“The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind

—“The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind’s flaws, biases, contradictions and irrationality without exploiting them for fun and profit.”— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Well, you know, I would say that the characteristic feature of western man is (a) the demand for deflationary truth-telling, and (b) to compensate for mankind’s flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality by demand for productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchange, free of negative externality – and (c) demand for the continuous evolution of the natural, common, law of reciprocity we call ‘tort’ to enforce those demands.

It is high trust truthful society that is western man’s advantage, and that advantage was achieved through demographic suppression via means of that same natural, common law of reciprocity. Because the west was rarely first, but was always fastest. And that is because there is no faster method of maneuver, adaptation, and decidability, that is provided by markets in association, reproduction, cooperation, commons, and polities, where conflicts are decided by the common law of torts using the natural law of reciprocity, a market for juridical defense. Because the moment an innovative violation of reciprocity is identified it can be encoded into the law, and innovations against that violation of reciprocity immediately correcting all markets.

So no. The characteristic of *loser civilizations* is to produce those who exploit man’s flaws biases, contradictions and irrationality. The characteristic of western civilization is to inhibit, prosecute, and kill them – thereby leaving only the satisfaction of man’s wants when those wants are free of external imposition of costs upon others.

Productive, Truthful, Fully Informed, Warrantied, Voluntary Transfer Limited to Productive externalities.