Jared Diamond - The World Until Yesterday

Jared Diamond's book, The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? , compares and contrasts paleolithic cultures with present day western cultures.  Jared was able to visit some of these areas because some cultures were untouched by civilization.  Portions of New Guinea have made the 10,000 year transition from primitive to modern culture in the space of 70 years starting with their discovery in the 1930's.

He advocates constructive paranoia in dealing with dangers in society.  These change based on location.  In the  primitive cultures, death from falling or from dead trees falling on people is a major problem.  That is why smart people in these cultures do not sleep under dead trees.  These would fit the definition of Nassim Talib's Black Swan event.   I was surprised at the high number fatalities from thorn scratches resulting from untreated bacterial infections. 

He does not romanticize ancient cultures finding the brutal inter tribal warfare and the practice of killing strangers, killing widows and the high rate of communicable diseases in the primitive cultures to be undesirable.  He does find the basic creativity of building your own toys and making your own fun to be more desirable than having the fun created for you.  If you build it yourself you know how it works.

He compares and contrasts state society and primitive cultures concluding that the legal system provides a cap on revenge killing.  He also asks the question of why people choose to have a parasitic ruling class over anarchy and concludes that people prefer stability and security to anarchy.

The scourge of modern culture is the NCD's - Non communicable diseases.  He focuses on type II diabetes and high blood pressure as examples and explains the natural selection process that makes groups of individuals more susceptible to these chronic illnesses. 

In primitive cultures far from salt water, salt is a difficult commodity to acquire requiring natives to ash leaves, dissolve them and rehydrate bitter salts.  When these native cultures are converted to modern diets they find the readily available salt to tempting to pass up and the rates of hypertension and heart attacks in these groups is very high. 

Type II diabetes is problematic in cultures subjected to periodic bouts of starvation.  Only the members of the culture who most efficiently process food survive by acquiring a "thrifty gene".  When these people start eating three meals a day and reduce their activity level as they don't have to work as hard to acquire food, the rates of obesity and type II diabetes go from zero to 30 to 40 %.

Jared provides a thoughtful discussion about religion and why people invest so much time into it. He notes the reasons for religion have changed over time.  Karen Armstrong covers this in greater detail in her Short History of Myth.  The original need to explain how the world works has declined.  The need for comfort in times of trouble is still present as is the need to ascribe meaning to life and the need for group support.  As most of us will hit a crisis of religious belief in our life it is important to understand what we want out of it.  Belief in magical thinking such as the need for water diviners increases when the outcome is highly variable as in areas with a complex geology and unpredictable aquifers.  These people are not needed when the outcome is predictable. 

Jared Diamond - The World Until Yesterday -21 minutes

Go to Jared Diamond's Book page for further thoughts from the author.