Our biggest threat is not an asteroid about to crash into us, something we can do nothing about. Instead, all the major threats facing us today are problems entirely of our own making. And since we made the problems, we can also solve the problems. Jared Diamond More Quotes by Jared Diamond More Quotes From Jared Diamond We scientists have fantasies of being uniquely qualified to make great discoveries. Alas, reality is cruel: most of us are replaceable. For the vast majority of scientific contributions, if scientist X hadn't achieved it that year, scientist Y would have achieved the same result or something very similar soon thereafter. Jared Diamond discovery science reality Rhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overthrown the Roman Empire. It never happened. Jared Diamond rhinos empires troops Technology causes problems as well as solves problems. Nobody has figured out a way to ensure that, as of tomorrow, technology won't create problems. Technology simply means increased power, which is why we have the global problems we face today. Jared Diamond technology literature mean For anyone inclined to caricature environmental history as 'environmental determinism,' the contrasting histories of the Dominican Republic and Haiti provide a useful antidote. Yes, environmental problems do constrain human societies, but the societies' responses also make a difference. Jared Diamond environmental making-a-difference differences I personally am not conscious of my accent. Jared Diamond accents conscious Even to this day, no native Australian animal species and only one plant species-the macadamia nut-have proved suitable for domestication. There still are no domestic kangaroos. Jared Diamond kangaroos nuts animal Twenty years ago, you might have been pessimistic and said there's no hope. But these days, some of our very biggest companies are acting remarkably cleanly. And in some cases, although not all cases, the CEOs are the driving forces behind that. Jared Diamond acting twenties years Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases. Jared Diamond camels animal pigs Although native Africans domesticated some plants in the Sahel and in Ethiopia and in tropical West Africa, they acquired valuable domestic animals only later, from the north. Jared Diamond west literature animal We study the injustices of history for the same reason that we study genocide, and for the same reason that psychologists study the minds of murderers and rapists... to understand how those evil things came about. Jared Diamond literature evil mind Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home. Jared Diamond conquest home civilization The past was still a Golden Age, of ignorance, while the present is an Iron Age of willful bliss. Jared Diamond iron ignorance past Tasmanian history is a study of human isolation unprecedented except in science fiction - namely, complete isolation from other humans for 10,000 years. Jared Diamond isolation study science history The broadest pattern of history - namely, the differences between human societies on different continents - seems to me to be attributable to differences among continental environments, and not to biological differences among peoples themselves. Jared Diamond human me differences history
