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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 
 https://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:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/11/08/18725329.php
DTSTART:20121129T033000Z
DTEND:20121129T053000Z
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