One of the key features ppl traditionally miss about history: the network effects that drive it, and their consequences for today
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1. The better the initial natural resources—especially food—the faster your population grew.
2. The more natural resources, the higher the incentive to develop more tech to harness them
3. The more natural resources, the + they built infrastructure to harness it, the + they developed tech to do it, the + ppl could stay put instead of being nomadic, the + they could accumulate wealth
4. The + pop they had, the + they could specialize, and the + productive they were because they developed + tech
5. All of that got a huge boost from trade: the + you had, the + you could trade, and the + you could get from others, diversifying your resources & tech
6. For that you wanted good access to other cultures though. The easier the access, the better the trade, and the + of everything
7. But you also needed + and + coordination with others to make all of that happen and to protect your wealth from others, so you needed + government and social organization. The + you had, the + you could protect and enhance your trade, wealth, infra...
That's how you get one of the best flywheels in the world
And this is just a high-level summary. There are probably many more dynamics I'm missing.
This is why the population growth of the world has been accelerating over time.
It's also why innovation consistently increases in the long term. The US's GDP per capita has grown at 2% YoY for nearly 150y.
It's also why the industrial revolution was most likely to appear somewhere in Eurasia. The network effects of several areas were connected
It tells us why the best geography was crucial early on for success, but also why it matters less and less. Now you can trade your way through lack of natural resources, you can automate or specialize to not need as much pop growth...
What you do need is tech, because productivity fuels everything else.
Should everybody learn to speak English? Yes: 1. Network effects of a common language are stronger than ever in History 2. It's the 1st time these are global 3. English is the most spoken / written language & the fastest growing
Only one thing can prevent this
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1k years ago, ppl mostly spoke with those around them. Little need for a lingua franca. In Europe, Latin was enough, learned by the Church and the elites.
After the printing press, suddenly you can learn & communicate w/ ppl far away. Incentive to understand each other ➡️ languages appear around the dialects most published. In Europe you go from a gradient of languages to German, English, French, Spanish...
S curves are everywhere. Learning to identify them is a superpower
They're how epidemics evolve
How memes spread
How investment unfold
How businesses grow
How muscles contract
How technology us adopted
How animation flows
How popcorn explodes
How ice melts
How water evaporates
How countries are formed
How magnets snap
How atoms spin
How transistors change their charge
How ppl get promoted
How they succeed
How they're fired
How they're born
How they die
We don't always recognize them because, depending on where we are on an S curve, it might not look like one.
It might look line a horizontal line
Or a vertical one
Or an oblique one
Or an exponential
Or a noisy surve
Amazon didn't create one business. It consistently reinvented itself, one S curve after another.
It knew how to identify invisible asymptotes and how to pre-empt them.
The 1st S curve was an online bookstore.
Now in retrospect it sounds trivial that they would move beyond that. But it wasn't.
How many online bookstores do you know that moved on from doing just that?
Bezos picked books because they benefitted from having millions of SKUs, ppl didn't need them immediately, and they weren't perishable. Internet had an advantage over physical locations for them.
Why are some Caribbean countries richer than others?Why do some islands speak one language, and others another?
Why are there still colonies there?
Why are there difference races in each?
Why is the Caribbean the way it is?
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When the Spaniards arrived at the end of the 1400s, they were looking for riches. There were few in the Caribbean islands. So they didn't pay too much attention.
Eventually, they found silver on the Continent: in Mexico (Zacatecas) and Bolivia (PotosĂ).
They needed a way to transport all of that silver back to Spain. They transported the Mexican riches to Veracruz, and the Bolivian ones to Cartagena de Indias.