In Class 1-31-11

In Class today I switched sections and we went over what section 05 did the first day of the semester, basically the same thing as my old section. We also continued to watch Guns, Germs, & Steel, we began watching about how the question given to Diamond from a New Guinean "Why do you white men have so much cargo" was a lot more important then it seemed at the beginning. We saw that there are groups of hunter gatherers everywhere, and they are there so they can actually eat because they don't have Burger King or McDonalds or anything like that, so they have to find their own food. The hunting aspect of how they get food is sometimes unsuccessful and not very constant, so gathering is used more and it is more consistent than hunting. But gathering still does not give a healthy diet. Barley and Wheat are very important natural products in Papua New Guinea and how its more nutritious than other foods that are gathered. In the Middle East, architects found remains of communities that were created at the end of the drought in the Middle East millions of years ago. This community was said to be more complex then groups of hunter gathers in Papua New Guinea today. This community is basically the group that changed most people from being huge groups of hunter gatherers into people that actually have a steady food source by growing what they know is good instead of going out and constantly move when you run out of food. Grains that were stored in the first area created to store food in were wheat and barley, the same grains hunter gatherers look for today in Papua New Guinea. The resources that were brought into this historical village weren't just amounts of it to have a supply for a limited amount of time, they brought seeds to have unlimited amounts. These people began to control nature and beginning to become the first farmers ever. After farming became known and more areas started to farm more things were being grown then just wheat and barley, the location of the area affected what was actually grown there. There were New Guinea farmers also tho, almost as old as the Middle East, but why are they still not thriving like every one else? Its because they cant store the food like groups in the Middle East and other places in the world. The type of farming is what affects the production rate an area has. 

Guns, Germs, & Steel

The movie was about how Guns, Germs, and Steel actually changed our nation and changed us into those “Haves instead of the Have nots.” Jarrod Diamond started this quest about how our nation evolved in Papua New Guinea. During his work in watching birds in Papua New Guinea, he became very interested in the people that inhabit the area. He was asked by a New Guinean “Why you white men have so much cargo, and us New Guineans have so little?” and this is what inspired Diamond’s investigation on the Western Civilization. He is asking how we progressed in the few hundred years America has been alive and how little New Guineans progressed in 40,000 years.