If have never read Jared Diamond the book to read is "Guns Germs and Steel". But all his books are interesting. The principle question in that book that Diamond tries to answer is why did countries from Western Europe invade America and not the other way around.

Collapse looks why at the role environmental degradation in societal collapse.

Why Sex is Fun is about evolution. Likewise the Third Chimpanzee.

The World Until Yesterday looks that the social, economic and political organization of hunter gatherer societies.

He is a very interesting author. Not everyone in the relevant fields agree entirely with Diamond but he has certainly succeed in generating a lot of debate.

Harvard seem to be really good at that; pushing out the publications and generating PR and sales.

@Leon: No, it doesn't have to be. On Wednesdays I fight the patriarchy.

@Leon
Isn't fighting for equality between all peoples a worthy pursuit?

@wjessop: patriarchy is a feminist concoction, unless... http://whatmenthinkofwomen.blogspot.com/2012/01/join-patriarchy-club-free-lifelong-id.html

@Falcon An open border between countries does not promote inequality.

@Leon

It's exclusive in who's allowed in. When you're exclusive you're being inequal. Sure maybe you're not outwardly discriminating, but you're essentially saying "here's who we're comfortable allowing into our country freely and here's who weren't not" - white commonwealth countries are ok, but not the others.

Open borders to all countries doesn't work though. You need to have a limit. It's not about racism. It's about practicality.

What fluminator said. Developed countries are not going to experience a mass exodus of people from one country to another when their borders are opened, unlike the Ghana scenario I gave above.

Immigration policy shouldn't be based on race or nationality, but on merit and need. Refugees should be taken in regardless of their social status and education, since it's the right thing to do. However, for other immigration, I agree in the need for a points system, not for nationality, but for education level and language proficiency.

@Flum Practicality is an excuse for being racist. Sure, it's not practical to allow developing nations wrecked by colonialism and postcolonialism into this deal, but that doesn't make it less racist.

***^^^^^^^^^^^^

Purely for practicality purposes we will move you all into one ghetto, to make it easier for your community to exist together.

But that's like saying it's racist for Canada to allow free travel between its different provinces, and not letting everyone in the world have access them isn't it?

"education level and language proficiency"

Those in developed countries are generally much more educated than those in developing countries. The involved nations are also all English-speaking countries.

Demon, colonialism actually developed many African countries, improving healthcare and creating roads and railroad. I'm not saying this is a good thing. Africans would have far preferred to remain primarily agricultural.

^^

@ Hmm, not exactly.
It's more like "you're less likely to be allowed into Canada if you're from x origin and therefore you can not travel freely in the different provinces" which is racist.

@Flum *

@Leon
Please, colonialism wrecked full POWER STRUCTURES (biggest problem with corruption now, as a result), created false ethnic divides, false border lines, wrong methods of "development", etc etc - it developed shit all but broken, failed states.

Linking up the CANZUK doesn't change anything about who is allowed to immigrate into each country though.

I don't think I can actually engage in this conversation if you think colonialism led to positive development in Africa. Lol.

Again, Demon, I did not say it was a good thing. However, it is likely that cities like Nairobi would be much smaller. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

I said it lead to development, not positive development.

@leon Its like... I kick down your lego castle, build a door in its place and say "look I developed it for you, what would you do without me?"

Like I said, Africans would have preferred to remain an agricultural society. Agricultural life could not have supported the population boom resulting from Western medical aide. Then even more Africans would have needed to leave, since there would be no base to develop from. If there was to be no migrant crisis, Westerners would have had to refrain from giving them Western medicine.

I'm not sure what you're even trying to say tbh. Firstly, western medicine is not even readily available to everyone in Africa, let alone a majority of people... And I'm not sure how this is the end all of development anyway or why lack of colonialism would condemn an entire content to be agricultural based forever (despite certain areas having rich mining deposits, etc). Yeah, I have no clue what your point is here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwvJ0cjc-6Q

Are you Australian wjessop?

"Over the last 60 years, thanks to Western healthcare, better nutrition, and large amounts of aid, infant death rates declined on the continent, and its population quadrupled from 200 million in 1950." (Source: http://www.amren.com/features/2015/07/an-african-planet/)

I did not say western medicine would stop development. I said it caused a population boom that would have overwhelmed the African economy even more if there was no existing development.

Africa was far less developed than Europe when African imperialism began, and there is no reason to believe that they would have developed on their own if not for imperialism. African resources are still hugely underdeveloped today.

Again, I am not saying that Africans needed to develop.I am saying that if Westerners hadn't colonized Africa, they shouldn't have given aid that would cause more suffering than it relieved.

I'm confused. Are you implying that immigration is bad? That medicine is bad? Or something else?

Fluminator: Open borders to all countries doesn't work though. You need to have a limit. It's not about racism. It's about practicality.

DemonOverlord: Practicality is an excuse for being racist.

Why is it racist to have an immigration policy? Don't all countries have rules about who they let in and who they deny entrance to? Isn't that implicit in the idea of a sovereign state?

Are you implying that Canada for example has a moral obligation to have an open door policy with regards to immigration. If so could you please expand on this and explain why.