Why do civilazations have Laws???

During Humanities today we talked about why civilizations have and need laws.
we asked the question "why do civilizations have or need laws?"

I think that civilizations have need laws to protect their people. Lets say that there is no law in Malaysia saying you can not drink and drive. what would happen? Well people would probably drink and drive at the same time, which could mean accidents occurring and of course the person driving, would get hurt. This doesn't only effect the person driving, but also the people around him/her who are driving. All of this would happen if we as civilizations didn't make laws. Laws are also needed to perhaps decide what is right. Governments and every day people use the laws to decide from right and wrong. Even if the country/civilization has laws or not, it doesn't mean they are always fair. This is like part 2 of what we discussed in Humanities. we talked about the Mesopotamian times, the laws that Hammurabi (the king) made, and whether they were fair or not. I personally thought that Hammurabi's code of laws were unfair and not appropriate according to the crime done. For example one of the laws that he made was "if a son shall strike his father the sons hands must be cut of." I thought that this was unfair because no one really knows who did the wrong thing. I mean for all Hammurabi knew, there might have been a good reason for the son to strike his father. I also think that if a son strikes his father the father must either teach him about respect or discipline him, but definitely not cut of his hands. There are many more laws where I think that don't discuss the situation or reasoning of the crime.

Changes in Civilization

Today in Humanities class I watched a movie called "Guns, Germs,and Steel." This movie was basicly about differences and similarities in the history of civilization. After the movie I was asked to make a headline summerizing what I learned from the movie. My headline was "Changes in Civilization." I thought that this was a good headline because this movie was about how different places had different kinds of civilizations. Jared Diamond tries to answer why different places are behind in civilization while others aren't, such as New Guinea and the Middle East. Jared thinks that the Middle East is ahead of New Guinea in terms of civilization because of the different environments, and different resources. For examplae the Middle East is ahead of New Guinea in civilization because New Guinea to depend on gatherings and wild sago trees, since hunting wasn't very reliable. Unlike the Middle East where people had farming skills to make wheat and barley 2 cereal grasses that could be stored for a long time, they also had more productive crops. Another huge reason the Middle East is ahead of New Guinea is domestication. The Middle East domesticated animals. This allowed them to have food(people would gather animal, feed iet kill it, and eat it), make use of the animal by making it either carry weights, or even plow the ground. Animals like sheep could be shaved and the wool would be made into clothing, or a cow being milked for milk. In New Guinea though all work is done by hand. There are hardly any domesticated animals except the pigs. There were 14 animals that were domesticated. Most of them came from Asia, Europe, and North Africa. People recommended that animals that were human friendly, big (over 100 pounds) and plant eaters were the best to domesticate. Since the environment was hard to adapt to New Guinea was still at a state of using stone tools, and were too busy growing food and feeding themselves to be at the same level as other places like the Middle East, America, Europe, and etc...