I'm reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. Great book! He's writing about the different sorts of societies of people: bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states and talks about how they came about and their various attributes.

A Kleptocracy, as he defines it, is the selfish misappropriation of public funds by those in power to enrich themselves and their families/friends.

So, how do these guys manage to stay in power, is something I've always wondered. Here's his answer:

1) Disarm the populace and arm the elite.

2) Make the masses happy by redistributing much of the tribute (i.e. taxes), in popular ways.

3) Use monopoly of force to promote happiness, by maintaining public order and curbing violence. For instance, during Saddam Hussein's rule things worked well. The power was on most of the time, things were orderly. But he was a miserable tyrannical parasite. Maybe some or most Iraqi's would rather have that than their current violence and lack of infrastructure.

4) Construct an ideology or religion justify transferring wealth from the people to the privileged class. Hawaiian chiefs were typical of chiefs elsewhere, in asserting divinity, divine descent, or at least a hotline to the gods (Pope, anyone?).

Anyway, I found it interesting. :)

So, how do these guys manage to stay in power, is something I've always wondered.Simple. They understand human instinct (as to how we organize ourselves, respond to authority, and believe in the supernatural) and cater to it.

It's a lot easier to get people to do something they're already programmed to do by nature, than to convince them logically to do it.

You really think anyone would buy into religion if they weren't pre-programmed to be receptive to it and brainwashed by it from birth?

I'm reading "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. Great book! He's writing about the different sorts of societies of people: bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states and talks about how they came about and their various attributes.

A Kleptocracy, as he defines it, is the selfish misappropriation of public funds by those in power to enrich themselves and their families/friends.

So, how do these guys manage to stay in power, is something I've always wondered. Here's his answer:

1) Disarm the populace and arm the elite.

2) Make the masses happy by redistributing much of the tribute (i.e. taxes), in popular ways.

3) Use monopoly of force to promote happiness, by maintaining public order and curbing violence. For instance, during Saddam Hussein's rule things worked well. The power was on most of the time, things were orderly. But he was a miserable tyrannical parasite. Maybe some or most Iraqi's would rather have that than their current violence and lack of infrastructure.

4) Construct an ideology or religion justify transferring wealth from the people to the privileged class. Hawaiian chiefs were typical of chiefs elsewhere, in asserting divinity, divine descent, or at least a hotline to the gods (Pope, anyone?).

Anyway, I found it interesting. :)
What part of this did you not already know?


Is this really new to you?
Can you find anything from this author which is not completely known already or completely bogus, please?

Kings and queens use divinity to perpetuate their kingship queenship.
American Indians were able to change the weather.

Kleptocracies?, all forms of government steal from the people to run that government, any and all governments.
That is so completely intuitive, as not necessary to even discuss. How much more obvious does it need to be.

Can you find anything from this author which is not completely known already or completely bogus, please?Lots, just nothing that you can comprehend, apparently.

Try me.

He won a pulitzer for the book, so apparently I'm not the only person impressed with him.

This was interesting, something probably most people are unconscious of.

The discussion is about why states (as opposed to bands or tribes) are so good at absorbing smaller, less complex societies -- other than the obvious ones, like superior technology and population advantages.

...the official religions and patriotic fervor of many states make their troops willing to fight suicidally.

The latter willingness is one so strongly programmed into us citizens of modern states, by our schools and churches and governments, that we forget what a radical break it marks with previous human history. Every state has its slogan urging its citizens to be prepared to die if necessary for the state: Britain's "For King and Country," Spain's "Por Dios y Espana," and so on. Similar sentiments motivated 16th-century Aztec warriors: "There is nothing like death in war, nothing like the flowery death so precious to Him [the Aztec national god Huitzilopochtli] who gives life: far off I see it, my heart years for it!"

[Sounds all a bit like modern day Islamic glorification of death for religious ideals, doesn't it?]

Such sentiments are unthinkable in bands and tribes. In all the accounts that my New Guinea friends [tribalists] have given me of their former tribal wars, there has been not a single hint of tribal patriotism, of a suicidal charge, or of any other military conduct carrying an accepted risk of being killed. Instead, raids are initiated by ambush or by superior force, so as to minimize at all costs the risk that one might die for one's village. But that attitude severely limits the military options of tribes, compared with state societies. Naturally, what makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to annihilate or crush their infidel enemy. Fanaticism in war, of the type that drove recorded Christian and Islamic conquests, was probably unknown on Earth until chiefdoms and especially states emerged with the last 6,000 years.

In our own society, I've often noted the patriotism at war time. If you so much as question the basis for the war you get almost ostracized in some circles. I had that happen at a job once. It's pretty tough to stand up to that sort of pressure.

Try me.We have. About half a dozen times by now.

You still think desertification is "changing the weather". You're too dense to comprehend the difference so I gave up trying.

Climate changes irrespective of human activity.
Weather changes irrespective of human activity.
Desertification happens irrespective of human activity. Caused by climate change and the subsequent changes in the local weather.
These are known givens.

The only desertification that you have ever discussed or mentioned was in the context of all desertification is anthropogenic. I don't think I have ever read where you stated that desertification is naturally caused.

When you make a claim like that you need to show proof. I have not seen that, you have yet to show any proof.

When reading any green information about desertification it is definitionally anthropogenic. When we all know that is emphatically false.

Maybe I'll just buy his book.

Since you still won't post anything that he's wrote that we don't know.

Ok, downloaded Collapse and Germs. Only at the end of the introduction of Collapse now, have found only one flaw, and it's minor.

Why Sex Is Fun sounds much more interesting, I am downloading it now. We shall see.

Actually, The Third Chimpanzee is his most interesting book. All of the others (except Collapse) are merely expansions of ideas in that first book.

The only desertification that you have ever discussed or mentioned was in the context of all desertification is arthropogenic. I don't think I have ever read where you stated that desertification is naturally caused.Wait a minute.

Is Fyyr actually implying here that humans can affect the environment?

Call the moderator, someone must've hacked his account.

Actually, The Third Chimpanzee is his most interesting book. All of the others (except Collapse) are merely expansions of ideas in that first book.

Ok, I'll get that one too.

Wait a minute.

Is Fyyr actually implying here that humans can affect the environment?

Call the moderator, someone must've hacked his account.

I think one our problems with communication is merely definitional.

Simply we both use words that are the same that have different meanings to each other, or when words have a shifting or ambiguous meaning.

Humans do affect the environment. Take the topic of fire suppression on National Forest Land(in this case, Diamond is referring to Montana).

"while fire suppression for decades
let the understory fill up with Douglas Fir saplings that would in turn become
valuable when full-grown. Tree densities increased from 30 to 200
trees per acre, the forest's fuel load increased by a factor of 6,"
p55 Collapse, Diamond

"In an ideal world, the Forest Service
would manage and restore the forests, thin them out, and remove the dense
understory by cutting or by controlled small fires. But that would cost over
a thousand dollars per acre for the one hundred million acres of western U.S.
forests, or a total of about $100 billion. No politician or voter wants to spend
that kind of money. Even if the cost were lower, much of the public would
be suspicious of such a proposal as just an excuse for resuming logging of
their beautiful forest."
p55 Collapse, Diamond

Saying what I have been saying for years, and to which you continue to disagree with me.

I'm only a tenth of the way through the book. We shall see, I suppose.

Ok, I have downloaded most of his stuff now.

I am going to pore through it.

Actually, The Third Chimpanzee is his most interesting book. All of the others (except Collapse) are merely expansions of ideas in that first book.
Oh cool! I'll have to look for it. I loved Collapse. The stuff about how they could track environmental changes from packrat nests 40,000 years ago, was way cool.

Well, I am halfway through Collapse, and Diamond only hints at anthropogenic climate change, so far.

And that is when he discusses that trees on tops of mountains seed rainclouds to drop more moisture.

But when discussing the fire suppression for over a hundred years in Montana, producing 6 times more trees than before, he still mentions the bare rain fall in the Bitterroot Valley.

So far, the Anasazi and the Maya, he states that the collapses were precipitated by drought. He even mentions a drought cycle plaguing the Mayas on a cyclical 208 year basis, coinciding with the collapse of one Mayan city or another over many cycles.

And alludes to it with Easter.
"A second objection is that deforestation might instead have been due
to natural climate changes, such as droughts or El Nino episodes. It would
not surprise me at all if a contributing role of climate change does eventually
emerge for Easter, because we shall see that climatic downturns did exacerbate human environmental impacts by the Anasazi"
p123/4, Collapse, Diamond

He is a easy read though. With only a few inconsistencies found so far.
He defines collapse as a total depopulation of an area either through death or emigration. But then uses the term collapse to describe the former Soviet Union.
"It would
be absurd to claim that environmental damage must be a major factor in all
collapses: the collapse of the Soviet Union is a modern counter-example,"
p 25, Collapse, Diamond

"When we deplete one resource
(e.g., wood, oil, or ocean fish), can we count on being able to substitute
some new resource (e.g., plastics, wind and solar energy, or farmed fish)?"
p 17, Collapse, Diamond
Plastics come from oil.

But those are minor. And does not detract from the reading.

"If they killed too many animals
in September, they would end up in May with uneaten hay and just a small
herd, and they might kick themselves for not having gambled on being able
to feed more animals. But if they killed too few animals in September, they
might find themselves running out of hay before May and risk the whole
herd starving."
p 235, Collapse, Diamond


This does not make sense.

There is nothing preventing a farmer from killing(culling) animals during the Winter.

Well, Tudamorf,

I am pretty much through Collapse now.

Care to have any discussions on the book now?

For example, the chapter on Rwanda is titled...

Malthus in Africa:
Rwanda's Genocide

Including the title, the word genocide is used 49 times in that chapter(10) to describe the Rwanda Genocide.

For example, the chapter on Rwanda is titled...

Malthus in Africa:
Rwanda's Genocide

Including the title, the word genocide is used 49 times in that chapter(10) to describe the Rwanda Genocide.Did you actually read the chapter, or just skim the headings?

Because it wasn't genocide.

And although it wasn't his original idea (read the sources he cites), Diamond does a good job of outlining why.

Next time try reading the text, too.

I read the whole chapter.

Enjoyed it, and I had no objections to anything he had to say.

I find it remarkable that both you and I could read the same words and come away with two different meanings.

Diamond is emphatic with Rwanda being a GENOCIDE. Based primarily on the racial differences between the Hutus and the Tutsis,(and to a lesser extent the Pygmy population).

He did spend some time discussing Hutu on Hutu murder is some small localized provinces. With a much smaller percentage of total killings in those locals.

But I would not find those actual percentages different than(or inconsistent with), say, German on German murders or killings during NAZI times. But we(we not including you, of course) would be reluctant to say that Germans killing Jews was not a Genocide, just because Germans killed non-Jew Germans, for the same or similar reasons to Hutus killing Hutus, during the same period.

If you have a particular part of the text with which to refute or rebut me, just post the text and we can discuss it. I have read it, and will do similarly.

Because it wasn't genocide. Diamond states 49 times that it was Genocide in chapter 10. Including one time in the title.

And although it wasn't his original idea (read the sources he cites), Diamond does a good job of outlining why.
I have not read his references. But he did indeed write that there are writers who have written entire books on the subject, and they are more knowledgeable than he is on the subject. We are not discussing them, we are discussing Diamond.

I will post the whole chapter if the server will let me.
Just in case you have not read it, Tudamorf.

I have many and myriad cited specific passages from Collapse, from Diamond, which contradict your views, Tudamorf.

You are welcome to post rebuttal passages as well. Let's do this, a Diamond Dual Off if you will.

I have not read his references. But he did indeed write that there are writers who have written entire books on the subject, and they are more knowledgeable than he is on the subject. We are not discussing them, we are discussing Diamond.Why not? And why should I be wed to Diamond's labels?

Yes, he calls it a "genocide" because it was commonly known as that, and he has become more conservative since The Third Chimpanzee and wants to appeal to a larger audience, which means not confusing them by creating new labels.

On page 287 of Chimpanzee, though, he stated:The word "genocide" is often used so broadly that it loses meaning and we become tired of hearing it.He then explains how genocide is in the eye of the beholder, citing examples. While I don't agree with him on some points in that section of Chimpanzee (such as the psychological reasons people tolerate it), when you combine it with the substance of the discussion in Collapse, his meaning is clear.

"Genocide" literally means the killing of a race.

If you read the substance of Collapse, instead of just the labels, you'll see that he explains precisely why the civil war in Rwanda was not a "genocide," and why it was not racially motivated.

On page 317 he starts:The usual accounts of the genocides in Rwanda and Burundi portray them as the result of pre-existing ethnic hatreds fanned by cynical politicians for their own ends.He then goes on to explain why that was NOT the case in Rwanda, citing examples of violence among the Hutu, how Hutu and Tutsi were often indistinguishable and intermarried, and so on. He ends that block on page 319 with:All these facts illustrate why we need to search for other contributing factors in addition to ethnic hatred.Next he explains how the Rwandans breed irresponsibly. (I read his sources years ago when Collapse came out, as you should if you want more detail on this topic.) He quotes Andre and Platteau:"The 1994 events provided a unique opportunity to settle scores, or to reshuffle land properties, even among Hutu villagers. . . . It is not rare, even today, to hear Rwandans argue that a war is necessary to wipe out an excess of population and to bring numbers into line with the available land resources."Diamond then likens the ethnic hatred to the match that lights the keg, simply an excuse, a catalyst. The real reason was overbreeding:Severe problems of overpopulation, environmental impact, and climate change cannot persist indefinitely: sooner or later they are likely to resolve themselves, whether in the manner of Rwanda or in some other manner not of our devising, if we don't succeed in solving them by our own actions.If Diamond had written Collapse 20 years ago, he would have just come out and said it: Rwanda wasn't a genocide, but Nature's way of correcting for irresponsible breeding.

The older, seasoned Diamond says it more obliquely, but nevertheless does say it.

"Genocide" literally means the killing of a race.

Are you implying that genocide is not genocide unless all members of the race are dead, or killed?

I don't understand your meaning.

Because the job was not finished, you can't call it genocide? Is that what you are saying?

If Diamond had written Collapse 20 years ago, he would have just come out and said it: Rwanda wasn't a genocide, but Nature's way of correcting for irresponsible breeding.

The older, seasoned Diamond says it more obliquely, but nevertheless does say it.
If you can quote Diamond saying that, that would be a good start.


The link that Prunier, and that Andre and Platteau, see behind population
pressure and the Rwandan genocide has not gone unchallenged. In
part, the challenges are reactions to oversimplified statements that critics
with some justice lampooned as "ecological determinism." For instance,
only 10 days after the genocide began, an article in an American newspaper
linked Rwanda's dense population to the genocide by saying, "Rwandas
[i.e., similar genocides] are endemic, built-in, even, to the world we inhabit."
. p 336, Collapse, Diamond

If you read Diamond three conclusions, at the end of the chapter, he is not saying what you are saying. Quite the opposite, it is a strong refutation of your opinion. I will quote them for the other readers.

First, any "explanation" of why a genocide happened can be misconstrued
as "excusing" it. However, regardless of whether we arrive at an oversimplified
one-factor explanation or an excessively complex 73-factor
explanation for a genocide doesn't alter the personal responsibility of the
perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, as of other evil deeds, for their actions.
This is a misunderstanding that arises regularly in discussions of the
origins of evil: people recoil at any explanation, because they confuse explanations
with excuses. But it is important that we understand the origins of
the Rwandan genocide—not so that we can exonerate the killers, but so that
we can use that knowledge to decrease the risk of such things happening
again in Rwanda or elsewhere. Similarly, there are people who have chosen
to devote their lives or careers to understanding the origins of the Nazi
Holocaust, or to understanding the minds of serial murderers and rapists.
They have made that choice not in order to mitigate the responsibility of
Hitler, serial murderers, and rapists, but because they want to know how
those awful things came to be, and how we can best prevent recurrences.


Chapter 10, Collapse, Diamond

Second, it is justifiable to reject the simplistic view that population pressure
was the single cause of the Rwandan genocide. Other factors did contribute;
in this chapter I have introduced ones that seem to me important,
and experts on Rwanda have written entire books and articles on the subject,
cited in my Further Readings at the back of this book. Just to reiterate:
regardless of the order of their importance, those other factors included
Rwanda's history of Tutsi domination of Hutu, Tutsi large-scale killings
of Hutu in Burundi and small-scale ones in Rwanda, Tutsi invasions of
Rwanda, Rwanda's economic crisis and its exacerbation by drought and
world factors (especially by falling coffee prices and World Bank austerity
measures), hundreds of thousands of desperate young Rwandan men displaced
as refugees into settlement camps and ripe for recruitment by militias,
and competition among Rwanda's rival political groups willing to
stoop to anything to retain power. Population pressure joined with those
other factors.


Chapter 10, Collapse, Diamond

Finally, one should not misconstrue a role of population pressure among
the Rwandan genocide's causes to mean that population pressure automatically
leads to genocide anywhere around the world. To those who would
object that there is not a necessary link between Malthusian population
pressure and genocide, I would answer, "Of course!" Countries can be overpopulated
without descending into genocide, as exemplified by Bangladesh
(relatively free of large-scale killings since its genocidal slaughters of 1971)
as well as by the Netherlands and multi-ethnic Belgium, despite all three of
those countries being more densely populated than Rwanda. Conversely,
genocide can arise for ultimate reasons other than overpopulation, as illustrated
by Hitler's efforts to exterminate Jews and Gypsies during World
War II, or by the genocide of the 1970s in Cambodia, with only one-sixth of
Rwanda's population density.
Instead, I conclude that population pressure was one of the important
factors behind the Rwandan genocide, that Malthus's worst-case scenario
may sometimes be realized, and that Rwanda may be a distressing model of
that scenario in operation. Severe problems of overpopulation, environmental
impact, and climate change cannot persist indefinitely: sooner or
later they are likely to resolve themselves, whether in the manner of Rwanda
or in some other manner not of our devising, if we don't succeed in solving
them by our own actions. In the case of Rwanda's collapse we can put faces
and motives on the unpleasant solution; I would guess that similar motives
were operating, without our being able to associate them with faces, in the
collapses of Easter Island, Mangareva, and the Maya that I described in
Part 2 of this book. Similar motives may operate again in the future, in
some other countries that, like Rwanda, fail to solve their underlying problems.
They may operate again in Rwanda itself, where population today is
still increasing at 3% per year, women are giving birth to their first child at
age 15, the average family has between five and eight children, and a visitor's
sense is of being surrounded by a sea of children.


Chapter 10, Collapse, Diamond.

Are you implying that genocide is not genocide unless all members of the race are dead, or killed?Yes. It's only attempted genocide until then.

If I shoot you with the intent to kill you, but you don't die, it's attempted murder, not murder.

The Tasmanian genocide (which I think Diamond discusses, somewhere in one of his books) is an example of a completed genocide.

But if you want to use the word "genocide" as a shorthand for "attempted genocide", that's fine; it doesn't change anything I have said.

I conclude that population pressure was one of the important
factors behind the Rwandan genocide,Second, it is justifiable to reject the simplistic view that population pressure was the single cause of the Rwandan genocide. Other factors did contribute; . . . those other factors included Rwanda's history of Tutsi domination of Hutu, Tutsi large-scale killings of Hutu in Burundi and small-scale ones in Rwanda, Tutsi invasions of Rwanda, Rwanda's economic crisis and its exacerbation by drought and world factors (especially by falling coffee prices and World Bank austerity measures), hundreds of thousands of desperate young Rwandan men displaced as refugees into settlement camps and ripe for recruitment by militias, and competition among Rwanda's rival political groups willing to stoop to anything to retain power.Thank you for proving my point with your quotes.

He cites a whole bunch of factors OUTSIDE OF the desire to eliminate a race as the reason for the (latest) Rwandan civil war.

It was not a genocide, or an attempted genocide.

It was a civil war, brought on primarily by women not using birth control.

If you can quote Diamond saying that, that would be a good start.As I've said, compared to other writers on similar topics, he is an intellectually honest guy.

But he still knows his limits, especially now that he's a well-known author and Pulitzer Prize winner, and still has to pander to the political correctness police to avoid being ostracized.

In Collapse he spent what, one or two pages, just explaining to the reader why it's OK to even talk about genocide. That's something that should be obvious to you, that we should be able to talk about it.

So he can't just spit out the ultimate conclusion, but he does his best to spoon feed you right up to that point, so you only have one more dot to connect.

In Chimpanzee, which he wrote in 1992 when he wasn't a well-known author on this subject, he is more direct. I quoted you the part where he questions what genocide means. He still beats around the bush on sensitive topics a bit, but less so.

Yes. It's only attempted genocide until then.


So because German and European Jews survived the Holocaust means that it was not a genocide?

As I've said, compared to other writers on similar topics, he is an intellectually honest guy.

But he still knows his limits, especially now that he's a well-known author and Pulitzer Prize winner, and still has to pander to the political correctness police to avoid being ostracized.

In Collapse he spent what, one or two pages, just explaining to the reader why it's OK to even talk about genocide. That's something that should be obvious to you, that we should be able to talk about it.

So he can't just spit out the ultimate conclusion, but he does his best to spoon feed you right up to that point, so you only have one more dot to connect.

In Chimpanzee, which he wrote in 1992 when he wasn't a well-known author on this subject, he is more direct. I quoted you the part where he questions what genocide means. He still beats around the bush on sensitive topics a bit, but less so.

I have not started Chimpanzee.
I will save that one for later.

I have just watched the National Geographic 3 parter on Guns, Germs, Steel.

I do not come away with the same conclusions about Diamond(his veracity or his character) as you do after viewing this semi-documentary.

I have not started Chimpanzee.
I will save that one for later.

I have just watched the National Geographic 3 parter on Guns, Germs, Steel.

I do not come away with the same conclusions about Diamond(his veracity or his character) as you do after viewing this semi-documentary.I've seen that documentary. It's only a vague outline of some parts of the book, and you can safely ignore it. Besides, that book doesn't really discuss this topic.

I do not come away with the same conclusions about Diamond(his veracity or his character) as you do after viewing this semi-documentary.I don't see what character has to do with any of this.

The only relevant aspect of his character is his curiosity, and his willingness to ask simple questions that other people are afraid to ask or which other people take for granted.

Like, why do white people dominate the world? Why do men like to look at each other's penises? What does genocide mean?

The fact that he questions the meaning of the word "genocide" (the chapter in Chimpanzee where he wonders how Australia became white), does not mean that he is a Nazi, or condones the actions of the Nazis, or is a bad guy.

He's just questioning what the word means. There is nothing wrong with that.

So because German and European Jews survived the Holocaust means that it was not a genocide?Let's not dwell on semantics. I would call that an attempted genocide, but if you want to call it genocide as shorthand, it makes no difference.

Unlike the Rwandan war, at least the Nazi attempt was motivated in significant part by the desire to kill another race.

I saw the documentary too. I liked it, but it doesn't really replace the book at all. In fact, I don't remember seeing most of the stuff in the book, in the documentary.

Watch it again and tell us if you think Diamond is the kind of person that Tudamorf writes him as. Especially the end of the third part.

I did not say nor mean that the documentary was comparable to the book. I have not started it yet, let alone finished it. I've started Sex is Fun, the. Will read Chimpanzee after that and save G g& s for last.

I don't think that Tudamorfs interpretation of what Diamond means to say(but does not say) in Collapse is accurate.