Evidence receipt / belief
Published · transcript-backedSpeaker unverified: belief
9 Sept 2026 Conversations with Tyler Jared Diamond on Leaders, Luck, and Irreplaceability
“For the history of Papua New Guinea, really interesting question. I would say no.”
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- Speaker unverified
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- belief
- Recorded
- 9 Sept 2026
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
Transcript context
…Do you think there are any individual leaders who have really mattered for the history of Papua New Guinea (PNG)? For the history of Papua New Guinea, really interesting question. I would say no. The closest one to it was the founding president of Papua New Guinea, who could have made a big mess. He didn’t make a big mess. On the other hand, he wasn’t as spectacularly successful as Seretse Khama, the founding president of Botswana. What’s your underlying model for why, in PNG, the leaders matter so little? Is it that geography is so important there, or that it’s never been unified, or that it’s so poor?…
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