1 new of 293 responses total.
re: the book "Guns, Germs and Steel": It's been recommended twice now, and maybe I would find it interesting, but I doubt if anyone here reads whole books to pick up a point someone else is making about a drift thread in a discussion item. I certainly don't. If I were to read the book (which I may), I would then doubtless have many questions and points to make with the author, some of which you might address, but likely not most. Meanwhile, why not *make a point yourself*? I am utterly unimpressed by someone saying, in essence, "I'm not going to bother to say anything, but I'll point you at some book, it's really good, and has something to say; just assume whatever you find impressive is my point and therefore that I'm really smart". Now, if you want to invite the author here to debate his points, then you'd have done something useful to contribute to the discussion. Joe, at least, was supplementing his points with the book reference. Imagine a discussion where we debate points by citing authors and books? "I read _A Treatise on Medieval Church Influences_, what do you say to that?" "Oh, yeah, well, _Arabic Technology Comic Books_ answered that one; read issues #111-115." What wonderful reading (and fun) that would be. As if any of us has enough attention span to follow an item that covers more than a day, let alone months.
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