Would Modern Success Traits Work 50,000 Years Ago?

David Geary says some modern success traits would still work 50,000 years ago and some would not, because larger societies sort success into different classes and hierarchies. The main ones he names are military, political, entrepreneurial, and ideological. The military class, probably together with the political class, held the early advantages in Rome and other early empires. As a society grows, the entrepreneurial class becomes wealthier and competes with the political class for power. In China, as he understands it, the political class keeps the entrepreneurial class and even the military class in check. In the U.S. the entrepreneurial class is wealthier and more influential.

He likes the Rolling Stones and Mick Jagger, and his guess is that Jagger would not last long on a medieval battlefield. Asked about Elon Musk, he places Musk in a mix of an entrepreneurial hierarchy and a technological one, thinking about new ways of doing things, including electric cars. Going back 50,000, 100,000, or 200,000 years, people like Musk would have been inventing the new tools and the new weapons, maybe not on the front line. Coalitional groups, competition between groups, and technology are the pieces that got humans here. Remove any one of them and humans are not here.