Diary (September 27, 2020)

Online diary of Karl Jones for Sunday September 27, 2020.

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Diary

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  Ely, Minnesota - First and Chapman - 20200927 074120.

Guns Germs and Steel

It's been fifteen years since I've read Guns Germs and Steel.

Diamond argues geo-solar determinism: Eurasia is East-West oriented, giving it a solar radiation advantage over the Americas and Africa, which are North-South oriented.

Europe got the "cargo" — the goods and services of the Industrial Revolution — because Europe was the right size peninsula in the right place on the right continent at the right time.

I can't find anything in Diamond's work which alludes to mutation, or provides a metaphor or reference point for mutation. What am I missing here?

• Guns, Germs, and Steel (nonfiction)

Condemn the prison system

First priority — condemn the prison system for eating young men alive, and champion prison reform.

Amish preferential treatment is a minor injustice embedded in a major injustice.

This is another float in [REDACTED]'s anti-Christianity parade, alienating yet more potential allies.

[and]

You're not tilting at windmills. You're eating a fucking tar baby for breakfast every day.

Eating the Tar Baby for Breakfast - Tales of the Post-Napalm Generation

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles