in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, *artificial intelligence and killer robots.

*delusion that we have created artificial intelligence

“History is best told as a story of organised crime,” Kemp says. “It is one group creating a monopoly on resources through the use of violence over a certain territory and population.”

In terms of what kind of history you can make a living covering in a "pop-science" fashion yes, but this is a MASSIVE claim to make without serious conclusive evidence proving this is what motivates the trajectory of history primarily.

Why isn't History best told as a story of lawmakers attempting to create a sustainable coherent body of laws that don't collapse inwards eventually?

Why isn't History best told as a story of revolutions in domestic labor technology? The pottery wheel, the loom, the dishwasher... etc...

Why isn't History best told as a story of different meals and culinary traditions?

Why isn't History best told as a story of organized religion, friendship, communities, or ideologies?

We choose to see history this way and in doing so play right into the hands of the ruling class. The act of retelling History by necessity must challenge the primacy of authoritarian regimes in the human story because otherwise all History does is retell the propaganda of the past.

Yeah, the problem is we've been kept powerless over big issues. When we found out about oil companies poisoning the earth, we SHOULD have had the power to put the whole company on trial. Instead they said our elected officials were the only option, and they did nothing. That's an excellent point. We're told we're powerless, and kept that way... So they can be richer.

I’m pessimistic about the future,” he says. “But I’m optimistic about people.” Luke Kemp’s new book covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years and took seven years to write. The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.

Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots.

This has always been the answer, and will always continue to be. You have to engrave this in the kind of every generation to avoid it. There lies the problem.

Interesting article. The author of the book is Luke Kemp but he sure looks like a Chad to me.

We’re not going to make, are we? ‘People’, I mean.

I agree. Unfortunately the people who benefit from the current power structure have the most power in order to maintain it. I don’t see these people accepting juries or caps on their assets.

There are also often violent repercussions to protesting, and coups tend to just destabilise a region and set up the next dictatorship.

Humans just can’t seem to stop being dicks

There is a thing we could do to tackle the existence of billionaires in a world stricken by poverty...

Throughout history society has collapsed over and over again either by mismanagement or by overthrow of the ruling class. It's a natural cycle that we seem to be moving away from- Revolt has been mischaracterized and criminalized in an attempt to maintain the status quo. But things weren't always like this. edit: I'm not advocating for anything, just stating some observations

Years ago - I believe in one of Dostoyevsky's novels, but I haven't been able to run it down - I read a wonderful allegory on this topic.

The basic gist of it, told nowhere near as well as it was originally:

Once upon a time, there was a peaceful village of farmers. They went through their days, tending their fields and caring for their livestock and each other and simply living.

Every few years though, a group of bandits would ride down out of the nearby hills and attack tge village and take all they could carry of the farmers' crops and livestock.

Then one year, an entirely different group of bandits rode down from a different part of the hills, and they attacked the village and took everything.

So when, a few months later, the customary bandits rode down to attack, they found the village already devastated and everything they would've stolen already gone.

The bandits knew they couldn't allow that - they depended on their theft of the villagers' goods for their own livelihood. So they went back to their camp and, over a hard winter, thought about what to do.

The next spring - long before the harvest, so long before their customary attack on the villagers, they rode down and they approached the village elders with a proposal.

Instead of attacking the villagers and taking everything, they would settle for just taking half of everything, and in exchange they would protect the villagers from being attacked by those other bandits and having everything taken.

And the villagers, with no other hope - being allowed to keep hslf of the fruits of their labors was at least better than losing everything - grudgingly agreed.

And thus was government born.

Changing the title of the article isn't helpful

Anyone interested in the historical context here should read Daniel Quinn's Ishmael. He explained this in 1992.

This was a really good read, thank you for posting it. I too find it hard to hold out hope, but i'll be fucked if I go out quietly. Valid messages all around

Interesting how long an article you can write without mentioning overshoot even once.