Is is not racial or ethnic distinctions as such which have proven to be momentous but cultural distinctions, whether associated with race, with geographical origins, or with other factors. The particular culture or “human capital” available to people has often had more influence on their economic level than their existing material wealth, natural resources, or individual geniuses. … [Differences] between groups themselves have been the rule, not the exception, in countries around the world and down through history. These groups differ in specific skills – whether in optics, winemaking, engineering, medicine, or numerous other fields – and in attitudes toward work, toward education, toward violence, and toward life. …

[Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the] elaborate institutions needed for the continued transmission of a complex civilized culture simply disintegrated, along with the state apparatus that had supported it, because the invaders who were capable of destroying the Roman Empire were not capable of taking it over and running it themselves or of preserving its cultural achievements.
– Thomas Sowell, ‘Conquests and Cultures’, p. 355

The real wealth of a people is in its ability to retain, transmit, and capitalize upon knowledge. This includes practical skills of agriculture and industry, the basics of literacy and arithmetic, and (no less important) working knowledge of the social landscape and of how to negotiate financial and personal transactions. Capitalizing upon this knowledge means willingness to work hard to achieve results, and willingness to acquire new knowledge and skills when these will prove beneficial. Human society has never not been an information economy.

Most of what we know about the world, we learn from other people. Therefore, our ability to understand the world depends on our ability to understand people.

We live in a world full of people who need and want things. They will ascribe value to us according to our ability to provide for their wants and needs.

People are complicated. Assessing and navigating our position in the social universe is the most difficult, and most important, mental task that we perform in life.

Each of us will die, and others will live on after us. Whatever we may believe about the afterlife, this is the only empirical truth we know about life and death in this world.