“[T]he Sirionos’ strongest anxieties are about food, they have sex virtually whenever they want, and sex compensates for food hunger, while our strongest anxieties are about sex, we have food virtually whenever we want, and eating compensates for sexual frustration.”

Earlier this week, I gave my broad thoughts on The World Until Yesterday. Today, I’ll highlight a few of the more interesting examples Diamond gives.

Dispute Resolution

Many traditional cultures use what is Diamond refers to as “sorry money” – one cannot compensate someone for the death of a child or a parent, but one can say sorry. Parties are forced to interact until both feel satisfied and their previous relationship is restored. This contrasts sharply with the modern court system, which attempts to ensure reparations are paid or justice is served, but does not attempt to restore any previously existing relationship between the parties. To some extent, this makes sense: in a traditional society, you will almost certainly interact with the same people again, while in a modern one you will not. Still, Diamond suggests that the modern system can often leave people feeling unsatisfied or lacking closure. Justice may well be served, but it lacks the personal relationship of traditional societies.

Leisure

Children’s games in New Guinea, for example, almost never involve competition. One example would be when each child gets a banana. Each of them divides it in half, eats half, and gives the other half to another child, who then divides that half into quarters. They do this for as long as possible. How much children’s games say about a society is up for debate, but it’s a striking difference.

Risk

At one point, Diamond is about to put his tent under a dead tree, and his New Guinea companions refuse point blank to join him. At first he is surprised: the chance of a dead tree falling is miniscule, perhaps one in a thousand. On reflection, though, he points out that locals of New Guinea may sleep under trees over one hundred nights per year: even a miniscule risk, if repeated, is not worth taking. The modern world, in contrast, frequently takes such risks, whether driving cars or, dare I say it, designing financial systems.

Diet

Don’t eat so much sugar. Or salt. You should know this. I was interested though in the idea that the massive prevalence of diabetes in some developing countries (up to 30%), may not be a natural difference, but rather a result of natural selection. When sugar became popular in Europe, Diamond suggests, Europe too might have had an epidemic of diabetes deaths, and individuals who were most sensitive to it died off; western societies today have lower rates of diabetes simply because the most vulnerable have not survived.

The whole thing is great. You can get it here (or in the UK or Canada).