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Honestly this argument has run before and can run in many different ways Let me try and count a few - Subsistence vs agricultural revolution : with a subsiste

Honestly this argument has run before and can run in many different ways Let me try and count a few - Subsistence vs agricultural revolution : with a subsistence culture everyone lives on the and by the land, and that is the biggest driving force in your culture. The differences between Chinese village and French village C1000AD would be tiny compared to that of Chinese village 1000AD / 1900. - subsistence and mono-crops : the European agricultural revolution was arguably less about productivity in a single crop, and more about resilience to crop failure - ie adding potato farming to a wheat culture put a stop to famines every few years (I mean few - one a decade or so). Rice tended to fail less often (technically growing different kinds of rice I suppose rather entire species). - Politics - China created political stability early on across a vast area - and that massively helped avoid famine. While there are many counter examples, a singular political authority able to move food around to offset famine for best part of a millennia was the peak of human civilisation and for all the faults, you would choose to live there if you travelled back in time. - finally we come to the bread vs rice - once rice leaves a farm, it is storable and needs no further professional processing - you just cook it. But wheat needs grinding and usually baking was a specialty procession. This actually argues a bit against the collectivism thread I think - it it could go either way. But to my mind it's a weak force in culture setting. I guess I am trying to say that "culture" is a tough thing to define and find drivers for - it is ultimately what the people do. And for most of history what they did was grow crops, and pray they did not fail. Getting past that mattered more than the species of crop Edit: rereading i think i got a clearer grasp of their idea - i would fall it commitment - rice needs more labour and dedicates land just to rice (it's much easier to keep a paddy a paddy than grow maize or soy next year). And this commitment then rewards people who commit together thus creating _culture_. it's a nice idea, but watch out for those pesky wheat growing puritans and other co-operative well glued societies humans make :-)

Kalium 6y ago
> - finally we come to the bread vs rice - once rice leaves a farm, it is storable and needs no further professional processing - you just cook it. But wheat needs grinding and usually baking was a specialty procession. This actually argues a bit against the collectivism thread I think - it it could go either way. But to my mind it's a weak force in culture setting. Efficient milling isn't just a specialized skill. It's also a bunch of specialized equipment and often required specialized construction and siting. Controlling the local mill meant controlling the local economy and food supply. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a bunch of Europeans leveraged this into political power and multigenerational wealth.

Kalium 6y ago

> - finally we come to the bread vs rice - once rice leaves a farm, it is storable and needs no further professional processing - you just cook it. But wheat needs grinding and usually baking was a specialty procession. This actually argues a bit against the collectivism thread I think - it it could go either way. But to my mind it's a weak force in culture setting. Efficient milling isn't just a specialized skill. It's also a bunch of specialized equipment and often required specialized construction and siting. Controlling the local mill meant controlling the local economy and food supply. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a bunch of Europeans leveraged this into political power and multigenerational wealth.