, animals, and being able to sustain the same ways of life despite being thousands of miles apart. In excerpt 9, Diamond states, “As one moves along a north-south axis, one traverses zones differing greatly in climate, habitat, rainfall, day length, and diseases of crops and livestock. Hence crops and animals domesticated or acquired in one part of Africa had great difficulty in moving to other parts. In contrast, crops and animals moved easily between Eurasian societies thousands of miles apart but at the same latitude and sharing similar climates and day lengths.” It also shows that there could be a specific kind of climate and geography where life flourishes better and civilizations can grow faster.
ReplyDeleteThe topic I am most interested in pursuing right now is the developments in writing. I found this topic in Excerpt 7, “Developments in format included the gradual adoption of conventions whose necessity is now universally accepted: that writing should be organized into ruled rows or columns (horizontal rows for the Sumerians, as for modern Europeans); that the lines should be read in a constant direction (left to right for Sumerians, as for modern Europeans); and that the lines should be read from top to bottom of the tablet rather than vice versa.” I’m interested in this because I wonder how it was decided how writing should be read and how it’s organized. Also I find it interesting that other languages organize and read their writing different than the majority.
I agree that excerpt 9 was the most interesting excerpt because the topics it brought us were appealing and fun to read about. Hopefully I can learn more about their topics. Also, I never realized how essential the developments of writing are to us today. And I believe that you make valid points about this topic, it would be great to understand our society's developments in the department of writing.
DeleteI disagree that excerpt 9 was the most interesting. As you mention some of the topics that were mentioned in excerpt 9 were interesting, but to me, excerpt 7 and 8 were more interesting. The development of writing and technology is so new and still evolving today. Technology can both be entertaining and horrifying, “Technology, in the form of weapons and transport, provides the direct means by which certain peoples have expanded their realms and conquered other peoples.” Technology is evolving and sometimes not for the better. The more advanced weapons we have the worse it can get because on one side it's going to help in war situations, but if these weapons get into the wrong hand, many innocent people that didn’t sign up to fight for their life and country may end up dead. Technology evolving can be a good thing, but it can also be a very scary thing.
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DeleteI agree that excerpt 9 was the most interesting because of how much of an impact the orientation of the continent had. Jared Diamond explains the issues that affected farming when he says “As one moves along a north-south axis, one traverses zones differing greatly in climate, habitat, rainfall, day length, and diseases of crops and livestock. Hence crops and animals domesticated or acquired in one part of Africa had great difficulty in moving to other parts”(excerpt9). I found this very interesting because of how difficult farming would become. If the North African people discovered a new farming technique, the odds of Southern Africans being able to use it were rather low. This could have been a major reason Africa accelerated slower. Due to each area being forced to discover their own techniques, these societies never got the easy route of passing on information to other regions.
I found excerpt 7 the most interesting because I learned that writing had a bigger part in history than I previously thought I would like to pursue this topic because I would like to see just how much writing has helped humans civilization rise This interests me because I have had to research many famous written documents and I never once thought that these documents would drives humans to evolve and expand on themselves. My evidence is “Writing marched together with weapons, microbes, and centralized political organization as a modern agent of conquest. The commands of the monarchs and merchants who organized colonizing fleets were conveyed in writing.” (Excerpt 7)
ReplyDeleteCommunication leads to the evolution of humanity which ties into part A and also helps farther more explain how human writings are way more important than once thought by historians which was also proven by ancient civilizations. “The fleets set their courses by maps and written sailing directions prepared by previous expeditions. Written accounts of earlier expeditions motivated later ones, by describing the wealth and fertile lands
awaiting the conquerors. The accounts taught subsequent explorers what conditions to expect, and helped them prepare themselves. The resulting empires were administered with the aid of writing.”
I never realized the impact writing had in the past either. Its cool to learn and see just how much writing has changed the world. Us as humans have went from etching or stamping letters or symbols into clay to writing on paper with pencils or pens or even typing on a computer. Its also interesting to know that writing had a huge impact on how we communicated with others throughout history.
DeleteI agree that writing played a big role early civilizations. It could be interesting to see how the first written language was developed and for what reason did that person/people develop it for.
DeleteI disagree because multiple groups did not have the education to learn writing and reading as they could have been solely focused on maintaining their survival.
Deletei agree because the human body is a wonderful thing even if they didn't teach how to read or wright, they could have still found a way weather they learn on there own or made there own language
DeleteI agree with writing being a compact part to the birth of civilizations, it did interest me in the case of how society can be formed on a language but in order to strive it creates writing. Writing may also have help based the widespread exploration of European conquest for Colonies, as without writing maps may have been only squiggly lines on a piece of clay.
DeleteFor me, I prefer excerpt 7, when we learn about the symbolic, sounds, and words of the written language and how the written and spoken language has evolved over time. It interests me because at one point and time, we either all spoke the same language at the same time and language branched off into other languages, or we all spoke different languages and those evolved into English or Japanese. “strategies underlying writing systems differ in the size of the speech unit denoted by one written sign: either a single basic sound, a whole syllable, or a whole word. Of these, the one employed today by most peoples is the alphabet, which ideally would provide a unique sign (termed a letter) for each basic sound of the language (a phoneme).” (Excerpt 7)
ReplyDeleteA topic that “speaks to me” is in Excerpt 9, how non-domesticated can cause so many problems for humans. “to be domesticated, must be sufficiently docile, submissive to humans, cheap to feed, and immune to diseases and must grow rapidly and breed well in captivity. Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents — such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus — have never been domesticated, not even in modern times." (Excerpt 9) Africa might have had animals to make frames and feed off of, but the animals in Africa were non-domesticated for the people who live in Africa, so, if they were so difficult to domesticate, why is there still civilization in Africa?
I agree excerpt 7 really shows how language has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. It is also a crazy concept that many languages stem from others
DeleteI'm really intrigued by your topic, you ask a really good question and I also wonder that now as well. I wasn't that interested in excerpt 7 before but I side with your statement for it and it makes me want to look into it more.
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ReplyDeleteI find that Excerpt 8 is the most interesting to me because I find that history about creating things for people that need it is fascinating and that more people should be fascinated by the idea of invention. "In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. government set up the Manhattan Project with the explicit goal of inventing the technology required to build an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany could do so." (Excerpt 8, Page 2). If we did not have necessity for winning the war against Germany we would not have created the Atomic Bomb one one of the strongest weapons ever used on the planet.
ReplyDeletePhaistos' disk is such a strong emerging topic because it has to do with a certain type of writing that has only been seen twice in the earth's lifetime. It is such a great mystery that deserves to be talked about because it seems to be one of the oldest writing systems in Europe during the Bronze Age.
I agree i feel like creating something is cool in its own and its even better when we can watch it ourselves and feel like we are a part of it
DeleteAnother theory regarding bomb building comes from excerpt 7. Diamond explains that some areas of the world had developed laugauge and writing on there own while others had mimicked pre-existing laungages. The same can be applied to Atomic bomb building in the 1940's, "Did Russia's bomb-building efforts depend critically on
Deleteblueprints of the already constructed American bomb, stolen and transmitted to Russia by spies? Or was it merely that the revelation of America's A-bomb at Hiroshima at last convinced Stalin of the feasibility of building such a bomb,.."
I found excerpt 7 to be the most interesting for many reasons. First off is because I didn't realize how big of a role communication, and language played in advancing civilizations in many ways. Writing and language has helped organize civilizations for battle, and raiding other enemies. "The commands of the monarchs and merchants who organized colonizing fleets were conveyed in writing. The fleets set their courses by maps and written sailing directions prepared by previous expeditions. Written accounts of earlier expeditions motivated later ones, by describing the wealth and fertile lands
ReplyDeleteawaiting the conquerors. The accounts taught subsequent explorers what conditions to expect, and helped them prepare themselves". What also intrigued me was the different upbringings in civilization that came to be from different types of language, and communication, such as the three basic strategies.
I agree that communication and language played a role in advancing civilizations faster. That's one of the reasons why Africa developed at a slower pace than the other civilizations who had writing.
DeleteI was fascinated with your point of view of this topic and genuinely found excerpt 7 more interesting. I also was blinded to the fact that language and written language was more than important than I imagined. I guess it's something people take for granted like many things like walking and being able to use the school's chromebooks. Thinking about it now, many historic event wouldn't have happen without written language and communication didn't exist in our society and society wouldn't exist either.
DeleteThe Excerpt I found most interesting would have to be excerpt 9. This excerpt interests me because The topics it discusses are things that are appealing to me, such as: Domestic animals. As stated on the first page of the excerpt, “But we saw in Chapter 9 that a wild animal, to be domesticated, must be sufficiently docile, submissive to humans, cheap to feed, and immune to diseases and must grow rapidly and breed well in captivity. Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents — such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus — have never been domesticated, not even in modern times.” I find this excerpt interesting for many reasons, but this stuck out the most. I want to know more about this topic and how domestic animals work and how they live in different environments.
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic that was interesting to me within excerpts 7-9 would have to be domestic animals and how they act, live, and do anything versus how tamed animals do things, such as how they eat. “Had Africa's rhinos and hippos been domesticated and ridden, they would not only have fed armies but also have provided an unstoppable cavalry to cut through the ranks of European horsemen. Rhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overthrown It's true, of course, that some large African animals have occasionally been tamed. Hannibal enlisted tamed African elephants in his unsuccessful war against Rome, and ancient Egyptians may have tamed giraffes and other species. But none of those tamed animals was actually domesticated — that is, selectively bred in captivity and genetically modified so as to become more useful to humans. he Roman Empire. It never happened.” Learning the differences between domesticated animals and tamed animals fascinate me and it would be interesting to research and learn about more.
I sort of agree with you on this topic too. I think that most animals should be able to be free and living out in their world like we do. I do want to know more about what allowed people to make cows and chickens domestic and let them run around in people's yards instead of living out in the wild.
DeleteI agree that excerpt nine was the most interesting because it explains why Africa is so "far behind" other continents, and why it's taken so long to start catching up.
DeleteThe excerpt thats interest me the most is excerpt 8. Excerpt 8 interest me more because shows how technology has had a positive and negative impact on the human race and everything else. A quote in excerpt 8 that shows this is found on page 2 were it says “ In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. government set up the Manhattan Project with the explicit goal of inventing the technology required to build an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany could do so” meaning technology helped the us intimidate the Nazis to back out of the war meaning it was a positive impact yet others parties started to use technology to create egual if not better atomic bombs and before we knew it there was enough to wipe out man kind which is a negative impact.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that mostly grabbed my interest was excerpt 8 due to the fact that there’s so much history and research on this topic. Due to the fact that technology has helped populations grow because it gives people a boost or a Head Start An example of this is found in page 2 were is says “That project succeeded in three years” This topic interest me due to the fact that its been around since the being of time and there is always new technology emerging to chance how we see hing and do things.
I feel I agree with you, but I disagree with the claim of having a negative impact on the human race" as although we discovered ways to destroy humanity by creating the atomic bomb we also found ways to protect humanity from a case of it happening, like in the case of nuclear bomb shelters and if given enough funding and innovation the creation of missiles that will attempt to destroy these bombs before the case they arrive. What I believe I'm attempting to explain that in the case of creating even more deadlier weapons of mass destruction humanity was try or attempt to find ways to protect themselves from destruction, like how horses where believed at the time the weapons of mass destruction, civilizations were able to create a weapons against the Calvary called the common spear.
DeleteI think excerpt 9 was the most interesting to me because it explains why Europe developed faster than Africa when they had a head start. On page 3 Diamond said, “Similarly slow in spreading down Africa's north-south axis was human technology. Pottery, recorded in the Sudan and Sahara around 8000 B.C., did not reach the Cape until around A.D. 1. Although writing developed in Egypt by 3000 B.C. and spread in an alphabetized form to the Nubian kingdom of Meroe, and although alphabetic writing reached Ethiopia (possibly from Arabia), writing did not arise independently in the rest of Africa, where it was instead brought in from the outside by Arabs and Europeans.” This helps explain why Africa fell so far behind because writing did start early on in some parts of Africa, it took thousands of years in order for it to spread to other regions of the continent.
ReplyDeleteThe topic I'm most interested in is why African farmers didn't mass grow the crops that they could, even though they had less variety than Eurasia. In excerpt 9 it says, “A second factor is a corresponding, though less extreme, disparity between sub-Saharan Africa and Eurasia in domesticable plants. The Sahel, Ethiopia, and West Africa did yield indigenous crops, but many fewer varieties than grew in Eurasia.” Even though African farmers had less options to choose from, why didn't they get really efficient at growing what types of crops they could and mass produce those.
I agree with you that excerpt 9 is the most interesting except I found it interesting about the domestication of plants and animals rather than writing systems. However i can see why you find it interesting as how writing systems developed is extremely intriguing.
DeleteThe excerpt I enjoyed the most was excerpt 7 because the development of writing has created useful information that could be spread across lands or sea. With the use of writing, it made data and information “more detailed, more accurate, and more persuasive” (Excerpt 7, Page 1). People with the information are more knowledgeable and it can continue to increase the information to become more detailed or accurate. One piece of text to show this is, “Writing marched together with weapons, microbes, and centralized political organization as a modern agent of conquest. The commands of the monarchs and merchants who organized colonizing fleets were conveyed in writing. The fleets set their courses by maps and written sailing directions prepared by previous expeditions. Written accounts of earlier expeditions motivated later ones, by describing the wealth and fertile lands
ReplyDeleteawaiting the conquerors. The accounts taught subsequent explorers what conditions to expect, and helped them prepare themselves” (Excerpt 7, Page 1). This was interesting because information and knowledge was a way to communicate with other people, which increases their likability with others as it contained useful information.
The topic that I chose and is most interested in is knowledge from excerpt 7. People with the most knowledge have more power because it can spread from person to person by writing down the information in accurate and detailed words. Piece of text to show this is, “Knowledge brings power. Hence writing brings power to modern societies, by making it possible to transmit knowledge with far greater accuracy and in far greater quantity and detail, from more distant lands and more remote times. Of course, some peoples (notably the Incas) managed to administer empires without writing, and "civilized" peoples don't always defeat "barbarians," as Roman armies facing the Huns learned” (Excerpt 7, Page 1). This topic speaks to me because everyone has the knowledge to learn, though there are some who do not want to. Knowledge and writing has brought people to become more interactive with other people. For example, commerce and trading with other countries has brought countries together in good terms.
I disagree with you due to communication does not always increase peoples likability with others.
DeleteExcerpt 8 was the most interesting to me because it explains how much technology advancing has helped developing civilizations. In some places technology advanced faster making civilizations advance faster. A example of this is from excerpt 8 “Unfortunately for this splendid fiction, Watt actually got the idea for his particular steam engine while repairing a model of Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine, which Newcomen had invented 57 years earlier and of which over a hundred had been manufactured in England by the time of Watt’s repair work.”
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic I'm interested in is the phaistos disk because it was the start of communication and writing. An example of this is “ the Phaistos disk is even more baffling; its estimated date of 1700 B.C. makes it by far the earliest printed document in the world. Instead of being etched by hand, as were all texts of Crete’s later Linear A and Linear B scripts, the disk’s signs were punched into soft clay (subsequently baked hard) by stamps that bore a sign as raised type.”
I agree with you that Excerpt 8 was interesting because it explains how much technology advancing has helped developing civilizations.
DeleteThe excerpt I find most interesting is excerpt 9, I feel the importance of Africa is something most people don't understand. The europeans came to Southern Africa and realized how the climate was just like theirs even though they're over 5,500 miles away. Now of course we know this is because of where they are on the earths axis, but even though the weather was similar the animals are so much different from what they're used to. I also find it interesting that these animals could only be tamed but not domesticated. I feel the relevance of Africa is a great one.
ReplyDeleteThe excerpt I found most interesting reading was excerpt 9. Excerpt 9 interested me the most when it talked about animal domestication. Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents — such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus — have never been domesticated, not even in modern times. This has always been a thing that interests me as I find it fascinating that people can domesticate animals to fit their needs.
ReplyDeleteThe topic I am interested in researching is how are animals and plants domesticated? “The Sahel, Ethiopia, and West Africa did yield indigenous crops, but many fewer varieties than grew in Eurasia. Because of the limited variety of wild starting material suitable for plant domestication, even Africa's earliest agriculture may have begun several thousand years later than that of the Fertile Crescent.” This topic speaks to me as I think it would be interesting to research how ancient civilizations went through this process.
The most interesting thing I found was. on page 1 of Excerpt 9 when Diamond says, "Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents — such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus — have never been domesticated, not even in modern times." This is important because much of the animals we domesticate today are because of people in the past doing that. I don't ever seen how buffalo or zebras could be domestic as they need to live free out in the wild.
ReplyDeleteA quote that I found was when Diamond said, "It's true, of course, that some large African animals have occasionally been tamed." To me I don't think some animals should ever be tamed. It should be allowed to live out in the wild free away from everyone and everything else. This speaks to me because I am an animal lover and I hate when animals get beaten up or domestic. I do have a question about it, who is allowing them to do this. I don't think it would be allowed today with how much social media is in the news. I wonder why this is ever allowed to happen. What can be done to stop it?
I also am a animal lover and was interested in researching a topic that comes from except 9 about the animals. I do believe that some animals should be out in the wild free but it shocked me that they really only did domesticate some animals and others not because I thought they'd need food and I felt the more food they could have the less you have to worry. I think it's interesting how back then with the animals is kinda like how it is today. How it quoted "Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests" Just like how them are the main animals you see on a farm today.
DeleteThe most interesting thing i thought was excerpt 7 because i feel it gave more insight into how people wright and how we learn different languages and can wright them that way. i also feel it was interesting because it shows theirs more to the history of writing, speaking and everything else when there are those who only chose to believe facts not the thought of there were people here i cant see because there dead. i feel the main quote that stood out was talking in page 1 about the clay." In the last centuries before 3000 B.C., developments in accounting technology, format, and signs rapidly led to the first system of writing. One such technological innovation was the use of flat clay tablets as a convenient writing surface. Initially, the clay was scratched with pointed tools, which gradually yielded to reed styluses for neatly pressing a mark into the tablet." for me its cool to look back at something like a clay or stone tablet and see there was other life before ours and it proves there will be after were gone and that's why it speaks to me because we all go at some point and we won't know when or how. so how do we save these from disappearing or breaking and losing them forever?
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how the written language has came so far. People use to write on clay now there is so much technology that it is amazing to see what things use to be like before it.
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ReplyDeleteHis theory is on the geography has impacted how we see Africa and the different way i personally see it like before all i imaged was a big empty space with starving people that we need to send supplier to. the one excerpt that i found most interisthing was number 8 Necessity’s Mother where in this excerpt he talks about what is necessary for survival and what is not with inventions, like said in excerpt 8, "THE STARTING POINT for our discussion is the common view expressed in the saying “Necessity is the mother of invention.” That is, inventions supposedly arise when a society has an unfulfilled need: some technology is widely recognized to be unsatisfactory or limiting."
ReplyDeleteOut of all the topics that we looked thought the one that stuck out to me the most is the writing and language like in excerpt 8 they talk about the clay disks, " At first glance it seemed unprepossessing: just a small, flat, unpainted, circular disk of hard-baked clay, 6½ inches in diameter. Closer examination showed each side to be covered with writing, resting on a curved line that spiraled clockwise in five coils from the disk’s rim to its center." this speaks to me because the way they communicated way back then its truly fascinating.
Along with you, I also choose excerpt 8! I found it to be so so interesting the way that they wrote and passed messages back then. The way we communicate through phones is so easy but I think id be so cool to experience back in their time the ways they had to find to communicate and write to each other! As I kept reading excerpt 9 and came around the quote " The printer evidently had a set of at least 45 stamps, one for each sign appearing on the disk." I just thought it was so cool that the clay lead them to using a printer!
DeleteI also chose excerpt 8 and find very interesting how inventions were created so greatly to help the peoples needs. It was cool to see how they started with clay discs and advanced to greater things.
DeleteThe excerpt I found most interesting was excerpt 7. Excerpt 7 gave much detail and thought as to why writing was such a key technological development. In exerpt 7 Diamond explains, " . Hence writing brings power to modern societies, by making it possible to transmit knowledge with far greater accuracy and in far greater quantity and detail, from more distant lands and more remote times." (Excerpt 7, page 1) What Dimaond is trying to basically say is that without a form of writing or communication, development in general is going to be much harder.
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic I am very interested is the idea of Necessity's Mother. In excerpt 8, Diamond goes on to explain that necessity is the mother of inventions, meaning that when we have a need we make an invention for it. But what he has come to realize is the complete opposite, "invention is often the mother of necessity, rather than vice versa." This basically means that we now need our inventions, it's not just to make life easier, it is the current way of life. I found this specifically interesting because it can be heavily applied to our everyay lives. Phones for eaxmple are seen by many as a need.
yes i do agree with what your saying and that the inventions are important to building and living in the area
DeleteI also agree with you that inventions of buildings and different living is important in this area.
DeleteI agree with you as well and that inventions lead to needs and needs lead to inventions. In Diamond's text when he states, "invention is often the mother of necessity, rather than vice versa" I can see where he has found a reason on why some of the things that are made today impact everyone as a whole. I also found this to be very interesting because if we did not live in a society where inventions weren't as easy as they are today we would be suffering with the fact that we would not receive something that we desperately need.
DeleteI agree that inventions change human behavior. I think that greed and the fear of missing out tie in hand with technology we create in today's era. I think that how we distributed the technology in the past also plays a role in human behavior.
DeleteI disagree that inventions change human behavior because there are some people out there who still do everything the "old fashioned way" and they still live their lives like everyone else.
DeleteThe most interesting section to me was excerpt nine. Jared Diamond wrote, “In short, Europe's colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography — in particular, to the continents' different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.” This excerpt is interesting to me because it really shows the drastic difference in life and growth based on a difference in location.
ReplyDeleteDiamond said, “The starting point for our discussion is the common view expressed in the saying ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’ That is, inventions supposedly arise when a society has an unfulfilled need: some technology is widely recognized to be unsatisfactory or limiting.” I’m most interested in pursuing the topic of how necessity fuels the creation of inventions because there are many items that could fall into this category. For example, more weapons are invented during times of war, than during times of peace.
I also agree that necessity and inventions are very interesting. What I am more interested in is not so much the idea of having a need that requires an inventions, but more of what inventions are now a need. "Once a device had been invented, the inventor then had to find an application for it. Only after it had been in use for a considerable time did consumers come to feel that they “needed” it." What I want to know is what disadvantages come with having all these inventions as needs and how does it effect our development as a civilization.
DeleteThe excerpt that was most interesting to me was Excerpt 7 because it talked about the three basic strategies that helped evolve writing systems. For example, Diamond talks about how different sounds dictate different syllables or words and states, “Of these, the one employed today by most peoples is the alphabet, which ideally would provide a unique sign (termed a letter) for each basic sound of the language (a phoneme). Actually, most alphabets consist of only about 20 or 30 letters, and most languages have more phonemes than their alphabets have letters. For example, English transcribes about 40 phonemes with a mere 26 letters. Hence most alphabetically written languages, including English, are forced to assign several different phonemes to the same letter and to represent some phonemes by combinations of letters…” (Excerpt 7). I liked this quote because I learned that there are so many different sounds that make up the different words we use everyday and it has brought on a sort of awareness of how this impacts our daily lives. For example, we wouldn't be able to communicate or understand each other that well if we didn’t have this way of communication.
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic I am most interested in researching is the idea of how germs have an impact on humans and war. For example, Excerpt 6 talked about how animals carried different pathogens which caused humans to become sick. However over time humans became more immune to them. A specific quote from the text states, “The winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals and weapons, but were often merely those bearing the nastiest germs to transmit to their enemies.” This quote talks about how germs impacted wars quite significantly, and I would like to research more about this because it shows how even the tiniest of germs can bring down an entire army. I would like to find out how they impact us and why something as small and little as germs can hurt us so much.
I disagree that excerpt seven is the most interesting. While discovering how writing techniques came about is an important piece of evidence to how nations evolved, most forms of writing were "discovered" separately and have only branched off of each other. More than two-thirds of languages derived from the same six branches. Domestic plant and animal distribution plays a bigger role in the growth rate of different countries. For example, Diamond said, "domestic animals did not reach sub-Saharan Africa until thousands of years after they began to be utilized by emerging Eurasian civilizations." This implies that the reason African countries fell behind everyone else is because domestic animals weren't there until much later than they were in Europe.
DeleteThe excerpt that I enjoyed and found the most interesting was excerpt 8 called “Necessity’s Mother”. I particularly appreciated learning about technology and found it the most interesting. This interests me because I find it so cool on how they passes messages. We all know all about phones and easy ways to get a message to someone so I really enjoyed reading and learning on how they got messages around. In the beginning of the excerpt “Necessity’s Mother” a quote was stated saying " A small, flat, unpainted, circular disk of hard-baked clay, 6½ inches in diameter. Closer examination showed each side to be covered with writing, resting on a curved line that spiraled clockwise in five coils from the disk’s rim to its center. A total of 241 signs or letters was neatly divided by etched vertical lines into groups of several signs, possibly constituting words. The writer must have planned and executed the disk with care, so as to start writing at the rim and fill up all the available space along the spiraling line, yet not run out of space on reaching the center". This quote really interested me because that clay to write messages is what then lead to printing. So learning on how they first got messages around and how they learned off what they started with by the clay leading to them about printing was a really interesting topic to lean about!
ReplyDeleteThe topic i'm most interested in pursuing at this time comes from Excerpt 9 called "What about Africa". The topic I want to dive into is why could some animals be domesticated and others couldn't? In excerpt 9 it stated "Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents, such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus, have never been domesticated". I find this so interesting and it speaks to me because I just wonder why they only domesticated some animals. What was their reason behind only domesticating some animals and not others. So that is why I would like to dive deeper and research this topic!
The excerpt that interested me the most was excerpt 8. During Excerpt 8 it brings up technology, this interested me the most because it showed the huge impact that technology has had on everything. A quote in excerpt 8 that showed this was on page 2 where it says “ In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. government set up the Manhattan Project with the explicit goal of inventing the technology required to build an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany could do so.” only because of this it allowed the U.S. to succeed in winning the war. I find this super fascinating because it makes you wonder if the war would have continued if the U.S. would have never created the atomic bomb. This also caused the whole world to be in shock and caused countries to advance in creating new and better technology such as nuclear weapons.
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic I am most interested in researching is the idea of advancement in humans for example the tools for writing and technology are a lot different now than how it once was in excerpt 8 the tool for writing that is described as “just a small, flat, unpainted, circular disk of hard-baked clay, 6½ inches in diameter.” During this stage in life we were not as advanced as now and it's crazy that we have advanced from just a small little flat hard baked clay to being able to create huge technological things like bombs and nukes and ect. Like I said before in my opinion it's amazing to see the advancement of humans where as before we weren’t so advanced. Another thing I noticed was how they describe the advancement of writing words it says “A total of 241 signs or letters was neatly divided by etched vertical lines into groups of several signs, possibly constituting words. The writer must have planned and executed the disk with care, so as to start writing at the rim and fill up all the available space along the spiraling line, yet not run out of space on reaching the center.” It’s described a lot differently on how they wrote letters back than instead of how we write letters nowadays.
I agree with you because most of the inventions that were used when they needed it and to make their life easier
DeleteThe excerpt that most interested me was excerpt 9. This is because I found Diamonds geography theory about how geography affected the continents advancements very interesting. There were many different variables that could impact advancements such as that “food production was delayed in sub-Saharan Africa '' said Jared Diamond , and from there he goes on to reason why this would impact their ability to have as much cargo as other places in the world. Although there are many different reasons stated in excerpt 9 I feel that this one is the most important because it ties into a lot of the other reasons that were given in the excerpts. Food impacted Africa for many different reasons the first one being that africa was very limited in the types of food they had access to with very low levels of protein being in their diet they were already put at an disadvantage when it came to energy because not only many shortages of food but lack of a variety of key vitamins and proteins. “as far as plant and animal domestication was concerned, the head start and high diversity lay with Eurasia, not with Africa.” Given the example of Eurasia this was the case for a lot of different countries, many places had animals that served a lot of different purposes besides food aiding them in their daily lives that Africa just could get. Animals were used for their power such as plowing fields as stated in the excerpt and clothing travel and many more, africa did not have the ability to domesticate their surrounding animals because of either the animal's temperament or it would just simply not be worth the effort to have. A topic that I'm looking to research is “What about Africa?” From excerpt 9 this is because there are many solid points made that answer or connect to the overall question, “why is it that white people ended up with so much cargo?”. The reason food production among the sub topics I previously spoke about stand out to me is because I think they are the most important out of any I have read in the other excerpts, I feel like the impact that this had on africa is the primary reason for inequality between countries because the cause and effect that stems from their lack of food production was so crucial.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting excerpt to me was excerpt 9:What about Africa? This excerpt stuck out amongst the others because of two main ideas. The first theory Jared Diamond brings up is the exponentially different amount of domesticable animals. He said “we think of Africa as the continent of big wild mammals. But we saw in Chapter 9 that a wild animal, to be domesticated, must be sufficiently docile, submissive to humans, cheap to feed, and immune to diseases and must grow rapidly and breed well in captivity”(excerpt9). This is something that i’ve never really thought while reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. Unlike Africa, Europe was blessed with very docile, submissive, and cheap to take care of domesticable species. This naturally occurring advantage could explain why places similar to Europe were able to advance past the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The second point that caught my attention is when Jared Diamond said “Africa's major axis is north-south, whereas Eurasia's is east-west”(excerpt9). The orientation of Africa compared to Eurasias has a monumental impact on the ability to pass along information about farming. Due to its North-South landscape, Africa experiences many different types of climate. Because of the climate change, it becomes almost impossible to grow plants that thrive in northern Africa on the opposite end of the continent. As the north figures out new techniques the south could lag behind because those shared techniques would fail.
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic that interests me is the difference in domesticable animals. This topic sparked my interest because it has a lot of potential to answer part of Yali’s question. When
Jared Diamond said “Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents — such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus — have never been domesticated, not even in modern times”(excerpt9) it occurred to me that the ability to domestic animals for food and work plays a colossal role in the advancements of a society. It would be interesting to study what made Africa’s animals so much different than Eurasia.
I found excerpt 9 to more interesting to me because Jared Diamond talked about why Africa had a head start because of the domestication of plants and animals, but he also explains a reason as to why they ended up far behind. "The remaining factor behind Africa's slower rate of post-Pleistocene development compared with Eurasia's is the different orientation of the main axes of these continents. Like that of the Americas, Africa's major axis is north-south, whereas Eurasia's is east-west. As one moves along a north-south axis, one traverses zones differing greatly in climate, habitat, rainfall, day length, and diseases of crops and livestock. Hence crops and animals domesticated or acquired in one part of Africa had great difficulty in moving to other parts. In contrast, crops and animals moved easily between Eurasian societies thousands of miles apart but at the same latitude and sharing similar climates and day lengths." This excerpt showed that they got a push with Eurasia but that still didn't help them get as far.
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic I am interested in researching is the process of domesticating the animals and plants. “The Sahel, Ethiopia, and West Africa did yield indigenous crops, but many fewer varieties than grew in Eurasia. Because of the limited variety of wild starting material suitable for plant domestication, even Africa's earliest agriculture may have begun several thousand years later than that of the Fertile Crescent.”
The excerpt that is most interesting to me is eight because Diamond talks about how living on different axes on the globe can affect how a region develops. Africa advanced very slowly compared to Europe because of different animals on the continent, different livestock, lengths of daylight, and different climates. Diamond states, “Like that of the Americas, Africa's major axis is north-south, whereas Eurasia's is east-west”. Diamond also states, “The slow passage or complete halt of crops and livestock along Africa's north-south axis had important consequences”. Europe used its advantage and took over an important area of Africa using threats and force.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that is speaking to me is from excerpt eight and it explains why inventions were made and how they helped advance areas. Diamond states, “These familiar examples deceive us into assuming that other major inventions were also responses to perceived needs. In fact, many or most inventions were developed by people driven by curiosity or by a love of tinkering, in the absence of any initial demand for the product they had in mind”. This is speaking to me because during this time a lot of things were being invented with the new technology available someone even created a device that can record noise. When something was lacking something then an invention would be made to fill the gap. It is impressive to see how far technology has come and how far inventing has come.
The most interesting part I read about was in Excerpt 8 about how the Cretan civilization transmitted knowledge through writing on disks, "Closer examination showed each side to be covered with writing, resting on a curved line that spiraled clockwise in five coils from the disk’s rim to its center. A total of 241 signs or letters was neatly divided by etched vertical lines into groups of several signs, possibly constituting words."
ReplyDeleteThis topic interested me because it explains how different transmitting knowledge was back then vs in a modern society as today we could just Google answers and techniques for certain topics.
The excerpt that really stood out to me is excerpt 7, Evolution of Writing. This excerpt stood out to me the most because it mentions the different writing styles and the three different writing strategies. Writing is a big part of sharing ideas. Without writing, someone can forget the ideas that they shared and then most likely not remember what they were. Writing can be used in many different styles; for example people write notes, books, scripts, checks, and papers. Writing can really bring a story to life. I chose excerpt 7 because writing is really important and by writing and reading that writing you can learn someone's story and gain more knowledge. According to Jared Diamond; “Food production and thousands of years of societal evolution following its adoption were as essential for the evolution of writing as for the evolution of microbes causing human epidemic diseases. Writing arose independently only in the Fertile Crescent, Mexico, and probably China precisely because those were the first areas where food production emerged in their respective hemispheres. Once writing had been invented by those few societies, it then spread, by trade and conquest and religion, to other societies with similar economies and political organizations.” Writing has been passed on for a long time and through a lot of generations, Writing can bring people together and tear people apart. Writing is one of the most powerful things because people tend to write what they are feeling instead of saying them to others. Writing has helped countries and people get a long for centuries with things such as conditions and truces. Excerpt 7 had the biggest impact in my opinion because writing was used then and it is certainly still being used today.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting topic that I would like to further research can be found in excerpt 8 on technology. Why were certain inventions and technology more common in one place than another? Jared Diamond gives a pretty good example of why, “An alternative view rests on the heroic theory of invention. Technological advances seem to come disproportionately from a few very rare geniuses, such as Johannes Gutenberg, James Watt, Thomas Edison, and the Wright brothers. They were Europeans, or descendants of European emigrants to America. So were Archimedes and other rare geniuses of ancient times.” Maybe it was just pure luck that many famous inventors were born in the same place and maybe it wasn’t. It doesn’t explain why they didn’t share these inventions with other places that were struggling. Maybe they were being greedy, but nobody really knows, and that’s why I want to find out.
The excerpt that interested me more was excerpt 9. This interested me the most because of all the animals and plants in Africa. It's interesting how domestic animals did not reach sub- Saharan Africa until thousands of years after they began to be utilized by emerging Eurasian civilizations. Elephants, Giraffes were none of those tamed animals that were actually domesticated and that's interesting to me because I thought they would be.
ReplyDelete“In short, Europe's colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography” this speaks to me because everyone is the same nobody is different just because they’re from somewhere else where it might not be great. It also speaks to me because of the climate and the technology
I also agree with you on how you would've thought that those animals would be domesticated as well.. I thought the same thing because with the amount area that they have in Africa I could see those tamed animals very helpful to their regions. It's sad that you can even see inequality with animals. In excerpt 9 it states, "Thus, as far as plant and animal domestication was concerned, the head start and high diversity lay with Eurasia, not with Africa. A third factor is that Africa's area is only about half that of Eurasia". This can go along with our thoughts because it is explaining how Eurasia is in first place with domestic animals and plants along with them being widely diverse which leads me to confusion because again, if Africa needs it more than Eurasia and Eurasia being two times larger than African, most likely not in as much need as Africa, why not be considerate and help others in times of desperate need?
DeleteThe excerpt that interested me the most was excerpt 8. This excerpt interested me the most because it shows how people invented things that helped make their life easier or that they needed it to survive. A quote that shows this is when it says “In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. government set up the Manhattan Project with the explicit goal of inventing the technology required to build an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany could do so. That project succeeded in three years, at a cost of $2 billion (equivalent to over $20 billion today). Other instances are Eli Whitney’s 1794 invention of his cotton gin to replace laborious hand cleaning of cotton grown in the U.S. South, and James Watt’s 1769 invention of his steam engine to solve the problem of pumping water out of British coal mines.” This text support my thoughts because when they build the atomic bomb before NAZI Germany could develotp it first. This was so that NAZI Germany could not developt it first. This also supports my thoughts because Eli Whitney’s invented the cotton gin to make it easier to clean clean cotton and James Watt’s invention to pump water up was so that they would not have to carry buckets up from the coal mine every time. This made it easier to do the work and finish faster.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that I'm interested in pursuing is what inventions were invented for one or more purposes but were used in another way that the inventor did not want to or did not expect. One quote that represents this is when it says” Thus, invention is often the mother of necessity, rather than vice versa. A good example is the history of Thomas Edison’s phonograph, the most original invention of the greatest inventor of modern times. When Edison built his first phonograph in 1877, he published an article proposing ten uses to which his invention might be put. They included preserving the last words of dying people, recording books for blind people to hear, announcing clock time, and teaching spelling. Reproduction of music was not high on Edison’s list of priorities. A few years later Edison told his assistant that his invention had no commercial value. Within another few years he changed his mind and did enter business to sell phonographs—but for use as office dictating machines. When other entrepreneurs created jukeboxes by arranging for a phonograph to play popular music at the drop of a coin, Edison objected to this debasement, which apparently detracted from serious office use of his invention. Only after about 20 years did Edison reluctantly concede that the main use of his phonograph was to record and play music.” This means that when inventing the phonograph it Thomas had already found 10 purposes that the inventor hoped the people would use it for. When people did not buy it he started to sell them as an office dictating machine. When people started to make jukeboxes by arranging the phonograph to play popular music at the drop of a coin. Thomas was not happy that his machine was used to play music. It took 20 years for him to accept that his invention's main goal was to record music and play it. This is “speaking to me” because the invention that was invented for a main purpose went to another main purpose.
A- The excerpt I found most interesting was excerpt 7. I thought it was the most interesting one because you can learn about how inventions were used and how communication grew over different areas among cultures. For example excerpt 7 says, “Necessity is the mother of invention. That is, inventions supposedly arise when a society has an unfulfilled need: some technology is widely recognized to be unsatisfactory or limiting.” This quote can emphasize how it is obvious that if an environment is in need of something, invention follows roughly after because there would be a demand. In addition, it was interesting to learn about communication. In excerpt 7, he talked about a “second strategy” named “logograms” that are individual symbols that stand for one whole word. For example as he states, “Before the spread of alphabetic writing, systems making much use of logograms were more common and included Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Maya Glyphs and Sumerian Cuneiform.” This can explain how useful logograms were and their invention from the Phaistos Disc. Lastly, it is shown that they both use very intricate signs that are similar in many ways to the original alphabet to speak to each other. Even though one was found on the island in Greece and they were primary used in Egypt this shows how inventions can be found in nearly the same parts but develops into different styles of their own writing.
ReplyDeleteB- One thing that has stuck with me throughout this excerpt 7 was the “Necessity is the mother of invention” . I think it is just interesting because in my head it all makes sense on why he would say that. For example, if we are in need of something it strives others to invent and make it. But if we look at it the other way being invention is the mother of necessity, it makes sense as well by us having something and others needing it.
Adding to Part B - I can research the cycle of inventions turning into needs and needs turning into inventions.
DeleteThe excerpt that interested me the most was excerpt 9 because it talked about not only the domestication of animals but it also talked about the domestication of plants and the degradation of Africa. The reason these topic interest me is because I never thought about most of this stuff until reading it due to living in the states where everything is pretty much set up for us, we do not have to train our animals to work for us, we already have them trained for us and our plants are already ready to grow for us all we do is add water.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that is speaking to me the most is still animal domestication it is seen in excerpt 9 and this intersts me because I just think it is crazy how these people trained all these animals how to do this work that they had to do it by themself, so instead of these people having to home being tired and sore they can go home kinda tired and have time with their family instead of going straight to bed. Another reason why this topic interests me is because I could never see myself training an animal to do all this work, so these people are super intelligent but get treated like they are no lives and get treated like dirt which bothers me a lot.
I agree that the countries with the right technology and climate can strive in today's age. I also a agree less advanced places like Africa got exploited for their goods, and people. Why aren't we as america today ultimately giving back to those countries and people?
Delete"An extraterrestrial visiting Earth 10,000 years ago might have been forgiven for predicting that Europe would end up as a set of vassal states of a sub-Saharan African empire."
DeleteThe most interesting excerpt that stood out to me was development of writing which led to other forms of technology. What I particularly appreciate learning was that even though most of the inventors had some problems with their body or an issue wrong with them they still found a way to create or design a cool invention. This interest me because some of the inventors that were mentioned in the excerpt I have kind of learned about, but I did not know them or I did not do depth research about them. For example one of the inventors that I did not do a more depth research was Thomas Edison. Excerpt 8 says, “When Edison built his first phonograph in 1877, he published an article proposing ten uses to which his invention might be put. They included preserving the last words of dying people, recording books for blind people to hear, announcing clock time, and teaching spelling. Reproduction of music was not high on Edison’s list of priorities. A few years later Edison told his assistant that his invention had no commercial value. Within another few years he changed his mind and did enter business to sell phonographs—but for use as office dictating machines.”
ReplyDeleteThe topic that I found most interesting was Saharan Africans. The topic came from excerpt 9, “Those advantages manifested themselves almost as soon as the collisions started: barely four years after Vasco da Gama first reached the East African coast, in 1498, he returned with a fleet bristling with cannons to compel the surrender of East Africa's most important port, Kilwa, which controlled the Zimbabwe gold trade. But why did Europeans develop those three advantages before sub-Saharan Africans could?” This piece spook to me because why are there three advantages for Saharan Africans? What food production helped the Saharan Africans?
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ReplyDeleteIn the choice of matter of what excerpt from Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel was most absorbing to myself, was Excerpt 8 Necessity's Mother, as it most interested me was this quote “Society adopts the solution if it is compatible with the society’s values and other technologies.” I proclaim this quote could be explaining how technology advances, compared to what society values at the time. But also he provides the example of competition “Technology, in the form of weapons and transport, provides the direct means by which certain peoples have expanded their realms and conquered other peoples. That makes it the leading cause of history’s broadest pattern.” As innovation is more compared as a necessity for defending and conquering other rival’s.
ReplyDeleteI’m continuing to pursue how the spread of competition is in correlation to how one place in the world can be technological head to another. Evident to competition is shown widespread in World War 2 as quoted from Excerpt 8 “In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. government set up the Manhattan Project with the explicit goal of inventing the technology required to build an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany could do so.” In time of war, the drive of innovation to develop better technology than the enemy, in times it can create an technological race for better weaponry or the bluntly show dominance to their rival, like in the case of the Cold War’s Space Race, two rival nations attempting to find a way to the moon before one other can reach it. This Space Race created an huge amount of success to creating innovation to their countries as it helped provide a technological advancement to the winner of the Space Race.
The excerpt that interests me the most is excerpt 8. Excerpt 8 interests me the most because it shows how technology has had a positive and negative impact on the human race and a lot of other things. A quote in excerpt 8 say “ In 1942, in the middle of World War II, the U.S. government set up the Manhattan Project with the explicit goal of inventing the technology required to build an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany could do so. So what it is say is technology helped the U.S with the Nazis so they wouldn’t want to be in the war anymore, But then other countries started using technology to create equal or if not better bombs to wipe or more than they ever should be able to.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that interests me the most is excerpt 8 because there is so much history and research on this topic. Because the fact that technology has helped people grow and populations grow and or a head start. An example is found on page 2 where it says “That project succeeded in three years”.
I agree with what you said but on the topic that interests you, Other than the example you gave in your first part are there any other times technology has impacted us negatively or positively?
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ReplyDeleteThe excerpt I enjoyed the most was excerpt 9 because Diamond talks about the domestication of animals and how it all first started. I enjoyed this because I wanted to learn how humans first started domesticating animals and how they did it. “It's true, of course, that some large African animals have occasionally been tamed. Hannibal enlisted tamed African elephants in his unsuccessful war against Rome, and ancient Egyptians may have tamed giraffes and other species. But none of those tamed animals was actually domesticated” I thought that what he said here was interesting because they were able to tame the animals but they weren't able to domesticate them.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting topic that I found was the domestication of animals. I found this topic interesting because domesticating animals to me is interesting because back then they didn't have the technology we have today to domesticate animals. “Eurasia's native cows, sheep, goats, horses, and pigs were among the world's few large wild animal species to pass all those tests. Their African equivalents — such as the African buffalo, zebra, bush pig, rhino, and hippopotamus — have never been domesticated, not even in modern times.” I used this quote because he talks about how animals we still use today for domestication were easy to domesticate but other animals such as rhinos and zebras couldn't be domesticated, not even today.
When civilizations were developing there's commonly a way to communicate, thus bringing text in to the equation, in excerpt 8 “Necessity’s Mother” It talks about the lexicon of the upcoming humans being, put on some sort of readable surface whether it's paint or carving or anything to make a shape I find this to be the literal foundation for humans, communication and contact between humans is how we learn and is how we progress. It is said that when there is necessity, there is a problem to be solved and it will be solved depending on how urgent it is and when more people are involved there is more problems and sometimes the problem solving bottlenecks so you need to invent something new to solve the bottleneck and you've got to communicate to others of your findings so that “the invention is going wrong” is minimized. Speech now is 100 times more complex than associating a sound with an object or action.
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