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Sapiens Chapter 5 Summary – History’s Biggest Fraud

The Chapter 5 of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari deals with a pretty radical argument. Basically, the chapter suggests that agriculture was history’s biggest fraud.

This flies in the face of common wisdom that the Agricultural Revolution was a great leap for mankind. In fact, for thousands of years, agriculture had been linked with increase in human intelligence.

According to Harari, this tale is nothing more than a fantasy. In this Sapiens Chapter 5 Summary and Analysis, we look at the arguments made within the chapter.

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Agricultural Revolution was a Fraud

Scholars often think of agriculture as this great epochal event fuelled by human evolution. Increase in brain power laid bare the secrets of mother nature. Humans became smart enough to decipher those secrets and gain mastery over the element of nature leading to the dawn of agriculture.

However, there is actually no evidence of people getting smarter. If anything, our forager ancestors understood the intricacies of nature far better. Their survival was directly dependent on an intricate knowledge of the animals they hunted and the plants they gathered. They lived a healthier and far more sustainable life as compared to humans after the advent of agriculture.

In Harari’s view, the Agricultural Revolution left farmers with generally more difficult and less satisfying lives. With increasing dependence on agriculture, starvation and disease became more probably. Even though the sum total of available food increased, but it did not translate into a better diet or leisure for our ancestors. The average farmer worked harder than the average forager while getting less in return.

Basically, agricultural revolution turned out to be history‘s biggest fraud, swindling mankind into a false sense of security.

The Fraudsters of Agricultural Revolution

If Agricultural Revolution was a fraud, who were the fraudsters?

Basically, the fraudsters were a handful of plant species such as wheat, rice and potatoes. Actually, these plants domesticated Homo sapiens rather than the other way around.

The above statement might sound outrageous but there are always two sides of a coin.

Harari encourages to think about the situation from the perspective of wheat. 10,000 years ago, wheat was just a wild grass confined to a small part of the Middle East. However, within a few millennia, wheat was growing all over the world. Ultimately, wheat became one of the most successful plants in the history of the planet.

How did this unremarkable grass turn from insignificant to near-ubiquitous?

Basically, wheat manipulated Homo sapiens to its own advantage. Our forager ancestors were living a fairly comfortable life of hunting and gathering, but then we began to invest more and more effort into cultivating wheat. But cultivating wheat wasn’t easy. It required a serious amount of dedication and hard-work. Some of the basic tasks needed to cultivate wheat have been listed below:

Clear rocks and pebbles.Spend long days clearing weeds under the scorching sun.Keep a watch for worms and blight.Build fences and stand guard over the fields.Dig irrigation canals.Collect animal faeces to nourish the soil in which the wheat grew.

Human bodies had not evolved for such tasks. We were adapted to climbing apple trees or running after game and not to clearing rocks or carrying water buckets.

A transition to agriculture brought about a plethora of ailments such as slipped discs, arthritis and Hernia’s. Our spines, knees, necks and arches paid the price of this transition. Moreover, agricultural tasks demanded so much time that people were forced to settle next to their wheat-fields. In other words, cultivation of wheat completely changed our view of life.

Hence, it won’t be an overstretch to say that we did not domesticate wheat but wheat ended up domesticating mankind.

In my view, this is one of the most controversial point of views expressed in the book. Logically, the argument seems to make sense. However, since it is so divergent from common wisdom, it seems a little incredulous.

How Agricultural Revolution Ruined Human Life?

Continuing further, Harari points out that humans, by nature, are omnivorous creatures. We can generally thrive on a variety of foods.

Before the Agricultural Revolution came about, grains made up only a small fraction of our diet. This was probably for a reason. A diet based on cereals is inherently poor in minerals and vitamins.

Post the advent of agriculture, all of this changed. We started relying more on grains as a source of calories. Our diet became poorer. Initially, it seemed like a good trade-off as cultivating food seemed to provide a more secure future.

However, wheat did not give us economic security. The life of a peasant was even less secure when compared to that of a hunter gatherer. Our ancestors relied on dozens of species to survive. After the agricultural revolution, we became dependent on a few plant species for our survival. If there was a failure of production in those plant species, peasants died by thousands and millions.

Agriculture also increased human violence in the society. Earlier when one band tried to overpower a smaller rival, the rival could usually move on and settle at a different location. With agriculture, this meant giving up entire fields, houses and granaries. This was because farmers acquired more possessions when compared to hunter gatherers and needed land for planting the crops. The loss of pasture land to raiding neighbours could mean the difference between life and death so there was not much room for compromise. Farmers therefore tended to stay put and fight to the bitter end to protect their possessions.

Studies prove that even simple agricultural societies with no political frameworks beyond village and tribe had more human violence. Only after the development of larger frameworks such as cities, kingdoms and states, this human violence was brought under control. However, it took thousands of years to build such huge and effective political structures that could provide adequate protection to early farming societies.

Harari points out that our judgement about this topic is clouded by the affluence and security built on the foundations of agricultural revolution. However, it is wrong to ignore thousands of years of history from the perspective of the modern world. A Chinese girl in the first century dying from malnutrition because her father‘s crops failed would not care that in 2000 years her sacrifice would be worthwhile. For our ancestors, Agricultural Revolution was not a wonderful improvement to life but a harsh reality that led to many hardships.

Of course, Agricultural Revolution also had some benefits.

While agriculture did not offer something new to an individual but as a species we were able to cultivate more food per unit of territory. Due to agricultural revolution, an area which could support a band of hundred relatively healthy and well nourished people could now support a cramped village of 1000 people. This created an ideal environment for Homo sapiens to multiply exponentially, but at the expense of far more suffering in the form of disease and malnourishment.

Just as economic success of a company is measured by the number of dollars in its bank account and not by the happiness of its employees so is the evolutionary success of a species measured by the number of copies of its DNA. If no more DNA copies remain the species is extinct. Just like a company without money is bankrupt.

From the perspective of a species, a thousand copies are always better than hundred copies. This is what the agriculture did for Homo sapiens. It gave the ability to keep more people alive even if the conditions were not great from an individual’s perspective.

I must admit that this section of the chapter really presents some strong arguments against the Agriculture Revolution. Of course, agriculture was vital to the growth of our society, but for individuals it may not have been a great prospect. Even today, we see signs of exploitation of poor farmers in developing or under-developed nations. Even today, we see famines leading to huge losses of lives. Of course, we can no longer break the shackles of agriculture since there is no way we can sustain the present human population levels through a hunting and gathering life.

The Spread of Agriculture

About 18,000 years ago, the last ice age gave way to a period of global warming. Rising temperatures led to increased rains.

The new climate was ideal for middle eastern wheat and other cereals which multiplied and spread during this time. As a result, people began eating more wheat and in exchange they unknowingly spread its growth even further. Since it was impossible to eat grains without grinding and cooking them, people who gathered the grains in the wild carried them back to their temporary camp sites for processing. Wheat grains are small and numerous so some of them would have invariably fallen on the way to the campsite and got lost in the soil. This led to the gradual spread of wheat along favourite human trails and near campsites.

When humans burned down forests and thickets, it also also indirectly helped cereals. Wheat and other grasses monopolised the sunlight, water and nutrients. Wherever wheat became abundant, it became possible for human bands to gradually give up their nomadic lifestyle and settle down in seasonal and even permanent camps. Initial camps may have been for four weeks during the harvest but a generation later the harvest camp might have lasted for five weeks and then six. Finally, these settlements turned into permanent villages.

Soon humans also started cultivating grains in more and more elaborate ways. When gathering grains they took care to lay aside part of the harvest for the fields next season. They found that better results could be achieved by sowing the grains deep into the ground rather than scattering them. This led to the practice of ploughing the fields. Gradually they started to guard the fields against parasites and to fertilise them for better yields. Ultimately, there was less time to gather and hunt wild species. The foresters had turned into farmers.

With the move to permanent villages and increase in food supply the population began to grow swiftly. Giving up the nomadic lifestyle enabled women to have a child every year. Of course, the extra hands were needed in the fields. But the extra mouths quickly wiped out the food surpluses so even more fields had to be planted to keep the food supply at adequate levels.

People began living in disease ridden settlements. Children fed more on cereals and less on mother’s milk and each child competed for his or her porridge with more and more siblings. This resulted in soaring child mortality rates. In most agricultural societies, at least one out of every three children died before reaching 20. However, the increase in births still outpaced the increase in deaths.

In my view, none of this sounds like a good thing for our ancestors. On the one hand, the human population grew, the quality of individual life took a severe beating. In fact, even today, we see examples of this happening all over the world even in non-agricultural fields. Large multinational companies often sacrifice an individual employee’s personal aspirations in order to serve the collective interest and productivity of the company.

Why Humans Fell into the Trap?

Moving further, Harari does try to put things into perspective. Reading about the various fallacies of agriculture, it sounds like our ancestors were foolish in getting trapped. However, the truth is that we are viewing the Agricultural Revolution with a hindsight of thousands of years.

Our ancestors would have simply thought that if they worked harder their children will never have to sleep hungry. It made perfect sense. If you work harder you would have a better life. It sounded like a pretty good plan.

However, they did not foresee that the number of children would also increase meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children. Neither did they realise that feeding children with more porridge and less breast milk would weaken their immune system and the permanent settlements would become hotbeds for infectious diseases. The farmers also did not foresee that in good years their bulging granaries would invite thieves and enemies compelling them to build walls and also perform guard duty.

At this point, we might wonder that if agriculture was such a bad thing, why didn’t humans abandon farming when the plan seemingly backfired?

One reason is that it took generations for the small changes to accumulate and transform society at large. By the time things changed for the worse, nobody remembered what life was like before the entire mess.

To make matters worse, population growth burnt the proverbial boat. One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and providing for them turns into an obligation. Once people get used to a certain luxury they start taking it for granted. They begin to count on its eternal presence and finally, they reach a point where they can’t live without it. The pursuit of an easier life kept drawing us further into the trap.

However, there is another theory that suggests that agricultural revolution might have been a conscious decision of our ancestors. According to this line of thought, our ancestors had other aspirations and they were willing to make their lives harder in order to achieve them.

Typically scientists seek to attribute historical developments to cold economic and demographic factors because they fit better with their rational and mathematical methods. However we have enough evidence to suggest that some of the most pivotal events in human history such as the Second World War were not caused by food shortage or demographic pressure.

The general accepted theory is that the humans first built a village and when it prospered, they set up a temple in the middle. What if it was the other way round?

Perhaps, our ancestors had other reasons to pursue the path of agriculture. Perhaps, the reason had more to do with faith and less as a result of economic factors. Since we don’t have any written evidence from prehistoric era, we often find it hard to believe that pre-literate people were motivated by faith rather than economic necessity.

In some rare cases we are lucky to find clues. In Gobekli tepe we find evidence that our ancestors built structures that had no obvious utilitarian purpose. Despite their no obvious use, our ancestors thought it was worth the amount of time and effort to build such structures. Moreover, such structures have also been built near the first evidence of the origin of wheat.

Gobekli Tepe

It may well be possible that foragers switched from gathering wild wheat to intense wheat cultivation not to increase their normal food supply but rather to support the building and running of a temple of some sort.

In my view, Harari’s arguments about the slow trap of perceived luxury is absolutely spot on. The idea is not so different from the story of the frog who does not realize that he is dying in boiling water if the temperature is increased slowly. Even in the modern era, human nature is still the same. Many of us toil our entire lives for the future of our children, hoping that if we work hard, they won’t have to. And the cycle keeps repeating.

Victims of Agricultural Revolution

Many might not considers humans as victims of agricultural revolution. However, there were also other victims of the agricultural revolution. These victims were animals such as sheep, goats, pigs and chickens.

Harari explains the three stages in which humans affected these animals.

Initially, nomadic bands that stalked wild sheep gradually altered the constitution of the herds they hunted. This process started with selective hunting of only adult Rams and old or sick sheep. They often spared females and young lambs to safeguard the future of the local herd for sustenance. You could think of this as the first stage of exploitation of such animals by mankind.

The second stage might have been to actively defend this herd against predators and other tribes.

In the third stage, humans began to make a more careful selection among the sheep in order to tailor them to human needs. The most aggressive Rams were slaughtered first. Also the most inquisitive females were slaughtered so that they cannot run away from the herd. With each generation, the sheep became fatter, more submissive and less curious.

As humans spread around the world so did their domesticated animals. Today the world contains about 1 billion sheep, 1 billion pigs, more than 1 billion cattle and more than 25 billion chickens. And these animals have spread all over the globe. From a narrow evolutionary perspective of a species where success is based on the number of DNA copies, the agricultural revolution can be considered a wonderful boon for chickens, cattle, pigs and sheep.

Unfortunately, as we saw with humans, the evolutionary perspective is an incomplete measure of success. It judges everything by the criteria of survival with no regard for individual suffering and happiness. Domesticated chickens and cattle are among the most miserable creatures that have ever lived. The natural lifespan of wild chickens is about 7 to 12 years. In contrast the vast majority of domesticated chickens are slaughtered between the age of a few weeks and a few months because this has been the optimal age for slaughter from an economic perspective.

Humans also commit many other acts of cruelty to these domesticated animals. In many societies of New Guinea, farmers slice off a chunk of each pigs nose to ensure that the pigs can’t run away. This causes severe pain whenever the pig tries to sniff. Since the pigs cannot find food or even find their way without sniffing, this mutilation makes them completely dependent on their human masters.

The dairy industry has its own way of exploiting animals. Cows, goats and sheep produce milk only after giving birth and only as long as the youngsters are suckling. One common method to ensure continuous supply of milk is to simply slaughter the calves shortly after birth and milk the mother for all she is worth before getting her pregnant again. Another method is to keep the calves near their mother but prevent them by various strategies from sucking too much milk. The simplest way to do that is to allow the calf to start sucking, but drive it away by force once the milk starts flowing.

Though several farmers and shepherds loved their animals and took good care of them it was not much different from certain slave holders feeling affection and concern for their slaves.

From the viewpoint of domesticated animals, the agricultural revolution was a terrible catastrophe. Their so-called evolutionary success is meaningless.

Concluding Thoughts

The discrepancy between evolutionary success and individual suffering is perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from the Agricultural Revolution. Maybe for plants such as wheat and maize the pure evolutionary perspective may make sense. However, in the case of animals such as cattle and sheep having their own complex world of sensations and emotions, we have to consider how evolutionary success translates into individual misery.

The same has been the case for humans during most of history. The increase in collective power and success of our species has led to more suffering at an individual level.

With this chapter, Harari has certainly opened the door on some arguments that challenge our usual notion of success and well-being. In this regard, this chapter is one of the most important parts of the entire book.

The post Sapiens Chapter 5 Summary – History’s Biggest Fraud first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

What led to the bipolar world after World War 2?

The Second World War was undoubtedly the most devastating war mankind had ever witnessed. Though it began in Europe when Hitler invaded Poland, the war soon engulfed all the major nations of the world. Ferocious battles took place from the western to eastern hemisphere and from the centre of Europe to the remotest islands of the Pacific ocean. No place on the planet was left untouched from the impact of World War 2.

Optimists, during the final days of the war, had thought that once Nazism and Fascism were defeated, it would lead to the end of all hostilities. A long peace would be established and there would not be any reason for future conflicts.

Little did they know how misguided their perception would turn out to be.

The devastation inflicted upon Hiroshima by the United States, together with the fall of Berlin into the hands of the Red Army symbolized the end of the Second World War. But it also marked the beginning of a new bipolar order in world affairs, leading to a conflict that almost brought mankind to the edge of destruction.

Hiroshima after the A-bombFirst Signs of Trouble

Despite the raging war in Europe, it was pretty obvious to those who would pay attention that a new world order was developing. The American military planners were debating about it even as the conflict was at its height. One of their policy papers had made the below observation:

The successful termination of the war against our present enemies will find a world profoundly changed in respect of relative national military strengths, a change more comparable indeed with that occasioned by the fall of Rome than with any other change occurring during the succeeding 1500 years…After the defeat of Japan, the United States and Soviet Union will be the only military powers of the first magnitude.

The writing was clear on the wall. The earlier global balance of power had been shattered by the war. Former Great Powers had already been eclipsed or were on the brink of getting eclipsed. The bipolar world, forecast so often in the 19th century, had finally arrived. Among the plethora of nations, only the United States and the USSR counted on the global power balance.

Though Americans were confident of their superiority and leadership in settling the global issues, USSR had shown its unwillingness to retreat to the shadows any longer. Stalin had made his intentions pretty clear as early as the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference.

During the Yalta Conference in February of 1945, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt met in Yalta (in the Crimea region) to make decisions about the post-war world order. Even at that time, Roosevelt was quite keen (despite Churchill’s apprehensions) to gain Stalin’s co-operation against Japan. By this time, the Soviet troops had already reached deep into central Europe and the Red Army was marching towards Berlin. Needless to say, Stalin used his position of power to greatly increase his influence over Eastern and Central Europe.

The Big Three at Yalta Conference

While the Yalta Conference was still carried out in an air of co-operation, the next conference in Potsdam in July-August, 1945 was drastically different. The atmosphere was much more tense. Over the past few months, the Red Army had quickly occupied the eastern part of Germany, part of Austria and all of Central Europe. Stalin was well aware of his territorial advantages. He took the opportunity to install Communist governments in all the countries liberated by the Soviets. Though the Western powers protested at their lack of control over the elections held in the countries occupied by the Red Army, Stalin had completely redrawn the map of Eastern Europe.

At Potsdam, the three Great Powers were divided by their increasingly contradictory viewpoints about the future of the world order. The overriding aim was no longer to unite to defeat Nazism, but rather to prepare for the post-war era and to divide up the spoils of victory. Just a few months after the Yalta conference that had promised so much, deep divisions were already beginning to form between the West and the Soviets.

Decline of the Old Powers

Though USA and USSR became the two dominant powers post 1945, it is important to understand that much of their gains came at the expense of the former Great Powers.

But what led to the decline of these once powerful nations?

To be clear, each of the former Great Powers grappled with unique issues and there was no single reason for the decline.

Germany, Japan and Italy

Straight away, we can tick off the defeated Axis powers from the list of Great Powers. Loosing the war ensured their swift decline.

After the allies won the war, the first step they took was to ensure that neither Germany or Japan would again pose any sort of threat to the international order. This resulted in long-term military occupation of both these countries – something that lasts even today.

Moreover, Germany was divided into four occupation zones distributed to the victorious nations of USA, Soviet Union, Britain and France. Even after some consolidation in the coming years, Germany still remained divided into two separate states (West Germany and East Germany) till the eventual fall of the Berlin Wall.

Both Germany and Japan were also stripped of their overseas acquisitions, significantly reducing their economic capacity. Needless to say, the war had caused widespread damage within these countries.

The devastation caused by strategic bombing, the destroyed transportation system, lack of raw materials and dismantling of the industrial base led to a horrendous reduction in German national income and output in 1946. Japan faced a similar fate when their national income fell to 57% of what it was before the war. To make matters worse, Japan’s shipbuilding industry was totally eliminated.

Economically as well as military, the days of Germany and Japan as powerful nations were all but over.

Italy had switched sides in 1943. However, its economic fate was still as bad as Germany and Japan. For two years, the Allied forces had bombed the peninsula. The cost of the resulting damages was added to the cost of Mussolini’s strategical blunders. By 1945, Italy had gone back almost 35 years in terms of its gross national product. The standard of living had dropped to alarmingly low levels. Without American economic aid, many would have died of starvation.

Mussolini wanted to revive the Roman empire, but ended up pushing his country back by several decades.

France

France was a special case in terms of the old powers.

Despite the occupation by Germans, France was still a member of the victorious allied powers at the end of the war. French soldiers had fought in many major campaigns and had also prevailed against the pro-Vichy forces during the Civil War.

However, four years of plundering by Germans had been followed by months of large-scale fighting in 1944. Most of the infrastructure had been destroyed, waterways and harbors were blocked and the transportation system crippled. French imports and exports had plunged to almost nothing by 1945 and the country’s national income was was reduced to half. To top it up, France was heavily dependent upon American aid to keep the country running, much to the resentment of French President de Gaulle.

Nevertheless, the British were keen to see a revived France as a check to Russia on the European mainland. This is the reason why France received several benefits that were the hallmark of Great Power status: an occupation zone in Germany, permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. It still possessed the second largest colonial empire in the world and was determined to hang on to it.

This seemed ironical to several observers of the time that a country dependent on external aid should seek to acquire first-class power status in world politics. The chief consequence of this exercise by France only managed to disguise (for a few more years) the extent to which the geopolitical landscape had transformed. There was no denying that the glory days of France were behind it.

Great Britain

The British empire was the only major state that had fought from beginning to end in the Second World War. Under the leadership of Winston Churchill, it was a member of the Big Three (USA, USSR, Britain). Its military performance during the war had been remarkable and by 1945, all the colonial possessions of Britain were back in its hands.

Despite suffering from heavy losses, the Royal Navy was still one of the biggest forces in the world and RAF was the second-largest strategic air force.

However, this outward sheen hid important details. In securing a victorious outcome to the war, the British had severely overstretched themselves. Their gold and dollar reserves were almost empty. The domestic industry had wore down. Despite the intense mobilization of resources, they were now increasingly dependent upon American munitions, shipping and food supply. Moreover, as imports rose, British exports tumbled. By 1944, the exports had dropped to 31% of the 1938 levels. What was once the factory of the world was now finding it tough to sustain its own domestic needs.

When the war ended in 1945, Britain found itself in the midst of a colossal trade gap, a weakened industrial base and enormous overseas establishments. All of this meant that it was massively dependent on American aid to maintain the status quo.

Despite being a tough pill to swallow for the British, it was clear that Britain was no longer the political centre of the world. As it withdrew from several colonies due to a combination of financial and political issues, there was no doubt that the sun had finally set on the British empire.

American Expansionism

One of the primary catalysts for the emergence of a bipolar world was American expansionism after 1945. Even at the end of the first World War, USA was significantly powerful but chose to be strategically aloof from the world affairs. This was not the case after the Second World War.

Perhaps, American power in 1945 was artificially high due to the general collapse of other major powers and under-development of newly independent colonial countries. This was not so different to Britain’s situation in 1815 when the ultimate defeat of Napoleon led to Britain suddenly finding itself as the most powerful nation in the world.

The war had done wonders for the American economy. The country’s GNP rose from around $89 billion in 1939 to $135 billion in 1945. The physical output of goods increased by more than 50%. In fact, more than half of the total world manufacturing happened in the USA. To top it up, this growth occurred not only for war equipments but also for non-war goods. This meant that the growth of the civilian sector of the economy was not hampered by military expenditures.

American war production

By 1945, America held $20 billion worth of gold reserves (roughly two thirds of the total world reserves). Due to the enormous boost to the shipbuilding industry, it now owned half of the world’s supply of shipping. In other words, United States was probably the only Great Power that got richer during the war.

This economic power reflected in the military strength of the United States. At the end of the war, USA had 12.5 million service personnel. The US Navy had become the greatest maritime force in the world with a fleet of almost 1200 major warships with dozens of aircraft carriers. The air superiority was even greater with 2000-plus heavy bombers and a 1000 ultra long-range B-29s. Moreover, newer strategic bombers such as B-36 were already on the way to replace the older aircrafts. As a cherry on top of the cake, United States possessed a monopoly of atomic bombs. The world had seen the effects of an atom bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and even though, the use of atomic bombs was problematic due to variety of reasons, their presence ensured an image of unchallenged supremacy.

Given the extraordinarily favourable economic and strategic position United States occupied, it steadily moved into the vacuum created by the fading Great Powers. Just like the British found in 1815, the Americans also found their informal influence in various lands turning into more formal and entangling engagements. This was the era of Pax Americana.

The tremendous growth of the US economy also led to problems. When the war ended, many export-oriented industries feared that the postwar slump would result in declining US government spending unless new overseas markets were established to absorb the products of America’s heightened productivity.

But where could they find such overseas markets? Europe was devastated, its population in turmoil. The other newly independent countries were not in a position to import massive quantities of American goods.

This and a growing threat of increasing Soviet influence led to the implementation of the Marshall Plan by the United States. The plan permitted release of funds for the industrial re-development of the so-called free world. This American economic expansion was going hand in hand with growing military influence in the form of multiple military bases and security treaties across the globe.

Basically, United States committed itself to the creation of a new world order beneficial to the needs of the western capitalism. Though this was meant to benefit USA the most, the idea was that the more efficient distribution of resources brought about by un-impeded trade would raise productivity and prosperity all around. America wanted to be the elder brother of nations in the brotherhood of man and to realize this goal, other countries of the so-called Third World were encouraged to follow American ideals of self-help, free trade and democracy in exchange for economic benefits.

To describe this succinctly, USA wanted its sphere of influence all over the globe – from the North America to Europe and even in Asia.

Soviet Skepticism

All of the above sounded good from the American perspective. However, there was one area where American influence was highly unlikely to penetrate. This area was controlled by the Soviet Union.

Soviet Union claimed itself to be the true victor of the World War and the fight against fascism. During the war, it had smashed a total of 506 German divisions. Of the 13 million German casualties during the war, 10 million occurred while fighting the Soviet Union. The massive campaign on the western front restored Russia’s position to the period of 19th century when it was known as the gendarme of eastern and central Europe.

Russian territories expanded at the expense of other nations such as Finland, Poland, Romania. The Baltic states were re-incorporated into Russia. Parts of East Prussia and Czechoslovakia were taken. The enhanced Russia consisted of several satellite states and between them and the West, the proverbial iron curtain was falling. It was a different world where Communists party cadres called the shots and where the gospel of laissez-faire capitalism could not penetrate.

During the last phase of the war, Russia also swiftly occupied territories in the Far East such as Manchuria and North Korea, linking up with Mao’s Chinese Communists. On paper, this growth of Soviet influence looked imposing. However, it was not found on sound economic growth as in the case of USA.

Soviet Union’s economy had been badly hurt by the war. Russia’s population losses were staggering. Almost 14 million were killed directly by the Germans. The other effects of war increased this tally to almost 25 million. Demographic balance between male and female population had become lopsided. There was a severe drop in birth rate. Many towns lay in ruins. Thousands of villages were annihilated.

When Russians eventually moved into their agreed German occupation zone, they attempted to capture all movable assets, factory machineries and rail lines. Moreover, they demanded compensation from other eastern European nations in the form of oil, timber or coal.

Though Soviet Union had managed to out-produce Germany during the war in the matter of armaments, it had done so by an incredibly single-minded focus upon military production. Very little was spent on consumer or retail goods. Russia was a military giant but economically poor and unbalanced.

Since the Lend-Lease arrangement was cut off and Russia also rejected American funds from the Marshall plan because of unacceptable political conditions, the Soviet Union re-started its programme of enforced economic growth from its own resources. There was a greater emphasis upon heavy industry, coal, electricity and cement. This led to a minor economic miracle as Russian power grew. However, this growth came at the expense of keeping the living standards of Russian people to extremely low levels.

Soviet Heavy Industry

Right from the outset, Stalin was pretty clear upon maintaining a high-level of military security in the postwar world. Therefore, despite the postwar reduction in the Red Army, it was still the largest defence establishment in the world. Also, there was a massive push towards development of new weapon systems. Resources were allocated for the development of the Soviet Atomic Bomb. Russian Navy was being transformed with the addition of heavy cruisers and submarines.

To buttress his control further, Stalin renewed his emphasis upon internal discipline and absolute conformism to the rule of the land. Widespread purges occurred within the Communist party. Anyone with foreign connections was considered a suspect. Censorship was intensified over literature and creative arts.

Ultimately, Soviet Union became a massive territory that was totally immune from the influence of Pax Americana. In fact, it offered an alternative system of governance.

The Ideological Battle

Even during the 19th century diplomacy, ideology played a big role in policy development. But all of that paled in comparison to the ideological battle that began post 1945 as the world became bipolar.

While these differences were present even during the war, they were largely buried under the overriding need to combat fascism. In fact, many a times, the West openly admired Stalin’s actions and Russian resistance to Operation Barbarossa. The Americans claimed that the Russians were no different from them.

It took a while for America to realize that the postwar world was not exactly living up to their vision. However, within a couple of years, the ideological nature of the Cold War was quite evident. By now, it was sufficiently clear that Russia will never permit parliamentary democracy in eastern Europe. It was also evident that the sheer size of Russian armed forces was not only for stopping a future German invasion. Civil wars broke out between Communists and their opponents in Greece and China and there was a growing fear of the Red Menace.

This led to the Truman Doctrine speech of March 1947 that laid bare the bipolarity of the world in absolutely clear terms:

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed on the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press, framed elections and the suppression of personal freedom.

Truman announced that it would be US policy to help free people maintain their institutions and their integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose totalitarian regimes. From this point onwards, all international affairs were framed as a battle between the forces of good and evil.

This brow-beating by the United States must have definitely confirmed the suspicions of Stalin. Soon enough, Soviet press started claiming that the West wanted to contest the Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and sought to encircle Soviet Union with enemies on all sides.

This explanation helped the Soviet regime to justify its further crackdown upon internal dissidents and tighten its grip on eastern Europe. Moreover, it spurred Russia towards further industrialization and heavy spending upon armaments to avoid getting left behind. This led to the arms race and a proliferation of nuclear weapons on a world-ending scale.

Concluding Thoughts

Liberalism and Communism were both universal ideas and were mutually exclusive. Since the two most powerful nations in the world post the second world war were on the opposite ends of this debate, a struggle for supremacy was pretty much inevitable. Ultimately, the whole world became an arena for waging this ideological battle.

One was either in the American bloc or the Soviet bloc. This reality was not only applicable in Europe but also in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The world had become truly bipolar and there was no middle path.

The post What led to the bipolar world after World War 2? first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

The Unfolding European Energy Crisis as Winter Creeps Closer

It is no secret that an energy crisis is brewing in Europe. Though this crisis is of a global nature, it is having a far greater impact upon Europe, probably because Europe is in the so-called eye of the storm.

In the current atmosphere, there is a growing tendency to attribute all problems to the Russia-Ukraine war. However, the energy issue was simmering even before the war in Ukraine broke out. Of course, the war has exacerbated the problem to dangerous levels. The situation is turning grim with the winter season creeping ever closer.

European governments are scrambling for short-term as well as long-term solutions. Their success or failure will depend upon multiple factors.

The First Signs of Energy Crisis

The energy crisis did not start suddenly.

The Covid-19 pandemic saw a massive drop in energy consumption due to economic slowdown. The demand for natural gas fell by 1.9% in 2020. However, in 2021, as the impact of the pandemic slowly dissipated and businesses started getting back to normal, a rebound in economic activity increased the demand for energy. But the power generation could not ramp up in time. This was probably the first trigger for the rise in energy prices and the resulting energy crisis. It didn’t help that the 2021 winter was particularly cold and left European gas reservoirs severely depleted.

Some of the other incidents that added to the problem were also transpiring simultaneously:

It was announced that Groningen Gas Fields in Netherlands will stop production sometime between 2025 and 2028 due to extraction problems caused by tremors. Groningen is Europe’s largest natural gas field.USA exported more of its LNG to China and other Asian countries as they were ready to pay more when compared to the European nations.Russia had a chokehold on European natural gas supply. In 2021, Kremlin fulfilled its long-term energy contracts, but it did not supply extra gas on the spot market citing high domestic demand. European governments have levelled accusations at the Kremlin for doing so in order to tout the necessity of Nord Stream 2 pipeline. It is not in the realm of impossibility to assume that Russia may have been doing so in preparation for its long-planned invasion of Ukraine.In November of 2021, the energy prices shot up by almost 17% after Germany’s energy regulator temporarily suspended approval of Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. This happened much before the Russian invasion into Ukraine. The official reason was lack of compliance to German regulations. Of course, it is no secret that United States is against this pipeline as it circumvents Ukraine and Poland and increases Europe’s dependency on Russian energy.From a long term point of view, other reasons include Europe’s thrust towards green energy for the past few years. Merkel government’s decisions to shut all nuclear and coal power plants in 2011 is under scrutiny. Despite the obvious advantages of green energy, it sadly cannot replace energy based on fossil-fuels any time soon. This was something that European leaders failed to understand or chose to ignore.Russian Energy drives Europe

Despite all of these reasons, things could probably have been managed to some extent. However, then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.

Though the invasion itself was localized, the sanctions war that broke out between the West and Russia has created an avalanche in the energy markets.

First, the European Union unveiled their plans to phase out Russian energy and reduce imports drastically by a certain date. Of course, Russia wasn’t going to take these blows laying down as it declared its own energy war on Europe by turning off the supply of oil and natural gas. Oil and gas prices soared allowing Russia to maintain its revenue flow with even less supply to Europe and selling discounted oil and gas to buyers in Asia and elsewhere.

It is now the second half of 2022 and Europe is buckling under an acute energy shortage. Governments are trying to push through big monetary packages to protect households from constantly rising energy bills. In the late summer of 2022, Russia also halted gas flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming Western sanctions against Russia. The value of Euro has been sliding against all major currencies.

Accusations have been levelled against the United States by Russia for causing this crisis at the expense of Europe. Of course, it is not like European leaders are children and have been shepherded against their own will. Surely, it isn’t possible!

The Current State of the Energy Crisis

How bad is the current state of things in Europe?

Significantly bad if we consider the overall picture and future prospects. High energy prices are literally lashing European industry.

Gas prices in continental Europe have gone up 10 times their average historical values. Year ahead electricity prices are trading at around 1000 Euros per megawatt hour in Germany and France. Natural gas prices are at record highs of around 230 Euros per megawatt hour.

More and more factories are being forced to cut production quickly. Industrial production in the Euro zone has fallen almost 3% in July when compared to the previous year. Tens of thousands of employees have been placed on furlough even as domestic energy prices are rising and fuelling a general inflation.

Some very important European industries are reeling under pressure:

Half of Europe’s aluminium and zinc production has been taken offline.Energy intensive fertiliser manufacturers are suffering with increased production costs.Arcelor Mittal, Europe’s largest steel maker, is idling blast furnaces in Germany.Arc International, the world’ largest producer of glass tableware, has put almost 1500 employees on partial furlough to cut costs. Four of the factory’s nine furnaces will be placed into idle state. Other furnaces have been switched from natural gas to diesel which is cheaper but a far more polluting fuel.Even toilet papers are not safe. Hakle, one of the largest manufacturers of toilet paper, has tumbled into insolvency because of the energy crisis.

The industrial crisis is also leading to several domino effects. For example, Arc’s energy bill shot up from 19 million Euros to around 75 million Euros even as consumers stopped buying items like candleholders and washing machines (Arc makes windows for them).

Consumers are wary about their future financial situation and are putting off plans to purchase non-essential items even as companies are struggling with energy costs. And while one may argue that glass tableware isn’t that important, it must not be forgotten that failure of companies like Arc can lead to catastrophic impact on the communities. A lot of other local businesses depend on large organizations and their collapse can result in several job losses.

While industries are struggling, even the scientific community is suffering due to this energy war in Europe.

IT4Innovations is running its supercomputer Karolina at a third of its capacity leading to delays in research items.ELI Beamlines, a Czech facility for hosting high-power laser beams, had to shut down operations for few weeks. Rising prices may lead to even more shut downs in the coming months.The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) has seen its energy costs tripling from 2021 levels. With the institute consuming energy equal to almost 800 households, it stares at the looming prospect of shutdown in case of the government declaring an emergency situation.DESY, Germany’s largest accelerator centre, is facing a massive energy crunch.Even CERN is worried about energy supply. It uses 1.3 terawatt-hours of energy annually and may have to shut down smaller accelerators if energy prices soar further.

To make matters worse, winter months are quite close. Much of Europe uses natural gas to power electric generators and heat the buildings. A cold winter again this year can cause a turn-off-the-lights situation in Europe and lead to a catastrophic situation. With widespread inflation, families are staring at a cold winter with lack of food and other supplies.

Already, signs of the crisis are showing up in day-to-day matters. Lights illuminating many monuments in Berlin are going dark. Officials in the Netherlands have urged residents to take shorter showers. The Spanish prime minister has suggested ditching ties to cope with the summer heat even as new limits on air conditioning in Spain are going into effect this week.

To top it all up, there are no signs of the Russia-Ukraine conflict winding down any time soon. Both sides are doubling down on their objectives with no hope for a compromise or breakthrough. With Vladimir Putin escalating the war by announcing a partial mobilization of its armed forces, things are only going to get worse before they can get better.

What the European Governments are Doing?

Most of the European governments are in action mode, trying to manage the energy crisis.

The largest European economy, Germany has nationalized the gas importer Uniper by acquiring 98.5% stake in the company. After acquiring losses of almost $8 billion dollars, Uniper was on the verge of collapsing. However, the government has stepped in to rescue the critical energy supplier. Moreover, Germany has succeeded in filling its gas storage facilities to over 90% capacity ahead of winter.

On similar lines, France has allocated 9.7 billion euros to take full control of energy utility company EDF. Britain would make a 50% reduction in energy bills for businesses and spend tens of billions of pounds to provide energy security to households

Of course, these measures are all based on somehow trying to subsidise the energy costs. But the issue in Europe currently is not about prices but about the actual underlying supply of oil and gas. Prices are simply a symptom and the problem will continue until the supply becomes stable. Therefore, it might be more effective to curtail demand in a controlled manner. This will cool off the prices until the European leaders are able to find alternative sources of fulfilling their natural gas needs.

Over the long term, other measures need to be taken.

There should be more storage infrastructure in countries such as Germany and Netherlands in order to store larger amounts of natural gas.Global supply has to be sorted out. If not Russia, the natural gas should be sourced from other suppliers.

In the short term, many of these steps may not show immediate results. But it is important for the governments to enact policies that can create the ideal scenario for the future.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that despite the unexpected war in Ukraine, there were several signs of the impending energy crisis in Europe and the politicians were caught napping. While it might be tempting to put the blame squarely on the war, it might not help in solving the real reasons for the energy crisis in the long term.

However, this can also be a great opportunity for the European nations to come together and invest in their own energy security. They already made the mistake of putting all their eggs in the same basket.

Clean energy innovations can pick up speed in these desperate times for future energy needs. But it should not blind the governments towards fulfilling the immediate needs of the people. A proper replacement plan should be made with clear-cut milestones backed by pragmatic targets rather than rosy fantasies for a green world.

The post The Unfolding European Energy Crisis as Winter Creeps Closer first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

Why did Europe dominate the world?

In the beginning of the 16th century, no one would have bet their money on the possibility that Europe would dominate the world a couple of centuries later.

There were far more serious contenders in the game.

In the year 1420 AD, the Ming dynasty of China was recorded as possessing 1350 combat vessels. This included 400 large floating fortresses and 250 ships designed for long-range cruising. Ming China was definitely a heavy-weight when it came to powerful empires.

The Ottoman Turks were arguably even stronger and an even greater threat to Europe at about the same time. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 AD, the Ottoman Turks continued to eat into European territories. By the early years of the 16th century, they held Bulgaria and Serbia and by 1526, they had overrun Hungary—the last eastern bastion of Christendom.

The Tokugawa Japan and the Russian Empire were other formidable powers of the time.

And yet, a couple of hundred years later, it was Europe that emerged on top.

Why did Europe dominate the world?

How did Europe become so powerful in the middle ages that it was able to exert power across the globe?

The usual answer points to Europe’s greater development during this period.

But, why did Europe develop faster than the rest of the world during this period when there were other equally capable empires?

Political Diversity of Europe

At the beginning of the 16th century, a dynamic was at play in Europe. This dynamic was fuelled by economic and technological advances.

If you open Europe’s map for the time, you will notice the political fragmentation straight away.

Political Situation in 16th century Europe

The interesting part about Europe was its constant political diversity. This was unlike China where smaller periods of political fragmentation were followed by longer periods of gigantic empires.

In Europe, the situation was reverse. Attempts were made to bring the entire continent under one rule. But, the results of these attempts were short-lived

The mighty Romans tried to establish hegemony over the entire European continent, but could go no further than Rhine and Danube rivers.

The first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne consolidated a vast amount of power in the Western part of Europe during the 8th century, but not for long.

The Russian Empire gained control over vast lands in the East, only to lose them over time.

Each of these periods of consolidated rule could not change the overall reality of Europe. The basic political power units in Europe continued to be fragmented and localized.

But what was the reason for Europe’s political diversity?

The Causes of Europe’s Political Diversity

Arguably, one of the main causes of Europe’s political diversity is its geography.

In Europe, there are no enormous plains or broad fertile zones like those made by rivers such as Ganges, Nile, Tigris or Yangtze where masses of peasants and farmers reside in close proximity. These type of population centres are easy to conquer using an empire of horsemen, riding across the plains with nothing to stop them geographically.

Instead, Europe’s landscape is fractured with multiple mountain ranges and dense forests separating the scattered population into different areas.

In such a situation, it was not easy to establish and maintain unified control. It was hardly possible for a warlord like Genghis Khan to swiftly overrun the entire continent using his Mongol hordes.

In Europe, power was distributed at various levels. There were local kingdoms, highland clans and lowland town confederations and all of them were able to exercise some level of autonomy on their own affairs.

To top it all, Europe being surrounded by sea on three of its sides gave rise to the shipbuilding industry. In fact, by the later Middle Ages, a flourishing maritime commerce was being carried out between the Baltic, the North Sea, Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. This led to the creation of several centres of wealth rather than keeping things concentrated in a single place.

After the fall of Rome, a political map of Europe looked more like a kaleidoscope. The patterns might vary from century to century, but no single colour was able to denote a unified empire.

The Development of Market Economy in Europe

The political diversity led to the development of market economy in Europe.

The climatic variations in different areas of Europe led to differentiated products that were suitable for exchange. Since each area had its own set of products and were dependent on other areas for other products, it led to the development of market relations. River transport grew by leaps and bounds as they were the fastest means of transferring goods from one region to another.

The most important feature of this commerce was that the products being shipped were bulk products meant for the masses – timber, grain, wine, wool and so on. Such products were meant to serve the rising population of Europe in the 15th century. This was unlike commerce in other larger empires such as the Ming China where mostly luxury goods were traded.

The flourishing commerce led to the development of new centres of wealth. It led to the creation of a credit system and banking on an international scale. Existence of financial tools such as mercantile credit and bills of insurance pointed to a basic predictability of economic conditions.

Since much of this trade was carried out through the rough waters of North Sea and Bay of Biscay, shipwrights were forced to build stronger, larger and sturdier ships. This was a huge impetus to the growth of the naval industry in Europe.

Moreover, all of these trade related activities were happening in a de-centralized and unsupervised manner. This had deep political and social consequences for the continent.

For starters, economic developments were not dependent on the state. A single state could not completely suppress trading. There was simply no uniform authority powerful enough to kill the market economy. Unlike what happened in the Ming dynasty or the Tokugawa Japan, changes in the priority of the central government could not derail the growth of commerce and entrepreneurship. Secondly, there was no systematic and universal plundering of businessmen by tax-gatherers at the whims of the central government.

In fact, bankers, arms dealers and artisans were no longer a peripheral part of the society. They became essential members of the society.

Ultimately, all the kingdoms and states were tied to each other by the ever-growing threads of this exploding market economy. This resulted in a symbiotic relationship between most regimes of Europe. Though these regimes were rivals, they were also dependent on each other for their survival and growth.

Was Political Diversity enough?

This is an important question. Despite all the benefits of the market economy, was it really enough to sustain the political diversity in Europe?

Some ambitious ruler could have still managed to get a pivotal breakthrough in firearms technology and crushed all the opponents to establish a central rule over Europe. Considering the quickening pace of economic and technical development, this wasn’t an impossible thing. The period saw the rise of gunpowder empires in other parts of the world such as the Muscovy, Japan and India. In fact, Europe also came close to being dominated by the Habsburg dynasty.

But despite all such possibilities, the political diversity in Europe survived and increased over time. Due to competition and rivalry between the various states, a primitive arms race started in Europe.

Each of the rival powers was able to gain access to new military techniques and weapons. The services of elite units such as the Swiss mercenaries were available to all who could pay for them. There was no single production centre for newer weapons such as crossbows or cannons. Proliferation of shipbuilding skills happened in various ports ranging from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Therefore, no single power was able to create a decisive edge that allowed them to dominate the entire continent.

The same arms race also helped Europe get ahead of its peers elsewhere.

While cannons were used by Ottomans as early as 1453 AD to destroy the walls of Constantinople, but only in Europe there were steady improvements in their design over the years. The Europeans started producing smaller but equally powerful cannon rounds using bronze and tin alloys. There was improvement in the shape and texture of the barrel.

The development of the long range sailing ship heralded a fundamental advance in Europe’s place in the world. With these vessels, the naval powers of Europe were in a position to control the oceanic trade routes and to dominate all societies vulnerable to sea-power.

While Europe progressed in terms of economic and military might, the other strong powers did not see any reason for improving their own weapons. Most of the empires had already crushed any dissidents in their own territories and established total dominance. In fact, by the time Europe was trying to spread outwards to get an advantage over their rivals, most of the other empires were turning inwards to stop the rise of challenge to established authorities and practices.

The Positive Feedback Loop

Ultimately, the main cause of Europe’s dominance had less to do with increase in its own advantages, but a reduction in hindrances to growth.

The captains, crews and explorers from Europe came from a culture of competition, risk and general entrepreneurship. The benefits from the expansion of Europe were widespread and permanent, leading to a positive feedback loop.

While precious items such as gold, silver, spices were considered important, it did not obscure the worth of less glamorous items that were flooding the ports of Europe. Access to Newfoundland fisheries gave access to an inexhaustible supply of food. To top it up, these fisheries employed a large number of people, both for catching and distribution, and provided further impetus to the market economy. It also boosted the shipbuilding industry and massive ports sprang up in London, Bristol, Antwerp and Amsterdam.

The supply of sugar, indigo, tobacco, rice, furs, timber, potato and maize increased the wealth of the continent. The increased economic activity gave a tremendous rice to craftsmen, suppliers, dealers and insurers. Ultimately, the entire population of Europe started acquiring a material interest in overseas trade and also, benefitting from its progress.

While Europe’s progress was a result of several contributing factors, it could be argued that each factor was equally important. Economic progress, political and military pluralism and intellectual liberty worked in constant interaction to create a miracle in Europe.

Since all of these factors were tied together so closely, there was no chance to reverse the wheels of progress. In fact, all of this became the status quo of Europe and ensured that Europe dominated the world in the upcoming centuries.

The post Why did Europe dominate the world? first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

The Psychology of Money Chapter 1 Analysis – No One’s Crazy

The first chapter of the Psychology of Money delves into a controversial aspect about money.

Why do most people make crazy decisions about money?

This is something we can all relate to. Often we see people taking absurd decisions about money that are hard for us to understand. We often think that the person taking those decisions has gone mad.

In this chapter, Housel argues otherwise. According to him, no one is crazy.

If you have directly come to this page and want to get a complete picture of this book, you can also refer to our analysis of the introduction section.

Experiences Matter

Every person on this planet has a unique experience about the world.

All of us have a very specific set of views about how money actually works. And guess what, these views vary wildly from person to person. What seems crazy to you might make perfect sense to me.

Personal experience with money makes up maybe .00000001% of what’s actually happened in the world, but it makes up 80% of how we think the world works.

From Chapter 1 of the Psychology of Money

Basically, this implies that our own personal experiences matter more to us than what might be actually happening in the world.

Different lives have been shaped by different, but equally persuasive experiences.

A person growing in poverty vs a person growing in periods of high inflation would have very different world views.

By the end of the second world war, the German and Japanese stock market was wiped out due to incessant bombing. On the other hand, the stock market in USA grew 10 fold during the same time period. There is no way a person living in Germany or Japan during that time period will have the same views as a person residing in the USA. Both would have had totally different experiences and hence, totally different view of money and how the world works.

Moreover, the gulf of separation between these experiences does not get completely filled even with extensive education. Equally smart people can disagree about how and why certain things with regards to money works. They might have totally different views about why and how a recession actually happens.

A similar situation arose during the 1960 Presidential election of USA. In one of the interviews, John Kennedy candidly admitted his ignorance about the Great Depression of 1930s. This created a negative impact on his candidacy as people wondered how could a man lead the nation if he was unaware of the acute hardships people had faced just a generation earlier.

Though it wasn’t like Kennedy could not understand the causes of the Great Depression if he wanted. However, no amount of study or open-mindedness can possible recreate the power of real fear and uncertainty. Some lessons have to be experienced before a person can actually understand them.

Ultimately, however, Kennedy did prevail and became the President, partly because of his real-life experiences with the other most important topic of the time – the second World War. The world was in the grips of a Cold War and people thought his experience could lead USA out of danger.

In my view, the whole argument about the role of personal experiences is extremely relevant. Despite living in the age of information, we often make decisions out of pure emotion or gut feeling.

We also see differences in world view reflected in our conversation with parents. Since they have seen the world differently than we do, their decisions are bound to be vastly different.

Ultimately, human beings are creatures of emotion. None of us are like Spock from Star Trek, who can think purely in terms of facts.

How people invest their money?

Theoretically, people should make investment decisions based on their goals.

Isn’t that logical?

However, that is rarely the case.

More often than not, people invest based on life experiences gained during their early adult life.

If you grew up during periods when inflation was high, you are less likely to invest in bonds because your money will get eroded very fast. On the other hand, if you grew up when the stock market was doing a bull run, you are more likely to invest more into stocks.

The above observation totally goes against the wisdom of investing according to the market cycle.

Bearing risks depends a lot on personal history and the era when you were born rather than actual facts about the market situation. However, to buttress our thought process, we also justify our decisions by combining available information with our own mental model. In other words, we make sure to check all the boxes that matter.

Once we justify our reasons, we make decisions according to our justification. No matter how crazy our decisions may sound to another person!

As per a study with surprising conclusions, it was found that the biggest buyers of lottery tickets were incidentally people from the lowest-income households.

While prudence would dictate that people, who have no surplus money should stay away from lottery tickets, it was hardly a deterrence for the people. In fact, in their minds, they are justified.

Basically, buying a lottery ticket is the only time in their lives where they can hold a tangible dream of getting the good stuff. In essence, they are paying for the dream even though it might sound crazy to the people already living the dream.

I totally agree with Housel’s thoughts in this particular section. The point about investing styles (stocks or bonds) is definitely applicable to what you have seen growing up. The older generations, who have grown up during low inflation still believe in fixed deposits or bonds. And it’s not easy to change their views about it because it aligns with their experience and mental model.

Conclusion

In my view, the first chapter picks up the game from the Introduction section. The points made by Housel are definitely valid and if you observe, you can notice them all around you and even in your own subconscious behaviour.

What would I be interested in future chapters?

Personally, it would be interesting to see if it is even possible to escape the trap of only relying on your own experience. How can you embrace the wealth of information available today to make the right investment decisions?

Housel did allure in the closing part of the chapter that we’re all still newbies to the game of managing money and finances. And therefore, we’re still learning. So maybe, there are some lessons ahead that came help us.

The post The Psychology of Money Chapter 1 Analysis – No One’s Crazy first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

The Psychology of Money Analysis – Introduction

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel has been a groundbreaking book about money and has inspired many people to do better with money. In a traditional sense, this book isn’t about tricks to earn money, but about doing well with money.

In this post, I attempt to dissect and analyze the concepts Housel explains in the introduction chapter of the book.

Behaviour Matters

Success with money has got a lot to do with one’s behaviour.

This is one of central tenets of the Psychology of Money and this is one of the first concepts introduced in the book.

Housel gives the example of Ronald James Read, who amassed a wealth of $8 million dollars by the time he died in 2014. According to estimates, 2.8 million people died that year out of which only 4000 were millionaires. Ronald Read was one of the millionaires despite having worked as a janitor for most of his professional life.

This was in stark contrast to the example of Richard Fuscone, a Harvard-educated investment banker, who lost most of his wealth at a very young age by taking some wild and unnecessary risks.

Basically, the intention of these two varied stories is to demonstrate that typical smartness does not guarantee how well a person will do with money. This goes against our basic understanding of the way education works. In fact, finance is the only field where it is possible that a janitor ends up having more wealth than an ivy-league educated finance professional.

What is the reason for this paradox?

According to Housel, one reason is that financial outcomes are driven by luck, independent of intelligence and effort on the part of the individual. Second, financial success is not a hard-science. For all purposes, it is a soft-skill where behaviour is more important. In other words, what happens in your head determines what happens to your money.

In my view, the point about the role of behaviour in achieving success with money is spot on. However, I do not agree with the examples as much I would like to.

Definitely, Ronald Read may have managed to amass the wealth through frugal investing and keeping a conservative behaviour, it does not always work. More often than not, these cases are also a by-product of knowing less. If you read more about Ronald Read, you’ll find out that he owned almost 95 stocks. It’s not exactly a case of good behaviour as much as the result of leading a frugal life and investing everything he could in all the companies that he possibly can.

The Lens of Psychology, Greed and History

Moving on, Housel points that the two most important things in life are money and health.

Over the years, with study and advancement, the health-care services have progressed a lot. In general, it has managed to make people more healthy. However, the same cannot be said about money despite a similarly amazing progress made by the finance industry.

Probably, the sharpest brains are employed in the financial sector. However, it has caused little impact in making people better at handling money.

A glaring example of this anomaly was witnessed during the 2008 financial crisis. Despite the availability of so much information, even experienced economists found it tough to explain the reasons for the crisis. On the contrary, so many opinions and theories emerged that it ultimately made things even more complicated to understand.

Here, Housel make the second big point of the chapter.

According to him, a better way to look at the financial crisis may have been using the lens of psychology, greed and history.

The famous French writer Voltaire had said : History does not repeat itself. Man always does.

To understand why people get buried in debt, we need to understand the history of human greed, needless insecurity and unfounded optimism. All of these are rather abstract topics and cannot be quantified mathematically.

However, that is precisely the problem. We are typically taught about money too much like physics or maths (rule-based) rather than psychology-based (emotions). Ultimately, this approach fails. This is because physics is guided by rigid laws, but finance is guided by behaviour.

Again, I would say Housel makes some very valid points, especially the one about the improvement in health-care services and not the same improvement in financial knowledge. The points hold well on a superficial level.

However, if you think deeply, people have their doubts on the improvement in health-care services. In general, we are better off than 100 years ago but the recent Covid-crisis has also exposed huge gaps in the health-care situation of the world.

Nevertheless, the idea about finance being a product of psychology and human greed or fear is extremely relevant. However, one might argue that there is a separation here. The concepts of economics is one thing and how people manage their money is another. The same could be said about health. Knowledge about nutrition is one thing, but how people manage their bodies is another.

My point is that many important things in life actually depend on the behaviour of people. Not just finance.

Conclusion

Just reading the introduction chapter of the Psychology of Money definitely builds my interest to read further. The book is a breezy read and Housel has tried to make the stories as interesting as possible.

However, some examples are not that deep or profound unless you are a novice in handling money. Of course, this is just the introduction and things may become more complex in the upcoming chapters.

Have you read the Psychology of Money? If yes, what are your thoughts about it?

If you haven’t read it and are planning to, what do you expect to get out of it?

Do write your views in the comments section below.

The post The Psychology of Money Analysis – Introduction first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

Did early humans caused the Australian Megafauna Extinction?

The land down-under has always been a fascinating place. It is fascinating today and was even more so several thousand years ago when the first human being stepped on the shores of Australia.

A world unlike any seen before had been revealed to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. The Australian Megafauna was both strange and dangerous. Creatures the like of which had never been seen before roamed the lands in all their majestic glory. It was a true lost world and a place where your worst fears could come true.

I would not be surprised to know that the first human beings would have been somewhat terrified of the place initially. However, as humans always do after the initial shock, they adapted to the new reality.

Australia was their new home now. And within a span of a few thousand years, most of the megafauna was extinct. Humans were the new masters of the land.

What caused the Australian Megafauna Extinction?

Was it because of our ancestors? Or were we just bystanders witnessing the wheel of time turn the original inhabitants of Australia into dust?

The Australian Megafauna

Before we get into the actuals of how the megafauna became extinct, let us have a sneak peek at what kind of animals were present on Australia.

One of the most common types of megafauna in Australia were the marsupials. The diprotodon was the largest marsupial that had ever walked this planet. Weighing more than 2700 kilograms, a diprotodon could grow to 3 metre long and almost 2 metre high at the shoulder.

Diprotodon

Built like a tank, a diprotodon would have sent our ancestors scurrying to get out of the way. Thankfully, diprotodons were herbivores, but getting crushed by one of them would not have been easy on the bones.

As if diprotodons were not enough, nature created another marsupial that could ignite fear in the hearts of prehistoric humans.

It was the Thylacoleo carnifex, also known as the marsupial lion. If humans would have been wary of the diprotodon, they would have been downright terrified of the marsupial lion.

A marsupial lion

While the marsupial lion was not as huge as the diprotodon, it was at least as big as lions or tigers. With a catlike skull, slicing teeth and claws, the marsupial lion was a voracious carnivore. To make matters worse, it was also a tree-dweller.

Our ancestors would have found it tough to rest under trees with this monster prowling around.

Even the birds in prehistoric Australia were anything like the cute chirpy creatures of our time. Dromornis stirtoni (also known as Stirtoni’s thunderbird) was a 500 kilogram flightless monster that could grow almost 10 feet in size. Though it was herbivore but did not shy away from changing its food habits if the situation demanded.

Stirtoni’s Thunderbird

In my view, all of these animals were still fine to some extent. But Australia did not stop just by churning out enormous marsupials and giant flightless birds. It also went ahead and gave rise to reptiles the like of which we have never seen, except in dinosaur-movies.

Varanus priscus (more commonly known as the Megalania) was a giant carnivorous lizard that could grow as long as 7 metre (around 23 feet) and weigh almost 2000 kilograms.

Megalania

Meeting this monster lizard in the wild would have been a blood-curdling prospect for our ancestors. And we thought komodo dragons are dangerous! Imagine the plight of our ancestors.

However, things don’t get better from here. If you somehow manage to avoid getting eaten by a megalania, you had to contend with the quinkana – a terrestrial crocodile.

Quinkana

Yes, you read that correctly. A terrestrial crocodile that grew to 7 metres in length. With its long legs positioned under its body, it chased down mammals, birds and other reptiles for food. Thankfully, all of its kind are extinct now and we only have to deal with crocodiles in the water. Mostly!

While there were many more members in the Australian megafauna, these were some of the most prominent ones. They were the true masters of the Australian continent. And yet, they all went extinct in a matter of few thousand years after the arrival of humans.

The Extinction of Australian Megafauna

The first humans probably reached Australia around 50,000 years ago. They brought with them hunting skills and more importantly, fire.

Researchers think that fire played a critical role in driving the megafauna towards extinction. The original Australians followed the practice of fire-stick farming. This was done to clear dense forests and create more spaces for hunting wild animals. Also, it facilitated a change in the composition of plants and animal species in a particular area.

Proponents of the fire-stick theory point out that the clearing of vegetation cause irreparable damage to the existing ecosystem. It ruptured the food chains of the megafauna, paving the way for their eventual extinction.

Apart from fire, over-killing is also considered a crucial factor in the eventual extinction. A lot of the Australian megafauna had a slow reproduction rate. Even if humans bands killed a few members of a particular species such as diprotodon, it was pushed on the downhill path of extinction. This is also discussed in the groundbreaking book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

.stk-8d79640{margin-bottom:0px !important}.stk-8d79640-container{box-shadow:0 5px 30px -10px rgba(18,63,82,0.3) !important}.stk-9cbdf58{margin-bottom:0px !important}Sapiens Chapter 4 Summary – The Flood

What happened when the first human beings reached the shores of Australia? Find out how humans wiped out numerous species from the face of Earth

Are Humans the Only Reason?

While the human angle to the Australia megafauna extinction is a widely accepted theory, there are also several researchers, who think there is more to the overall story.

Records from the Australian Pleistocene era are relatively rare and there is not enough data to efficiently determine the time of extinction of many species. Many species have no confirmed records for the last 100,000 years. As such, it is not correct to attribute their extinction directly to humans. For all we know, they could have been extinct much before humans actually arrived in Australia.

There have also been evidence of Australian megafauna coinciding with humans for several years after their arrival. Some academicians argue that only a few species of megafauna were present by the time humans arrived.

These remaining species got extinct over the years, but it was argued that the overall trend of extinction had been ongoing for other climate-related reasons for several thousand years.

Naturally, the mystery of the extinction of Australian megafauna is not easy to solve. During most of the research, the balance has shifted from one end to another. Either humans are solely responsible or they are completely innocent.

Over the years, the perspectives have started to shift towards a more probable middle-ground. While there is no doubt that serious climatic changes had been happening after the end of the last ice-age and this would have created imbalances in the Australian ecosystem, humans probably acted as a catalyst to hasten the change.

Some species would have faced extinction even before humans arrived while some of them were wiped out by the actions of hunter-gatherers. However, some species have also survived till the modern era and are still present with us. Saltwater crocodiles, ostriches and emus are examples of the megafauna that survived.

Considering the various points, it might be futile to search for a primary cause of the megafauna extinction. It might be time to consider a more nuanced approach and look at the various factors that may have contributed to the extinction. This might allow the research to come to better conclusions in the future.

The post Did early humans caused the Australian Megafauna Extinction? first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

Early Human Hunting Strategies (How our ancestors hunted?)

The progress of mankind has been intricately linked to the progress of its weapons.

Though other animals such as chimpanzees have been known to use rudimentary forms of tools for hunting, their weapons are nowhere near as sophisticated as ours.

Our weapons allowed us to bypass the ladder of evolution and reach the top of the food chain in a matter of a few thousand years. Any other apex predator such as lions or sharks have gone through millions of years of evolution to reach the pinnacle.

We did not evolve. Instead, our weapons evolved.

However, in the beginning, the human weapons were pretty ordinary. But the hunting strategies of our hunter-gatherer ancestors were probably remarkable and helped turned the tide in our favour.

A weapon may be dangerous in itself but if you club if with the correct strategy, it can become devastating.

What were the hunting strategies of early humans?

How did our ancestors use them to establish their dominance on all other animals?

Let us look back in time to answer these questions.

.stk-7b75fae{margin-bottom:0px !important}.stk-7b75fae-container{box-shadow:0 5px 30px -10px rgba(18,63,82,0.3) !important}.stk-9cbdf58{margin-bottom:0px !important}Sapiens Chapter 1 Summary – An Animal of No Significance

Humans were an animal of no significance. Learn how they became the most dominant species on the face of the planet.

The Weapons Technology of Our Ancestors

As expected, the weapon technology of our ancestors was quite primitive.

It was composed of mainly stone-based weapons. Also, there is evidence of the use of bones and wood. Basically, all of these things were naturally available and were easy enough to shape into weapons.

The earliest signs of weapons come in the form of sharpened pieces of stone. These could be used for cutting through flesh or inflicting wounds.

Over the years, the hunter-gatherers developed sharpened wooden staves. They were probably the earliest spears. Bone points also make an early appearance in the early history of weapons.

The addition of a bone point to a wooden spear increased its penetration and cutting ability. In other words, its killing power.

Spears

For a long millennia, the weapon types were restricted to spears made of stone, wood or bones. However, near the end of the Middle Paleolithic era, the first signs of projectile weapons appear. By the time of the Upper Paleolithic era, our ancestors were using long-distance projectile weaponry in the form of spear-thrower (or atlatl) and darts.

This was the dawn of long range weaponry. And it was a game-changing transformation. Suddenly, humans possessed the ability to kill at a distance while also staying at a relatively safe distance.

With the advent of long range weapons, humans had multiple options for subsistence strategies. They could even mix and match hunting strategies and also, hunt several different types of animals.

The Hunting Strategies or Techniques of Stone Age

Having a weapon is one thing. But using that weapon appropriately is another matter. Together, a weapon and its method of employment is known as the weapon system.

For example, thrusting spears is a weapon system where spear is a weapon whereas thrusting is the way to use it. Similarly, you could have hand-thrown spears where spear is the weapon while throwing by hand is how you use it.

The hunting strategies or techniques of the stone age revolved around the various weapon systems that humans had developed. While there could be several strategies, we can group them into some broad groupings.

Disadvantaging the prey – This strategy includes any technique that involves trapping the animal in a disadvantageous position. The hunters would force the animal into a handicapped position such as water, deep snow or muddy ground. After humans had domesticated dogs, they would often use a pack of dogs to push the animal into a defensive posture. Also, attacking an animal during hibernation comes under this category.Ambush – As the name suggests, this strategy requires the hunters to wait in hiding behind some natural feature such as a tree or a group of bushes. The animal would be attacked when it passes within the effective range of their weapons. For this strategy to work reliably, driving the prey to the target destination might also be required.Approach – This is what the big cats do even today. Basically, in this strategy, the hunter would stalk the prey till the point the prey is within the range of the weapon. This strategy requires one to walk as soft as fox to avoid triggering the prey from making a dash for its life.Pursuit – This is probably the toughest strategy, considering humans are not that fast or agile. Basically, the idea was to chase the animal till the point it does not come within the range of a weapon system. Horses solved this problem to a large degree as humans were able to ride a horse to close the distance to the prey. Otherwise, dogs would be used to keep the prey moving till the point it drops dead from exhaustion.Encounter – This is basically like firing from the hilt. Our ancestors would be walking through a jungle and suddenly come face to face with a prey. If they were able to react fast enough, they would simply take down the animal with a single hit. If not, the animal escapes and our ancestors would let it go. No hard feelings until the next time!Correlation between Weapon and Strategies for Hunting

By now, you must have already chosen your favourite strategy to hunt. But don’t go into the woods just yet.

As you must have noticed, each hunting strategy is different and suits a particular situation. Naturally, a different situation begs for a different weapon system.

Which weapon fits which particular strategy?

As we saw in the previous section, broadly our human ancestors had three different weapon systems – hand-delivered spears, atlatl darts and finally, bow and arrow.

Spears

As per several studies, thrusting spears dominated terrestrial hunting for a long time. Hand-thrown spears were used but rarely.

Spears were basically ideal weapons for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Animals of any size or shape could be dispatched using a spear. With a spear, the only thing the hunter needed was time and close access to deliver repeated stabs. This made spears an ideal choice for the disadvantaging strategy.

The ideal scenario would involve driving the prey into a bad spot and then a group of hunters would surround and stab it with thrusting spears till it sinks into its own puddle of blood. Even large game such as elephants and hippos could easily succumb to this deadly combination of thrusting spear and disadvantaging strategy.

Naturally, spears were not good for the pursuit hunting strategy and less-than-ideal for the ambush strategy unless the ambush location involved suitable terrain.

Atlatl Darts

Atlatl-propelled darts are quite different from spears. While spears were short-range weapon systems, an atlatl-propelled dart is a truly long-range projectile. As per estimate, its effective range could be as high as 39 metres.

A modern-day atlatl

This feature made atlatl-propelled darts ideal for approach and ambush hunting strategies. Interestingly, our ancestors used these darts to also hunt underwater animals.

Bow and Arrow

Bow and arrow is arguably the most versatile weapon system our ancestors used. And rightly so.

The bow and arrow could be effectively used with any hunting strategy. Unlike other weapons systems where the type of weapon determined the type and size of prey, bow and arrow shifted the choice to the hunter.

Hunter-gatherers with bow and arrow

With strategies such as disadvantaging, approach and pursuit hunting, the bow and arrow would be used in a surgical manner.

The idea was to make a clean shot directed towards the thoracic cavity with the aim of striking a vital organ. This made the bow and arrow a deadly weapon even when large game was involved. However, while using bow and arrow, the target area becomes quite small, resulting in a shorter effective distance when compared to atlatl darts.

On the other hand, bow and arrow also fitted the encounter hunting strategy. Primarily directed at smaller prey, a single arrow hit can effectively bring down a mid-sized or small animal.

Conclusion

When our ancestors first started wielding weapons, their use was quite limited. Several factors such as the terrain, prey size and the weapon potency had to be considered before deciding to hunt. The risk associated with hunting was also far higher.

As humans developed newer weapon systems, their hunting capabilities improved. Multiple weapon systems opened the doors to using different strategies based on different situations.

With the advent of bow and arrow, the restriction of strategy was also eventually removed. A skilled archer could use any strategy depending on the situation. Moreover, increased range reduced the risk factor associated with hunting.

The post Early Human Hunting Strategies (How our ancestors hunted?) first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

Sapiens Chapter 4 Summary – The Flood

Chapter 4 of Sapiens follows the story of Homo sapiens directly from where we left off in Chapter 3.

.stk-67693a2{margin-bottom:0px !important}.stk-67693a2-container{box-shadow:0 5px 30px -10px rgba(18,63,82,0.3) !important}.stk-9cbdf58{margin-bottom:0px !important}Sapiens Chapter 3 Summary – The Flood

Who were our ancestors? What did they really feel? How did they live? The answer to these questions shape our identity even today. Find the truth…

In this chapter called The Flood, Harari paints a remarkable picture of human exploration in the prehistoric times. It gives an account of the ingenuity and will power of our ancestors. But, at the same time, he also compares the spread of humans to a flood. A flood of death and destruction for entire ecosystems that were not prepared for our arrival.

Prior to the Cognitive Revolution, humans of all species lived exclusively on the Afro-Asian landmass. Few islands near the shores may have been settled as early as 850,000 years ago, but humans did not had the resources to venture into open sea. As a result, there were no humans in America, Australia or other remote islands such as Madagascar and New Zealand.

Organisms of distant lands such as Australia or Madagascar evolved in isolation for millions upon millions of years. The plants and animals found there had very different shapes and nature when compared to their Afro-Asian counterparts. The sea-barrier was a great wall separating the multiple ecosystems from each other.

However, all of this was about to change soon.

The Invasion of Australia

After the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens acquired the technology and more importantly, the vision to break out of Afro-Asia and spread to the so-called Outer World.

As per estimates, some 45,000 years ago, humans succeeded in colonization of Australia. Though experts are hard-pressed to explain this remarkable achievement, reasonable theories suggests that the Sapiens residing in the Indonesian archipelago developed the first sea-faring societies.

This was an unprecedented transformation.

Every other mammal that went to sea before us had to evolve for ages to adapt to survive underwater. The Sapiens in Indonesia became sea-farers without going through any of that evolution process. They simply built boats and learned how to use them.

According to Harari, this was an event almost as important as the voyage of Columbus or the Apollo 11 expedition to the moon. It was the first time any large mammal species had crossed from Afro-Asia into Australia.

However, this was just the beginning.

Even more important is what the human pioneers did in the newly discovered continent. The moment the first hunter-gatherer set foot in Australia was the moment that Homo sapiens climbed to the top of the food chain and became the deadliest species in the history of the planet.

Australia was a strange universe full of strange creatures that included a 200-kilogram kangaroo, a marsupial lion as big as a modern-day tiger and flightless birds twice the size of ostriches. The giant diprotodon weighing around 2-2.5 tons roamed the forests and dragon like lizards walked in the undergrowth.

The Prehistoric Australian Ecosystem

Within a few thousand years, all of these giants vanished from the face of the Earth.

Food chains throughout the entire ecosystem of Australia ruptured and rearranged around the new apex predator. It was the most important transformation of the Australian ecosystem for millions of years. And it happened because of Homo sapiens.

Are Homo sapiens Innocent?

Some scholars have attempted to exonerate our species of the crime by placing the blame on the vagaries of climate change.

However, there are several important pieces of evidence that make the climate change theory weaker.

Firstly, Australia’s climate did change 45,000 years ago but it wasn’t a major upheaval. The resulting weather patterns were not strong enough to cause such a massive extinction of flourishing species.Secondly, when climate change causes mass extinctions, sea creatures are also equally impacted. However, there is no evidence of oceanic fauna disappearing 45,000 years ago. Homo sapiens were a terrestrial menace at the time and did not had the capability to impact ocean life in such a drastic manner.Thirdly, mass extinctions similar to Australia have occurred again and again in the ensuing millennia whenever people settled a new part of the Outer World. For example, the megafauna of New Zealand survived the so-called climate change 45,000 years ago, but suffered devastating blows as soon as the first humans stepped on the island. A similar fate befell the mammoth population of Wrangel Island in the Arctic ocean.

In short, whenever there was a mass extinction, humans were involved. Judging by our horrendous track record, Homo sapiens can be labelled as ecological serial killers.

Harari goes on to explain how ancient humans were able to cause such massive ecological disasters even with stone-age technology.

First reason was the slow breeding of large Australian animals such as diprotodons. Even if humans started killing one diprotodon every few months, it would be enough to cause deaths to outnumber births and eventual extinction of the species.

A Diprotodon found in Australia 45,000 years ago

In fact, it would have been relatively easy for humans to hunt the giant Australian animals. In Afro-Asia, other animals had learned to stay away from humans. However, the Australian animals had no time to learn to run away from humans. Technically, humans don’t look particularly dangerous in appearance. The fear of humans simply did not evolve fast enough in the Australian animals and before they could understand how dangerous we really were, they were wiped out.

Second reason was fire agriculture that Sapiens had already mastered. Faced with an alien and threatening environment, the Sapiens would have burned vast areas of thickets and forests to create open grasslands. This completely changed the ecology of large parts of Australia in a very short amount of time.

The fire theory is proven by the abundance of Eucalyptus trees in Australia since they re-generate particularly well after fire. This sudden change in ecology destroyed the existing food chains and pushed more animals towards extinction.

The Footprints of Sapiens

Wherever the Sapiens went, mass extinctions followed.

The same thing happened when humans reached Americas. North America lost 34 out of its 47 genera of large mammals and South America lost 50 out of 60 after the arrivals of humans.

The wave of extinctions also began in the Pacific Ocean when Polynesian farmers settled the Solomon islands in about 1500 BC. They killed, directly or indirectly, hundreds of bird species, insects, snails and other local inhabitants.

Not for nothing are humans known as the deadliest species on the planet.

Harari finally concludes the chapter by hoping that we might learn from our mistakes and alter our behaviour so that more species such as whales, sharks and dolphins do not go extinct due to our industrial activities. Otherwise, humans would remain as the only large animals on the planet surviving the flood of humans.

The post Sapiens Chapter 4 Summary – The Flood first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.

The Significance of Homo floresiensis (Our Hobbit-Like Human Ancestor)

Despite the immense progress science has made, the evolution of human beings is still a topic full of surprises and mysteries. Humans evolved from being animals of no significance to becoming the unchallenged masters of the planet, something no other species had managed to do before us.

Our enigmatic past is a matter that inspires both unbridled curiosity and unexplained fear.

How did humans evolve to dominate the planet? Was there something special about us?

What secrets we may uncover when we go digging our past? Could it turn out that we were just a bunch of lucky apes and there was nothing special about us?

Though finding evidence of any new species of ancient humans is a matter of great importance, none created as much drama as the discovery of Homo floresiensis.

When was the Homo floresiensis Fossil Discovered?

On October 28, 2004, a startling announcement shocked the world.

The remains of a tiny little humanlike creature known as Homo floresiensis had been found in a cave called Liang Bua on the island of Flores in Indonesia.

Liang Bua Cave in Flores, Indonesia

This discovery was a joint Indonesian-Australian effort. The team consisted of Australian archaeologist Michael Morwood, his anthropological colleague Peter Brown and an Indonesian colleague Thomas Sutkina.

According to the jaw-dropping paper submitted by Morwood and his team, they announced the discovery of the tiny bones of a human-like creature that lived in the late Pleistocene period. This period is generally seen as the end of the ice-age.

Within the gigantic cave’s deep sediments, the team found a scattering of animal bones, primitive stone tools and an almost complete skeleton of what looked like a shrunken human. This skeleton was named Liang Bua 1 (or LB1).

Homo Floresiensis Skeleton

Since 2004 happened to be the age of the popular fantasy series the Lord of the Rings, LB1 became famous with the nickname Hobbit.

The one almost complete skull that was found was extremely small in size. It had housed a brain about the size of a chimpanzee’s. Peter Brown’s analysis suggested that these were the remains of a previously unknown human species.

Dating these specimens led to even more bizarre conclusions. These little people may have inhabited the island of Flores as recently as 18,000 years ago. This is long after the generally agreed timeline of modern humans remaining as the only dominant human species left to rule the planet. In other words, the little people turned out to be our contemporaries.

During their time, this tiny species would have contented with stegodons, ferocious rat-like animals and giant Komodo dragons that resided on the island of Flores. And all of this without having a brain as large as modern humans.

The discovery of Homo floresiensis challenged our very core ideas about human evolution.

The Controversy about Homo floresiensis

Needless to say, the explosive discovery led to a storm of controversy in the scientific community.

Within a matter of months after the publication, the bones of LB1 were taken away from the original discoverers by Teuku Jacob, who was a leading figure in the Indonesian Anthropological Science and had a lot of political influence.

Soon, a new study was published that completely refuted the claim by the original researchers. According to this new study, the LB1 does not belong to a new species, but is a diseased form of modern human available to be seen elsewhere on the island of Flores.

However, despite the seeming obviousness of the new study, the controversy surrounding Homo floresiensis did not die down. In fact, over the years, more research on the topic has revealed some surprising conclusions and answered some important questions.

Did Homo floresiensis Have Microcephaly?

During the initial years of the discovery, there were many deniers for the new-species theory.

The common theme of the deniers was that LB1 was an ordinary modern human, probably afflicted with microcephaly.

Microcephaly is a rare human condition in which the brain is underdeveloped. The cranial capacity of modern humans varies from 1200 to 1700 cubic centimetres. A microcephalic person’s brain is typically less than 700 cubic centimetres with a few cases even going below 400. Most of the people afflicted with this situation also have a small stature.

The cranial capacity of LB1 was found to be around 400 cubic centimetres and its stature was about 1 metre.

But did this indicate LB1 was simply a modern human suffering from microcephaly?

The ones backing this explanation have made some points to prove their theory:

The Rampasasa people, who tend to be short in height, live in Flores today, not too far from the Liang Bua cave.Some of the Rampasasa people also have receding chins.LB1 has a very asymmetrical skull as would be expected in a person with a pathological condition.Typically, in smaller species brains are relatively larger in proportion. If the Homo floresiensis was really a dwarf descendant of a larger human species, its brain size would be much bigger. Based on this, they concluded that LB1 was a microcephalic specimen.

However, with more findings, the theory that Homo floresiensis suffered from microcephaly has been refuted.

Firstly, the claimed asymmetry of the skull of LB1 turned out to be due to damage to the skull during post mortem.

Second, the Rampasasa people used as a model for explaining the LB1 are definitely short, but none has been found to be as short as LB1 was.

Also, further analysis revealed that the brain of LB1 was very much like a tiny, but normal human brain. This was quite different from the series of microcephalic brains studied by a team of scientists.

While these points were already significant, the last nail in the coffin of the pathological theory came about when more specimens were discovered from Liang Bua.

More parts of LB1 were discovered in 2005 along with the remains of seven other individuals. All of these specimens were also diminutive in size. In fact, they were found to be even smaller than LB1.

Some of the other specimens were found from the lower deposits, going back to levels dated between 74,000 and 95,000 years ago. It turned out that Homo floresiensis had inhabited the cave over a period of more than 60,000 years ago. It is hardly credible that during such a vast period of time, the remains of only 9 microcephalic people and no one else ended up in the Liang Bua cave.

Was Homo floresiensis an Example of Island Dwarfism?

Another theory about Homo floresiensis proposes that they are an example of Island Dwarfism (also known as insular dwarfism).

Insular dwarfism is the process and condition of large animalsevolving to a reduced body size when their population is restricted to a small environment such as an island.

Hominins were present on the East Indonesian island of Flores as early as 880,000 years. At this time, Homo erectus was thought to be the only hominin species in East Asia. Therefore, it was naturally assumed that Homo floresiensis was the result of insular dwarfing of an ancestral Homo erectus population.

However, over the years, a more logical alternative hypothesis has been suggested by Morwood. Based on detailed analysis of the skeletal remains of Homo floresiensis, it has been suggested that several morphological traits indicate that they may be descendants of a pre-erectus hominin species in Asia. These traits include the mandible morphology, limb proportions, wrist and foot morphology and also, the brain size.

If you don’t know, morphology is the study of the structure of plants and animals to derive conclusions.

The study suggests that Homo floresiensis separated from the mainstream hominin line before the evolution of Homo erectus in Africa. The ancestor of Homo floresiensis arrived on Flores with both a small body and a small brain. Even if this ancestor arrived on Flores around 900,000 years ago, there would be sufficient time for it to evolve its own unique traits, even if it were somewhat larger in size originally.

There is direct evidence that the island-based Stegodon reduced in size from the larger-bodied Stegodons during this period.

Homo floresiensis battling Stegodons and Komodo Dragons

Of course, the specific nature of the Homo floresiensis ancestor awaits future fossil discovery. Studies suggest that its closest affinities may lie with older African species such as the Homo habilis.

Impact of Homo floresiensis on human evolution

The discovery of Homo floresiensis has radically challenged our pre-conceived notions about the evolution of human species.

If Homo floresiensis is a surviving representative of early Homo, it questions the traditional Out of Africa 1 model for the first colonization of Eurasia by an early form of Homo erectus. If the affinities of Homo floresiensis are with pre-erectus hominins, the logical conclusion is that earlier and more primitive hominids had succeeded in leaving Africa much before than previously estimated.

The discovery of Homo floresiensis demonstrates that we are naive to believe we have discovered the full picture of human evolution. In fact, we may be on the threshold to a major transformation in our understanding of human evolution.

The post The Significance of Homo floresiensis (Our Hobbit-Like Human Ancestor) first appeared on Saurabh Dashora.