Reading Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel (《枪炮、病菌与钢铁》), what moved me most wasn’t the intricate geographic and biological logic, but the truth hidden between the lines: people are inherently neither high nor low, noble nor base; the gap between civilizations and the divergence of lives never stems from superiority or inferiority of intelligence, but begins with the endowment of resources and the favor of opportunity. This insight has become ever clearer as I observe the myriad differences in the real world—from the disparity between thriving metropolises and the barren Gobi, to the life trajectories of people born into different circumstances, all silently confirming this.
I. Resource Endowment: The True Root of the Civilizational Gap
In the book, the rise of Eurasia and the lag of the Americas and Australia lie chiefly in innate resource endowment: the wheat and barley of the Fertile Crescent, the large domesticable livestock of Eurasia, and the east-west axis that enabled rapid spread of species and technology, letting Eurasians accumulate advantages in food, population, and technology early on—and thereby breeding guns, steel, and writing, forming an overwhelming civilizational gap. This isn’t because Eurasians were innately smarter; it’s that they were lucky enough to possess more favorable natural conditions. Just as we see today: big cities like Shanghai and Hangzhou, with their convenient transport, abundant water, dense information, and favorable policies, become a “Eurasia” where resources converge. There, it’s easier to obtain opportunities for education, employment, and connections, and the path to growth is smoother.
And in the northwest—say Wuwei in Gansu, near the desert—desertification is severe, water and soil are scarce, and transport is cut off. This barrenness isn’t accidental: it sits deep inland, far from the sea; the climate is extremely arid, with annual precipitation far below evaporation; it’s hemmed in by the two great deserts, the Tengger and the Badain Jaran; water resources are inherently short; and past human over-extraction of water and irrational land reclamation have caused vegetation to degrade and dunes to reactivate. The fragility of the natural environment is much like those continents in the book that lacked domesticable plants and animals and suffered blocked species diffusion. The people here aren’t less hardworking—they just face innate resource scarcity and environmental disadvantage, so they must put in several times the effort of city dwellers to secure the same opportunities. The countryside is the same: land yields are limited, educational resources are relatively weak, information is cut off, and many who leave the countryside stand from birth in a “depression” of resources. To escape the predicament of the bottom, they often have to cross obstacle after obstacle. This isn’t a gap in ability—it’s a difference in starting point. Like those primitive tribes in the book: it’s not that they don’t want to progress, but that they lack the foundation of food accumulation and technological inheritance, and can only struggle on the subsistence line.
II. Path Dependence: How Advantage Snowballs
What’s even more lamentable is that many gaps in reality also stem from the “path dependence” of resources and the contingency of opportunity—and under today’s conditions, these gaps are further amplified by the waves of automation and AI. In the book, once Eurasia formed an advantage, it advanced in a snowballing lead through the accumulation of food, technology, and political organization; similarly today, those born in big cities to well-off families have had quality educational resources, broad networks, and ample capital support since childhood, and can stand at a higher starting point without putting in much effort.
What’s more, a single demolition and relocation, a single opportunity, can instantly change an ordinary person’s fate and turn them into a so-called “rich person.” This isn’t because they worked harder or were smarter—they just happened to possess scarce resources or luck. Just as Eurasia happened to possess more domesticable plants and animals—not accidental, yet by no means an inevitable “superiority.”
Reading The Meaning of Work (《工作的意义》) reveals even more clearly the new predicament bred by this resource gap: automation and AI are replacing human labor en masse, and those most at risk of being eliminated are precisely the “grassroots roles that insist on doing everything themselves.” PwC data shows that 30% of jobs in the UK and 38% in the US will be affected by automation. More brutally, the dividends of automation are almost entirely taken by capital holders; the wealth the richest 1% of the world’s population extracts from economic growth is twice the total wealth gained by everyone else. “Working hard is worse than owning assets” is becoming a cold reality. At the end of his book, Suzman offers a sharp observation: the market often rewards meaningless, parasitic work while undervaluing truly necessary work—PR talk and financial arbitrage often earn more than caring for the elderly or educating children. This value mismatch traps us in a strange loop: we put in more real labor but get back less reward, and behind it all, it’s still resources and capital that dominate—just like the resource-poor laborers at the bottom, who must face not only the innate gap in starting points but also the extra shock brought by the changes of the times.
III. The Misconception of Effort: Success and Failure Aren’t Only About Ability
We often fall into a misconception: that those who succeed and those who hold wealth must be exceptionally talented and have put in effort beyond ordinary people; and that those at the bottom, living in hardship, must not work hard enough or lack ability. But Guns, Germs, and Steel tells us—and reality shows us—that often, while effort matters, resource endowment and the height of the starting point often determine the broad direction of a life from the very beginning. Those who emerge from the countryside’s lower rungs, those who eke out a living on the barren Gobi—their effort is in no way inferior to anyone’s; it’s just that they don’t have such good “innate conditions,” or so many usable resources, so they appear to stumble along on life’s track.
IV. A Perspective of Equality: Respect Everyone Who Works Hard
Diamond thoroughly rejects the theory of racial superiority or inferiority, and we too should understand that between people there is never innate nobility or baseness. The so-called gap is merely the uneven distribution of resources and the differing opportunities. Some are lucky enough to be born into a “fertile soil” rich in resources; some have no choice but to take root in a “wasteland” poor in resources. Some move easily forward on innate resources; some claw their way up through acquired effort. But no matter the circumstances, effort has its value. And what we should abandon even more is the prejudice that judges heroes by success or failure and fixes high or low by birth.
Resources can determine the starting point, but cannot define the endpoint; birth can influence the trajectory, but cannot limit the future. Like those who keep growing even on barren land, like those who struggle upward from the bottom—they may lack innate resource advantages, yet they fight fate’s unfairness with effort and write their own lives with persistence. All we can do is acknowledge the gap in resources, respect everyone who lives with effort, without contempt or prejudice—because above resources, everyone who lives earnestly and moves forward with effort deserves respect, and is neither noble nor base.
In Closing
What Guns, Germs, and Steel ultimately tells us is not only the root of the civilizational gap, but also a perspective of equality—no one is born superior, and no one is born base. All gaps stem from resources and opportunity, not from people themselves. This is at once a reading of history, a warning about reality, and a gentle consolation for every striver: your mediocrity may not be because you aren’t good enough, but simply because you didn’t have such good luck; and your effort will, in the end, bloom with its own unique light in a corner of the world that belongs to you.
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