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Re:Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics by shrimp_emoji on Friday June 09, 2023 @06:22PM (#36265067)
Yep. It said Europe's balkanized geography (islands, peninsulas) begat literal balkanization, which begat competition, which begat innovation, which begat exploration and technology which dominated the world despite all other European failings.

Meanwhile, Asia's geography lent itself to unifying monopolization, which begat immense totalitarian states which were more complacent.

Both geographies fostered dense cities with draft animals, creating plagues and immunity to those plagues, which let the Old World dominate the New in numbers, technology, and immunology (nevermind that they had a few thousand years' head start in technology since they didn't have to switch continents).

Re:Jared Diamond: A Reply to His Critics by LorenPechtel on Saturday June 10, 2023 @12:03PM (#36271678)
And note that totalitarian states tend to become anti-science because it might upset their applecart. China was the dominant power, it didn't need innovation so why take the risk?