Gilgamesh -- what do you think?

Please post comments, questions, etc. here as soon as you can (ideally Tuesday night)

Continuing the Jared Diamond discussion

In class, we came up with the following notes/questions (pasted below)

Please address any of these questions and/or the larger question of whether agriculture was a mistake.

Please read other people's postings before you jump in, so you can see who you agree with and who you disagree with.

* * * NOTES FROM CLASS * * *

But this begs the question of… what do we mean by “better off”?

What makes a civilization successful?

Is it economic power?
Is it justice?
Is it sustainable/stable?



A combination of justice/peace*, food supply, architecture, music, economics
Fringe Culture/Arts is not squelched but encouraged
An ecosystem that can coexist
More advanced – higher quality of living
Industry/science


Utopia?

· What is justice? What is peace?
· People coexisting without (major) problems?


*Highest quality of life for the most amount of people

Is the world a civilization?
Are there multiple civilizations? What are they?