Book: 20200825 to 20200906, "The Lessons Of History" by Will Durant

20200825 - I.    Hesitations

History contains almost everything. There is no way to figure out all details, and it's not possible to understand the relationships of all events and all persons.

However, based on what we know, we still can do some meaningful guess, and then learn a lot from history.

20200825 - II.   History and the Earth

Climate, Geology and Geography are the root causes of human history evolution.

But Will & Durant overestimated the power of technology. Technology helps to overcome natural obstacles a bit, but it cannot bypass them.

So, it's better moving to Pymble than moving to Dural. Especially under the threat of Global Warming.

20200827 - III.  Biology and History

Natural selection is everywhere, all the time. It happens among different species, races, nations, companies, etc.

The organizations which have higher productivity can survive and grow. That means, the individuals in the organizations need to trust each other. The more trust, the better. ("Start with why")

History is a tiny bit of the past real world, and it is heavily impacted by Biology.

Selection, competition, and breed. Not about individuals, but groups.

Freedom and equality conflict with each other. Because of the "inequality" of individuals, freedom leads to inequality. To maintain equality, we have to restrict freedom.

Only people below average pursue equality, and equality may lead to lower productivity.

20200829 - IV.   Race and History

History is more or less like natural evolution. The leaders are like those variations which suit the current environment most. They are special, but their successes are mainly depend on luck.

As "Gun, germs and steel" said, it's not about race. Different races are same in similar environment. Here is an interesting question: how people evolved into different races? Continents are not consisted of islands. How a race isolated itself from other races millions of years ago?

At least now I fully understand why western Europe hated Jews so much: it's caused by ignorance of the full picture of history.

20200829 - V.    Character and History

The current individuals are still same as one million years ago, in IQ and EQ. What changed is the staff accumulated in such long time. We have much better perception of the world now.

Character of individuals are not important. Instead, character of a group is more critical. The competition is mainly among different groups. The "group" could be village, town, nation, race, or even class.

20200829 - VI.   Morals and History

Moral is more like some convention that people summarized for survival. So, in hunting and gathering society, the moral is quite different from the one in agricultural society or industrial society.

Greed and cruelty is critical for people in hunting society to survival. Nowadays, people start to rely on law more and more. But law is not efficient to maintain the operation of a society.

20200830 - VII.  Religion and History

Religion can substitute government/law to maintain the order of a society. Religion also obey natural selection, it changes with the society evolution.

In modern society, religion is a supplement of law. It gives people hope, to make the society more stable.

Religion itself is silly and is not helpful to civilization.

20200831 - VIII. Economics and History

Money flow painted history. However, just like natural selection, money flows in every direction, but money can only grown in the right direction.

Money flow is the result, not the cause of changes.

Wealth gap was a result or a cause? It's the cause of revolution, but the result of social development. Ancient Athens found the right solution to remedy wealth gap: charge higher tax to rich people.

Does this still work today? I think so. How rich is rich? Billionaire, or millionaire? Based on annual income or assets? Can UBI help?

Will wealth gap cause war among nations?

20200902 - IX.   Socialism and History

Socialism tries to solve individual's greed problem. However, it brings in the low productivity of government and the greed of government leaders.

Capitalism tries to solve government's low productivity and its greed, however, it cannot handle rich people's infinite desire.

Modern society let capitalism to handle "production", and let socialism to provide social welfare with the help of taxation and national violence agencies. Is this a perfect solution? How much welfare is necessary? Is medicare service and UBI necessary? How much tax is proper?

20200903 - X.    Government and History

Freedom leads to creativity and wealth gap. Equality leads to stability and rigid.

Both of them can ruin civilization.

Where is the balance point?

1. Democracy needs to cover everyone.

2. Everyone get basic food, medicare and education opportunities.

3. Restrict the power of aristocracy. (Use ambition against ambition, Balance of power)

4. Expression freedom.

Democracy needs the public to own intelligence.

Karl Marx is NOT completely wrong. Class war is one of the major war type which went through the whole human history. It is something we have to resolve.

20200904 - XI.   History and War

In western countries, individuals can trust and rely on law enforcement, so people can cooperate efficiently. But for nations, there's not such law enforcement.

People are not always national. But that doesn't mean that large scale war is inevitable. Today, most of the wealth come from air. Only creativity and production can bring good life to everyone, not exploit.

So, how to avoid WW3? I think, 

1. People need to realize that war can only destroy wealth. It cannot bring wealth to people. Things have changed.

2. Western countries have to unite together to form world order. Bad guys are bad guys. They are not able of uniting together.

20200905 - XII.  Growth and Decay

With minor stress and challenge, a nation/race grow in proper environment. But, if there is extreme wealth gap or other natural disaster, together with external enemy, a nation/race may die/decay.

The most important thing is education. It's not just about knowledge, but more about intelligence/wisdom. Need the public to get correct perception of this world.

Civilization never die. It passes the accumulated knowledge from race to race, from nation to nation.

Reading is the only and the best solution to avoid the decay of a race/nation.

20200906 - XIII. Is Progress Real?

How to measure the progress of human civilization? The average knowledge level of people.

From this point of view, in the past 500 years, the progress is astonishing.

How to push it forward? Same: let as many as possible people to get as good as possible education.

It's same to individual: we keep learning, and keep transmit the knowledge to others. That's one of the ultimate meanings of individual life. Normally it's implemented by educating our children, and one of the major measurement is money, health, family, happiness, fame, etc.

Many people want to write down their thoughts and their life before death. I think that's the way they subconsciously want to transmit their knowledge to others.

Comparing this "meaning" to the one from "Man's search for meaning": we can be Hero. This belief itself is part of the knowledge. We are capable of creating miracles.

"I think it's possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary." - Elon Musk

Elon Musk is pushing the boundary of human knowledge. That's at a much higher level.