Comment on Privileging the Question

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:25:53 GMT

You could argue that with the benefit of hindsight, what they should have done is abandoned agriculture+war for ecuation+industialisation, since ordinary citizens of the present are wealthier than the aristocrats of the past.

Only if you consider absolute gains preferable to relative/"zero-sum" gains, which our evolved psychological makeup isn't really prepared to do very well.

Social animals with a natural dominance hierarchy will often see "how well am I doing right now, compared to how well everyone else around me is doing right now?" as a more salient question than "how well am I doing right now, compared to how well I was doing before / how well I could be doing?".

Discuss