Reading Group Meeting 7/9

[p.a.e.wallis]

Hey everyone,

We will once again meet at the Harold Washington Library (400 S State St.) from 1:30 to 3:30 PM on Sunday.

This week we’ll be meeting in the 6th floor south study room (one floor below where we usually meet).

Thanks to Mantas for choosing this week’s readings:

• https://balioc.tumblr.com/post/162371120846/so-if-my-historical-sources-are-telling-me-the
  
• http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/13/five-years-and-one-week-of-less-wrong/
  
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/or0/i_want_to_live_in_a_baugruppe/
  
• http://lesswrong.com/lw/ouc/project_hufflepuff_planting_the_flag
  

See you there!

Peter

[conor.hartin]

I discussed a number of books relevant to that first link on the development of western european individualism and its relation to inheritance law. Firstly, Timur Kuran's "The Long Divergence" blames the codification of relatively egalitarian inheritance law for the Islamic world failing to develop large concentrations of wealth outside the state in the form of corporations (although there is the "waqf", restricted to very specific non-profit purposes), and hence to deficiencies in civil society. I wrote about that here:

https://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/the-scylla-of-clannishness-and-the-charybdis-of-despotism/

That post references both "Law and Revolution" and "Violence and Social Order". The former is by legal scholar Harold Berman, and focuses on the 11th century rediscovery of Roman corporate law by the Catholic church, which then spread out to other corporate entities. Unfortunately, I don't have a comparably comprehensive post on that. Here are some things I noticed while reading it though:

https://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/your-honor-my-client-requests-the-opportunity-to-respond-to-his-accuser-by-whacking-him-over-the-head-or-failing-that-to-impeach-his-testimony-through-glaring-and-rude-faces/

https://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/hard-to-credit-anyone-born-milleniae-after-the-neolithic-revolution-with-inventing-peasantry/

https://entitledtoanopinion.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/that-phrase-i-do-not-think-your-usage-of-it-is-standard/

The last book mentioned is by Douglass North, John Wallis & Barry Weingast. Unfortunately, I never blogged it. As discussed, it explains how our modern system of "fee simple" property evolved from the far more encumbered feudal/manorial system, along with why the founding fathers of America were so wary about "faction" (which we know now as political parties) and corporations.

I also discussed Greg Cochran & Henry Harpending's ideas on an "Amish quotient", which was written up into a formal paper, but I'll just link to his blog:

https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/inferring-an-aq/

[John Lotus]

here is the link to the post raising a couple criticisms of 'strong Bayesianism': http://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/161645122124/bayes-a-kinda-sorta-masterpost

[conor.hartin]

I mentioned with regard to that ballioc link how "hbd chick" has been writing about the Hajnal line and how manorialism reduced endogamy and led to the decline of the clan system in western europe. There's a recent paper on the medieval Catholic church's prohibition on cousin marriage (mentioned by ballioc) and how that affected institutions:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2877828