What does Veeky Forums think about geographic determinism?
Is there some truth to the notion that a nation's geography determines its history to a large degree?
Or is history shaped by humans rather than their geographic space?
Watch this video: (3 minutes)
youtu.be
For example, is there some truth to this?
Is Russia destined to clash with Western Europe for control of the Northern European Plain?
Only if you consider the implications of geography on genetic inheritance and pedigree such as northern populations having larger skulls due to heat transfer which as a feedback loop become biological.
>>/pol/
is that way
Tell me why it is no less true for humans than any other species? I thought fedoras were for evolution.
of geography plays a big part in how history developed
populations that are more or less isolated (either by an ocean, a desert, dense forests or mountains) tend to fall behind technologically compared to populations which trade a lot.
but there are a lot of other things that play a role too, like human stupidity. For example, if some important politician puts inside his head that inflation is a good thing that'll stimulate the economy, and he actually gets his ideas put into practice, then I guarantee that nation will become a miserable mess for decades. It has happened countless of times and will continue to happen, human stupidity knows no bounds.
geography is the mother of history, so they say
Because one can pretty much pull out any meme reasoning to explain x occurrence.
and yet asians are smarter
you are misusing evolution
It's not really wrong but it's incomplete. The surrounding environment and its resources have a massive impact on the development of a society but do not determine it alone.
Somebody equipped with only an understanding of environmental determinism would laugh at the claim of the British Isles exerting influence over much more populous and resource-rich regions, for example, because their understanding of the world would largely ignore the processes of cultural development or diplomacy, or how historical events determine how fucked a region might be for the span of decades/centuries.
Fuck off jared diamond
> implying cranial capacity has much to do with intelligence.
A magpie has the reasoning and problem solving capacity of a small human child. The magpie itself weighs about the same if not less than the child's brain.
Oh look, it's Retarded /pol/ack no. 3462.
Go home little fuckhead, you're lost.
The british isles are a poor example. They had plenty of resources for the development phase, held lands on the mainland for centuries and, due to being island peoples, quickly developed a powerful navy.
Among humans the relationship between IQ and cranial capacity is clear fucktard.
Why compare the brains of radically different species rather than go to the topic of the debate and actually compare the human races?
Because you are grasping at straws.
A magpie brain is configured differently, they need less neurons since their bodies and nervous systems are noticeably smaller.
Among humans the correlation between IQ and cranial capacity is 0.493, the strongest out of any possible comparison.
This chart is meaningless because IQ is different even between members of supposed race. Which means that the actual correlation would be much weaker i.e. if you average between one half of the humanity and another it would be like 1, because data is rigged in exactly that way.
Honestly it may be because it is 10 am and I am still not gone to bed, but that makes no sense to me. What are you trying to say? that since people of the same race have varying IQ that the mean IQ of the race means nothing?
Of course geography is relevant. It doesn't mean that living at a certain latitude grants you higher IQ but that the circumstances place limits on or grant opportunities for human activity.
How do australian abbos live today? Are they integrated?
Asians emerged from Siberia and that's why they have more foresight.
...
Well this thread devolved into /pol/ bullshit rather quickly
Corvids happen to have supernatural intelligence
Crow overlords when?
tumblr is that way
>cultural achievements
Dropped right there
May i ask where this meme chart is from?
Race, Evolution, and Behavior by J.Philippe Rushton
Its controversial, but its true. Just that morally wrong to use it as an argument for negative things.
>smartest place in the world is dark orange
>Australia
>Smartest
Nice try, smartest is actually Japan
I think any kind of -ism that stablishes only one variable as the only explanation for any phenomena, is bound to be wrong.
That said geography obviously plays a part in how civilizations develope.
But looking at the op image it's interesting how the wealthiest societies are those in colder regions, away from the tropics
That seems like geographic determinism to me.
Jesus really Rushton?
>This is correlated to some of the variance, therefore it is the only causal source of variance!
Wow tell me more, Socrates
Rushton isn't Jesus.
THIS
This.
>PNG/Australia had literally no worthwhile crops OR livestock
>Native americans had virtually no livestock compared to eurasia, especially not in cities, leading to less disease leading to getting cucked by euarsian plagues.
Equivalent to native americans but poorer with less opportunity, and somehow worse alcohol issues.
Geography plays an important role in human development, but saying it exclusively determines history is fucking stupid since a lot of other factors are important too.
Geography is one of the most important factors but not the only one.
>PNG/Australia had literally no worthwhile crops OR livestock
Neither did Yamato-era Japan and it was 10 times more advanced with writing, agriculture, cities, organized religion, iron weapons, etc.
1. Not true
2. They got that from China
Expect for the fact that earlier human civilizations developed in much warmer climates and closer to the tropics.
This.
>PNG/Australia had literally no worthwhile crops OR livestock
Dude, once the Papuan get agriculture from Austronesian they spread it themselves.They even have westward migration. Though technologically some of them are still using stone tools, or using metal tools acquired through trade.
Australian is out of luck.
This is a good theory until people use it to somehow say that no races are more intelligent than others. If you live in an area that incentives agriculture and urbanization, then natural selection will take its course and the people who reproduce will be the ones who could best take advantage of that system, aka, the smartest. Then you're population will get smarter over time. Not the case in a hunter-gatherer society.
oops meant "your"
Pretty sure Asians are the smart ones on that map, idiot.