this feels like a rude question but i really do wanna know: past a certain ambient temperature does it get too hot for people to accomplish anything interesting? does the historical dominance of great britain over the rest of the world suggest this?
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i think if the ambient temperature was consistently hotter than maybe 80 fahrenheit then i wouldn’t be able to get anything done whatsoever, which meaningfully constrains my choices wrt where i live. at some point you must run into real biological limits
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it would be interesting to know what the weather was like where historically significant intellectuals tended to spend their time. i expect somewhat cold - lots of northern europe etc.
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some interesting stuff here, nothing directly about intellectual or creative work but everything is massively confounded by the fact that places further from the equator tend to be *richer*
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Replying to @danielcjonas and @QiaochuYuan
for diving off point:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environme
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Check out Gladwell's Outliers it touches a bit on various cultures rise in relation to work ethic derived from seasonal work not necessarily intellect, but it connects the idea that how hard you have to work to get food based on your environment sets a path for the future
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I wonder if having to organize the harvest and store food for a long winter has a role to play. Also, you’re inside all winter tinkering with little else to do….
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Depends on if you consider the state temporary or not. You have to clear the endure/adapt decision tree first.
Personally and ideologically, I believe the dominance of Britain had more to do with their inability to successfully centralize planning until the 20th century.