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.

“Don’t be a dick”

well said.

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