this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
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One guy can grow and harvest a wheat field large enough to feed his family, but rice requires a lot of community organization to grow.
There’s an interesting hypothesis called the Rice Hypothesis that theorizes that the different styles of farming rice vs wheat shaped our societies in ways that are still prevalent today. Farming rice led to strong collectivism in society, while farming wheat led to strong individualism in society. Perhaps this is what has led to our differences in ideologies and governing systems.
All grass based crops encouraged group cooperation. Plants like potatoes remain safe in the ground until you need them. But all cereal crops require harvesting at a specific time. You can't just harvest enough wheat as you need it. This means you inevitably have to have a stockpile of grain to get through the year. And a stockpile of already harvested and prepared grain makes you an instant target for raids by opposing groups.
Cereal crops of all forms necessitate cooperation.
I mean, everything in life requires cooperation, but that’s not the point. Rice took twice as many labor hours as wheat and required more irrigation. According to Shenshi Nongshu, “if one is short of labor, it is best to grow wheat”. Also studies have shown that in China people in historically rice farming areas behave more collectively than those in wheat regions. Not all grasses behave the same way and need the same things, especially with how much we’ve bred them to our needs.
I also like the one where western people are good at stuff like telescopes and magnifying lenses because they drink wine, which is a pretty color, where as the Chinese drank clear alcohol so they didn't get as good with glasswork
Oh interesting, I haven’t heard of that. I’ll have too look into it, thanks!
Also in regards to lenses and pretty things, because pottery and paper were already so massive industries in China, they didn't see use for glass as much as Europe which needed it for windows and whatnot.
So then Europe had the advantage in glassworking and thus got some scientific instruments (such as beakers and lenses) first.
How much of that was of because wine, I couldn't say. But I would like to mention that a gene for naturally being (much more) intolerant to alcohol is more common in Asia than in Europe. But how long it's been more common is a question I couldn't answer, as it might be more of a consequence than a cause, with how fast evolution works. (ie Europe has had strong liquor for centuries and you can see from places which only recently got liquor how much more prevalent alcoholism is — it gets filtered out pretty fast as if you're dependant on alcohol and sauced all the time you prolly might not procreate, unless you're not that intolerant to it and manage to function.)
Fascinating theory. I'll have to go down that rabbit hole tomorrow.
Also, a very different climate and soil.