You could argue that with the benefit of hindsight, what they should have done is abandoned agriculture+war for ecuation+industialisation, since ordinary citizens of the present are wealthier than the aristocrats of the past.
Only if you consider absolute gains preferable to relative/”zero-sum” gains, which our evolved psychological makeup isn’t really prepared to do very well.
Social animals with a natural dominance hierarchy will often see “how well am I doing right now, compared to how well everyone else around me is doing right now?” as a more salient question than “how well am I doing right now, compared to how well I was doing before / how well I could be doing?”.
Only if you consider absolute gains preferable to relative/”zero-sum” gains, which our evolved psychological makeup isn’t really prepared to do very well.
Only if you consider absolute gains preferable to relative/”zero-sum” gains, which our evolved psychological makeup isn’t really prepared to do very well.
Social animals with a natural dominance hierarchy will often see “how well am I doing right now, compared to how well everyone else around me is doing right now?” as a more salient question than “how well am I doing right now, compared to how well I was doing before / how well I could be doing?”.
That’s what I meant.
nod I just felt it needed to be stated more explicitly.