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Notes -
The proverb that goes "Strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men" is almost entirely wrong.
For the purposes of this chunk I've decided to put into its own top-level post, man has two natures. The survivor nature is concerned with enduring and overcoming threats to one's life and one's society. The thriver nature is concerned with extracting value from life.
The ones that are called "strong men", i.e. those in whom the survivor is dominant - they love hard times. That's their element, that's where they're at advantage, and they go cranky and depressed when the environment is not competitive enough for them. Naturally, hard times create strong men, by incentivizing the survivor nature.
Strong men create hard times. It's what one can observe quite clearly anywhere with an abundance of them. It also follows from the incentives - why would they not reproduce the environment that favors them? Most of the time, there are enough other tribes around that much of hard time-creation is aimed at them. However, strong men love hard times so much that they gladly spare some for their own tribe. When the outer enemies run out of juice, those with the survivor dominance that have trouble adjusting turn their attention fully inward. (Recall that tongue-in-cheek alteration that goes "hard times create strong Slavs, strong Slavs create hard times"?)
Weak men create good times. Weak men love good times, and it is often mentioned as a bad thing. (I disagree.) But it is not the survivor who creates good times. Naturally, there are very few people who are fully of one nature, and strong men do create good times, usually for others and sometimes for themselves. But only to the extent that the thriver is present in them.
The thrivers adjust society to be more suited for thriving, to have more good stuff and more time to enjoy it. They do it when there is space for that indulgence. An overabundance of survivors, particularly the inflexible ones, gets in the way of that as much as it might help such a society endure. A society that's comprised fully of pure survivors is the image of boots stamping on human faces, forever. A society that's comprised fully of pure thrivers will dwindle in a few generations.
As someone who puts value primarily in my individual life, I know which one I'd prefer and which one I'd rather not exist at all.
I think the saying is more meme than fact. And a lot of it is just mean reversion. Pre-Roman empire it was likely that randomly one of the many tribes would get excessively lucky with a group of good leaders. They conquor the med. And in good times after luckily having great leaders mean reversion was likely to average leaders. Also Rome lasted for a thousand years. A simple roll of the dice would eventually lead to a string of bad management at the wrong time.
I forget exactly what was in Taleb’s “Fooled by Randomness” but this meme seems to be based on taking meaning from essentially randomness in leader selection.
Now I’m a big believer in psychic history (Foundation series) so while things like Rome existing I believe in I don’t necessarily think it had to be the Rome we know. Maybe Carthage had better leaders and they conquored the med instead.
For mean reversion think about say Shaq’s son or Jordan’s son. Both played basketball and even college ball but neither are as good as their dad. That’s mean reversion. That’s not this meme.
Psychohistory?
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