MutantFrog: Don’t know why. Ask YH.

Curzon: Yes, perhaps I didn’t clearly state that these features are for ALL cultures and I was merely using Arab culture as an example. Naturally it extends to other peoples and to the past as well.

All:

I think first of all, Mutant Frog makes a good point in mentiong Guns, Germs and Steel. I’ve just finished it myself, last week. It seems that over time, many, though not all, of the factors which have led to the rise of certain groups have been environmental, luck of the draw. The biggest two he mentions are available plants that can be domesticated and large mammals which can be domesticated. Many areas such as the Americas, Africa and Oceana had little to work with and thus did not develop like the peoples in Eurasia did.

However, today, after centuries of global trade, most places have about the same access to food, animals and technology as others. A private citizen can fly anywhere in the world within a day. Thus, most of the original environmental factors have already played themselves out.

The big wildcard has been culture. While according to GG&S, the most important factors are environmental, culture has also played a key role. An example of such was the Japanese banning the use of guns and thus going backwards. Conservative culture thus played an important role in keeping the country behind.

So, for everyone, please understand that I’m not saying culture is the sole reason the Arabs are backwards. I’m saying that their culture, in its present state, contains a number of factors which impair development and transition into modernity. Naturally this will change over time. It’s not written in the stars, as was mentioned they were indeed a world power for a few hundred years and ages ahead of Europe.

Dan: To your first comment, I don’t see this as a big difference.
The “society” would probably be characterized by the dominant culture, though naturally sub-cultures exist. Sub-cultures are exactly what the name implies, sometimes parallel may be more accurate too. There are many sub groups inside the US itself whose cultures are replete with the factors mentioned above. Thus, it is no surprise. The poor, both black and white, tend to put little prestige on work and little value on education, so surprise surprise they are going nowhere. I hope that answered your question, if not then do be more specific.

This rise and fall is the destiny of humanity. Societies that get rich and fat proceed to get lazy… and other societies gain strength through hard work while the older order gets weaker. This was laid out in the Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun — the rise and fall of socities is as old as the human race.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Enisbett/formalreas.pdf

Dysfunctional OODA cycle:

“Restrictions on the free flow of information, Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure, Domination by a restrictive ( version of a) religion.
A low value of education.

Irrational Allocation of Labor Resources:

The subjugation of women, The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization – when they become the limiting factor on the growth of nascent economic organizations

The Chinese and Koreans have used Confucian-based extended family structures as vehicles for pooling resources and accumulating wealth so I don’t think this has to be a negative.

To this list I would like to add:

Risk Aversion

Time Orientation to the Present/ preference for immediate gratification

• Private violence as socially acceptable enforcement of implicit Rule-sets*

Extrinsic – shame morality ( as opposed to intrinsic-guilt morality)

• Envy-based social disapproval of strivers* (As the Russians like to say, the nail that stands up gets hit)

All cultural factors that inhibit individual initiative and accumulation of capital.

Similarly, a ban on lending money at interest imposes a cost (both in the form of motivation and in the form of the friction that circumventions require and the lack of auditability the circumventions themselves imply). Removing half of your workers from the labor force imposes a cost. And so on.

Kushibo, all seem like Leftist qualities. Just attend a college lecture. The atmosphere is more anti-speech, anti-woman, anti-responsibility, anti-religious-diversity, anti-education, and anti-work than can be believed ;)