Charles C. Mann - Americas Before Columbus & Scientific Wizardry

查尔斯·C·曼恩——《哥伦布到来之前的美洲》与《科学魔术》

Dwarkesh Podcast

2022-09-14

1 小时 31 分钟
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单集简介 ...

Charles C. Mann is the author of three of my favorite history books: 1491. 1493, and The Wizard and the Prophet.  We discuss: * why Native American civilizations collapsed and why they failed to make more technological progress * why he disagrees with Will MacAskill about longtermism * why there aren’t any successful slave revolts * how geoengineering can help us solve climate change * why Bitcoin is like the Chinese Silver Trade * and much much more! Timestamps (0:00:00) -Epidemically Alternate Realities (0:00:25) -Weak Points in Empires (0:03:28) -Slave Revolts (0:08:43) -Slavery Ban (0:12:46) - Contingency & The Pyramids (0:18:13) - Teotihuacan (0:20:02) - New Book Thesis (0:25:20) - Gender Ratios and Silicon Valley (0:31:15) - Technological Stupidity in the New World (0:41:24) - Religious Demoralization (0:43:24) - Critiques of Civilization Collapse Theories (0:48:29) - Virginia Company + Hubris (0:52:48) - China’s Silver Trade (1:02:27) - Wizards vs. Prophets (1:07:19) - In Defense of Regulatory Delays (1:11:50) -Geoengineering (1:16:15) -Finding New Wizards (1:18:10) -Agroforestry is Underrated (1:27:00) -Longtermism & Free Markets Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe
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单集文稿 ...

  • Okay, today I have the pleasure of speaking with Charles Mann,

  • who is the author of three of my favorite books,

  • including 1491, New Revelations of America Before Columbus,

  • 1493, Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, and The Wizard and the Prophet,

  • two remarkable scientists and their dueling vision to shape tomorrow's world.

  • Charles, welcome to The Lunar Society.

  • It's a pleasure to be here.

  • My first question is, how much of the new world was basically baked into the cake?

  • So at some point,

  • people from Eurasia were going to travel to the new world and they're going to bring their diseases.

  • disparities and where they would survive.

  • If the asthma glue theory that you cite is correct,

  • then at some of these places were bound to be better,

  • have good institutions, some of them were bound to have bad institutions.

  • And all because of malaria,

  • there were going to be shortages in labor that people would try to fix with African slaves.

  • So how much of this was just bound to happen if if Columbus hadn't done it,

  • maybe 50 years down the line, somebody from, you know, Italy does it.

  • Well, like, what is the contingency here?

  • Well, I think some of it was baked into the cake.