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Win-Stay, Lose-Shift: A Survival Rule

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Human-Earth System Dynamics

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Abstract

Historians have suggested that human civilization first resulted from comparatively fertile land in Mesopotamia. However, the use of the “Fertile Crescent” may confuse our search of the real factors contributing to the birth of ancient civilizations. In fact, existing college-level textbooks and relevant monographs have presented incomplete and sometimes misleading descriptions of the origin of civilizations. Still, historians and anthropologists have highly simplified, if not dismissed, the initial and environmental conditions under which the world’s indigenous civilizations emerged and developed. Indeed, “Win-Stay Lose-Shift” is the survival rule for mankind, and it is always losers who have had incentives to advance the cultures and civilizations throughout the world.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Kappelman et al. (2016) for a more detailed assessment.

  2. 2.

    Cited from Strickland (August 30, 2016).

  3. 3.

    See White et al. (2009) for more details.

  4. 4.

    See Miller et al. (2005) and Williams et al. (2010). Other studies, including molecular clock studies, have estimated the origin of the primate branch to have been in the mid-Cretaceous period, around 85 mya (Lee 1999; and Tavaré et al. 2002).

  5. 5.

    Cited from Boyden (2004, pp. 7–8).

  6. 6.

    See, for example, Abt (2011, pp. 193–194, 436) for a more detailed description.

  7. 7.

    See http://college.cengage.com/history/west/perry/western_civilization/9e/chapters/chapter1.html (accessed 2016-9-28).

  8. 8.

    Cited from Adler and Pouwels (2014, p. 19).

  9. 9.

    Scholars have defined civilization using various criteria. The use of writing is a common one. Some standard criteria include a class-based society and public buildings.

  10. 10.

    See Glossary A of Guo (2018).

  11. 11.

    See Fig. 6.1 of Chapter 6 for more detailed, time-series evidence for the changes of sea level.

  12. 12.

    See Dillehay (2008, pp. 10–27) and Meltzer (2009) for overviews of issues on initial peopling of the New World.

  13. 13.

    See http://www.mext.go.jp/component/b_menu/other/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2014/03/28/1345147_1.pdf (accessed 2016-10-18) for Japan’s figures and Moody (2013) for the UK’s figures.

  14. 14.

    See, for example, Allen et al. (2010) and Wood et al. (2014) for more detailed descriptions in this regard.

  15. 15.

    The rule predicts that endotherms from hot climates usually have ears, tails, limbs, snouts, etc. that are long and thin, whereas equivalent endotherms from cold climates usually have shorter and thicker versions of those body parts—see, for example, Allen (1877), Nudds and Oswald (2007) and Alho et al. (2011).

  16. 16.

    See Yang and Fu (2018). In addition, the original “Y chromosomal Adam”-DNA sequencing has mutated rarely over 20,000 generations (source: https://www.cambridgedna.com/genealogy-dna-genetic-genealogy.php, accessed 2018-1-21) and some genes only have mutation for every million years (Hahn et al. 2007).

  17. 17.

    Note that the classification of Northern and Southern Mongoloid only applied to the prehistoric era. In modern times the Han-Chinese, especially those who live in northern China, have been classified as ‘Northern Mongoloid’.

  18. 18.

    See Sect. 4.3 in Chapter 4 for an in-depth discussion about the environmental influences on China’s Han language and its various dialects.

  19. 19.

    Source: http://forebears.co.uk/surnames/wadi (accessed 2016-10-31).

  20. 20.

    See Glossary B and C of Guo (2018) for the lists of ethnic groups with wa-prefix and wa-suffix names, respectively.

  21. 21.

    See Fisher (2008, p. 94) for a more detailed description of the rock–paper–scissors game and its influences on everyday life.

  22. 22.

    See Wang et al. (2014) for more details about this research.

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  1. Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, China

    Rongxing Guo

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Guo, R. (2019). Win-Stay, Lose-Shift: A Survival Rule. In: Human-Earth System Dynamics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0547-4_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0547-4_1

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