—“How is the “killer app” of seeking truth an “accidental discovery?” You just assert that? Lots of this quality of so-called accidents originate in the West. Evolutionary trait? Great read, thank you.”—SmashCulturalMarxism?
1 – This is a great question.
A (a) genetic cause, (b) geographic cause (c) competitive cause, (d) technological clause, (e) institutional cause, or (f) consequence of one or more of the above?
2 – There are very clear factors: geography, production, competition, technology.
3 – The open question is genetics. Are we cause or consequence of circumstances? Or are we the product of it? Or both?
4 – I suspect that it’s “all of the above”. But the fact remains, we did.
5 – Just because we invented truth it mean others can’t adopt it? (Maybe.)
All civilizations that survived ‘the great transformation’ from tribes and bands to collections of them (cities and tech or resistance to cities and tech) retained their traditions and norms (strategies) of prior state. And are a bit ‘frozen’ in that model.
River valleys concentrated production, produced surpluses, and could be ruled by a concentrated force because of it. Ranchers and farmers less so. Steppe and desert could not concentrate capital. Jungles could not make it happen because of predators and disease.
If we look at the history of man as attached to bodies of water, and then the means of survival around their body of water, we see that they all developed the necessary traditions to do so. Including social, political, economic, and military.
So ‘whites’ started out as farmers and cattle raiders. Like piracy, this is a very ‘entrepreneurial’ social order. With the advent of bronze, wheel, and horse, families could pool resources and invest in the entrepreneurship of cattle raiding
Concentration of capital occurred at the entrepreneurial level, and wasn’t possible to concentrate at the top. Production was entrepreneurial and distributed. But took metalsmithing, and agrarian production, and organization for competitiveness.
But like raiding, piracy, viking, exploring, this process remained entrepreneurial. And the battle tactics (Ooda Loops) which remain the west’s tactics today, (maneuver, and combined arms), required adherence to contract (loyalty) to the plans, even if that put one at risk.
The long history of ‘reporting’ (speaking empirically in matters of war) spread through the entire social fabric for obvious reasons: access to entrepreneurship opportunities, or participating in them in a division of labor. From there everything follows. Debate, reason, science.
No other people were able to ‘freeze’ their strategy as such. We are in the process, as under christianity, of the second attack on our strategy. (truth)