GENIUS FORUMS

Has anyone read this book? At first I was skeptical of the hype, but I picked it up recently. Diamond single-handedly illegitimizes racism. From now on there should be no excuse for anyone of intelligence to consider seriously that race is a determining factor in intelligence.

It was quite a book.

I've been meaning to read the book, but never got around to it.

However, I recently watched a television special based on that book with Jared Diamond as the host - and I thought it was tremendously intelligent at the time.

I've also read a few essays by diamond.

Here is one:

http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/ag ... stake.html

The message really supports alot of what Permaculture, Masanobu Fukuoka, and even the good hearted yet perhaps a bit mad - John Zerzan.

It's seems that white man, being a bit more clever, is a bit more stupid in some respects.

According to Diamond - a 'hunter gather' mode of existence was much more benevolent than the cliche's of David Hume suggest.

The establishment of agriculture might have been our worst mistake.

But great mistakes can lead to great enlightenment.

I'm going to train right now, so I will read the essay later, but Diamond didn't actually use the words "white men are more clever" in any shape or form did he?

I ask this because he goes to great lengths to debunk this thinking in the context it was written above.

I'm going to train right now, so I will read the essay later, but Diamond didn't actually use the words "white men are more clever" in any shape or form did he?

no, I dont think that would do well for his career.

But manipulating nature, and coming up with inventions shows a certain cleverness that those who stuck to hunter gather might not have had.

Some individuals are more clever than others.

So I dont see how it doesnt follow that some races can be more clever than others.

Cory Duchesne wrote: The establishment of agriculture might have been our worst mistake.

Indeed.

Cory Duchesne wrote:But great mistakes can lead to great enlightenment.

Hmm. I'd hardly consider the current dismal state of the globe as something resembling "enlightenment."

Those nomadic tribes were far more enlightened than modern man is or could hope to be, I reason. They were spiritual, lived in harmony with nature, and it worked great (until someone decided to stay put and grow crops in Mesopotamia). Sounds enlightened to me...

Then again, I have no clear conception of enlightenment.

Cory Duchesne wrote:

I'm going to train right now, so I will read the essay later, but Diamond didn't actually use the words "white men are more clever" in any shape or form did he?

no, I dont think that would do well for his career.

But manipulating nature, and coming up with inventions shows a certain cleverness that those who stuck to hunter gather might not have had.

Some individuals are more clever than others.

So I dont see how it doesnt follow that some races can be more clever than others.

Dude, just read the book. He wrote it for people that would type the words above. It's an excellent and you are totally wrong.

I would argue with you, of course, but it took him 500 pages and he does a much better job of it.

But thanks for the essay. C-ya later.

Hmm. I'd hardly consider the current dismal state of the globe as something resembling "enlightenment."

Those nomadic tribes were far more enlightened than modern man is or could hope to be, I reason. They were spiritual, lived in harmony with nature, and it worked great (until someone decided to stay put and grow crops in Mesopotamia). Sounds enlightened to me...

Then again, I have no clear conception of enlightenment.

Well, you have to consider then many of the greatest wise men of history were often of noble birth, or had access to knowledge.


These nomadic tribes didnt know they were wise, they were just subordinating themselves to nature because they had no choice to, and by doing so, they were unintentionally wise.

Once man developed the clevereness to manipulate and control (once he ate from the apple of knowledge) all hell broke loose, he became unbalancd.

If indigenous primitive tribes were so wise, would they be so quick to get hooked on the booze? They were naive, and simple people who were easily duped.

Whereas the clever white man was corrupt and exploitative by nature.

Now, after an ugly 10 000 or so years, man is in a position to learn from his mistakes and actually become conscious.

He may or may not. It's not looking too good really.

But there are a few promising individuals who are bringing awareness to the world.

Cory Duchesne wrote: Well, you have to consider then many of the greatest wise men of history were often of noble birth, or had access to knowledge.

These nomadic tribes didnt know they were wise, they were just subordinating themselves to nature because they had no choice to, and by doing so, they were unintentionally wise.

True, I suppose.

However, looking at the example of Native North Americans, they were intentionally wise to a point, apparently dictated more by the restrictions of their environment; they were deeply connected to their land and the life therein---a connection modern man has lost, despite (or directly due to) his technology. So, in a sense, they were far wiser because they had limited knowledge, kept it that way, kept things simple.

If "knowledge is power" and if "absolute power corrupts absolutely," then supreme knowledge is supreme corruption. No?

Cory Duchesne wrote: Once man developed the clevereness to manipulate and control (once he ate from the apple of knowledge) all hell broke loose, he became unbalancd.

If indigenous primitive tribes were so wise, would they be so quick to get hooked on the booze? They were naive, and simple people who were easily duped.

Well.... Naive perhaps, but they had honour and a fair way of going about things---the fact that they were deceived by invading colonists is similar to how diseases invaded them (they had no natural immunity to foreign diseases, as they had no natural mental immunity to lies and treachery, and by the time they adapted and figured out "white man speaks with forked tongue," it was far too late).

Young people are given cigarettes and crack, and their innocence and purity is destroyed through the addiction---Natives were turned into junkies as well, but had no Europeans arrived (ever), they would have gotten along fine.

Cory Duchesne wrote: Whereas the clever white man was corrupt and exploitative by nature.

Now, after an ugly 10 000 or so years, man is in a position to learn from his mistakes and actually become conscious.

He may or may not. It's not looking too good really.

But there are a few promising individuals who are bringing awareness to the world.

Yes. Good point. And no, it's not looking good.

Diamond single-handedly illegitimizes racism. From now on there should be no excuse for anyone of intelligence to consider seriously that race is a determining factor in intelligence.

But not cultural racism, which is all racism is these days anyway (from the resource richer western angle at least, can't same the same for the less developed countries).

I think culture determines intelligence, and I have zero doubt that western cultures are superior in intelligence due to this.

The book did teach me though that actual racial intelligence is far less a factor than I thought it was.

You need to realise Diamond is protecting what he likes.


Edit: I should add that intelligence DOES not equate to increased happiness. Intelligence, via technology and organsiation, creates more freedom from the demands of living, food shelter etc, which in turn creates more or broader mental freedom and more expectations and desires that are never satisfied - emotions are fleeting, the satisfaction of emotions just leads to more desire.

Jamesh wrote:You need to realise Diamond is protecting what he likes.

Cynical rot! Diamond isn't protecting anything. He is expressing an argument flawlessly. He knew what he was going for before he wrote the book, but that doesn't make his argument less valid.

If I put a gun to your head and made you my slave does that mean I am superior? Had you thought to carry a gun that day and pull it on me first would that make you superior? Obviously not.

It just occured to me though, the term "cultural racism" is meangless. LOL.

Well, I've been to several reservations where there are people still living as close to the old ways as possible including no alcohol and such... it appears to me as if those with the desire to remain wise, and remain in touch with nature are doing so, while those more interested in worldy persuits are doing that.

This may be for the best in the end - people being able to leave leaves those who desire to stay able to do what they're doing without the disruption.

-Rory

Rory wrote,

Well, I've been to several reservations where there are people still living as close to the old ways as possible including no alcohol and such.

What area in the world was this? Did they subsist on agriculture or wild game? both? Was peyote or anything a part of the culture?

It appears to me as if those with the desire to remain wise, and remain in touch with nature are doing so, while those more interested in worldy persuits are doing that.

Well, I'd love it if I could fit into to some place in the world where natives are living strictly according to nature.

I see Beebuddy's position is very much like the one I had up until about last year.

As of late, I've been taking the position that is more painful, only because it seems true.

I do realize that indigenous tribes have been known to be puzzlingly inventive - - it remains a mystery as to how many indigenous tribes managed to come up with some of the poison ointments that they use for hunting, along with other things.

Some suggest (and I used to believe) there is a certain pre-logical sort of mystical and intuitive process that is undergone in order to gain knowledge, sometimes this involves ingestion of psychadelics.

Indigenous cultures have always intrigued me in that way.

Cory wrote:

Some suggest (and I used to believe) there is a certain pre-logical sort of mystical and intuitive process that is undergone in order to gain knowledge, sometimes this involves ingestion of psychedelics.

Or perhaps the shaman got a little carried away and unwittingly created a poisonous concoction. And then he drank it trying to get stoned, but dropped dead. And then the hunters studied the ingredients as a means to create a poisonous arrow. It could be the truth considering this is how humanity has notoriously learned anything, by blindly falling on their faces repeatedly.

Another example: Natives used crude stone hunting knives for thousands of years before they realized they could use bones from what they killed to create arrows, their progress was actually quite clumsy, blind, slow and stunted.

Think about the thousands of natives that would have sat joyously playing with their shoddy knives, while a cave full of bones is right beside them. The native that first created the bone arrow probably did it accidently while trying to create an accessory for his knife. Quite a few parallels to contemporary times...

Ryan wrote,

Or perhaps the shaman got a little carried away and unwittingly created a poisonous concoction. And then he drank it trying to get stoned, but dropped dead.

I wish I could find the article, but the poison they used consisted of many ingredients, some of which had to be boiled for hours - so, although your cartoon like ancedote gives a grin, it can't be taken seriouly, because it comes from a lazy mind who hasnt absorbed the work of those who have done serious studies

[edit: alright rudolph! - the lazy mind comment was a mean one. But I do think you were exagerating and being a bit lazy - -- trying to trick me into higher consciousness perhaps? Yes, I could be the lazy one....]

And your derogatory regard for their drug use (trying to get stoned) reflects your western conditioning, where drug use is a way of numbing oneself and escaping from egostistical pain and low self esteem.

You show very little awareness or respect for the work done by Aldous Huxley and Terrence Mckenna.

And then the hunters studied the ingredients as a means to create a poisonous arrow. It could be the truth considering this is how humanity has notoriously learned anything, by blindly falling on their faces repeatedly.

Again, cartoon like oversimplifications. It's easy to cite many individuals whose lives offered an abudence of novel perceptions.

Another example: Natives used crude stone hunting knives for thousands of years before they realized they could use bones from what they killed to create arrows, their progress was actually quite clumsy, blind, slow and stunted.

For some reason you are indulging in a great deal of exageration.

Many fossil records show that the arrow developed in many different places simultaneously, and I doubt that it was really a proccess that was as stupid and pathetic sounding as you are making it out to be.


Terrence Mckenna had a great deal of respect for some indigenous cultures

heres a bit from an interview:


Mckenna: Psyche, or consciousness, is a very slippery concept. One researcher, Julian Jaynes, has suggested that human consciousness has changed its character even in historical times. Jaynes felt that in Homeric times, the ego as we know it was really not in existence, except under extreme stress. And then it presented itself almost as an exterior intrusion into consciousness, like the voice of a god. I think that the major difference between modern materialistic consciousness and archaic shamanic consciousness is that the archaic shamanic consciousness interprets much of its perception as coming from an organized and intelligent Other. And I, after having gone through the extraterrestrial interpretation for a number of years, have come to the opinion that this Other that we contact through these things is nothing more or less than a kind of integrated intelligence that pervades the entire planet. For want of a better tag, let's just call it the Gaian Overmind.

I think for a long time through history, people were fully conscious, fully at home with language and theatre and ritual and magic, but they were cradled, if you like, or embedded in an almost continuous dialogue with the rest of reality, experienced as of a seamless consciousness which they called the Great Spirit or the Ancestors or simply God. The Western cultural and linguistic heritage has been largely a building of defences’ against this other and of humanity.

So when we go into the wilderness and ingest psychedelic plants and perform ancient paradigmatic rituals, if we are successful in dissolving the conditioning and the expectations of modernity and materialism, we discover that this mystery is still there, still alive, still capable of dialoguing with us. And it's absolutely confounding to people. They react to it either with ecstasy or fear, or tales of religious conversion or alien abduction. It entirely depends upon how it hits you. In this case, one man's revelation is another man's nightmare. But, I believe, the thing that lies behind all of this is a living intelligent natural mind of some sort that is simply an extension of the biosphere, of Gaia.

Ebert: In your book Food of the Gods, you deal with some of the historical dimensions of the use of hallucinogens. You envision the history of culture as a steady decline in the use of plant-based hallucinogens and their gradual replacement with such unsatisfying substitutes as alcohol, opium, tobacco, cocaine, and so forth. Is it possible that if people used hallucinogens in a more ritualized and controlled way, it might significantly reduce the abuse of some of these other drugs?
McKenna: I think people without this helping hand from the Gaian intelligence we were talking about previously are simply clueless. They have Marxism, and modern advertising, and whatever cultural values they're born into to guide them, but inevitably, as Freud pointed out in Civilization and Its Discontents, these things lead to neurosis.
I think that the key point to understand about the psychedelic experience, whether you love it or hate it, is that it dissolves boundaries. It dissolves cultural programming and replaces it with a much more basic kind of programming that is in the human animal. All culture steers us away from this original source of self-authentication. And in that sense, Freud was

right: All culture is neurotic.

So in the book you mentioned, and also in another book of mine called The Archaic Revival, I simply pointed out that when civilizations become massively neurotic, they seem to have an instinctual reflex to go back in time looking for a model. This is why the Renaissance created classicism as a response to the failure of the Medieval church. It's why in the twentieth century we've seen outbreaks of phenomena that range from cubism and surrealism to rock and roll.

These are impulses toward an archaic state of mind. At the center of this impulse toward the archaic state of mind is the boundary dissolution of cultural values that takes place under psychedelics. If we could find some way to bring this to people on a yearly basis perhaps, and in a powerful manner, that might be sufficient to keep people operating in the light of the certain knowledge that there are value structures larger than that of the knowledge being handed down to them through the mass media and cultural conventions.

People are being absolutely starved for authenticity, and in the meantime they're offered an endless selection of German automobiles and hair-care products and ice cream flavors and witless entertainment, and none of it satisfies because what people really feel deprived of is an authentic sense of their own being and their own importance in the natural scheme of things. Culture cannot respond to that unless it makes a place for the transcendence of itself.

the rest of the interview can be read here:

http://www.ions.org/publications/review ... Ebert.html

beebuddy:

It just occured to me though, the term "cultural racism" is meangless. LOL

consider the definition of racism:

a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

Just because I think that Black people are generally more superior in regards to athletics and low brow entertainment, doesnt mean I'm racist.

Likewise, just because I think that a white person is generally[i/] more superior in regards to philosophical or scientific thinking, doesnt mean I'm racist either.

I also happen to think women are generally worse than men at refraining from sensuality, and thinking philosophically, scientifically - -but that doesnt mean I'm sexist.

Cory Duchesne wrote:
Mckenna: Psyche, or consciousness, is a very slippery concept. One researcher, Julian Jaynes, has suggested that human consciousness has changed its character even in historical times. Jaynes felt that in Homeric times, the ego as we know it was really not in existence, except under extreme stress.

If you read Jaynes, you will see that his thesis is that everyone back then was pretty much schizophrenic by modern standards. That mode of consciousness dropped out because the modern mode is vastly superior.

And then it presented itself almost as an exterior intrusion into consciousness, like the voice of a god.

Jaynes argues that the modern ego depended on the integration of the left and right halves of the brain, and man previously experienced messages coming from the other hemisphere - in an area analogous to the speech center - as a voice from outside, as the "voice of god." He certainly did not argue for some type of "Gaian Overmind."

Ebert: In your book Food of the Gods, you deal with some of the historical dimensions of the use of hallucinogens. You envision the history of culture as a steady decline in the use of plant-based hallucinogens and their gradual replacement with such unsatisfying substitutes as alcohol, opium, tobacco, cocaine, and so forth.

That seems like kind of a bizarre thing to say. Opium comes from poppies, cocaine comes from coca, tobacco comes from, um, tobacco, and alcohol can be made from all sorts of different berries or fruits. They are all "plant based." Why would he name those instead of something less natural, something made in a lab - like LSD?

beebuddy wrote:Has anyone read this book?

I haven't read Guns Germs and Steel, but I'm currently reading his later book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. I'm about two thirds of the way through it, and I would certainly recommend it.

Ebert: In your book Food of the Gods, you deal with some of the historical dimensions of the use of hallucinogens. You envision the history of culture as a steady decline in the use of plant-based hallucinogens and their gradual replacement with such unsatisfying substitutes as alcohol, opium, tobacco, cocaine, and so forth.


Hodges: That seems like kind of a bizarre thing to say. Opium comes from poppies, cocaine comes from coca, tobacco comes from, um, tobacco, and alcohol can be made from all sorts of different berries or fruits. They are all "plant based." Why would he name those instead of something less natural, something made in a lab - like LSD?

He probably doesnt have the right words. But all of those drugs, opium, cocain, tobaco, alcohol are similar in that they are proccessed, rather than left in their natural state. They also siginifcantly differ in how they affect the brain compared to the psiloybin mushroom that mckenna is really an advocate of.

Psycadelics differ vastly in how they affect the brain in contrast to mere stimulants and depressives.

It's really the mushroom, ingested in its natural state, that is the focal point of attention here.

As for LSD, it operates on the brain in a similar way to psilocybin - -but Mckenna said that if you can choose between the two, then there is no question as to which one you should do. The one thats natural.

Anyways, I don't totally agree with mckenna, and I have no more interest in doing drugs, I paid my dues - - but do I think he has something significant to say and overall I have alot of respect for how he lived.

hodges wrote,

Jaynes argues that the modern ego depended on the integration of the left and right halves of the brain, and man previously experienced messages coming from the other hemisphere - in an area analogous to the speech center - as a voice from outside, as the "voice of god." He certainly did not argue for some type of "Gaian Overmind."

Mckenna was borrowing from Jaynes' ideas, intergrating them into his own i think.

A sort of creative intelligence latent in nature does indeed escape Hume's excellent reasons for denying the more 'traditional' God.

however, the sort of intelligence Mckenna speaks of is by no measn neccesarily all powerful and capable of doing anything.

I'm open minded to the possibility of an intelligent otherness in nature.

Dhodges: If you read Jaynes, you will see that his thesis is that everyone back then was pretty much schizophrenic by modern standards. That mode of consciousness dropped out because the modern mode is vastly superior.

Again, I dont see why you think it is rational to take the totality of Jaynes for gospel. Mckenna borrowed from Jaynes.

why is the modern mode 'vastly' superior, considering the apparent degradation in quality of life.

Read guns, germs and steal. Its true that humans have degraded in health ever since they had the egoic gull to start agriculture.

Ryan

And your derogatory regard for their drug use (trying to get stoned) reflects your western conditioning, where drug use is a way of numbing oneself and escaping from egostistical pain and low self esteem.

You show very little awareness or respect for the work done by Aldous Huxley and Terrence Mckenna.

Quote:

And then the hunters studied the ingredients as a means to create a poisonous arrow. It could be the truth considering this is how humanity has notoriously learned anything, by blindly falling on their faces repeatedly.


Again, cartoon like oversimplifications. It's easy to cite many individuals whose lives offered an abudence of novel perceptions.

Quote:

Another example: Natives used crude stone hunting knives for thousands of years before they realized they could use bones from what they killed to create arrows, their progress was actually quite clumsy, blind, slow and stunted.


For some reason you are indulging in a great deal of exageration.

Many fossil records show that the arrow developed in many different places simultaneously, and I doubt that it was really a proccess that was as stupid and pathetic sounding as you are making it out to be.

Ryan, for that moment I was possessed by a stern blow-hard military comander thinking he was in charge of a magical boat with wings, flying toward a promising horizon, convinced that on the otherside existed a new world of justice, fairness, peace, and communion with hyperspatial elves.

You were interfering with my mission.

So you need to ask yourself Ryan........Do you want to the be faithful leutenant? Or do you want to be diagnosed with spiritual scurvey and pushed off the plank, falling down into a sea where David Quinn and Kevin Solway are jolly mermen with tridents that shoot lighting bolts of noetic truth, lecturing all the merboys to beware of the mermaids who, who....who

askdjf;lasdjkf

[Cory slumped and fell onto his key board, started sobbing uncontrollably]

But then got up with a determined and angry face and wrote:

we should all do drugs to expand our consciousness, integrate our modern egos with the primitive cosmic jaynian bicemerial mind, fuse with the gaian conscious overmind, and live like the indigenous ones did. Hero's I tell ya!

Cory, I had a feeling my comic exaggerations related to indigenous cultures would crank your chain a bit.

lol - - oh the joys of a spiritual friend.

always there to comfort you!