#history

C.S. Lewis compares living in the atomic age with past dangers like the plague, Viking raids, and other risks like cancer or accidents, highlighting the continuity of human exposure to threats.

Democritus was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher known for proposing an atomic theory of the universe.

Paleoanthropologists have long thought that the ancestors of American natives came over from Siberia about 13,500 years ago, but evidence suggests human presence in the Americas may date back over 30,000 years.

Statistics of Deadly Quarrels, a 1960 book by Lewis Fry Richardson, explores the mathematical and social aspects of war, analysing conflicts from the early 19th to mid-20th century using a base 10 logarithmic scale.

Niall Ferguson attempts to explain why the West led the world in recent centuries, and what this could mean for the future.

The Vesuvius Challenge 2023 awarded its Grand Prize for successfully reading a 2000-year-old scroll that discusses music, food, and life’s pleasures, originally buried by the eruption that created the Herculaneum Papyri.

> Human knowledge had become too great for the human mind.

Russian cosmism, emerging at the end of the 19th century and resurging in the early 20th century, is a philosophical and cultural movement with a broad theory combining religion, ethics, and natural philosophy.

Power devoid of love can lead to reckless and abusive behaviour.

Bringing down the system doesn’t mean it’ll be replaced by the system you’d prefer. Those who destroy rarely have much control over what fills the vacuum of power.

This book explores the history of the British Empire. It considers the changing motivations of the British, the circumstances that led to its pre-eminence, the impact it had on the world, and the nature of its downfall.

Gandhi observes that Europeans live in better houses and wear more varied clothing compared to a century ago, with advancements in technology replacing spears with firearms and manual labour with steam engines in agriculture.

Typically the chatter around soft landing peaks just as recessions happen.

The paper investigates the existence of a socioeconomic premium associated with the size of a country, analysing data from 200 countries over 50 years.

Catherine of Siena, an Italian mystic and laywoman, became involved in papal politics, primarily through her letters, and was canonized in 1461 and later named a Doctor of the Church.

Recession is generally considered a natural phase of economic cycles, but Australia has defied this trend with nearly 30 years of expansion.

Australia had 174,129 dwelling commencements in the past four quarters based on the following quarterly totals:

Stubborn Attachments is an important and early entry into the renewed genre of progress-motivated capitalism. If you’re sick of the pessimism and cynicism pervasive in today’s culture, give it a read.

The stereotype that millennials cannot afford significant assets due to expensive eating habits, such as consuming avocado toast, is dismissed as unfounded and attributed to perceived jealousy from older generations.

Chinese food in the West is often Cantonese due to early Chinese immigration during a time when Western palates were conservative.

The paper assesses country-specific human capital in terms of labour productivity, independent of wage discrimination, adjusting for education and experience.

Ideologies attract certain psychological temperaments, with supporters often mistakenly believing their backing is rooted in science and objectivity when in reality it conflicts with material reality.

John Adams is known for his quotations, many originating from letters to his wife, Abigail.

Henry George was a prominent Gilded Age economist whose book ‘Progress and Poverty’ influenced Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China. Sun’s political philosophy, the Three Principles of the People, especially the principle of mínshēng, reflected Georgist ideas.

The industrial revolution significantly boosted economic output, populations, living standards, and life expectancy, with Britain leading due to high wages and low energy costs coupled with incentivised mechanisation of manufacturing.