What I Read This Week
Learning to ask better questions by inverting
This last week I was able to travel to Hilton Head with my wife to enjoy the ocean and recharge for our one-year anniversary. The beach is a great time to read and think. I have been on a history kick so that is what I read about.
I got through half of a book, which I was supposed to read in high school and didn’t, called “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond.
This book aims to answer the question, why do some nations/people groups succeed, while others fail. For example, why was the Spanish conquistador Pizzaro successful in conquering the Incan Empire, and why was it not the Incan Empire who braved the Atlantic and took over Spain?
How did the Spanish gain such an advantage to wipe out over 40,000 Inca natives with only 180 Spaniards in a single battle?
Jared Diamond makes the claim that guns, germs, and steel (industry) led to the advancements that resulted in Eurasian domination over people groups in other parts of the world.
Three quick examples relating to Spain:
The invention of farming and domestication of animals and crops allowed for a wide range of innovation.
Horses were used for travel but were also used for battle. This gave a mounted conquistador, with a sword, a faster and more advantageous position when charging a Native American wielding a club. The Spanish also developed firearms, which were just as effective for longer range attacks as they were for psychological fear or disillusionment.
Food production increased efficiency of farming in Spain. While some people were working on food production, others were freed up for more creative work in other industries, like building ships and creating technology. The Inca’s however were just past hunter gatherer stage, but not fully producing food on the scale Europe was, making this a hinderance on technological progress.
Lastly, with the domestication of animals came disease. 95% of the inca population was killed by smallpox. War was a must smaller piece of the fall.
I share this to in no way make an argument for the moral justification of the Spanish conquests on Native Americans. War is tragic, no matter who is involved.
The main point I took from this time at the beach wasn’t about the conquests at all.
I was fascinated with Jared Diamonds ability to invert his thinking
It would be easy to fall into first conclusion bias by concluding guns or horses were the leading factor in conquest, when really it was the spread of germs which wiped out an empire.
The ability to scope out and look at a problem from many different disciplines (military, science, business, agriculture, etc.) is an important element of critical thinking.
Instead of Jared Diamond just asking how did Spain conquer the Inca’s, he asks why were the Inca’s unable to board ships and take Spain?
Well, that answer is much easier. They didn’t have ships to make it across the Atlantic. They didn’t have resources to provide food for long expeditions. They didn’t have the weapons to compete once they landed on shore.
Oh… most importantly, they had absolutely no way of even knowing Spain and Europe existed. They weren’t able to write and read to learn the history of conquests that Pizzaro had studied in his youth.
Inverted thinking is also what C.S. Lewis tries to accomplish in The Screwtape Letters. Although we have received direction on Jesus’ teaching, inverting our thinking would ask, I know how to live for Jesus, but what would a life look like living apart from Jesus? The Screwtape Letters is a great allegory in the pitfalls of our battle with forces of evil which are seeking to steal kill and destroy (1 Peter 5:8).
By understanding the tactics of our enemy, we are able to see Jesus’ teaching in a new light.
What projects or problems can we try to think clearer on by inverting?
Thank you for reading, I hope you have a restful Sunday and a great week.