The WEIRDest People in the World

It’s been probably a year since I read The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich, but the ideas in there have really stuck in my head. The WEIRD acronym stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The thesis is that the Christian Church inadvertently created modern society by prohibiting polygamy and cousin marriage. The topic of polygamy is what’s really stuck in my head. Polygamy is a more natural state for civilized human societies than we think it is. It may be to women’s advantage to choose an “elite” spouse she has to share because it could mean a better quality of life for her and her children than the alternatives. Chris Hemsworth could have two dozen wives if it were legal and social acceptable (and he wanted to), and his wives might be happy with that. But the downside (or one of them) is that it creates huge imbalances in society—men find it really hard to find a mate. They then do risky stuff to make it into the elite to try to attract a mate—steal to accumulate wealth or kill potential romantic rivals.…

A couple of books here. 1. Caesar by Adrian Goldsworthy. This is a biography of Julius Ceasar. There’s a story in here about a teenage Ceasar, with no institutional authority and effectively a student at this point, raising a navy to go capture pirates who had previously kidnapped him. I spent many years thinking about influence without any authority after reading this story and it’s probably had a significant shift in how I see the world and my role in it. 2. The WEIRDest people in the world by Joseph Henrich I grew up in India. This book helped me understand so much of the cultural differences between American culture and what I grew up with that it is easily one of the most valuable books for any immigrant or anyone from America who has to work across cultures. 3. Debt - The first 5,000 years by David Greber. The single most valuable thing I took away from this book came pretty early in the book - Buying stocks in a company is effectively loaning money to the company. This book shifted my perspective significantly- I use to see the world as a network of power relationships. Now I see the world as a network of debt relationships. I can not recommend it enough.