For 500 years the West patented six killer applications that set it apart. The first to download them was Japan. Over the last century, one Asian country after another has downloaded these killer apps- competition, modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society and the work ethic. Those six things are the secret sauce of Western civilization.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the key elements that have contributed to Western civilization's success and highlights how these elements have been adopted by other nations.
Niall Ferguson's quote illustrates how six fundamental 'killer applications' such as competition, the rule of law, and modern science have historically defined Western civilization. He points out that Japan and other Asian countries have adopted these principles, allowing them to thrive economically and socially, thus showing that these ideas are essential for progress and prosperity.
In practice
Discussing the elements of successful societies in a classroom setting.
It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.
If the financial system has a defect, it is that it reflects and magnifies what we human beings are like. Money amplifies our tendency to overreact, to swing from exuberance when things are going well to deep depression when they go wrong. Booms and busts are products, at root, of our emotional volatility.
Civilisation is partly about restraining the male of the species from engaging in the violence of the hunter-gatherer period. But it doesn't take an awful lot to unleash it.
The West may collapse very suddenly. Complex civilizations do that, because they operate, most of the time, on the edge of chaos.
Over time, the welfare state has become dysfunctional in a surprising way. But in a way it became a victim of its own success: It became so successful at prolonging life, that it becomes financially unsustainable, unless you make major changes to things like retirement ages.
Today, the average Korean works a thousand hours more a year than the average German. A thousand. ... That is the end of the Great Divergence.
The law is a gun, which if it misses a pigeon always kills a crow; if it does not strike the guilty, it hits someone else. As every crime creates a law, so in turn every law creates a crime.
Having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus.
Isn’t it wonderful the way the world holds both the deeply serious, and the unexpectedly mirthful?
We are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.
No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
Our torments also may in length of time Become our Elements.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.