#2549 - Jared Diamond

I’d just started your new book after getting into Guns, Germs, and Steel, and I had a million questions. Why write about leaders when history can turn on something as delicate as whether Hitler’s car arrives seconds earlier or later?

I was born in 1937, under Hitler’s shadow, and my father put maps of Europe and the Pacific on my wall. I kept asking why this happened, and whether it would have happened without Hitler. I later lived in Germany, which I love, and in democratic Chile before Pinochet, whom nobody saw coming. My wife’s family was devastated by the Holocaust; her mother survived Auschwitz. I have wondered all my life whether bad people, as well as good people, make a difference.

Leaders made a difference to me personally. At Cambridge, a failed water pump flooded my lab and the room below. I expected expulsion. The chairman called it sloppy, warned me to be careful, and let my career continue. Another chairman might have ended it.

That’s what scares me about civilization. We once thought the Nazi nightmare was impossible to repeat, and I don’t think that anymore. Societies feel fragile: some leaders build for their people, while others capture every system and become impossible to challenge.

Never again did not prevent Pol Pot from killing roughly a quarter of Cambodia, or Pinochet from unleashing torture in Chile. There is no simple Jared Diamond answer. A leader needs the proper moment and setting, and must recognize it, create part of it, or simply be there.

Bill Gates saw a new Intel chip and told Paul Allen they had to begin immediately. Churchill knew the premiership was his life’s preparation, but he did not cause Germany’s invasion of France. Genghis Khan required exceptional ability and circumstances: Mongolia’s wettest decade in two millennia brought more grass, livestock, horses, and Mongols. Without his brilliance, that was not enough; without that setting, we may never have heard of him.

Right: a remarkable organizer and ruthless strategist, but also able to unite wildly different groups. It’s never just rain or one great man. All the lights have to turn green at once.

Religions show this well. Jesus had a universal message, and Paul was the extraordinary organizer who built a movement from it. Muhammad combined charisma, organization, and military talent. But gifts and messages still need an economic and demographic engine to travel worldwide.

It gives me pause that Jesus wrote nothing and Paul did not meet him. So much rests on oral memory becoming texts decades later. People are drawn to systems that answer giant questions, demand discipline, create community, and give believers confidence.

The theology may be secondary to social machinery. Early Christians valued women and children more than Roman religion did, cared for the sick, had more children, and lived longer. Their Jewish inheritance favored literacy. Mormonism likewise spread through charisma, Brigham Young’s organization, optimism, tight community, and serious commitment.

This reconciles my earlier work with a book about individuals. Over ten thousand years and across continents, one person normally does not decide outcomes. In the short term, individuals can matter enormously. Religion is unusual: Jesus, Muhammad, and perhaps Joseph Smith still shape people long after death.

Business makes the same puzzle visible. Bezos started with books, then came toothpaste, groceries, one-click ordering, everything. Would online shopping have happened anyway, or did he change the route?

Bezos always wanted the everything store; books were the clever entry because copies are identical and warehouses existed. Other marketplaces, including eBay and Walmart, show the general development was not unique. His stamp was online-first retail and relentless customer satisfaction rather than immediate investor returns. Cell phones would have arrived without Steve Jobs, but he imposed few products, few buttons, simplicity, and appearance.

I am a technophobe. My wife and son forced me to get an iPhone, and only recently did I discover which button raises its volume. At Cambridge I chose the gallbladder because it was a simple sack whose water transport could be measured with a balance. I still write by hand, revise with pencil and eraser, then dictate or type. It makes my prose less wordy.

Translation is treacherous. Languages carry grammar, order, and meanings that do not line up; Greek logos can mean a word, but also a rational organizing principle. New Guinea has around a thousand languages. In one language, a tiny tonal error could turn an affectionate sentence about a mother-in-law and sweet potatoes into an insult involving snakes and excrement.

Writing can vanish and be invented anew. Linear B disappeared in the Bronze Age collapse, while Chinese, Mesoamerican, and Near Eastern writing appear to be independent inventions. King Sejong created Hangul to fit Korean speech, and it has endured six centuries. Talk Pisin began as a stripped-down plantation language; children rapidly made it a full creole. It is now a government language, and I can lecture on thermodynamics in it.

In New Guinea, funerary cannibalism among the Fore meant consuming relatives, not enemies; refusal could seem heartless. Kuru spread when a rare spontaneous prion disease was amplified through these practices, especially brain tissue. I did not judge a man who left my camp for a funeral duty. Cultures settle on different habits: I declined sago grubs, while highlanders I brought to the coast disliked beds and ice cream.

Seretse Khama truly changed Botswana. As chief of its strongest group, he alone could curb the chiefs’ power. When diamonds were found on his people’s land, he declared underground wealth belonged to Botswana, not whichever tribe sat above it. The proceeds were invested for the country’s future rather than captured by one group.

That’s a powerful final example: one person, exactly positioned, choosing the generous move instead of the obvious selfish one. Thank you for making huge forces understandable without making them dull. And seriously, good luck with the next iPhone button.

I enjoyed this a lot. I had been told I would enjoy speaking with you, provided I was not an ape or something else you disapproved of. I looked forward to it, and it was indeed a pleasurable experience.