this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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You might get some downvotes for mentioning that book. The author makes a few sloppy assumptions, and the anthropology/sociology/history communities love to hate him for it. His overall thesis is still generally good though, IIRC.
One thing I don't think is in Diamond's book: once Europe had realized they could sail far and wide to get things, the Dutch invented the idea of a stock market to fund voyages (the British took this idea and really ran with it). This system made long, risky trips easier to finance. Instead of a single monarch funding a single expedition, many people could pool their money to fund many expeditions.
I agree that none of this means Europeans have some special intelligence or attitude. Any other civilization that developed in similar conditions could have followed the same path.
I think that a lot of the arguments regarding why Europeans did better compared to near peers goes to variations in social differences between Europeans and other near peer civilizations.
It also includes the destruction of extended clan networks, independent universities, and higher wages for Europeans compared to others parts of the world.