Do you have evidence for footnote 2 (i.e. that many hunter-gatherer societies have ~25% of their men dying of violence before reproducing)?
Itās not a core claim of your argument, but I paused a bit at this passage:
āThe economic history book A Farewell to Alms notes that many of the pre-colonization Pacific Islands were both relatively wealthy and relatively healthy, a status they achieved by killing between two-thirds and three-quarters of children at birth.ā
I havenāt read A Farewell to Alms, so I may be missing context. But if it does make a strong claim along these lines (both about the magnitude and about a causal relationship with wealth/āhealth), Iād be interested in how robust the underlying evidence is.
A couple of things that made me hesitate:
āPacific islandsā isnāt a very homogeneous geographical or socio-cultural category. I assume this refers broadly to Polynesia + Micronesia + Melanesia (+/āā Australia?), but the societies in these regions seem quite diverse, so grouping them together may risk smoothing over important differences (a bit like a very low-resolution map of a very large territory).
The data we have on pre-colonisation societies in these regions can be quite limited and sometimes comes from sources (e.g. missionaries or early settlers) that may not always have aimed at careful ethnographic accuracy. That makes me a bit cautious about strong quantitative claims. For example, the ongoing debate around Rapa Nui and Jared Diamondās collapse narrative illustrates how interpretations can shift with new evidence (see Humankind and related discussions).
Again, I realize this isnāt central to your overall argument. I mainly wanted to flag it as something that might benefit from a bit more nuance or sourcing, both to avoid potential misunderstandings and because it touches on broader questions about how we interpret and generalize about pre-industrial societies. Also, I grew up in Tahiti so I tend to pay extra attention to claims about pre-colonisation societies in that region. Not because I think everything was ideal or necessarily better, but because it seems like our knowledge is still quite limited (and risks remaining so forever), and itās easy to overstate certainty.
Nice read! Thank you :)
Do you have evidence for footnote 2 (i.e. that many hunter-gatherer societies have ~25% of their men dying of violence before reproducing)?
Itās not a core claim of your argument, but I paused a bit at this passage:
I havenāt read A Farewell to Alms, so I may be missing context. But if it does make a strong claim along these lines (both about the magnitude and about a causal relationship with wealth/āhealth), Iād be interested in how robust the underlying evidence is.
A couple of things that made me hesitate:
āPacific islandsā isnāt a very homogeneous geographical or socio-cultural category. I assume this refers broadly to Polynesia + Micronesia + Melanesia (+/āā Australia?), but the societies in these regions seem quite diverse, so grouping them together may risk smoothing over important differences (a bit like a very low-resolution map of a very large territory).
The data we have on pre-colonisation societies in these regions can be quite limited and sometimes comes from sources (e.g. missionaries or early settlers) that may not always have aimed at careful ethnographic accuracy. That makes me a bit cautious about strong quantitative claims. For example, the ongoing debate around Rapa Nui and Jared Diamondās collapse narrative illustrates how interpretations can shift with new evidence (see Humankind and related discussions).
Again, I realize this isnāt central to your overall argument. I mainly wanted to flag it as something that might benefit from a bit more nuance or sourcing, both to avoid potential misunderstandings and because it touches on broader questions about how we interpret and generalize about pre-industrial societies. Also, I grew up in Tahiti so I tend to pay extra attention to claims about pre-colonisation societies in that region. Not because I think everything was ideal or necessarily better, but because it seems like our knowledge is still quite limited (and risks remaining so forever), and itās easy to overstate certainty.