I read the article and enjoyed it (though I read it as a memoir rather than as anthropology), but I'm troubled by its conclusions. If you don't feel like reading through all eight pages, Diamond finishes by telling the story of his father-in-law, a Polish soldier in WWII, who comes home to find his family dead. He finds the killer, but after considering, he turns him in to the authorities instead of taking revenge. The man is released without suffering any real punishment.

Diamond concludes that his father-in-law's subsequent lifelong guilt and regret could've been avoided had he executed the killer. This idea is an enormous leap of logic, and ignores, among other things, the possibility that murdering the killer could've also led to lifelong guilt and regret. He ignores the idea that the family's death is what haunted his father-in-law, and that no action could've alleviated that.

I think the flaw in this article is Diamond's recklessness in the way he applies the lessons of tribal New Guinea to Western society.

@111
So if someone isn't willing to move to Venezuela, it's means they're admitting that Chavez is a tyrant (and not that they're fine at home). But if a Venezuelan doesn't move out of Venezuela, it's because people don't want to leave their homes. That's a brilliant bit of arguing.

Checkmate indeed.

Jeez, as if I'm not afraid enough of Skynet already, now the Terminator's going to be able to smell?

"I smell an astronaut!"

What exactly does an astronaut smell like? Sounds like our he's wearing some of those astronaut diapers we heard so much about earlier this year.