BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
X-WR-CALNAME:www.indybay.org
PRODID:-//indybay/ical// v1.0//EN
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:Indybay-18725328
SEQUENCE:18825228
CREATED:20121109T010300Z
DESCRIPTION:\n\n\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 II: Conquest\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\nThe 
 balance of power between the Old World of Europeans and the New World of 
 the Americas was so unequal — why?  The Spaniard, Francisco Pizarro, was 
 able to conquer the Inca army, 80,000 strong and including the Emperor of 
 the Inca, with only 168 European soldiers in only one day.  At the end of 
 that terrible day in 1532, some 7,000 Inca warriors lay dead — and no 
 Europeans.  Jared Diamond examines this situation and concludes that the 
 Europeans were able to conquer the Inca and all of South America because 
 they were well endowed with superior technologies as well as deadly disease 
 to which they were themselves immune. \n\nAccording to Jared Diamond’s 
 original version of history, the superior technologies of Europeans can be 
 credited to facts of geography.  Geography had endowed Europe with rich 
 sources of iron and wood, and a climate conducive to high-temperature 
 metallurgy.  Metallurgy was more developed in Europe than elsewhere, again 
 because of geographical advantages.  Europeans were able to make steel and 
 cover their bodies with it — body armor.  And they made steel swords and 
 guns to kill with.  They used gunpowder that had been discovered in China.  
 But because China was at nearly the same latitude as Europe and on the same 
 continent, gunpowder had been able to travel the vast distance between 
 China and Europe, east to west,  without overwhelming difficulties.  South 
 American civilizations, on the other hand, were not in communication with 
 one another because of the difficulties of traveling, north and south, 
 through Central America and through South America.  So advances achieved in 
 one civilization did not reach the others in the same swift time frame as 
 they did in Eurasia.  It was the same situation with using horses for 
 battle and using writing to share battle stories and theories.  Writing 
 spread from civilization to civilization throughout Europe and Asia, east 
 and west rather than north and south, because of the relative ease of 
 traveling through the Eurasian continent.  Writing benefited Pizarro in his 
 conquest of the Incas because he was able to read how Cortes had conquered 
 the Aztec of Mexico.  And finally, germ diseases, particularly small pox, 
 enabled Pizarro to conquer the Inca with a plague that killed 95% of the 
 Inca people.  It was domesticated animals that had given diseases to the 
 Europeans and, over time, they became immune to them.  But the same animals 
 were not native to Central and South America — another feature of the 
 different geographies of the Old World and the New World.  Jared 
 Diamond’s version of history may be called “geographical 
 determinism.”\n\nWheelchair accessible around the corner at  411  28th  
 Street\n\n$5 donations are expected\n\n\n\n\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/11/08/18725328.php
SUMMARY:Film: Guns, Germs and Steel
LOCATION:Humanist Hall\n390  27th  Street\nuptown Oakland, between Telegraph and 
 Broadway\nhttp://www.HumanistHall.org
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/11/08/18725328.php
DTSTART:20121122T033000Z
DTEND:20121122T053000Z
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR