[ExI] Islamic culture (current) was Religions and violence >

[Keith Henson]

On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 5:00 AM,  Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 29 Jul 2010, Keith Henson wrote:
>
>> As you point out, Islamic culture was more advanced than western
>> culture at one time.  The question is not so much about Muslims being
>> held back but why western culture (Jews included) shot ahead.  Clark
>> calls this the great divergence and it is the major characteristic of
>> the world since the industrial revolution.
>
> Funny, I ask myself this question from time to time. Maybe I will find the
> answer in "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared
> Diamond (when I find some time for it).

Diamond is an excellent writer.  You should read GG&S plus his more
recent book Collapse.   But he doesn't have a handle on such topics as
EP.  Nor does he have solutions of the engineering/Extropian kind.

Keith