On a tangent, the Mixed Mental Arts podcast episode with Diamond is _very_ entertaining.
They also interviewed Peter Turchin, who proposes an alternative vision to why certain nations succeed, namely multi-level selection (aka group selection) which I find just as interesting. Diamond seems pretty controversial among anthropologists, likewise multilevel selection is topic of debate among evolutionists. I don’t know enough myself to make an informed judgement in these matters.
They also interviewed Peter Turchin, who proposes an alternative vision to why certain nations succeed, namely multi-level selection (aka group selection) which I find just as interesting. Diamond seems pretty controversial among anthropologists, likewise multilevel selection is topic of debate among evolutionists. I don’t know enough myself to make an informed judgement in these matters.