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I mean, sure, if you assume settlement and development patterns in both hemispheres had equal probability to develop a need for standardized mechanized time kee

I mean, sure, if you assume settlement and development patterns in both hemispheres had equal probability to develop a need for standardized mechanized time keeping. But I would direct that armchair discussion more to the comments section of Guns Germs and Steel and all the TED talks that talk about how geographical differences are suspected to influence societal developments, all while keeping your racism and eugenics radar on maximum-alert. Really, though, I think it was just some overworked Economist journalist trying to crank out another science summary piece, completely unaware that the top-commented criticism was going to be a bunch of nerds bikeshedding the omission of a mildly-interesting historical anecdote rather than anything substantial about the science being reported on. :)

darkwater 6y ago
> Guns Germs and Steel and all the TED talks that talk about how geographical differences are suspected to influence societal developments, all while keeping your racism and eugenics radar on maximum-alert. I really have no idea about those theories but they could perfectly be NOT racist at all just like saying a girl from a poor neighborhood has less chances to be rich as an adult than a kid from a mid-class neighborhood is NOT racist, just stating the (sad) reality. And as a complete ignorant I guess that in a primordial society, climate had a huge impact on access to food, and the less you have to think about surviving the more you can think about improving your life.
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- austincheney 6y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel I haven’t read the book, but my understanding is that racism did play a preferential factor in that an ethic group that achieved geopolitical dominance tended to impose sanctions on more economically primitive people both intentionally and unintentionally. An unintentional example was the case with 1000 years of exposure to many pandemics for Eurasian people that isolated people never experienced, but once exposed suddenly dwindled.
  - Retric 6y ago
    The book suggests Europe had the biggest head start followed by Asia due to geography and plant and animal species, with races being completely irrelevant.
    - nl 6y ago
      From memory (and it's probably 15 years since I read it) I seem to remember that the argument for European domination as opposed to Asian was because the European landmass favoured smaller city states. That in turn allowed them to avoid the critical mistake of the isolationist Chinese policy of the Ming dynasty right at the moment the European states were beginning to colonise. Chinese and European technology was roughly equivalent at the time, but the huge increase in economic activity by European states associated with colonisation gave them a lead that was impossible to reverse. And yes, the book make it extremely clear how little race had with anything.
    - austincheney 6y ago
      I am not claiming race is a developmental or preferential factor but instead was an imposed factor in the consequences of one group achieving dominance comparative to another. National groups were still most strictly ethnically homogenous at that point and frequently used that as a point of identity. I also don’t think comparing European groups to East Asian groups is productive in this context because both were well connected and technologically similar at the point of colonialism. Better comparisons would be European groups to Pacific Islanders of the same colonial period who were often highly isolated aside from immediate neighbors. A more interesting comparison is European conquerors to civilizations of the Americas during the colonial era. The Aztecs were only conquered as a result of Spanish exploiting social unrest. They didn’t have the numbers themselves for their technological military advantage to matter, though that wasn’t the case with the Incas further south. Had the Incas developed metal working as advanced as their agricultural refinements they probably could have repelled the Spanish invasion. Conversely, the Spanish were never able to conquer or subdue the Maya communities around Mexico’s current southern border due to the environment, geography, and decentralization.
  - ghettoimp 6y ago
- danans 6y ago
  > the less you have to think about surviving the more you can think about improving your life. This is still very much true in our current non primordial "advanced" world.
  - rapind 6y ago
    I wonder at what threshold from between being born into poverty / riches that this reverses due to a lack of the same pressing motivation. Or if that's even the case.
    - danans 6y ago
      I would say that my comment applies at the aggregate level, not the individual level. Its about how the environment people operate in increases or decreases their odds of advancement.
- LeifCarrotson 6y ago
  I have read the book: it explicitly and thoroughly debunks the idea that race was a factor in the development of modern societies. It provides a myriad of geographical and climate-based explanations why the course of history would result societies in the northern hemisphere set the direction of clocks for the globe. It's honestly pretty refreshing to have a scientific explanation for why Aboriginals or Africans didn't set the direction of 'clockwise'. Without that explanation, I can faithfully assert "all humans are equal" but be confused by the apparent dominance on the world stage of Western societies. Armed with an explanation that has nothing to do with the innate abilities or intelligence or suitability in the modern global economy of the victims of circumstance, I can genuinely believe in equality.
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - lopmotr 6y ago
    How does it show that race differences weren't a factor? Not how does it show that other factors existed, but how does it exclude race?
    - nl 6y ago
      It shows that other explanations are sufficient and make much more sense. But it's a historical explanation, not a double blind experiment. Nothing will ever disprove "scientific racism" to people who are racist unfortunately.
      - stormdennis 6y ago
        That's not a rigorous answer which is possibly why you felt the need to play the racism card at the end.
        nl 6y ago
        There's no way to make a rigorous (to the "prove" level) argument from history on racism (or most social issues) because it relies on counter-factuals. Counter-factuals are inherently untestable.
m12k 6y ago
I mean, it doesn't take more than a model where the same area of landmass anywhere on the globe has the same chance of birhting a civilization with a need for clocks, for the northern hemisphere to become the most likely candidate to do so simply by virtue of having much more landmass than the southern hemisphere.
naniwaduni 6y ago
There's a very simple explanation for why most of human history happens in the northern hemisphere. Take a look at a map. Notice which hemisphere has 70% of the land.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  Just because you can guess at a simple reason doesn't make it true. Nobody in most of that land ever invented a sundial. Something special happened around the middle east/Europe that spawned all this civilization stuff. How do you know it was simply a matter of more land leading to more chance of civilization appearing there? It might have taken a special type of land combined with a special history of human migration or other factors.
  - naniwaduni 6y ago
    In general the hemisphere with more land likely has more land fulfilling any particular properties that are not inherent to the distinction, and we do know that humans are terrestrial. So ceteris paribus, "might have taken a special type of land combined with a special history of human migration or other factors" is more or less a matter of more land leading to more chance. It is not a comprehensive explanation. It is quite obvious that there are other variables involved! But as a simple explanation it has the advantage of being conceivably predictable without hindsight.
    - lopmotr 6y ago
      It's too simple to be interesting. You could obviously divide up the world into some other halves where the half with less land ended up with the sundials and say "even though it predicts the wrong outcome, this explanation is obviously right."
      - naniwaduni 6y ago
        That's the point. It is an explanation reduced enough to suggest that the phenomenon is not particularly interesting.

darkwater 6y ago

> Guns Germs and Steel and all the TED talks that talk about how geographical differences are suspected to influence societal developments, all while keeping your racism and eugenics radar on maximum-alert. I really have no idea about those theories but they could perfectly be NOT racist at all just like saying a girl from a poor neighborhood has less chances to be rich as an adult than a kid from a mid-class neighborhood is NOT racist, just stating the (sad) reality. And as a complete ignorant I guess that in a primordial society, climate had a huge impact on access to food, and the less you have to think about surviving the more you can think about improving your life.

deleted 6y ago
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austincheney 6y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel I haven’t read the book, but my understanding is that racism did play a preferential factor in that an ethic group that achieved geopolitical dominance tended to impose sanctions on more economically primitive people both intentionally and unintentionally. An unintentional example was the case with 1000 years of exposure to many pandemics for Eurasian people that isolated people never experienced, but once exposed suddenly dwindled.
- Retric 6y ago
  The book suggests Europe had the biggest head start followed by Asia due to geography and plant and animal species, with races being completely irrelevant.
  - nl 6y ago
    From memory (and it's probably 15 years since I read it) I seem to remember that the argument for European domination as opposed to Asian was because the European landmass favoured smaller city states. That in turn allowed them to avoid the critical mistake of the isolationist Chinese policy of the Ming dynasty right at the moment the European states were beginning to colonise. Chinese and European technology was roughly equivalent at the time, but the huge increase in economic activity by European states associated with colonisation gave them a lead that was impossible to reverse. And yes, the book make it extremely clear how little race had with anything.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    I am not claiming race is a developmental or preferential factor but instead was an imposed factor in the consequences of one group achieving dominance comparative to another. National groups were still most strictly ethnically homogenous at that point and frequently used that as a point of identity. I also don’t think comparing European groups to East Asian groups is productive in this context because both were well connected and technologically similar at the point of colonialism. Better comparisons would be European groups to Pacific Islanders of the same colonial period who were often highly isolated aside from immediate neighbors. A more interesting comparison is European conquerors to civilizations of the Americas during the colonial era. The Aztecs were only conquered as a result of Spanish exploiting social unrest. They didn’t have the numbers themselves for their technological military advantage to matter, though that wasn’t the case with the Incas further south. Had the Incas developed metal working as advanced as their agricultural refinements they probably could have repelled the Spanish invasion. Conversely, the Spanish were never able to conquer or subdue the Maya communities around Mexico’s current southern border due to the environment, geography, and decentralization.
- ghettoimp 6y ago
danans 6y ago
> the less you have to think about surviving the more you can think about improving your life. This is still very much true in our current non primordial "advanced" world.
- rapind 6y ago
  I wonder at what threshold from between being born into poverty / riches that this reverses due to a lack of the same pressing motivation. Or if that's even the case.
  - danans 6y ago
    I would say that my comment applies at the aggregate level, not the individual level. Its about how the environment people operate in increases or decreases their odds of advancement.
LeifCarrotson 6y ago
I have read the book: it explicitly and thoroughly debunks the idea that race was a factor in the development of modern societies. It provides a myriad of geographical and climate-based explanations why the course of history would result societies in the northern hemisphere set the direction of clocks for the globe. It's honestly pretty refreshing to have a scientific explanation for why Aboriginals or Africans didn't set the direction of 'clockwise'. Without that explanation, I can faithfully assert "all humans are equal" but be confused by the apparent dominance on the world stage of Western societies. Armed with an explanation that has nothing to do with the innate abilities or intelligence or suitability in the modern global economy of the victims of circumstance, I can genuinely believe in equality.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lopmotr 6y ago
  How does it show that race differences weren't a factor? Not how does it show that other factors existed, but how does it exclude race?
  - nl 6y ago
    It shows that other explanations are sufficient and make much more sense. But it's a historical explanation, not a double blind experiment. Nothing will ever disprove "scientific racism" to people who are racist unfortunately.
    - stormdennis 6y ago
      That's not a rigorous answer which is possibly why you felt the need to play the racism card at the end.
      - nl 6y ago
        There's no way to make a rigorous (to the "prove" level) argument from history on racism (or most social issues) because it relies on counter-factuals. Counter-factuals are inherently untestable.

m12k 6y ago

I mean, it doesn't take more than a model where the same area of landmass anywhere on the globe has the same chance of birhting a civilization with a need for clocks, for the northern hemisphere to become the most likely candidate to do so simply by virtue of having much more landmass than the southern hemisphere.

naniwaduni 6y ago

There's a very simple explanation for why most of human history happens in the northern hemisphere. Take a look at a map. Notice which hemisphere has 70% of the land.

lopmotr 6y ago
Just because you can guess at a simple reason doesn't make it true. Nobody in most of that land ever invented a sundial. Something special happened around the middle east/Europe that spawned all this civilization stuff. How do you know it was simply a matter of more land leading to more chance of civilization appearing there? It might have taken a special type of land combined with a special history of human migration or other factors.
- naniwaduni 6y ago
  In general the hemisphere with more land likely has more land fulfilling any particular properties that are not inherent to the distinction, and we do know that humans are terrestrial. So ceteris paribus, "might have taken a special type of land combined with a special history of human migration or other factors" is more or less a matter of more land leading to more chance. It is not a comprehensive explanation. It is quite obvious that there are other variables involved! But as a simple explanation it has the advantage of being conceivably predictable without hindsight.
  - lopmotr 6y ago
    It's too simple to be interesting. You could obviously divide up the world into some other halves where the half with less land ended up with the sundials and say "even though it predicts the wrong outcome, this explanation is obviously right."
    - naniwaduni 6y ago
      That's the point. It is an explanation reduced enough to suggest that the phenomenon is not particularly interesting.