spitballing

Speaking of the Czechs, I remember when they taught us history in school with that big pull-down multi-colored map.  The Greeks had their empire, and of course the Romans theirs, even those no-account Persians had an empire.  Later on the Spanish covered a good part of the the globe, the French had Napoleon, and even the Germans had their ill-famed day in the sun.  But wait a minute, did I fall asleep or was I pretending my pencil was a spaceship when they were talking about the Bohemian empire?   Well once long ago there was something called Greater Moravia, but it wasn't that great and it didn't last very long.  Old Dog's people did pretty well for awhile but it doesn't seem like those dragon boats sailed in unison, it was every horned head (which Old Dog has pointed out they didn't really wear, which I have to say is a disappointment) for himself and it seems like they went native pretty quickly. 

I think we are all readers of Guns, Germs, and Steel.  How did those scrappy Europeans go from has-beens to conquerors of the globe?  Jared thought, as I recall, that it was because of the natural obstacles that divided Europe into all those different countries so that when the enlightenment hit and enlightenment guys pissed off their local king they could always flee to some other country which was happy to have them because the enemy of my enemy thing, so instead of being squashed they were able to spread their enlightened ideas around.  Well that's my memory, but having said that it sounds a bit implausible.  Maybe I should reread it, or at least the wiki entry on the subject.

You wonder why the process of civilization was so slow, well sure it took awhile to evolve,  The web is vague, but let's say Cro Magnon first turned his handsome head 40,000 years ago.  What was he doing all that time?  Why did it take so long to discover agriculture?  Well maybe it took awhile to catch on.  Watching the peas grow does not have the allure of getting together with your pals and spears and going off on the hunt.

Well I am just spitballing here, just throwing things out without much thought.  Maybe I should have been talking about math.  How about there is some guy, say one of those tribesmen on that island near /India where they killed the missionary, and he doesn't know nothing abut math, but he has say 25 fish, although he can't even count them, to him it is just a mess of fish.  And he is after clamshells which he knows he can get two each for a fish, so he goes to the clamshell guy and lays down a fish and gets two shells, lays down another and gets two more and in the end walks away with a mess of shells, though he can't count them, and gives his lady love one a day until he runs out.  How come me sitting here far from this guy can make a few marks on a piece of paper and know exactly how many days it will be until he runs out of shells,  Doesn't that sound like magic of some kind?