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.