class participation.

I think that I should get a 90 for the class participation grade. I feel that this is an appropriate grade for me because even though I was not one who was constantly throwing out ideas, but when I did, my ideas were relevant and generally brought up good points.

End of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

We are finally finished with the Guns, Germs, and Steel videos! We started yesterday’s portion by re-watching the part that shows all of the different types of animals just so we could have the privilege of seeing the Jesus Christ lizard run across the water again. After satisfying our Jesus lizard needs again, we continued where we left off at the Mesopotamian villages which are long since abandoned. Friday’s portion consisted of some very fascinating facts. For example, we learned that the inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent were not only the first to move to a concept of home, beyond it just being a place to sleep every night, but they also were the first to really decorate their homes. This would make logical sense since many other civilizations at the time were wanderers. Another fun fact that we learned on Friday was that if you take any two points generally along the same line of latitude, those two places will have about the same climate and day night intervals. For example, look at the Fertile Crescent. They had the necessities to sustain a more advanced nation, and if you look at other ancient civilizations (i.e. Rome, Egypt, or Greece) they all were located at about the same latitude, so many places along those particular lines of latitude, also had what they needed.

lockdown drill

Today in Human Geography class, we got back to business and continued to watch “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” However, we did not get back to this until after the lock down drill. During the lockdown, it got sort of boring just sitting there, though we were whispering quietly during the drill. Once we started the video again, in one part of the video, Jared Diamond did some research on which animals were domesticated. He did this by taking all of the 2,000,000 species on the planet and eliminating animals that weren’t likely to have been tamed. Right off the back he eliminated birds, rodents, and insects because they did not have the muscle power to perform tasks like plowing. He also eliminated similar mammals, such as dogs. Carnivores also got put on this list because you would need to breed other animals to feed the carnivorous ones, thus making them impractical. This narrowed it down to the Herbivores. From here, Jared narrowed it down to just 14 different species. These consisted of cows, sheep, pigs, horses, Bactrian camels, Arabian camels, water buffalo, yaks, goats, and a couple others.

initiate lockdown, initate lockdown, initiate lockdown

“Hey! Gunman, I’d like to see you get past our fool proof lockdown plan!” If someone actually thought that their lockdown procedures were actually fool proof and would keep everyone 100% safe, they would be delusional. That’s because it’s impossible to have lockdown procedures like this. Even in Connecticut, people were killed even though they knew exactly what to do. The best any emergency plan can do is minimize the damage done, NOT prevent the damage entirely. One could probably pick out flaws in any given emergency plan for hours, maybe even all day. For example, what if, the attacker placed bombs in the rooms? What if, Mrs. Drawbridge was forced to give the all clear? As you can tell there will always be flaws in an emergency plan, especially if you apply “what ifs.” Does that mean we should all just live our lives in complete terror that something MIGHT happen? Of course not! We just need to trust that if we ever did need to put our plan into action that it is as good as it will get and move on with our lives. Plus, the chances of that ACTUALLY happening are slim

More Guns, Germs, and Steel

Today’s portion of Guns, Germs, and Steel discussed when early civilizations started to advance. For the most part, many civilizations started with farming. Archaeologists have found out that people have started to domesticate crops even as far back as 11,500 years ago. One great example of this is an Archaeological dig site called Draably/Drah. This is the site in which possibly the oldest permanent settlement was discovered. What’s so great about this you ask? Well, the archaeologists that dug it up found the world’s first granary which looked like wood planks supported by stones with (if I had to take a guess) an adobe structure built around it. Sometimes for people like the New Guineans who live a hunter/gatherer life style leave out the hunting part of that. This is not because they are against hunting and killing animals, but because they realize that it is inefficient. Hunting does not yield as much food because it requires you to spend 90% of your day actually tracking the animal.

Guns, Germs, and Steel video

Today in our second class since break ended, we started to watch “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” One of the main points made in what we have watched so far is "Why do some civilizations advance and others don’t?” The answer to this is that the civilizations that advance have more advanced technology, a large population, and a well-organized work force. Also, Europeans and other white men used to see themselves as genetically superior to other races of people such as the natives of Papa New Guinea. This has to with Jared Diamond’s second major point. Even though we are more advanced than the New Guineans, it does not mean we are superior to them. Jared even points out that the only reason he survived in Papa New Guinea, was because of the help that he had from the natives. To illustrate what Jared is saying that we have all these awesome skills like how to use utensils, operate machinery, etc. However, if we were thrown out into the wilderness with no electronics or even food like you’d get from a store; we would be like “How do you expect us to survive!!!” In my opinion, I think that many modern Americans have become too dependent upon electronics and other luxuries that we take for granted. For example, I have heard of people who don’t even bother to learn their own phone number because they can just look it up on their phones.

Jared Diamond/Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond has written two books one of which called Guns, Germs, and Steel. He said Asia and Europe are doing better than other places because of their economy. He has also made multiple trips to Papa New Guinea. He is very environmentally friendly. He speaks some of their languages and has conversed with their people. He is a professor at UCLA. He is a scientist, author, and has gotten many awards, such as the National Science Award. A big part of his visits to Papa New Guinea is to study the vast variety of birds there. He is also very respected by his peers.

Guns, Germs, and Steel was written by Jared Diamond and was originally subtitled “The Fates of Human Societies.” The book has also been translated into 25 different languages. It is a great summary of Human History and serves as a foundation of understanding for it. Generally, superior weapons lead to military superiority. It talks about how some societies have been able to progress and advance and others don’t. This book relates to our class because earlier in the year we learned about Christopher Columbus who were able to conquer the Native Americans even they were severely outnumbered. The explanation for this is stated in the book, they had superior weapons.