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Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond Quotes

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Famous Jared Diamond Quotes

“We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.”

KnowsWarLanguageDiseaseEarsMurderMajorityKillingMusicalIndianImmigrantsSurvivingEnglish LanguageReplacementsAdoptingPressuredEnglish Speaking
Author:Jared Diamond
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“Not until the beginning of the 20th century did Europe's urban populations finally become self-sustaining: before then, constant immigration of healthy peasants from the countryside was necessary to make up for the constant deaths of city dwellers from crowd diseases.”

SelfCitiesCenturyHealthyDiseaseEuropeConstantPopulationCrowdsImmigrationUrban20th CenturyPeasantsCountrysideSustainingDwellers
Book:Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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“The history of interactions among disparate peoples is what shaped the modern world through conquest, epidemics and genocide. Those collisions created reverberations that have still not died down after many centuries, and that are actively continuing in some of the world's most troubled areas.”

WorldStillsModernCenturyAreasDiedGenocideInteractionContinuingConquestModern WorldEpidemicsCollisionReverberation
Book:Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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“One way to explain the complexity and unpredictability of historical systems, despite their ultimate determinacy, is to note that long chains of causation may separate final effects from ultimate causes lying outside the domain of that field of science.”

WayMayLongLyingCausesEffectsFieldsUltimateHistoricalNotesFinalsDespiteChainsOne WayComplexityDomainUnpredictabilityCausation
Book:Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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“When you have seen the errors in which you live, you will understand the good that we have done you by coming to your land by order of his Majesty the King of Spain. Our Lord permitted that your pride should be brought low and that no Indian should be able to offend a Christian.”

ShouldDoneAbleChristianOrderLordLandPrideKingsLowsErrorsIndianSpainMajestyOur Lord
Book:Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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“Besides justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized societies. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other—by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than genetic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others.”

PeopleGivingFirstsTwoImportantSelfHelpingProblemTogetherIndividualInterestWealthSacrificeBenefitsKillingSolveIdeologyMotiveProvidingBehalfSelf InterestTransfersKinshipKilling Each Other
Author:Jared Diamond
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“But this was the only way of life that humans knew for their first 6m years on the planet. In giving it up over the past few thousand years, we have lost our vulnerability to disease and cold and wild animals, but we have also lost good ways to bring up children, look after old people, stave off diabetes and heart disease and understand the real dangers of everyday life.”

PeopleWayGivingYearsFirstsHumansLooksHeartChildrenRealPastLostAnimalDangerPlanetsColdThousandDiseaseEverydayVulnerabilityThousand YearsEveryday LifeOld PeopleGood WayOver The PastDiabetesWild AnimalHeart Disease
Author:Jared Diamond
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“The survival rate of Dr Burton's patients approximately doubled the maximum survival rate of conventionally treated patients. Had these findings pertained to a chemotherapy drug instead of IAT, massive amounts of funding would have been allocated to investigate the drug. Once again, the politics of cancer barred a potentially valuable treatment from reaching the public.”

Has BeensAmountDrugFindingsSurvivalPatientRateCancerValuableTreatedReachingTreatmentMassiveDrsMaximumFundingChemotherapy
Author:Jared Diamond
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