When Jared Diamond went to Papua New Guinea he met a man named Yolley. Yolley asked him a short but hard to answer question, "Why you white men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little." Yolley's question was really about the roots on inequality. Why have some societies progressed so much more than others? Jared Diamond got so interested, he had to know more.
Papua New Guineans are just as intelligent as other people in different societies. They are just as hard workers as anyone else. They are just as self reliant as anyone else but they still live like they did 40,000 years ago. Papua New Guineans didn't have the same tools at their disposal in the beginning. The Middle East had a major breakthrough in technology. They made fire, which helped make plaster, and soon steel. Why hadn't Papua New Guineans made plaster or steel yet? Jared Diamond couldn't understand why they were working as if they did 40,000 years ago.
Jared Diamond finally figured it out. He realized that the reason Papua New Guineans are still working like they did 40,000 years ago was because of Geographic Luck. Papua New Guineans don't have all the resources, they live on an island. They don't have other countries as close to them as others. Papua New Guineans don't have the animals to pull a plow, or help them work in other ways. Since they don't have the animals to do that, they are worried about when they are gonna get food. So they are stuck working for their food. Other countries learned how to domesticate animals. The domesticated animals would pull plows, be used for food, wool, and their hydes. In new guinea people never used plows because they didn't have animals, the only domesticated animal was the pig. Pigs get you meat but not milk, wool, leather, or hyde's, they can't pull plows. The only muscle power in New Guinea is the people.
Other counties, like the U.S.A, started becoming more modern because England brought over animals, and food, and their culture. Than we learned how to weave, build fire, use steel, and other important things. People in New Guinea didn't advance for thousands of years because they were too busy feeding themselves until the Europeans took them over. They were easily conquered because they didn't have anything to fight back with. The towns of Papa New Guinea has become more modern, but they still are in a gap. They are progressing fast, but they still aren't as modern as most societies.
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