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UID:Indybay-18725329
SEQUENCE:18825229
CREATED:20121109T010900Z
DESCRIPTION:\nFilm evenings begin with optional potluck refreshments & social hour 
 at  6:30 pm,\nfollowed by the film at  7:30 pm, followed by a discussion 
 after the film.\n\nGUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL\nEpisode III:  Into the 
 Tropics\nby National Geographic\n\nBased on Jared Diamond‘s book of the 
 same name, this National Geographic film "Guns, Germs and Steel" traces 
 humanity’s journey over the last 13,000 years — from the dawn of 
 farming at the end of the last Ice Age to the realities of life in the 
 twenty-first century. This ambitious, ground-breaking film, following the 
 book, portrays Jared Diamond’s discovery of an answer to the question: 
 Why were Europeans the ones to conquer so much of our planet — why 
 wasn’t it the Chinese or the Inca? And why are the tropics now the 
 capital of global poverty?\n\nWhen it comes to the European conquest of 
 tropical areas of Earth like the middle of Africa, the Europeans definitely 
 had some setbacks to overcome.  With respect to temperate climatic 
 conditions, the Europeans were right at home in the temperate areas they 
 conquered.  The 9 or so crops that they had domesticated in Europe also 
 grew in the temperate places they conquered when they planted them there, 
 even though they were not native to the new territories.  And the 14 
 domesticated animals that they regularly used in Europe were also able to 
 live in temperate zones when the Europeans conquered those zones and 
 brought their animals.  But Europeans were not able to grow their usual 
 European plants or corral their usual European animals in tropical regions 
 — the climate was too formidable, too hot, too wet.  And instead of 
 communicating their European disease germs to the native tropical peoples 
 and decimating them, the tropical people of Africa communicated their 
 tropical disease germs to the Europeans and decimated them instead.  The 
 Europeans had become immune to small pox over thousands of years but taking 
 it to the New World, it was able to kill 95% of the native New World 
 peoples who were not immune.  In Africa, the Africans had become immune to 
 small pox and malaria over thousands of years and knew how to live away 
 from mosquitoes and keep their population down — but malaria was able to 
 render most Europeans useless in their conquest of Africa.  \n\nSo instead 
 of conquering and settling in tropical areas of Africa, while being sick 
 with malaria, Europeans first conquered southern Africa, where the climate 
 was temperate, then ventured northward into tropical Africa and enslaved 
 Africans from afar, from Europe:  European governments turned to cheap 
 African labor to maximize the profit from the rich natural resources of 
 Africa — resources like copper, diamonds, and gold that were valuable to 
 Europeans.  In other words, Europeans enslaved Africans to work for 
 European empires and industries without settling in tropical Africa.  In 
 the colonial era, Europeans exploited Africa to the hilt and in the process 
 completely shredded the advanced African civilizations that were 
 established in tropical Africa long before — the Bantu in particular — 
 just as they had done to the Aztec and the Inca in South 
 America.\n\nWheelchair accessible around the corner at  411  28th  
 Street\n\n$5 donations are expected\n\n\n\n 
 http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/11/08/18725329.php
SUMMARY:Film: Guns, Germs and Steel
LOCATION:Humanist Hall\n390  27th  Street\nuptown Oakland, between Telegraph and 
 Broadway\nhttp://www.HumanistHall.org
URL:http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/11/08/18725329.php
DTSTART:20121129T033000Z
DTEND:20121129T053000Z
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