This is an absurd article, I’m sorry. To accept the explanation of “brown people are just worse” as possible, but to throw out “colonialism shaped the modern world” because Australia is rich is so clearly biased that it reads like a strawman. Also, are they aware that Australia is quite hot…?
Putting that huge issue aside for more fundamental ones: certainly climate impacts culture in the aggregate to some extent, but the overall framing here is way too overconfident. There’s about a million confounding variables when assessing different societies over large time scales, the largest of which are A) technology and B) to what extent GDP is even a primary goal. Asking if heat makes societies poorer is like asking if rivers make societies richer: it depends!
This being a snapshot in time, how would the claim change if we looked at the past? Do the explanations fade if you look back in history at empires in hot parts of the world, like the Egyptian, Mauryan, Persian, Akkadian, Mesopotamian, Carthaginian, Songhain, Incan, Aztec, Mayan...
The seat of civilization is in Mesopotamia, so no this hypothesis doesn’t exactly hold up. The cultural exchange and wars between the ancient eastern and western civilizations aided their evolution before colonization took place. People used to travel far east as well during these time periods, which spread cultural influence in a three-way direction.
Those societies which were further spread apart from this central region of cultural exchange, like many in Latin America, Africa, colder regions in North America and so on were less culturally developed by the time they met others or colonialists, that’s why you have funny things like the University of Oxford being older than the Incan empire.
There are many warm countries which aren’t poor, and the warm countries which are poor, are composed of people whose ancestors (meaning those who were there pre-colonialism and those who were there when borders were formed post-colonization) were spread out far from a region of central cultural exchange in the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and East Asia.
what i was told in school iirc was a combination of climate plus europe being far more populated and dynamic. The environment and competition forced them to innovate much more and there was much more cultural exchange going on. The next obvious step was expanding the search for resources etc etc.
It's obvious that the roman empire contributed a huge amount towards the process of European progress. Come to think of it Europe has kind of been dominant over the middle east since Alexander the great.
Europe spent like a thousand years losing Christian territory to the Arabs/Turks, at one point they pushed from Spain into France. Istanbul is called Istanbul and not Constantinople, no Greek royalty in Egypt, etc etc.
From the fall of Rome until colonization and industrialization got rolling they were definitely not dominant.
“Air conditioning. … It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics.
Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.”
As someone who grew up in a tropical country and has moved to a temperate one, this rings very true.
It is significantly easier to walk in 20C, 50% humidity than to walk the same distance in 28C, 100% humidity. You get lethargic really quickly in a hot humid area.
Every physical action just feels easier in a temperate climate than in a tropical one. Which is why air-conditioning is such a big deal - it lets you get temperate conditions in a tropical location.
How do we square this with what happened when imperialist people went into areas with much hotter weather to establish colonies? Were the colonists less efficient back then when air conditioning didn't exist yet? Or could it be that these area weren't as hot in earlier centuries as they are today? Also, what are the implications for countries with imperialist pasts that are getting hotter due to climate change?
I have a theory not listed here: harsh winters make a people calculative (and calculative people make more money).
If you can survive all year sleeping under a tree, you eventually end up with a different gene pool than in a place where you need to calculate how much grain you need to store for winter in order to feed you family.
Harsh winters kill people that cannot plan ahead. This, over time, changes the gene pool and the attitude toward planning.
It sounds like you haven't lived in the tropics. The heat exerts a different force than cold winters. Sure there's plenty of water and food (if you can find it), but where and how you sleep matters. For example in a rain forest you never sleep under a tree because they will randomly fall on you.
Weather can be chaotic and highly destructive and like winters, cyclone season will hit hard. Rain all the time sounds lovely until it rots everything. Food expires far quicker.
The gene pool comment is ignorance combined with misinformation. Our ancestors interbred with a number of hominins across the world and then with each other. Especially across asia-europe, everyone banged each other and other hominins.
To be honest your comment annoyed me a tad because I lived in the tropics and loved it. Wish I could go back. Wish the tropics had more jobs for me. Unfortunately my government doesn't spend enough.
As a colombian I feel like in current times that situation is pretty much the opposite - though I feel like most people here are "hot blooded", i.e. they're temperamental on many times they do not give critical thinking or learning stuff any value and take decisions on the moment.
On the other hand I reckon this feeling is happening a lot in "richer" countries. I just feel like though we gain political independence from Spain we are yet to gain "economical" independence. Add corruption and the same people ruling the country for more than 200 years and you got the current situation where kids in the northest part of the country were starving to death and at the same time some daddy's boys ask on r/Colombia or r/Bogota why the whole country does not have Netflix.
This is not a new theory at all and it’s also nonsense. Case in point; during the last glacial period when the temperature of Africa was similar to Europe today there was no magical climate based success in Africa.
Another case in point, Rome and Greece were very successful and in hot climates while the people north them were not nearly as successful. Another case in point; Indian civilizations and the Bijang civilization among others, all in hot jungle climates. The Mayans, the Aztecs, etc.
It’s all just more constant rationalization and coping, i.e., trying to find some excuse and lie that can be maintained to justify the cult of everyone is the same. Its just moved on from magic dirt rationalization due to the cultural perspective of the early 20th century, to note adapted magic climate rationalization nonsense.
Bonus case in point; the Hispanics that conquered the middle and southern Americas didn’t have any problem being not poor in hot and tropical climates, especially when you exclude the non-Hispanic people of those regions.
My additional theory on top of that was that in warm countries nature often provides free food. Don’t need to hustle. Don’t need to hustle to create shelter also. So the environment sort of discourages any extra effort.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 52.1 ms ] threadPutting that huge issue aside for more fundamental ones: certainly climate impacts culture in the aggregate to some extent, but the overall framing here is way too overconfident. There’s about a million confounding variables when assessing different societies over large time scales, the largest of which are A) technology and B) to what extent GDP is even a primary goal. Asking if heat makes societies poorer is like asking if rivers make societies richer: it depends!
That's about as specific as saying the U.S. is quite hot.. you'd be interested to compare the cultures of Darwin and Melbourne or Hobart.
Those societies which were further spread apart from this central region of cultural exchange, like many in Latin America, Africa, colder regions in North America and so on were less culturally developed by the time they met others or colonialists, that’s why you have funny things like the University of Oxford being older than the Incan empire.
There are many warm countries which aren’t poor, and the warm countries which are poor, are composed of people whose ancestors (meaning those who were there pre-colonialism and those who were there when borders were formed post-colonization) were spread out far from a region of central cultural exchange in the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and East Asia.
It's obvious that the roman empire contributed a huge amount towards the process of European progress. Come to think of it Europe has kind of been dominant over the middle east since Alexander the great.
From the fall of Rome until colonization and industrialization got rolling they were definitely not dominant.
It is significantly easier to walk in 20C, 50% humidity than to walk the same distance in 28C, 100% humidity. You get lethargic really quickly in a hot humid area.
Every physical action just feels easier in a temperate climate than in a tropical one. Which is why air-conditioning is such a big deal - it lets you get temperate conditions in a tropical location.
https://www.habitat.org/emea/stories/how-excel-coolcoat-maki...
https://www.xlcoatings.com/cool-roof-paint-cool-coat
If you can survive all year sleeping under a tree, you eventually end up with a different gene pool than in a place where you need to calculate how much grain you need to store for winter in order to feed you family.
Harsh winters kill people that cannot plan ahead. This, over time, changes the gene pool and the attitude toward planning.
Weather can be chaotic and highly destructive and like winters, cyclone season will hit hard. Rain all the time sounds lovely until it rots everything. Food expires far quicker.
The tropics also gave rise to the best sea faring people; the polynesians. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation
The gene pool comment is ignorance combined with misinformation. Our ancestors interbred with a number of hominins across the world and then with each other. Especially across asia-europe, everyone banged each other and other hominins.
To be honest your comment annoyed me a tad because I lived in the tropics and loved it. Wish I could go back. Wish the tropics had more jobs for me. Unfortunately my government doesn't spend enough.
On the other hand I reckon this feeling is happening a lot in "richer" countries. I just feel like though we gain political independence from Spain we are yet to gain "economical" independence. Add corruption and the same people ruling the country for more than 200 years and you got the current situation where kids in the northest part of the country were starving to death and at the same time some daddy's boys ask on r/Colombia or r/Bogota why the whole country does not have Netflix.
Next question.
Another case in point, Rome and Greece were very successful and in hot climates while the people north them were not nearly as successful. Another case in point; Indian civilizations and the Bijang civilization among others, all in hot jungle climates. The Mayans, the Aztecs, etc.
It’s all just more constant rationalization and coping, i.e., trying to find some excuse and lie that can be maintained to justify the cult of everyone is the same. Its just moved on from magic dirt rationalization due to the cultural perspective of the early 20th century, to note adapted magic climate rationalization nonsense.
Bonus case in point; the Hispanics that conquered the middle and southern Americas didn’t have any problem being not poor in hot and tropical climates, especially when you exclude the non-Hispanic people of those regions.