The Fates Of Human Societies By Jared Diamond: The Evolution Of Human Shape
It is evident that the world has a vast spectrum of people from different cultural and national backgrounds. However, they must not forget the fact that we are from the same species and that humans have the same genes wherever they are. Only a very small percentage is different from each other. In the latter developments of human societies, I would like to say that the environment is the main and only factor in shaping individuals lives and not biological differences. The Fates of Human Societies is a book written by Jared Diamond and it mainly talks about the evolution of the human societies throughout history and how the environment has shaped its inhabitants in most of the cases without an external power acting upon the causes and effects based on good or bad actions. It also sheds light on the idea that geological differences in human societies plays a major role in their overall development and that biological differences is not the governing factor. Rich people are rich or stay rich mostly because they have been born into an already rich family that further supports the newborns into flourishing and becoming a successful person like themselves.
However, being poor means the person has to start from zero and make the way to the top which is hard to accomplish. The book also illuminates some aspects of this concept through mentioning how the Europeans were able to take over the native Americans and conquer them in such a short period of time not because the native Americans were doomed by an external power to suffer but because of the environmental differences that largely caused the latter. They might have been way more generous and righteous than the Europeans, but nature doesn’t work that way. It is about the survival and dominance of the fittest there is and not the most righteous there is. It wasn’t because the Europeans were more genetically advanced. It was because of the way their environment had grown them and has made them more powerful than the native Americans. Unlike America, Europe has had much more cultural interactions with Asia and Africa which has caused them to have more fighting resources and armory. Also, the lesser cultural interaction between the peoples of the Americas caused them to develop lesser resistances to diseases that led to the extinction of the vast majority of the native Americans within a couple decades. “Throughout the Americas, diseases introduced with Europeans spread from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves killing and estimated 95 percent of the pre-Columbian Native American population.
It is also important to be noted that agriculture did not make the life of the people better as soon as they started becoming farmers. It made it harder because farming requires a lot of muscle power and also knowledge of different types of crops and seasonal changes. This, however, made food to be more available than before because more people can eat and thus a society depending on agriculture generally had a bigger population than hunter gatherer societies.
A Brief History of Humankind is a book written by Yuval Noah that has similar ideas as Jared mentioning the different phases of human development throughout history and the milestones that changed the societies in a totally different way. Just like a computer didn’t come out of nowhere with its perfect shape but rather as a result of centuries of work and development in technological evolution which has lead to the point of ease as it is now, humans did not become the world’s most dominant species out of nowhere. It took thousands to hundreds of thousands of years for them to develop their skills intellectually and mentally to be able to become the dominant species. Also, a common misconception is that the line of becoming a home sapien and modern human was a linear one. However, many species of homos existed a few million years ago alongside modern humans. However, the other became extinct because of their inability to survive. “Today there are many species of foxes, bears and pigs. The earth of a hundred millennia ago was walked by at least six different species of man. It is our current exclusivity, not that multi-species past, that is peculiar.
Language and the ability of expression was a major turning point that allowed interconnections between humans easier. Thus, they were able to merge within tribes and local groups and also be able to do inventions from the surrounding materials that further eased their way of life. Little by little, humans made their to the top of the food chain even though they lacked claws, furs, or strong bodies like the other predators. What differentiates humans from the other mammals was their ability to think about things that were not materialistic such as politics, love, hate, religion, or even money. Through these idea, they were able to form groups together that shared similar beliefs and ideologies. Gradually, they were able to identify themselves as part of a tribe and identify their relatives which also strengthened their interconnections.
All the aforementioned topics about human evolution and environmental impacts were all a branch of the idea of unintended consequences. Nature doesn’t have a set programme or a set of biological scriptures governing the actions or causes that happen in the world. There are fundamental physical laws and such as gravity that attracts objects towards the surface of the Earth, relative motion of the planet around the sun that makes seasons and earth’s self orbit that makes day and knight. Also, nature doesn’t have a set path for anything in life. One can be born into a strictly religious family and turn out to becoming an atheist not believing in any God. The consequences that happen to individuals are the results of the decisions they made their entire life up to that point and the result of God hating or loving the person which most people believe so. I personally think that it is important for individuals to have a scientifically based knowledge of how the world has evolved into its current shape and form rather than depending on superstitions and religious doctrines that try to give absolute and straightforward answers to questions that need years of research to even have a small grasp of. Also, good and evil are two concepts that exist only in our minds. In nature, it’s all about the survival and the dominance of the fittest organism and not the most righteous organism. It is also important to note that the environment in which individuals flourish has a fundamental impact on the decisions and the person the individual becomes. We might see a beggar in the street and start judging the person for being poor and ignorant. However, we don’t know exactly the person’s lifestyle and one cannot jump into conclusions.
The person might have been a very decent and intelligent person but he might have had a trauma that has fallen apart his life. Based on these concepts, we cannot judge something and jump into conclusions based on the visions of our naked eye. Thus, we cannot say someone or something is good or bad just because we see it that way. In conclusion, the two books written by the notable writers, Jared Diamond and Yuval Noah, are of great significance because they shed light on the way humans have evolved during the different geological periods and the different parts of the world they have inhabited throughout the hundred of thousands of years of their existence. The general consensus amongst the scientists is that human development is significantly dependent on the environment in which one live and not through biological differences. Also, what is seen as bad by a society might be different that what another society thinks of it. On an ideological sense, there isn’t a single ideology that is obsolete and is accepted by everyone no matter where they live or what their nationality is. Thus, we can say that good and bad depends on time and place and people as well.
