notes on podcasts

feb 28 - entertaining dan carlin history podcast on the age of discovery: globalization 1.0

• "and remember, we are not descended from fearful men"
• "we are a bunch of history fans discussing history over coffee, geeking out over history"
• "over the next 1000 years, we're going to become more of an overall monochrome tanish species"
• "in 3000 years historians will look back on the age of discovery and wonder if there was something special about the white race"
• "special does not always mean special good, it can mean special bad"
• "when you hear about the Japanese invasions of Korea in the last 1500s you don't get upset, but look at the protests on Columbus day"
• who was the first explorer to sail from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean?
  Magellan, wiki
• "globalization 1.0 changed everything"
• "if it hadn't been the Europeans, the Arabs would have been the next best bet for the age of discovery"
• "the reason the chinese maybe didn't do all the global exploring they were destined to do was that china was sort of schizophrenic when it came to global travel: one ruler wanted to, then next didn't"
• "when the two cultures first met in the age of discovery, you have the biggest transfer of flora, fauna and disease in human history"
• "it would be virtually impossible to protect any new culture we would discover today, especially if they had oil"
• "a common misconception of the 15th century was that sailors thought the world was flat: they said the world was flat, they knew the world was round"
• "these sailors in the age of exploration make our current astronauts look conservative: it was basically russian roulette to set sail"
• "you have to remember that in terms of their life choices, these sailors probably didn't have a lot of options"
• "the three ways to sell the career of a sailor in the age of exploration: travel, adventure, romance, same as today "