Charles C. Mann: belief

Transcript context

…[laughs] Yes. I think he underrates the potential for being awful outside of those states’ societies. I suspect that each of them was awful in their own way. [laughs] And yes, you certainly had more freedom of action in those nonstate societies. And that was particularly true . . . You’ll notice in his book, Against the Grain, he carefully excludes tropical forests and other environments. He’s really talking about grain civilizations. And so, the answer for them is, yeah, it was tough. I don’t think that was true for tropical forests in Africa and Asia and South America. And it may not even have been true in places like Peru. Most archeologists think that it was plentiful there. There was so much fish, that you could be in a state and you really didn’t have to work that hard. It’s only when you get to the Inca and those kind of people that you start getting these sort of totalitarian enterprises. Now a much earlier Charles C. Mann wrote a book, coauthored a book called The Aspirin Wars, and a reader writes to me the following question, quote: “Maybe simply ask him what pain reliever he uses, and ask what he has to say about the FDA’s delays in addressing known health risks of high doses of Tylenol combined with alcohol.” You’re free to pass, but if you would care to address this?…

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