Class Participation

For my class participation, I actually believe I deserve a 97%, because I talk a lot, but it's directed towards the class, not private conversations.  I ask lots of questions, and try to answer a lot of question.  I liked this class because it was more relaxed than all my others, but it got irritating when there was so much talking and they wouldn't listen to anyone but themselves.  Other than that, I liked it.

Papua New Guinea

We finished watching the movie in class on Friday, and then we looked up whatever we could find about the country that wasn't mentioned in the movie.  It had to be important and it also had to be different from what anyone else said.  In the end of the movie though, it talked through the question, "Why do you white people have so much cargo, and we New Guineans have so little."  (Diamond said it was because of the geographical luck).  Some of the fact that were mentioned or that we had to talk about are that Papua New Guinea spends only 1.4% of the GDP on their military expenditure.  They are number 106 in the world.  37% of the people are below the poverty rate, but their GDP rate is really high: 12 in the world.  Mainly because they started out so badly.  57% of them can read and write, that means 43% cannot.  There are 860 different languages spoken there, way more than in the USA.  Unemployment rate is 1.9%, so for the most part, they are really behind, but they are still progressing.  On the coast it is lots more modern than those in the highlands. Twelfth fastest growing economy in the world. Birth rate is 56 in the world.  Median age is 22.  GDP per capita is $2,500.  TFR is 3.39, and the net migration rate is zero! 13% are in cities, and 87% are in the forest.  Over half the people in the world now live in cities.  Export a total of 6.48 and imports 6.1 billion imports.  They are exporting mainly gold and oil, also seafood and hardwood.  1-2% speak English.  Also 2 T.V stations.

Movie, Movie, Movie

We didn't get as far into the movie as we did the previous days, but from what we watched Jared Diamond said that any point at the same latitude has similar aspects.  They share roughly the same climate, and there is a lot of the same crops and animals.  Another reason why the fertile crescent failed to flourish until today is because the climate changed and caused there to not be an unlimited supply of crops.  When the people fled the Fertile Crescent they went East and West because that is where their animals could live and it had the same type of vegetation.  The animals that weren't domesticated and the grains spread mainly towards India and Africa, so when they reached places like Egypt they had enough food to gorge the hierarchies with.  When there was a surplus of food, the people of Egypt were ordered to build the Pyramids.  There are about 100,000,000 cattle in the US, that's about 3 people for a cow!  Also, there is 20 million tons of wheat consumed by just humans a year, and in one day a pound of wheat is consumed.  In the big picture, farming has most definitely shaped the outcome of humanity.

Inventions

The plow was also a great breakthrough in human history.  Though it would not have been accomplished without animals.  This changed the productivity for man.  When they didn't have plows it was because they didn't have animals that were tame and domesticated enough to work with them.  In New Guinea, the only animals they really have are pigs.  Pigs are great for food, but they don't give you hides and they don't allow you to plow and/or give nice fur like horses, mules, sheep, etc.  Jared Diamond counted up about 148 different types of wild, plant-eating, terrestrial mammals that weigh over 100 pounds, out of those 148, only 14 have been domesticated successfully.  These animals are: Pigs, Horses, Goats, Sheep, Cows, Donkeys, Bactrain Camels, Arabian Camels, Llamas, Water buffaloes, Reindeer, Yaks, Mithouns  ? (I have no clue how to spell it), Bali Cattle, and Zebras weren't domesticated like horses because of the environment they grew up in.  They are constantly running at every little sound they hear because otherwise, they will just be killed off.  Horses, on the other hand never had much of that problem, so it was easy for humans to tame them.  If a herd has a leader, the only major thing that has to happen is to get control of the leader so it will be much easier to work with the whole herd.  Even though elephants seem too be social animals, they aren't very good to have working because they take so long to reproduce-15 years!  Animals also need to know how to get along with humans if it is to work out.  Llamas are native to South America, but out of the list of 14 the other 13 are not native to the Americas, New Guinea, Africa or Australia.  The key concept for civilizations to work out is to have a surplus.  The Fertile Crescent had the best crops and animals, that's why they had such a huge head start.  Sadly, though it didn't work out for them.  Their land was too dry and people fled and deserted the whole place.  The city called Guare was over 9,000 years old and they had plaster on their walls, which with their windows it somehow created like air-conditioned house.  Fire MAJORLY help out the future for men, because it created plaster, limestone being boiled for days over 1,000 degrees.  With fire, it created metal and New Guineans, in the '60s were still using stone to work with.

More Movie

More of the movie was played today, so that's all we did.  Last week we watched the part where it talked about how guns, germs and steel dominated the Americas and killed the Mayans.  Also, it's quite impressive how Jared Diamond knows several of their languages and how they New Guineans know English also.  Diamond claims that the New Guineans are more adaptable and quick to learn than many others, that is the opposite of the people that came there before Diamond.  They all said that they were superior to them and it was set in their DNA.  Throughout the whole video Jared Diamond is trying to answer the question Yahli asked, "Why do you white people have so much cargo and us New Guineans have so little?"  Then today we talked more about that question and also the things all civilizations have in common, which are: advanced technology, large population and well organized work forces.  Diamond also refers to countries as either "haves" or "have not's".  The haves are countries who have things they need with you, while the have not's are more like the hunting and gathering.  They have to search for what they need and may not even find it.  Because of the ice age it caused a drought to last more than 1000 years and it killed animals and plants and the people had to walk even farther than they already did to find food to survive.  Humans migrated with/to the animals.  Though when the ice age started to melt, the middle east was thriving.  The city called Drah was the first primitive villages in the world, was said to have emerged 11.5 thousand years ago.  Dr. Ian Kuitt is in charge of the site being uncovered and discovered.  They actually built a granary that kept their wheat and grains away from the humidity, bugs and animals.  This also allowed them to survive in times when other's could not.  Wheat and barley was the bulk of what was stored in it mainly because it is more durable, and it was what was available to them.  Also, they were the first farmers in the world, they domesticated crops. They grew crops and were able to keep the ones that were easiest to farm, the more vigorous and most prosperous.  When people domesticated animals they were allowed to eat the leftovers of the crops, and when they left manure it helped the dirt to be more fertile and help the plants prosper.  With the New Guinean's, farming didn't help they because the only real resource they have at their reach is the Sago tree.  This tree is striped the inside is edible to them, other parts are useful for everyday uses.  The women are the ones who gather, and gathering is also a more productive way than hunting.  Also, besides the Sago tree, they do eat bananas for some more vitamins, but when necessary they may eat large spiders for the protein.  Some places are more known for what they grow, such as China, they grew rice, in Africa it was sorghun, millet and yams.  For the America's it was squash and beans.

Guns, Germs and Steel

About Jared Diamond:

         Jared Diamond has written several books throughout his lifetime, and currently is a professor of geography at the University of California.  He has also won a Pulitzer Prize due to the book, Guns, Germs, and Steel.  Jared Diamond was born on September 10, 1937 in Boston, Massachusetts.  He now has a wife named Marie; they have two twin sons together.  He went to Harvard and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1958.  Jared also graduated from University of Cambridge in 1961; he achieved a PhD in physiology and biophysics.  He also got a studied in ornithology and ecology, and has visited New Guinea many times.  When Jared was older he also became an expert in environmental history.  Even though Jared Diamond is an expert in a wide variety of subjects he still had a great love for birds, and knows practically all the species that live on the islands of New Guinea.

About Guns, Germs and Steel:

         This book published in 1997 won the Pulitzer prize a year later in 1998.  Diamond shows how certain countries become modern and advanced while others are still living like we humans did tens of thousands of years ago.  Guns, Germs and Steel has sold millions of copies and it explains why Eurasian civilizations have survived whole others have failed.  I do believe the Jared has a valid theory, it may be "out there" but it makes sense and gets people to think.  If I was someone who lived in New Guinea and saw a person like Diamond come in an airplane and such, I would really think that they are some new human specimen.  They are different colors, they have different clothes, and everything is different.  I'm not so sure how well I would adapt but overall, I would be so astonished by the new people.