Conjecture

Narrative multiplies a material advantage rather than replacing it: winners read success as proof of their story, which raises their certainty and solidarity and so their effectiveness, a loop that runs only while they keep winning. Ansary's ch. 17 adds narrative to Diamond's guns, germs and steel, while granting "Of these four factors, germs were no doubt the most decisive." "As is reliably the case, success confirmed their narrative. If they weren't so right, how could they be such winners?" "Their solidarity and certainty made them all that much more formidable." They were "victors living in an epic story, eager to incorporate the whole planet into their vision of the world." Clay's step, and the null case for my organising claim in Ansary's own paragraph: a story's effect should be read as a multiplier on circumstances, never as a cause standing alone, and a story confirmed only by winning cannot tell its holders when it is wrong.

Stories that make people act