Simon Kuper on how to Make the Transition to Intelligence and Wisdom

One of Saturday morning’s great pleasures, an hour or so before Spanish class, is to settle down in Costa with a coffee and a hard copy of the Financial Times. And one of the best writers in that journal is Simon Kuper. He’s clear, he’s brief, he deals in the currency of short sentences and defined concepts. He’s also a polymath, covering subjects as diverse as politics, urban planning and football(he’s even done a very workmanlike guide to the affairs of Barcelona FC . [1] In fact, he’s exactly the sort of writer we ought to showcase here, because he believes in our core LSS values of evidence, reason, and reserved judgement.

How appropriate therefore that his last column was called Seven Intellectual Habits of the best thinkers., for there can be no better short guide. [2] The problem is that access is behind a paywall. As LSS is such an important institution, and our readers so avid for wisdom, we rang the Editor of the Financial Times a to demand that this be lifted as a Special Case., and that he/she/ they might like to buy us lunch to discuss the matter further. The young person on the switchboard thanked us very much and promised they would call us back. So far they have not done so(that was three days ago) but doubtless there were other callers. So, while we are waiting, we thought that we could offer you a distilled reproduction of Simon’s thoughts:

1 Read Books ” Their complexity is a check on pure ideology” People who simplify the world are the ones who fall for conspiracy theories or the offers of charlatans.

2 Don’t use screens much Apparently, biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who invented CRISPR technology gets her best insights when she’s out weeding her tomato plants. Obviously you have to use screens a bit, or you couldn’t read this! But we get Simon’s drift: a little screen time is a lot.

3 Do your own work, not the world’s The same Doudna got a gig at Genentech, leading their research. She lasted two months before hightailing it back to Berkeley where the true intellectual freedom led her to the Nobel Prize. We agree: people who spend all their time on office politics actually accomplish very little that is either interesting or of value.

4 Be multidisciplinary Kuper cites the examples of Hayek, Godel, Van Neumann and others who all studied one thing, trained in another and did their best work in a third. Daniel Kahneman is cited as another multi-disciplinarian polymath of formidable intellectual power. Rather worryingly, our AI system has set his book as homework for us. Where’ are John and Sarah Connor when you really need them?

5 Be an empiricist who values ideas Kuper cites the case of Isaiah Berlin and his marvellous work the Hedgehog and the Fox , a masterpiece of political philosophy. Incidentally Winston Churchill got him mixed up with Irving Berlin and invited the wrong one to dinner.”My British Buddy” as Berlin himself would later remark in song.

6 Always assume you might be wrong Yep: in this country we are still trying to repair the effects of the blissful certainties of Brexit. You will doubtless have examples from your own lands

7 Keep learning from everyone “Only mediocrities boast as adults about where they went to University at 18.They imagine that intelligence is innate and static. In fact people become more or less intelligent through life depending on how hard they think. The best thinkers are always learning from others, no matter how young or low status” We quote Kuper rather fully here as the first part seems one of the most admirable and accurate summaries of the sorts of people one met on a daily basis during long decades in the Scientific Civil Service. Now there’s intelligence indeed.

[1]https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/barca-book-simon-kuper-9781780725543?sku=NGR9781780725543&msclkid=6c7699156a7f1cc4c9f2f1238

[2]https://www.ft.com/content/c42cb640-a03c-441b-868f-d1a92d78bcb7

#wisdom #intelligence #FC Barcelona #isaiah berlin #daniel kahneman #thinking #financial times #simon kuper

Is this a collapse of Civilisation?(they’ve happened before)

Do Civilisations collapse? Do elaborate trade networks fall apart? Giant cities turn into uninhabited ruins? Ancient systems of law, education and custom vanish entirely ? Leaving nothing but an illiterate dark age, racked by violence and disorder? Yes, they can. We’ve alluded once or twice here to the collapse of the Greco-Roman world (LSS 10 3 21; 17 12 22) Professor Harper makes a convincing case for climate change and disease pandemics as the causes of that one. We in western countries are haunted by the Fate of Rome; it was relatively close in time. But there have been others.

The Bronze Age collapse 1200 BCE is further back in time, and has left fewer records, That it occurred there is no doubt. [2] For several centuries a large network of trade had built up across regions which we now call the Near East and Europe. There were cities, elaborate systems or wring and belief, Considerable prosperity; for some, and by the standards of the time. Around 1200 BCE all this was suddenly and violently cast down, with waves of wars and invasions. It took four or five hundred years at least for order of a sort to be restored and progress to resume, Further afield , the collapse of the Shang dynasty in China (c. 1050 BCE) and the Olmec Civilisation of Central America (c, 400 BCE) are chilling reminders that civilisational collapse is not unique to the West.

Art this distance in time it is possible to see a pattern. The natural human instinct to trade and ma make a bit of spare cash gradually leads to the growth of larger and larger cities. These require common systems of law to maintain the rising levels of prosperity. The resulting peace is very pleasant to live under for a few generations. But lurking in the trade routes are the pandemic diseases which can shake societies to their foundations. When you combine that with the ability to cause massive changes in climate(no one would dream of blaming the Myceneans for that!) the potential for sudden catastrophic failure is multiplied exponentially.

Such an event would confront the educated classes(of which the readers of this blog are such valuable members) with a number of inconveniences. We will look at possible responses in the next few blogs,

[1]Kyle Harper The Fate of Rome Princeton University Press 2017

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

#olmecs #shang dynasty ##kyle harper #pandemic #climate change #global warming #collapse

Genetics: a whole new perspective on human evolution?

Every so often it pays to look at the same problem from a completely different perspective. For the past 57 years or so we have been collecting and grading reports of human fossil bones and old tools the way that cricket fans collect the records of every game their team has played. But today, with the help of one or two of our redoubtable AI chums, we present a whole new perspective on the old story. Much of it is locked in our genes and has been uncovered by the amazingly intelligent efforts of genetics researchers.

Their discoveries are so extensive that there is too much for a tiny blog: so we’ve summarised the findings below. But look at the timing of the mutation in the famous FOXP-2 gene, and the human species which were running around at the time. True humans fall naturally into two groups. One one side, big -brained essentially modern forms : Homo heidelbergensis, Denisovans, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. On the other? Poor old Homo erectus, significantly smaller-brained and with a much more exiguous technological and cultural life. In this light, the mutation is almost eerily coincident.

Of course the time lines of the mutations are a bit open ended; but the picture from the fossils is a bit vague too. What really impresses us is the way that, give or take an Ice Age or two, the geneticists provide independent validation of the fossil finders’ picture overall. And there’s an even deeper lesson. The same truth can be seen in two completely different ways, Like those night sky apps you can get which can show the same firmament through visual light, x-rays, microwave or radio waves; whichever you choose. Next time you argue with someone ask yourself and them: are we really talking about two different things? There’s a cognitive advance for the ages.

_{all based on peer reviewed or reputable pre pubs sources (microsoft assistant)}

Time (Million Years Ago)	Key Genetic Mutation	Hominins Present
~6 MYA	ARHGAP11B (linked to brain expansion)	Sahelanthropus tchadensis (early bipedal ape-like species)
~4.4 MYA	Changes in genes affecting bipedalism	Ardipithecus ramidus (early upright walker)
~3.3 MYA	SRGAP2C (enhanced neuron connectivity)	Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy and her relatives)
~2.4 MYA	MYH16 (jaw muscle reduction, allowing brain growth)	Early Homo habilis (first tool users)
~2 MYA	SCN9A (pain sensitivity mutation)	Homo erectus (first hominin to leave Africa)
~700,000 YA	FOXP2 (language-related gene)	Homo heidelbergensis (ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans)
~900,000 – 4.5 MYA	Chromosome 2 fusion (reduced chromosome count from 48 to 46)	Various early Homo species
~300,000 YA	Microcephalin & ASPM (brain development genes)	Early Homo sapiens (our direct ancestors)

#genteics #paleontology #tools #fossils #anthropology #human evolution

Is Keir Starmer becoming a Socialist?

Because he’s certainly acting like one. Forget the labels that people apply to each other, and to themselves. They’re mostly rubbish anyway. Look at someone’s actions. Today, Sir Keir (great name, by the way) has announced that his government has announced major new controls on the flow of immigration into the United Kingdom.[1] In support of this action, he cites the social problems caused by uncontrolled immigration and the harm it does to the social fabric. In doing so he makes the classic socialist case for controlling the laws of supply and demand. The same argument that socialists of all kinds from the most milk-and-water Social Democrats way out to the crazed ravings of Maoists and Trots.

The Capitalist argument is quite different. The law of supply and demand is the best approximation we have to the way people live in groups. Any restriction of free movement of anything such as taxes, business regulation or migration controls is contrary to nature, and must therefore lead to long term harm. After all, what is more socialist than civil servants telling employers whom they may, and whom they may not, hire to do a job? The socialist riposte is clear: the State should ban your desire to hire foreign workers if by doing so you harm the well being of members of our community here.

No, we are not going to say which one we agree with. The capitalists had their time to run the world, particularly after 1991. Their dream of universal prosperity seemed to be a true busted flush after 2008. Since then, the wind has been blowing in a socialist, that is to say, regulated direction. Whether it is to be socialism of the National or International variety remains to be seen

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/may/12/immigration-keir-starmer-labour-reform-visa-foreign-workers-uk-politics-latest-live-news

#socialism #capitalism #sir Keir starmer #immigration #economics #politics

Friday Night Feast of Fun: VE day

The 80th anniversary of VE Day has bought an immense outpouring of celebrations. Millions who were not there will tell you how they long to put on a zoot suit and jive the night away to Vera Lynn, or roam the streets of London getting up to goodness knows what with perfect strangers on bomb sites (wasn’t it a bit cold?-ed)

But-how much would you have enjoyed it? For those who advocate free markets and liberal trade as the best cures for human ills, the Second World War makes very difficult reading indeed. The Government seized control of the nation’s food supplies in 1939,introducing an utterly comprehensive system of rationing, backed by bulk buying and ruthless imposition of standards. By VE Day on 8 May 1945 the nation was thinner, heathier, fitter and better fed that it had ever been before. Or would be ever again. But Civil Servants are not chefs, and the menus available on that famous date may seem very spartan indeed to the modern palate. We thought we’d offer the kinds of things which might have been served up. With the help,naturally, of one of the most likeable books in our collection: The Ration Book Diet [1] And follow it up with what you could drink.

First Course There isn’t one Both shipping and fuel were in short supply, making this stage a superfluous luxury. Now you know why they were so healthy. Wanna try it?

Main Course In their spring section, Brown et al suggest recipes for Kidney with Mustard and Madeira Gravy(p76) Vinegar and mustard baked chicken(p78) or broad beans with minted salsa verde (p80 ) Other things served up might have been Ham and pickle pie monkfish and bacon casserole or salad of some sort. Everything grown locally, or sourced form the nations own fields and fishing grounds. Should we go that way again?

Dessert They would probably have called it “afters” or “pudding”. Apricot compote , rhubarb bread pudding or rhubarb fool might have graced many a VE Day table . For treats as the night drew in: oatmeal scones. And that really is it. There were things about like spam, corned beef and even cheese(heavily on the ration) But you’ll have to read the book iof you want to know more about them.

Happy so far? Let’s pour a drink , or go to the pub

Popular beers of the day included Bass, Guinness and Trumans At home, these would have come in bottles. There were no fridges of course. The Ministry had strained every nerve to ensure the pubs were well stocked with much the same. We also found a cocktail list from a site called Bistrot Pierre. For us, the Gin Fizz stands out as an iconic component of the war-time vocabulary. At least from the films and TV programmes we’ve seen.

And wine? Oh come on. It all came from the continent, which had been under enemy occupation for four years. You had about as much chance of finding a mobile phone as bottle of chardonnay in London in 1945.

Still want to go there?

[1] The Ration Book Diet Mike Brown Carol Harris CJ Jackson The History Press 2010 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ration-Book-Diet-C-Jackson/dp/1803993448

[2]https://www.bistrotpierre.co.uk/propeller/uploads/2020/04/VE-Day-cocktails.pdf

#food #drink #VE day #world war two #diet #health

Academia has its Robbers Caves too, you know

Here at LSS we’re always praising the learned. Exalting the scientists, doctors and philosophers who would unleash a trouble-free prosperous world, if only we were given the chance. Instead all those nasty hypermacho builders, farmers, football supporters and military types have imprisoned us in a hopeless nihilistic trap of warring tribes which we called The Robbers; Cave(LSS 1 4 2025)

There may be some truth in it. But before we hand over the world to a bunch of Professors and nerdy Civil Servants, let’s flag down a large black cab and ask it for a journey to the Reality Hilton Hotel. Because, we ask-are all these brainy types so immune from Robberscavism, to coin a phrase? Anyone like us who has followed Arts, Sciences and Letters for fifty years or so will notice at once how its practitioners have a tendency to divide themselves into warring camps, like so many followers of certain East London Football teams. Back in the Middle Ages there were the Nominalists versus the Realists. In economics you get Behaviouralists going toe to toe with the Rational Choice Theory crowd, while Linguistics seems to have more warring schools than practitioners. It’s the same for us fans of the Neolithic revolution, where opinion is hopelessly divided too. One lot asseverate that the Neolithic way of life was carried out from the fertile crescent by a single contiguous culture, who replaced(exterminated?) those unfortunate hunter-gatherers who got in the way. Their opponents counter that farming, sheep herding and all those Neolithicky -type things were learned, picked up by enthusiastic locals from traders and traders and adopted with the enthusiasm reserved for certain types of computers and mobile devices in our own age. And the truth? According to studies by the learned Drs Javier Rivas and Alfredo Cortell, writing in the Conversation, [1] it was a bit of both. At one place, at one time the incomers seem to have bludgeoned in and extirpated the natives, as the English did in Tasmania. Elsewhere the locals seem to have picked up the new hoes, made better ones and then jolly well got on with life down on the farm.

And the moral in all this? For practical people, especially those who hand out grants and bursaries, always take one step back. Sometimes you have to make decisions(think of Courts and Forensic Scientists here) But the real joy of learning isn’t in constructing theories and and then fighting to impose them on everyone else. It’s in the journey of discovery itself: gathering the facts, weighing the evidence and above all talking with the people you meet on the way. The ancient virtues of humility and suspended judgement are the most settled and non controversial of all.

[1]https://theconversation.com/how-human-connections-shaped-the-spread-of-farming-among-ancient-communities-254852?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Late

#learning #science #neolithic #academic controversy #tribalism #robbers cave experiment #whig

Whatever happens, Donald Trump still matters

President Trump Postlaunch Remarks (NHQ202005300037) by NASA HQ PHOTO is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0

As we write these words, President Donald Trump seems to have run into some largely self-inflicted economic troubles. It is hard to say how serious or long lasting these are, and whether they will permanently affect his ability to govern. But one thing is clear: even if he fell from office tomorrow, his significance, his very presence would last for all time. He and his movement are a symptom not a cause. As two articles in the Guardian, one by Richard Partington, and the other by George Monbiot, make clear what has been going on. [1] ]2]

Globalisation, Neo-liberalism, free movement of capital and people, call it what you will, has brought us unprecedented advances in knowledge, and prosperity for billions of people who would otherwise have been excluded from both these things Yet in the countries where the creed began, especially those free market Anglo-Saxon economies of the USA and UK, it has left millions behind. Whose lives rot in the shadow of decaying factories, crumbling roads and decrepit health systems. While lurid images of good times and progress still flit across their screens, their only link to the bright hopeful world beyond. Some, like the educated and the rich are still doing well. Why not them? In such desperate circumstances it is all too easy to start blaming foreigners, global elites, or the tiny fraction who follow divergent sexual practices. And if the educated become an enemy, how will they adopt our values of reason and evidence?

Trump speaks for millions of these people, and that is why his support not only holds up, it may even grow as the crisis gets worse, as George opines. We don’t agree entirely with his analysis: many people we know who hold populist opinions are securely embedded in well funded pensions or established businesses. For us, the roots of xenophobia and self congratulation are far deeper. But the vast spread of uncertainty, insecurity and above all a pervasive sense of dread, the downsides of economic “efficiency” and ergonomic supply chains are the sea in which these emotions thrive. “Socialists do fine until they run out of other peoples’ money” runs the old saloon bar cliche. To which Donald Trump and others would retort “Capitalists do fine until they run out of other people’s security. And jobs. And eventually their nations.

Why did no one ever make a better case for a mixed economy, surely the answer to our problems?

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/13/trump-bullying-must-stop-but-true-costs-globalisation-remain

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/13/trump-populists-human-nature-economic-growth?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#USA #donald trump #neo liberalism #globalisation #populism #economics #inequality

Is Donald Trump a Socialist?

Is Donald Trump a socialist, or is he just governing like one? For a man who made his money in the freewheeling and dealing Manhattan property market, it seems an odd term to use. And doubtless he and his supporters would reject it vehemently. But let’s go back to first principles and look at what he does, not what he says.

The very essence of a socialist policy is that an economy should not be run by free market methods. It can and should be run on others, designed to support the welfare of all the groups living in it. If they are poor, money must be found through taxes to alleviate that. If their communities depend on certain industrial conglomerations. such as steel making for example, then money must be found to sustain those industries, to avert the social damage which would ensue/ In Britain the key exponents of this view were people like Arthur Scargill and Tony Benn, who felt public money should be found to support the mining industries, even if those industries operated at less than optimum economic efficiency. In the 1970s Benn went further, suggesting a siege economy protected by tariffs as an alternative to joining the European Community, forerunner of the EU.

The alternative view was pioneered by thinkers such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The unhindered operation of free markets, with the lowest possible levels of tax and tariff would facilitate the best possible social outcome. Ricardo developed this in his theory of comparative advantage. By which countries or regions specialising in different products would trade in these to their mutual benefit. His example was Britain and Portugal, which mutually traded manufactured goods and port wine. The same principle holds today.

The key political exponents of this view were Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, whose most memorable declaration was “you can’t buck the markets”. As we write, Mr Trump’s policies seem to be doing exactly that. Unlike others, we judge him to have an honesty of purpose: he is trying to protect the communities that voted for him. Communities whose social structure and very identity depend on the old smokestack industries around which they cluster. Time will tell if he will be successful. But two things worry us. Firstly even if factories are attracted back to the rustbelt, it is unlikely that modern automated plants will need many factory hands. And second: the last twenty years or so of the Communist bloc were spent trying to keep these same sort of plants going. History did not judge that enterprise kindly.

#free markets #socialism #communism #adam smith #david ricardo #margaret thatcher #donald trump #united states of america

When a culture turns away from science, its decline begins

Fans of the old Jacob Bronowski TV series The Ascent of Man will recall a key episode. In the early seventeenth century the Catholic Church decided to persecute aspiring scientist Galileo Galilei. In 1633 the Inquisition even put him on trial for having discovered that the Earth goes round the Sun. Using the threat of torture, they forced him to deny this simple reality. Bronowski’s take on all this was to assert that this was the key step which sent the Catholic part of Europe (hitherto the dominant bit) into decline. Scientists and scholars fled to the more tolerant environment of Protestant Europe, whose economies benefitted accordingly. The few Catholic thinkers of note remaining (Descartes and Pascal spring to mind) But they were like the last rays of a setting sun, before darkness and superstition suffocated all.

A one off? Special pleading? History suggests otherwise. From about the 8th Century to the 13th of the Christian Calendar (apologies to Islamic readers, but let it do for now) the Islamic world was dominant not only in trade and war, it was supreme in all the skills of learning and science. Thinkers such as Al Khwarizmi, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in western lands) and Al Birani made contributions to human learning which will last forever. Yet, starting about the middle of the twelfth century CE there was a slow but steady trend away from reason and science towards deeper religious orthodoxy as Hilel Ofek explains in his essay Why the Arab World rejected Science [1] Slowly the northern nations began to close the gap and eventually move ahead. Nearer our own time Corelli Barnett showed how Britains decline began as abstract studies of things like Latin and Greek came to dominate the Universities, while subjects like science and engineering were accorded second rate status. [2] [3] The values of a well entrenched landed aristocracy won out over the more plebian instincts of the middle class . With long term disastrous consequences for Britain’s place in the world

And the relevance of all this? Across the western world, there is now a strong, growing and incredibly well-funded movement against science and objective evidence. [4]It’s felt in policy debates on economic questions, university funding, on vaccines, and above all in the swirling brawls around climate science and global warming. The temptation is to put all this down to the ebbs and flows of political debate. But that is to miss the point. Questions of science are not political. They are not open to understanding by the mental tools developed for political and religious debate. A nation, a whole culture is being continually weighed in the balance, and can fall at any time. Is this now happening in the so called “advanced ” western nations.

[1]https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science

[2]Corelli Barnett The Collapse of British Power 1972

[3[ Corelli Barnett The Audit of War 1986

[4]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/20/kemi-badenoch-net-zero-brexit-right-clima

#science #global warming #climate change #reason #history #christianity #islaam #british empire

Is human evolution a mess? Depends how you look at it

When we were young, we believed in a Story. First there was Australopithecus, a toolless, speechless, walking chimp. He begat a brave pioneer called Homo erectus, a handy sort of chap who at least had decent looking tools and invented fire. He begat two sons: a hairy, primitive savage one called Neanderthal Man, who deservedly came to a sticky end. And a tall, cool handsome one which called itself Homo sapiens (“the wise man”), in one of the most outrageous acts of vanity and self-delusion in history.

The truth turned out to be far more complicated. Even looking at the story of the last 500 000 years , when everyone was about as modern as you can get. First Neanderthals have been getting steadily cleverer for the last forty years or so. They probably had language, clothes and y even art, goddammit. Along came another relative, the Denisovans who were similarly equipped. And then came the geneticists lead by the inimitable Professor Paabo, whose discoveries have upended everything , blurred every category and wiped every line. Latest instalment in this trope comes from the discoveries of the learned Professor Cousins of Cambridge University which we channel both from Jonathan Chadwick of the Mail[1] and for those with a little more time, the original paper itself [2] The story of the last million years or so is not of some heroic hero on a quest for self-improvement. But bunches of largely helpless bipeds pushed hither and thither by the vagaries of climate and geology, splitting, meeting and breeding; spawning a mishmash of different types which their distant descendants come along and label with important- sounding names. And we think we see a pattern in all this.

Firstly :you know a lot less than you think you do. We have been tracking human evolution for nearly sixty years now, so we can be fairly confident about that statement. Secondly: there is always something buried out there which is going to upend everything you know; so stay cautious. Thirdly: someone in another field is going to park their intellectual tanks on your lawn sooner or later, reducing your omniscient learning to at most part of things, not the whole of it. And finally:-human evolution makes a pretty good paradigm for all other learning. Not just hard sciences, not just social sciences but also things like history and economics. Beware of anyone who knows the answers, because they are not telling the truth.

[1]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14508089/Scientists-hidden-chapter-human-evolution.html

[2]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02117-1

#homo sapiens #dna #genetics #neanderthal #anthropology #science #knowledge #evolution