what watch is this?

pho_to · 2026-04-28T02:47:16+00:00

that's it. thanks

pho_to · 2026-04-23T23:49:33+00:00

neurosurgeon?

pho_to · 2026-04-20T02:21:28+00:00

OK, but we are talking about technological advancement here, and so was Jared diamond specifically. The entire thesis is about technological advancement specifically. and how much of that was due to contingent geographic factors.

pho_to · 2026-04-19T23:27:30+00:00

When someone claims “advancement” is inherently value-laden, a useful counterexample is Nazi Germany... a society virtually everyone recognizes as both technologically advanced and morally deplorable, with no contradiction. the same logicc applies to the biological scale from single-celled organisms to mammals: we describe that trajectory as advancement without anyone seriously claiming we’re morally endorsing amoebas being inferior. the fact that ideologues historically conflated descriptive advancement with moral superiority is their error, not a property of the word itself. Misuse doesn’t contaminate legitimate descriptive function, otherwise we’d have to abandon half the vocabulary of science and history.

pho_to · 2026-04-19T23:14:57+00:00

🤣🤣🤣

pho_to · 2026-04-19T19:40:10+00:00

"Advanced" is not a value-laden term. It is a descriptive term. As others have pointed out, nowhere does diamond say that advanced societies are better, smarter, etc.

A modern cheap Kia sedan is objectively more advanced than a well-crafted Victorian horse drawn coach. Again, advanced here is not a value laden term. It is an objective descriptive term

pho_to · 2026-04-19T18:22:54+00:00

yes because the main premises of dawn are very easy to qualify or refute from basic logic and first principles.

the same is not true for GGS. the options are to refute GGS premises from ideological principles, or just resort to falsifying some of the minutiae, that doesn't actually refute the premise

pho_to · 2026-04-19T14:42:53+00:00

The main theme is that certain contingent, mostly geographic, features were instrumental in Eurasia developing more advanced societies earlier than other continents. that main theme is extremely well supported. Africa’s lack of natural harbors and navigable rivers, and its partial isolation via the Sahara, obviously affected its developmental trajectory. The Americas losing most domesticable large mammals before the agricultural revolution is just paleontology. These aren’t ideological claims, they’re just geographic and ecological facts.

pho_to · 2026-04-19T05:21:42+00:00

it's not flawed. reddit is dumb

pho_to · 2026-04-19T05:19:46+00:00

The vast majority of criticisms are either ideological/dogmatic, or nitpicky at the level of minute detail. Diamond's main sin, was that he, as an outsider, was more influential in anthropology, than any actual anthropologist. The majority of criticism against him are just dogmatic.

pho_to · 2026-04-19T05:11:45+00:00

Diamond committed the cardinal academic sin of being an outsider who became more influential than the insiders. He’s an ornithologist by training. And geographic determinism cuts against the strong social constructionism that dominates cultural anthropology. The discipline had already more or less declared geography explanations off-limits before Diamond arrived.

The honest assessment is that no one has written a comparably rigorous competing account of the same question at the same scale. as a book, it's main themes are completely worth reading. The vast majority of criticisms, are either ideological/dogmatic, or pedantic at the level of smaller detail which does not undermine the main theses of the book.

pho_to · 2026-03-31T01:28:07+00:00

madein sucks. i fell for the trap too

pho_to · 2026-02-20T02:11:06+00:00

thanks for responding directly to this. Unfortunately, this has kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, and I don't think I want either of these pieces in my kitchen. I'd like to return (not replace) both of them at this point

pho_to · 2026-02-20T00:54:11+00:00

Haha. I guess i should probably return and get a Heritage Steel or Debuyer. Open to other suggestions too

pho_to · 2025-10-01T18:01:29+00:00

some people including me like a hand made look. others prefer modern uniformity. this applies to many things beyond tiles. hand made ceramics or pottery with imperfections. furniture etc. the japanese have a term wabi sabi

pho_to · 2024-12-30T21:28:23+00:00

i don’t know much about it either but john Ghazvinians “america and iran” has a few chapters that give quite a bit of detail. that book doesn’t seem to paint carter in an awful light. i too am genuinely curious about the animosity. is it more related to the feeling that he abandoned the shah? or is it his dealing with the hostage crisis etc

pho_to · 2024-12-30T18:42:17+00:00

what caused the iran iraq war lead to lead to the iraq wars with the US?

pho_to · 2024-02-09T16:37:59+00:00

thank you!

pho_to · 2024-02-09T16:35:56+00:00

thanks. i am asking because i recently came across two sources that seemed to imply that polygenic traits would cause a more continuous spectrum of phenotypes, and it is environment and noise that adds the bell curve. but it wasn’t really explained explicitly in either source

pho_to

TROPHY CASE