BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-03-28 Mo:I n the context of relatively stagnant Malthusian economy—one in which a good millennium sees humanity’s deployed technological mastery grow by 5% per century, and material standards of living for typical humans grow at 10% per century—the “efflorescence”, to use Jack Goldstone’s word, of Greek civilization after the year -800 is simply gonzo. Perhaps 300,000 people who called themselves Hellenes in the year -800 became perhaps 4 million in the year -300. And that was only the appetizer. Thereafter, following in the wake of the armies of Alexander the Great, and then the expansion of the Roman Empire to the Danube River, Greeks colonized city after city and spread out into the countryside from the Al-Fayyum oasis in Egypt to the Punjab, and from Alexandria Eschate near modern-day Tashkent to Marseilles in France. Alongside the extraordinary growth of the Greek population is a remarkable increase in the average age of death among adults.... A remarkable civilizational accomplishment, and not one limited to the enrichment of a luxurious predatory upper class. Houses got bigger—a lot bigger. Trade and the division of labor flourished. There is a reason that the Greeks have a predominant place in our cultural memory...
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A Quick Glance at Ancient Greece, &
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BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-03-28 Mo:I n the context of relatively stagnant Malthusian economy—one in which a good millennium sees humanity’s deployed technological mastery grow by 5% per century, and material standards of living for typical humans grow at 10% per century—the “efflorescence”, to use Jack Goldstone’s word, of Greek civilization after the year -800 is simply gonzo. Perhaps 300,000 people who called themselves Hellenes in the year -800 became perhaps 4 million in the year -300. And that was only the appetizer. Thereafter, following in the wake of the armies of Alexander the Great, and then the expansion of the Roman Empire to the Danube River, Greeks colonized city after city and spread out into the countryside from the Al-Fayyum oasis in Egypt to the Punjab, and from Alexandria Eschate near modern-day Tashkent to Marseilles in France. Alongside the extraordinary growth of the Greek population is a remarkable increase in the average age of death among adults.... A remarkable civilizational accomplishment, and not one limited to the enrichment of a luxurious predatory upper class. Houses got bigger—a lot bigger. Trade and the division of labor flourished. There is a reason that the Greeks have a predominant place in our cultural memory...