Although native Africans domesticated some plants in the Sahel and in Ethiopia and in tropical West Africa, they acquired valuable domestic animals only later, from the north.

To science we owe dramatic changes in our smug self-image. Astronomy taught us that our Earth is not the center of the universe, but merely one of nine planets circling one of billions of stars. From biology we learned that humans were not specially created by God but evolved along with tens of millions of other species.

Twenty years ago, you might have been pessimistic and said there's no hope. But these days, some of our very biggest companies are acting remarkably cleanly. And in some cases, although not all cases, the CEOs are the driving forces behind that.

Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?

[W]hat makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to annihilate or crush their infidel enemy.

Think of all the human suffering caused by the sad truth that beautiful sexy women or handsome Porsche-owning men often prove to have miserable genes for other traits

Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home.