I am glad I found your Substack, as these topics are of some general interest to me, but I don't have the time or deep enough interest to explore them as deeply as you have, so discovering your summary and midlevel explanations and explorations is a great find.
I gather you are trying to expand this area of study as a formal subset of the social sciences? How is that aspect of things coming? Is there a formal professional society already or one that you want to establish? Possibly as an offshoot of an existing organization or discipline? I image that can be tricky, just because of "people" and "rice bowls", plus the topic has tendrils into so many other specialized areas.
Yes, I want to help establish a field of inquiry of Progress Studies. So far there are not many people actively engaged in the topic. Most who think they are doing so are more accurately called Techno-Optimists.
There are not professional societies or university departments.
Correlating geography and economic progress is a tricky business. Jared Diamond tendentiously got it wrong. Thomas Sowell tends to get it right.
“1000 BCE!”
I usually stop reading anything that uses BCE and CE. The “Common Era” is a leftist trope invented by scientismists to deny the contribution of Christians to civilization and learning. Like demanding that “happy holidays” replace Merry Christmas. “BCE” is part of the leftist religion, as a Marxist effort to replace Christianity. Experience has told me that the works of people involved in that effort are not worth reading. Merry Christmas.
Geography does not determine the rate of economic growth. It is a static constraint whose variations largely determined the starting point for societies around the year 1500. After that point, geography becomes less important.
That is why economists who ignore history cannot find a geographical cause for modern economic growth. The effect was in the past.
Jared Diamond got a lot correct in explaining why Eurasia developed more complex societies compared to the rest of the world. His theory, however, cannot explain variations within Eurasia, which were substantial. My theory can.
Thomas Sowell gets a lot correct, but he overstresses the importance of culture and has no theory for why cultures change. I believe culture is an intermediate cause, not an ultimate cause. This is a very common problem in the field. They focus on a supposed cause, but they cannot explain “the cause of the cause.” This makes their theory incomplete. They start in the middle of the story instead of the beginning.
As for BCE, I am not going to haggle about terminology.
I am not convinced that IQ is the main story. The theory still suffers from the "what caused the cause" problem that I mention in the post.
In other words, what caused variations in national IQ, which clearly exists despite protests to the contrary? There is no evidence that Hunter Gatherer tribes in the distant past had different levels of intelligence, so something must have caused the difference between then and now.
I believe that thinking through the problem leads one right back to variations in geography, which led to variations in food production, which led to variations in society types, which led to variations in levels of economic development.
>taxing requires stored (legible) food. This is why states only evolve in places where there are seasonal crops, which thereby generate stored food. Regions with no seasonal crops, so no stored food, do not generate states,
>seasonal crops -> stored food -> protection problem, and taxable surplus -> kingdoms, states
(Wouldn't be surprised if you mentioned this stuff later on in the series)
I'd guess presence of the state likely leads to higher IQ. More stable, less violent environment = natural selection can favor people that are smarter, rather than simply the toughest/most violent
>I am not convinced that IQ is the main story.
Ofc it's not the whole story, but it sure as hell is the biggest proximal causal factor. The nation GDP map is basically the nation IQ map with a few adjustments (Saudi Arabia's GDP punching above their avg IQ due to oil reserves, etc.)
"... presence of the state likely leads to higher IQ."
Or might it be the other way around? I wonder if the time scale of a few thousand years for settlements and states to be established is enough to enhance IQ all that much. I agree that once states are established, that the higher IQ folks would have opportunities not available in simpler hunter-gather situations and thus enhance their survival fitness, etc.
I can see the smarter folks saying something along the lines of "you know, now that we have a harvest surplus, we need to store and set some of that aside for the lean years we can project will occur in the future". From there a whole set of issues and questions of methods, modes, controls, etc. then become apparent and in play.
Along with the "political paradox" twitter comment you provided. Something Madison mentioned in The Federalist papers, although I doubt it was original with him, in so many words
.
But the "normal" distribution of intelligence suggests a very much longer development timeframe, possibly actually enhanced via inter-group warfare more than any other core factor?
It took me a minute to recognize that "Ofc" meant "of course". So many new abbreviations via the internet. I have seen examples where someone took a text and removed all or almost all of the vowels and you could still make out what was being said. A fun intelligence feature?
I note the two book summaries you provide below, so I hope to read those, perhaps this weekend?
But I perceive you do agree there is some coupling to evolved mental capabilities, possibly including non-cognitive features (perseverance, aggression, curiosity, love, lust, spatial vision, etc.?). But since paleolithic and neolithic peoples could still migrate across geographies, they might bring those "mental resources" with them, even if the old or new geographic environments enabled improving their mental abilities in some way (food, weather, tools). But we need to remember that such migrations could occur on a very short time scale compared to what evolution might contribute.
I am glad I found your Substack, as these topics are of some general interest to me, but I don't have the time or deep enough interest to explore them as deeply as you have, so discovering your summary and midlevel explanations and explorations is a great find.
I gather you are trying to expand this area of study as a formal subset of the social sciences? How is that aspect of things coming? Is there a formal professional society already or one that you want to establish? Possibly as an offshoot of an existing organization or discipline? I image that can be tricky, just because of "people" and "rice bowls", plus the topic has tendrils into so many other specialized areas.
Sorry, I missed your comment until now.
Yes, I want to help establish a field of inquiry of Progress Studies. So far there are not many people actively engaged in the topic. Most who think they are doing so are more accurately called Techno-Optimists.
There are not professional societies or university departments.
I guess that I a a bit of a trailblazer.
Correlating geography and economic progress is a tricky business. Jared Diamond tendentiously got it wrong. Thomas Sowell tends to get it right.
“1000 BCE!”
I usually stop reading anything that uses BCE and CE. The “Common Era” is a leftist trope invented by scientismists to deny the contribution of Christians to civilization and learning. Like demanding that “happy holidays” replace Merry Christmas. “BCE” is part of the leftist religion, as a Marxist effort to replace Christianity. Experience has told me that the works of people involved in that effort are not worth reading. Merry Christmas.
Don’t give up on geography so easily.
Geography does not determine the rate of economic growth. It is a static constraint whose variations largely determined the starting point for societies around the year 1500. After that point, geography becomes less important.
That is why economists who ignore history cannot find a geographical cause for modern economic growth. The effect was in the past.
Jared Diamond got a lot correct in explaining why Eurasia developed more complex societies compared to the rest of the world. His theory, however, cannot explain variations within Eurasia, which were substantial. My theory can.
Thomas Sowell gets a lot correct, but he overstresses the importance of culture and has no theory for why cultures change. I believe culture is an intermediate cause, not an ultimate cause. This is a very common problem in the field. They focus on a supposed cause, but they cannot explain “the cause of the cause.” This makes their theory incomplete. They start in the middle of the story instead of the beginning.
As for BCE, I am not going to haggle about terminology.
Merry Christmas.
I am not convinced that IQ is the main story. The theory still suffers from the "what caused the cause" problem that I mention in the post.
In other words, what caused variations in national IQ, which clearly exists despite protests to the contrary? There is no evidence that Hunter Gatherer tribes in the distant past had different levels of intelligence, so something must have caused the difference between then and now.
I believe that thinking through the problem leads one right back to variations in geography, which led to variations in food production, which led to variations in society types, which led to variations in levels of economic development.
You don't have to agree, but that is my take.
brief notes on a longer article:
https://twitter.com/nightfire0/status/1755772697278390404
>taxing requires stored (legible) food. This is why states only evolve in places where there are seasonal crops, which thereby generate stored food. Regions with no seasonal crops, so no stored food, do not generate states,
>seasonal crops -> stored food -> protection problem, and taxable surplus -> kingdoms, states
(Wouldn't be surprised if you mentioned this stuff later on in the series)
I'd guess presence of the state likely leads to higher IQ. More stable, less violent environment = natural selection can favor people that are smarter, rather than simply the toughest/most violent
>I am not convinced that IQ is the main story.
Ofc it's not the whole story, but it sure as hell is the biggest proximal causal factor. The nation GDP map is basically the nation IQ map with a few adjustments (Saudi Arabia's GDP punching above their avg IQ due to oil reserves, etc.)
Obviously it's more pc to not notice that though
"... presence of the state likely leads to higher IQ."
Or might it be the other way around? I wonder if the time scale of a few thousand years for settlements and states to be established is enough to enhance IQ all that much. I agree that once states are established, that the higher IQ folks would have opportunities not available in simpler hunter-gather situations and thus enhance their survival fitness, etc.
I can see the smarter folks saying something along the lines of "you know, now that we have a harvest surplus, we need to store and set some of that aside for the lean years we can project will occur in the future". From there a whole set of issues and questions of methods, modes, controls, etc. then become apparent and in play.
Along with the "political paradox" twitter comment you provided. Something Madison mentioned in The Federalist papers, although I doubt it was original with him, in so many words
.
But the "normal" distribution of intelligence suggests a very much longer development timeframe, possibly actually enhanced via inter-group warfare more than any other core factor?
It took me a minute to recognize that "Ofc" meant "of course". So many new abbreviations via the internet. I have seen examples where someone took a text and removed all or almost all of the vowels and you could still make out what was being said. A fun intelligence feature?
I note the two book summaries you provide below, so I hope to read those, perhaps this weekend?
But I perceive you do agree there is some coupling to evolved mental capabilities, possibly including non-cognitive features (perseverance, aggression, curiosity, love, lust, spatial vision, etc.?). But since paleolithic and neolithic peoples could still migrate across geographies, they might bring those "mental resources" with them, even if the old or new geographic environments enabled improving their mental abilities in some way (food, weather, tools). But we need to remember that such migrations could occur on a very short time scale compared to what evolution might contribute.
Thanks for the comment. For those who are not familiar with the national IQ argument, you can read a summary on my library of digital book summaries:
https://techratchet.com/2020/12/07/book-summary-hive-mind-by-garett-jones/
https://techratchet.com/2021/04/14/book-summary-understanding-human-history-by-michael-hart/