Read the book a long time ago ;-)
Diamond has a piece of the puzzle. (Collapse was a good book of his also if you haven't read it yet...) But he tends to look at things from a very mechanistic, almost Newtonian way -- this society succeeded because it had good draft animals, east/west versus north/south orientation, good internal river system for transport, and raw materials. Which are all true. But that fails to account for the effects of society itself.
For example, Diamond's analysis fails to account for the emergence of empires from the midst of warring tribes -- they all had access to the same stuff and the same germs. So why did one dominate the others? Babylonian, Hyksos, Mongols and Genghis Khan -- why did they emerge to dominate their neighbors? Diamond's theory has no answers for this. And, he has no answer for why the Mongols, for example, were able to expand and conquer large parts of the western world even though his technology and society were much more primitive. Nomadic horsemen exploding from lands of minimal resources other than empty grassland and taking over fortified cities packed with people and weapons? How is that possible if Diamond's theory is true?
History is a complicated mix.
Well, yeah Mongols actually make a good argument against individualism. We have to also consider snowball effects on civilizations. Something beneficial or detrimental can occur and then the rest goes to shit. Jared shows a trend, a general rule of thumb. Surely there are exceptions. But if you get the 33rd longitude you do get more or less 80% of all thriving civilizations.
I think we are still relying on the collective, just in a different sense. Science gave so much power to the West because a few people could produce tools for everyone else. Most people around us know nothing about most things operate around them.
Also, you have to consider the West as long, steady rise due to the area. The rest of civilizations were more like Pump and Dump shitcoins. Quick rise and the quick death.
Diamond as a general rule of thumb is fair. And I like the idea of collective in more of a population sense, just like a larger pool of bacteria has a greater chance of developing an adaptation that can then be passed to the entire population.
Yeah but here is the question about humans. Bacteria group and develop better more resilient strains.
Why would humans group up to this point of our history? Who are we trying to eradicate other than ourselves?