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I don't like writing the obvious things that everybody always says, but here we are, nobody has said it yet: there was a book or paper out like 25 years ago th
by fsckboy 3y ago
I don't like writing the obvious things that everybody always says, but here we are, nobody has said it yet:
there was a book or paper out like 25 years ago that speculated that as the Age of Enlightenment coincided with the start of European tea and coffee drinking, the general uptick in the usage of stimulants instead of alcohol must have contributed to the intellectual flowering through to the Renaissance, at least for the literate classes.
So that's when one group of people stopped being drunk all the time.
- HPsquared 3y agoTobacco also.
- isoos 3y agoI remember a similar read. I think it also helped that armies become more disciplined, could march longer (coffee was a stimulant vs. alcohol), also the workforce had fewer errors. Any chance that somebody knows the reference?
- clbrmbr 3y agoWhich way does the causal arrow point?
- bromuro 3y agoYet these stimulants were already consumed in other places in the world - before the europeans. why no Renaissance there? Or yes it had?
- Sakos 3y agohttps://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Confusion-of-Necessary.html#:~:text=A%20sufficient%20condition%20is%20a,necessary%20elements%20must%20be%20there https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definition.... That's the difference between a sufficient condition and a necessary condition. It's likely a combination of factors were required that might not have been available in other places. But there were something akin to renaissances in other places before Europe, but changing environments/factors limited their impact or spread, or even outright ended them. I always find the argument "but why didn't this happen elsewhere" bizarre, when ... it usually has happened elsewhere. Ignorance isn't a great argument. Like, other places often had sewers and other sanitation long before Europe, which implies that alcohol could have been a limiting factor for Europe while not being a limiting factor elsewhere.
- boondoggle16 3y agoThere is something really special about European development. Chinese history is absolutely fascinating with a lot of super cool inventions, but nothing stands close to European history and it's power.
- century19 3y agoYou'd need to define that something special, else you sound really racist. More likely Europe stumbled on a couple of things such as reading glasses (that gave much longer working lives to scientists) or the steam engine that gave an advantage.
- boondoggle16 3y ago>You'd need to define that something special, else you sound really racist. ...I think that says more about you than me.
- century19 3y agoThat I'm not racist? What is so special about Europeans?
- smolder 3y agoThey don't owe you an explanation just because something they probably said innocently could be construed as having racist undertones. While I'm willing to believe that you believe you are doing the right, anti-racist thing by calling them out, you basically attacked them before knowing what they meant, and that feels more like the bad-faith race-trolling that sometimes pretends to be anti-racism online.
- century19 3y agoWhite supremacy is basically this, "we are special". Needs to be called out in its tracks. They don't have to explain, but they can expect push back like I gave and can easily clarify if I was misinterpreting, which they chose not to.