Evidence receipt / belief
Published · transcript-backedJohn Gray: belief
29 Nov 2023 Conversations with Tyler John Gray on Pessimism, Liberalism, and Theism
“If you take a bit longer one, if you include the Aztecs and the Romans, not just the Meiji Empire but Edo Japan, which by the way, I think was incomparably more cultured and civilized than the majority of human cultures are today.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- John Gray
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- belief
- Recorded
- 29 Nov 2023
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
Transcript context
…Sure, but living in 1950 compared to today — it’s an amazing difference. You wouldn’t hesitate to choose living in Tokyo today compared to 1950. Aren’t you aware, Tyler, that throughout history, there would be periods of 50 years in which things have gotten much better, and then there’s been a catastrophic war or a pestilence which has swept it all away? You can pick any 50-year period you like, and you’ll find many of them of which this is true. One of my key ideas is that practically all of economics and social theory is based on the last 300 years. That’s a very small dataset for human history or human life. If you take a bit longer one, if you include the Aztecs and the Romans, not just the Meiji Empire but Edo Japan, which by the way, I think was incomparably more cultured and civilized than the majority of human cultures are today. If you take a broader view, then what you will see is long-term trends will look like blips. Are you short the market?…
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