Freedomain Radio

 How come this guy jumped Freedom as a key ingredient?

Because then he wouldn't have gotten published.

GregG:

Because then he wouldn't have gotten published.

 THis is crazy.

You know, I've been re-listening to James Burke lately. He was sort of a hero of mine about a decade ago.

I now think very lowly of him. I mean, he has a good method and interesting ways of getting his message across, but he also walks around the fact that all the inventions he points out produced the modern world were the direct result of freedom of movement, of thougth, of a reduction in violence.

And when he talks about war and opression from kings and church, he mentions it as just another thing in the mix. Like those were just part of the chain of things needed to get us where we are.

These guys are sick. THey talk about wars and exterminations like they were necessary for progress, in that if something occured as a result of them, then they were necessary. Like if airplanes were promoted thanks to ww1, then ww1 was a good thing.

I think that the overall argument these guys make is that things are the way they are, and that is a good thing because if not, they would still be like in the middle ages.

What do you think?

"How come this guy jumped Freedom as a key ingredient?"

I thought he kind of awknowledged that one of the reasons China lagged behind Western development despite having a relatively equal starting point was because it had an extremely hierarchical and centralized society that did not allow for freedom/competition. I could be wrong, I read it about 5 years ago.

I think I still have a decent amount of respect for Jared Diamond even though he is a huge statist. I found his theory in Guns, Germs, and Steel to be pretty convincing. One of his other books, Collapse, debunked a common myth that more primitive cultures are somehow more environmentally friendly, less prone to violence, etc., with a lot of compelling examples that prove the contrary. But he does work for a public universtiy, so it's not surprising that he tends to ignore the importance of freedom.

I recall that he used the example of a Chinese emperor banning sea-born trade for many years to illustrate that point. It's been less than two years since I last read the book, but I've gone over it twice.

I enjoyed Collapse too, when I read it, but I think that my affinity for it at the time was more a case of psychological projection on my part (I am doomed, therefore the world is doomed). The force of its argumentation relies on a basically socialist conception of economics, but it's a good outline of why statist economy always leads to humanitarian catasrophe.