Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
Many clever men like you have trusted to civilization. Many clever Babylonians, many clever Egyptians, many clever men at the end of Rome. Can you tell me, in a world that is flagrant with the failures of civilization, what there is particularly immortal about yours? G.K. Chesterton, “The Napoleon of Notting Hill” Related PostsAgainst All … Read more
Suppose an anthropologist were asked, apart from the sound and fury of current politics, what were the signs of a dying culture, or a culture committing suicide? What might he respond, as following from human nature and from the terms of the question itself? What might he notice in our own? Such a culture would … Read more
Start, Plato says, from shelter, clothing, food, and shoes. Start from these, he says, and I will show you an entire economy. For to make these things, he observes, you need tools, and raw materials. But these tools and raw materials themselves need to be produced, and so you need other tools, and other raw … Read more
Joseph Henrich’s The WEIRDest People in the World is now out. Here is one review. I am about half way through, and I am likely to rate the book as highly as The Secret of Our Success, with little overlap between the two. His main claim is that using statistical analysis, he and his colleagues … Read more