...barring exceptional & extraordinary historical accidents, of course. From Patricia Crone: "Pre-Industrial Societies". & why is this still the best short thing I have to hand on the cultural...
I'd be interested to see an additional metrics - gini, wellness, happiness - mapped to the timeseries. Would the long ruling Chinese dynasties, which were being outperformed economically by European innovation, actually provide higher levels of comfort to their masses? Does a comfortable populace mean less innovation? Do diversity and unease go hand in hand ("above all else humanity desires stability"... paraphase)? Once humans gain a certain level of comfort - do they stop striving?
Pre-industrial societies are, overwhelmingly, not comfortable places to live at all. I think you can say that China had a higher population density conditional on the quality of land to support agriculture, and less omnipresent banditry. But I think that is pretty much all you can say...
Did ChatGPT do this summary? (And is that what this format would be called?). I ask because it uses at least one word ('ecology') that doesn't appear to be in the book, according to Amazon Cloud Reader.
I'd be interested to see an additional metrics - gini, wellness, happiness - mapped to the timeseries. Would the long ruling Chinese dynasties, which were being outperformed economically by European innovation, actually provide higher levels of comfort to their masses? Does a comfortable populace mean less innovation? Do diversity and unease go hand in hand ("above all else humanity desires stability"... paraphase)? Once humans gain a certain level of comfort - do they stop striving?
Pre-industrial societies are, overwhelmingly, not comfortable places to live at all. I think you can say that China had a higher population density conditional on the quality of land to support agriculture, and less omnipresent banditry. But I think that is pretty much all you can say...
I read this on your previous recommendation and thought it was excellent. Thanks.
Did ChatGPT do this summary? (And is that what this format would be called?). I ask because it uses at least one word ('ecology') that doesn't appear to be in the book, according to Amazon Cloud Reader.
Thanks Bradford, a bit heavy going but worth it and by the way this stack alone is worth the little money I contribute.
You aren't wrong on this. It's great stuff.