Originally released July 2022. Best-selling historian Ian Morris takes on big-picture questions about how human values evolve in his book Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels.

Ian has spent his academic life studying long-term history, trying to explain the big systemic changes that play out over hundreds or thousands of years.

In Why the West Rules—For Now, he set out to understand why the Industrial Revolution happened in England and Europe went on to dominate much of the rest of the world, rather than industrialisation kicking off somewhere else like China, with China going on to establish colonies in Europe. (In a word: geography.)

In War! What is it Good For?, he tried to explain why it is that violent conflicts often lead to longer lives and higher incomes (i.e. wars build empires that suppress interpersonal violence internally), while other times they have the exact opposite effect (i.e. advances in military technology allow nomads to raid and pull apart these empires).

Host Rob Wiblin discusses all of Ian's major books to cover a huge range of topics in macrohistory.

Learn more and see the full transcript on the 80,000 Hours website: https://80000hours.org/podcast/episod...

Chapters:
• Rob’s intro (00:00:00)
• The interview begins (00:01:51)
• Geography is Destiny (00:02:59)
• Why the West Rules—For Now (00:11:25)
• War! What is it Good For? (00:27:40)
• Expectations for the future (00:39:43)
• Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels (00:53:15)
• Historical methodology (01:02:35)
• Falsifiable alternative theories (01:15:20)
• Archaeology (01:22:18)
• Energy extraction technology as a key driver of human values (01:37:04)
• Allowing people to debate about values (01:59:38)
• Can productive wars still occur? (02:12:49)
• Where is history contingent and where isn't it? (02:29:45)
• How Ian thinks about the future (03:12:54)
• Macrohistory myths (03:29:12)
• Ian’s favourite archaeology memory (03:32:40)
• The most unfair criticism Ian’s ever received (03:34:39)
• Rob’s outro (03:39:16)

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