6 ms·
I find it tempting to try and shove this story into an origin tale for W.E.I.R.D. --- Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic. But I guess the timi
by 1bent 3y ago
I find it tempting to try and shove this story into an origin tale for W.E.I.R.D. --- Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic.
But I guess the timing is off; this is within, not before, that.
- the-printer 3y ago[flagged]
- throw0101b 3y agoFor more on this see the book The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous: > The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous is a 2020 book by Harvard professor Joseph Henrich that aims to explain history and psychological variation with approaches from cultural evolution and evolutionary psychology. In the book, Henrich explores how institutions and psychology jointly influence each other over time. More specifically, he argues that a series of Catholic Church edicts on marriage that began in the 4th century undermined the foundations of kin-based society and created the more analytical, individualistic thinking prevalent in western societies. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor... Review: * https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/joseph-henrich-weird-people/615496/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/10/joseph-... * https://archive.is/e7DJX https://archive.is/e7DJX * https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/books/review/the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-joseph-henrich.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/books/review/the-weirdest...
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoMaybe much more prosaic. The British were gin-soaked do-nothings running under an obsolete feudal system. Then coffee got introduced to London. Result: caffeine-fueled economic, military and scientific explosion.
- pavlov 3y agoThis could also explain how Finland went from famine-stricken illiterate backwater in the late 19th century to a sophisticated social-democratic market economy a hundred years later. Finns drink the most coffee per capita in the world — it was just a question of getting a steady coffee supply.
- enqk 3y agoprobably thanks to other substances, fossil fuels
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- njarboe 3y agoPlus tobacco.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoThat's backwards. Coffee was introduced into England before 1600. The first coffee house opened in Oxford in 1650. The explosion in the consumption of distilled spirits was half a century later, fuelled by the governments encouragement of the distilling industry and banning of French imports of spirrits. Hogarth's gin lane is from 1751.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago1675 was the heydey - 3000 coffee houses in England, many of those in London
- cafard 3y agoBut distilled liquors were a product of the Industrial Revolution. Of course it is perfectly possible to go about in an alcoholic haze on fermented drinks--Samuel Johnson said that the people in his hometown were soberer on wine than they had been on beer. But the scientific explosion preceded the gin.