A New Understanding of Human History and the Roots of Inequality | David Wengrow | TED

What if the commonly accepted narratives about the foundation of civilization are all wrong? Drawing on groundbreaking research, archaeologist David Wengrow challenges traditional thinking about the social evolution of humanity -- from the invention of agriculture to the formation of cities and class systems -- and explains how rethinking history can radically change our perspective on inequality and modern life.
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[@kimmariefaber4636]

I graduated from McGill university with a diploma in Anthropology where we were taught the Fertile Crescent was the beginning of civilization. I always thought there had to be more to it than that. Life led me in a different direction from pursuing this subject, but I am glad to hear that There Is more to this. History is written by the “winners” and how few they are.

[@iankmak]

But why did the winner win and the so called egalitarian societies all lose?

[@frankdelahue9761]

💋💋💋💋💋💋💋

[@gorkemgulan]

True

[@jamesbarlow6423]

Lol. Read "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes for the full, real story of civilization's origins.

[@batsnackattack]

This is how we have McGill grads who can go out saying stupid things they read on a tweet. You graduated but you actually told us: "History is written by the “winners” and how few they are" eww you even put "winners" in quotes yuck. Well that isn't how it works. No Uni grad should be saying that. No, that isn't how and who wrote history. It's just as often written by the losers and those who weren't even in the fight. You should now that.

[@PRITZ060191]

Very insightful. I am from India and everyone in the Indian school system have been taught about the Indus Valley civilisation and their cities like Mohenjo Daro, etc. which the speaker mentions briefly. But these cities have been noted for their utilitarian design, especially on urban sanitation and roads. We have never been taught about their egalitarian qualities. This is a wonderful aspect to hear about!

[@user-wp8yx]

Thank you for your insight. It should also be noted that during the early Vedic period, Indians were rather egalitarian. So much so, the King was expected to be a farmer and herder as well as Raja. By the later period, strong Kings and social stratification became more normal.

[@manivignesh.k6526]

Atleast in Tamilnadu there's as much talk about the egalitarianism in these cities as is about the urban planning. I guess it's the popular ideologies of our respective regions showing each of different points. Currently as most of india relishes in nationalism there's more talk on past achievements. As Tamilnadu at present is more inclined to an egalitarian, inclusive growth ideology, there's more talk here about the lack of major hierarchy in Indus Valley.

[@welkinator]

You weren't taught that because that concept is garbage. This is the disease of "woke-ism" infiltrating the social sciences.

[@PRITZ060191]

@@welkinator Nope, true egalitarianism in the classical sense isn't garbage, its the hypocritical actions of the modern woke-left in the name of egalitarianism that is garbage. There is a big difference between the two, just like classical liberals and modern lefty "liberals". Its crucial to understand the difference. And as far as Indian history is concerned, its entirely captured by leftist/marxist historians since decades (do a bit of research on names like Ramchandra Guha, Romila Thapar and you'll know). Its only today after 2014, that other voices are starting to come out.

[@socraticlogic]

Read arthshastra, it documents administration of maurian empire and the societies were not at all egalitarian but difference between rich and poor was compatible with modern day.

[@williamkz]

Nearly every time I hear a TED talk, I learn something new. This one taught me several new things, for which I'm grateful. And congratulations to David Wengrow for his effortless pronunciation of all those ancient places with almost unpronounceable names.

[@jayarava]

If you like this, you should read the book he wrote with David Graeber "The Dawn of Everything".

[@iloveowls8748]

@@jayarava second that!

[@neodlehoko404]

Excellent! This is a conversation we need to be having world wide. Imagine if every community around the world were to be reminded of its actual history, and the history of other places. We wouldn't feel so stuck in a rut.

[@TheBorderRyker]

“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” - sometimes attributed to George Orwell. That was one of the best TED talks I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@sylvieflore3724]

The book is mind-blowing; fantastic piece of research.

[@yawnandjokeoh]

Funny because Orwell was a snitch

[@Prometheus720]

If you liked this talk, read the book he wrote with Graber called Dawn of Everything. He doesn't really do a great job of talking about the evidence in this talk (probably because that's hard to do in a talk) but he and Graeber do a fabulous job of it in the book.

[@thomasnicolle8339]

Yeah I was gonna say he just stated a lot of things as truth without explaining how the evidence led them to the conclusion

[@BobStein]

I'm about halfway through that book now. It is fascinating but I have a growing impression of disjointedness. I keep finding myself rereading sections and still wondering what in the world he's trying to say, other than history is complex and diverse and most patterns are overwhelmed by exceptions. Did you feel anything like this in the middle of the book, and did it change by the end? I don't need his dismantling of conventional wisdom to be followed by the construction of new wisdom. But I would hope that an historical narrative could be more coherent than historical events, and still be honest.

[@helenamcginty4920]

Thank you.

[@techscw]

@@BobSteini just started reading the book, but I imagine that it will be near impossible to determine a clear and coherent narrative for human history with current methods for a variety of reasons, one of which is the scarcity of archeological evidence that provide hints, but not clear narratives. Second, I’d guess the reasons that make ideal locations for cities today are likely the same or adjacent locations for older civilizations theorized in the video and books. These reasons likely make it difficult to find a large majority of evidence without upending existing infrastructure and inhabited locations.

[@scottwybel3286]

Thanks for the book recommendation.

[@nupurnishant4197]

I am happy to see there are still high quality TED talks.

[@diarmuidh6980]

I suggest that the kings and the nobility arose not with early agrarian agriculture, but when the (entirely separate development) of northern/ steppe based culture of herder-agriculture (which was much more militarised) and this culture then encountered the grain agriculturalists - and invaded them and took over. The nobility were the descendants of the invaders. This is a variant of Gimbutas theory of history (Now called the Yamnaya hypothesis) but writ large. All the early grain civilisations were eventually taken over by herder (usually horse-based) militaries. You even can see this in the changes in their armies - for those civilisations that survived - now with nobles.

[@gerardsoler1713]

Not silly at all. France 's history looks like that. 1500 years ago, France was called "Gaul" and was inhabited by Celts, that had been romanized by force. They lived under the Roman law since 50 BC, but before that were a very well organized agricultural civilization, with large cities, but no written language. Then arount 500, a German tribe, the Francs*, invaded and conquered some power places and took over the country progressively. They were some 5 000 at the beginning. They ended up by giving a new name to the region, then constructed a country they named France. It began soon an empire ruled by Charlemagne in 800. I'll investigate in this way, interesting, thank you. Sorry for my English. *the Francs were nomadic, semi-barbaric people, who made a living by stealing crops and wealth from villages and towns around**. ** makes me think that our actual government is probably from Franc origin. Il feel Celt.

[@kayakMike1000]

Gobekli tepe discovery struck me as compelling evidence against the narrative. There were also lots of stories about ancient India, very interesting.

[@fauxjaux]

The regular Beating of the Ego to remind politicians who is in charge- brilliant.

[@philis_dude9399]

Many hunter gatherer societies used to do the same to the 'best' hunter for the same reasons!

[@cpacoop]

Sociocracy is the operating system for this new world! I highly recommend researching Sociocracy. It's not socialism. It's not governance by consensus. It's a paradigm shift to consent based decision making were groups of rotating decision makers listen deeply to the people impacted by a given issue and draft policy that is "safe enough to try" instead if "perfect." It's iterative, adaptive, and it has revolutionized my workplace.

[@annaa.6761]

Thank you a lot for your commentary. I didn't know the existence of a such concept and I'm going to look for it with a great interest. Thank you again !

[@bencopeland3560]

We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major…

[@criminallezbian9294]

I love how people cone up with names for concepts of consensual decision making, that were developed and proven by anarchists abd socialists, but then call it "smth very different than socialism", instead of acknowledging, that socialist thinking wasn't that bad all along. What you describe is a model, where the workers are in control of their workplace. The democratization of the sphere of work and production is at the core of socialism, just saying 😘

[@twistedsteeltv6130]

​@@criminallezbian9294exactly, sounds like Socialism. Smells like Socialism. Is probably Socialism.

[@haroldsmith130]

This sounds like communism, in the classic sense. A post-socialist society i. The marxist sense.

[@kayzar293]

Its a brilliant book and we sorely miss the late great David Graeber

[@jamesbarlow6423]

Read "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes for the full, real story of civilization's origins.

[@Sid-mj1qf]

This blew my mind...I always looked upon civilisation as a game changer for us and to think about the attribute of inequality it had never crossed my mind until I heard this talk. This changed my whole perception of humanity and I always thought democracy was the solution invented by us to solve the problems of class division and ensure representation in society. But, to think democracy is innate to us as humans make sense since even though we had many past events that have changed us within, humanity survives because we have democracy within and between us.

[@qijia4769]

the eager for equality and the tendency to follow a strong leader are both built into human nature. our history is the result of competition and evolution of all form of societies.

[@pauldrake9312]

Seriously, did you just watch this without question?

[@otherperson]

You should definitely check out the book this is based on David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything, and should look into Graeber's anthropological work.

[@pauldrake9312]

@@otherperson This is crap, the book wouldn't be worth the paper it is printed on. Its only for people who are sheep.

[@otherperson]

@@pauldrake9312 sheep to what shepherd? Lol it is incredibly anti-establishment.

[@travistownsend6750]

I am just finishing his book with Gareber. Just mind-blowing and so important. I got my degree in history and wish I could have learned from them!

[@nilslofgren6815]

I would say that book has the potential to be the most important book for at least this century.

[@travistownsend6750]

@@nilslofgren6815 I would agree with that!

[@keithlightminder3005]

Imagine if the random current wars were to actively destroy all evidence of alternative ways of life, in an era of digital documentation so all records also can be erased.

[@sparky7915]

Check out Edgar Cayce and see what he says about the beginning of mankind.

[@Cathymaca1]

I shall definitely be reading this book. Other mind blowing reads challenging our perception of our way back ancestors are; 'The Memory Code' by Dr Lynne Kelly. and David Graeber's 'Debt - The first 5,000 Years' but this is not an easy quick read...

[@gorkemgulan]

We are unstoppable, another world is possible ❤️

[@martinzarzarmusic5338]

One of the most eye-opening lectures I’ve ever heard.

[@LiaanZeeKun]

I highly recommend the book “Human Kind” where historian Rutger Bregman shows that most people are actually inherently good based on the latest 2 decades findings from different fields such as sociology, psychology, biology, anthropology and archeology. 😊

[@freddyjosereginomontalvo4667]

Thanks these are things that give me hope

[@Atat0ri]

This TED Talk is from Wengrow's book with Dr. David Graeber "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity", if you liked Human Kind you'll love it. I think it's a little bit better than HK.

[@TeaParty1776]

>inherently good Innate ideas is the absurd claim that man knows reality prior to knowing reality. Ideas, including values, are the product of mans free-will mind. The evasion of this has prostituted social science to blood-drenched Leftist political fanaticism.

[@cinikcynic3087]

@@Atat0ri It is amazing. Great writing style too.

[@esthermcdonald2297]

An excellent presentation by an exceptionally intelligent man

[@jamesbarlow6423]

Lol. Read "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes for the full, real story of civilization's origins.

[@ebrufineart]

@@jamesbarlow6423 I have often pondered Jaynes book, is it an original theory, or an interesting presentation of unprovable thoughts by a very smart man... Defiantly interesting either way.

[@cnasir3475]

I gotta comment on this. First of all, the Root of inequality in nature. Life is unequal, then the question is not how do we prevent inequality, but how do we make the world more equal? It is like poverty, it is like people trying to answer "Why are some countries poor?", The whole world started off poor and in poverty, the question is not "Why some countries are poor?" but "why are some countries rich?". To get back to the inequality. Nature causes inequality in so many ways, first of all, if you are unlucky to be born into a geographically bad environment with terrible sand and rain, good luck finding food, two there could be flooding that takes away your entire house and kills all the animals in the village, good luck with that, or your parents could suddenly die because of some diseases, or all your children could die except one, or you are the oldest one in your family who does the farming and you fall from a tree and broke your back and now your family can't farm. So, humans didn't start inequality, life started it. What those civilizations were good at was how solve the problem. In old days, people were very close together, you had a village that basically took care of itself, everyone belonged to everyone else, everyone trusted everyone else, and everyone depended on everyone else and they had to, life is hard and difficult and if you were unlucky to be hurt in a terrible accident with a wolf you needed to trust the village will take care of your children and vice-versa. Then, when those villages learned to farm, they continued the tradition for thousands of years in some places where they were able to be separated from the terribleness of other different tribes that would kill them and take their stock, or they had a system of culture and religion that was very influential. Later what happened to us, the larger the groups get the more separated the people become, and the more separated people become the less compassion and dependency until some people fell through the cracks and couldn't find someone to help them. It was crazy for me to see homeless people in America, I am from a small village in Somalia and we didn't have any homeless people, most of us were poor, but everyone was taken care of by everyone else.

[@stuckonearth4967]

It's a good question to ask "Why are some countries rich?" or "Why are some people rich?". The current economic system(capitalism) allows for rich people to accumulate large amounts of money. According to an economist Yanis Varoufakis multiple trillions of dollars just sit there doing nothing extracted from economy. Why it is bad? Money is like a blood in our veins, if one organ accumulates the majority of the blood - a disaster is inevitable. That's why Quantitative Easing(printing money out of thin air) was introduced to create a new "blood" which devalues current money aka inflation(known as tax on poor). While QE can be beneficial if a government gives away money to the ordinary people of that country often times they give the money to bail out banks. QE in US dollar can potentially benefit the citizens of USA but not the citizens of other countries, their dollars just inflate. Capitalism is not sustainable. Economic crisis can easily be created by completely draining the blood when the whole population starts to accumulate their money "under their beds" out of panic.

[@darrell20741]

This video has caused me to think in ways I have thought before, but with new meaning. For example, a task master is a master over tasks, not over people.

[@voltcorp]

one common theme during Europe's invasion of the "new world" was how they couldn't wrap their heads around the native concept of a leader that works by having to convince people to partake in projects, instead of ordering them to.

[@eleonoraf.29]

I am studying his book, written with David Graber RIP. Amazing!

[@yurdagulgizemeken6669]

very comprehensive, very impressive and eye opening presentation!

[@howarddavis2281]

Highly recommend the book. Brilliant.

[@CapnSnackbeard]

Dawn of Everything has all the power of Zinn's "People's History," but could be even more subversive. Loved it.

[@ArribaElMole]

I'm already reading it!! It's amazing

[@mindvolution]

Excellent talk! This world is definitely not the only one possible. I do firmly believe that new forms of political governance and social organization need to and will develop in the future evolution of human societies and civilization.

[@Fritz999]

You are correct but no other system will ever be possible without, as a first and necessary step, getting rid of formalized and stratified religion.

[@jamesbarlow6423]

Let's hope so.

[@jamesbarlow6423]

Read "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes for the full, real story of civilization's origins.

[@jamesbarlow6423]

@@Fritz999 . 🤣. Not likely. Especially if just that is stridently, religiously observed, enforced. Even the notion of 'equality' has an origination in religious sentiment!

[@kazbekmairbek8853]

@@Fritz999 you're so right with down all religions

[@brunolerman2108]

This is amazing! I´m a historian and was stunned by such open minded concepts. We may be watching a kind of a prophet. There are no boundaries for mankind to reinvent itself. Marvellous!

[@kwimms]

Are you a "historian" ... wow... since history is ALL BS... what does that make you?

[@brunolerman2108]

@@kwimms if you pay attention to the vídeo, you'll realize we actually agree. Perhaps you just despise any kind of approach towards our past, not my case. Anyway, I gotta admit I graduated with even more questions than 4 years before.

[@vayxanh]

Excellent talk with many facts & infos & great analyses. Thank you!

[@gerardoblancasgonzales1167]

My family has heritage from the towns that were formed with the dissolution of Teotihuacán. The Otomi, called specifically by the Mexica, saw no major problem than organizing themselves into small peaceful communities around the mosque valley and the central area of the country. They were subsequently subdued by the Mexicans and renamed as the tributary head of Tlacopan :')

[@blakehelgoth5247]

Any recommendations to find more info? I'm Chickasaw and our best understanding is that we migrated from what is now north eastern Mexico (but not on the gulf coast).

[@aulaalbalad4072]

Such a great talk! Hope he can present in other moments.

[@manivignesh.k6526]

Excellent talk. Waiting for a day these findings become mainstream and historians build meaningful narrative around these findings. Curious what Mr.Yuval Noah Harari has to say about this. Would be interesting to know Friedrich Engel's opinion too if he was alive! Can someone share study material about the societies between 4000BC and 8000BC? for the understanding of this period could have huge implications as to what human societies are capable of.

[@iankmak]

The fact these ancient civilizations all died out and replaced by societies with a greater hierarchical structure probably suggests they arent any good. Centralization is beneficial in many ways. Economies of scale is a thing. Everyone farming their own tiny plot of land is very egalitarian but not very efficient.

[@almishti]

@@iankmak that is hardly the only conclusion one can honestly come to. There is the likelihood, for example, that the more hierarchical societies were overcome by the violent sociopathy of a few deranged men who were willing to unleash any amount of violence to get what their individual selves wanted. The Assyrians, for good example, did not acquire a great empire b/c they had a superior mode of political organization, they did so b/c they were horrifically bloodthirsty and considered acts of rapacious cruelty to be their gods-granted right and duty to perform whenever possible. This does not make them superior to other social modes. If it did, then every last single point of our own moral philosophy would have to be called into serious question. We clearly see this dynamic in our own modern world, in fact it's a gigantic component of how certain European powers like Britain were able to colonize a huge swathe of the world, undermining nd destroying civilizations that had been doing successfully for hundreds of years and were in fact pretty healthy until colonizers came along. The idea that these were sick, weak, failing socieites is just another point of propaganda the British et. al. created to give a sense of, A) inevitability to the 'triumph' of their violent sociopathy, B) credence, albeit false, to the notion that they triumphed b/c they were the pinnacle of human cultural evolution and of course they did b/c everyone else was inferior and 'savage'. The rise of fascist and leftist tyrants also reveals this dynamic at work, and we are very clear that these never led to lasting, stable societies, nor did they succeed b/c the nations they took over were 'no good'.

[@kokokokow1760]

@@iankmak although this seems like the obvious conclusion, things are almost never as simple as they initially look. If societies without hierarchical structure managed to survive until the middle ages, then it shows they were doing something right. For example Europe managed to colonise so many countres, because they were more technologically advanced. But they became more technologically advanced, because they didn't have to work as much to get their food. They had more free time which they spent doing science. So what happens is a city or a nation which was able to resist attacks of similarly militant societies for hundreds or even thousands of years, suddenly faces a technologically advanced foe who on top of that gives them measles, a novel virus for their population. It just sounds more like luck to me. How close one is to resources, raw materials and how resilient their immune system is, is a much better predictor of success. You can see something similar happening with China right now. They were really struggling to feed their population just 50 years ago and now they are on the path of becoming the biggest economy in the world. This did not happen because they are communist or in a hierarchical social structure. This happened, because they were handed technology on a silver platter by all the US corporation which outsourced their production to China. For the same reason US and most western countries are now declining. Most of the population spends too much time at work and this stifles technological progress. I'm guessing the next big winner will be the nation or organization which promotes science and more free time at the same productivity level.

[@ToriZealot]

@@iankmak any evidence they weren't any good?

[@brunolerman2108]

@@ToriZealot Jared Diamond's book, I think it's "Guns, germs and steel"?

[@arnoldlee4750]

But ironically, all these mentioned social structures have almost disappeared over time. It is worth pondering why these structures vanished while the structures of rulers like kings have been preserved.

[@gerardsoler1713]

The answer could be that force takes advantage over empathy and cooperation. We live in times of force, coercition to grab resources. People who decide to use force are committing other people to submit or to fight. We are not all wanting to fight, kill or enslave to increase our wealth. So we bent our heads instead of taking arms to fight against the people who were violent at first. Sorry for my english.

[@esabeausoguel8480]

Mind-blowing😍 Really opened my vision on history and our own society's structure

[@starkjenny]

I love ❤️ you amazing lecturer of such beautiful wisdom and new evidence!! Thank you 🙏

[@jamesbarlow6423]

Read "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes for the full, real story of civilization's origins.

[@DoloresJNurss]

Well, that shoots down several of my favorite theories! But halleluia! It also offers exciting new possibilities!

[@romeronickell8332]

This is a great synthesis and summary of their conwrittern book, the dawn of everything, an expansive and ambitious book anyone interested in this stuff should read !

[@miatellez4192]

Love this explanation

[@mogourmetzulu213]

Incredible talk! Looking to translate his into all the 11 languages of South Africa. To some who this info isn’t available bc of language barrier - consider translating for others.

[@gorkemgulan]

How do you share then?

[@neodlehoko404]

That would be amazing! Do you have a way of doing this already?

[@JamesMartinBass]

I'm reading The Dawn of Everything right now. This was a nice find.

[@gcast017]

The best TED lecture ever

[@annazarasyan9833]

excellent talk, thank you!

[@SolveigaLidaka]

Thank you for the video!

[@stanleyodle9242]

Outstanding.

[@AbdoKesserwani]

Very insightful and important.

[@kerenk72]

It would be amazing to see the speaker share the stage with Yuval Noach Harary and have a debate on history, wouldn't it?

[@ToriZealot]

What research has Yuval done?

[@wokemaster1929]

Brilliant lecture and hope I see more in future. I believe leadership and authoritative are different. Even back then, there needed tk be leaders who excelled at their own strength. Humans have to follow. Today its much greater. As much as we'd like to be free, just look at how we fell prey to the authorities during COVID and even in fact, ostracised those who wanted to be free We are, sadly impressionable. Herd mentality is real. As a result, there will slways be leaders and followers. Today, the leaders will then socially and economically be "above" the rest

[@BlankaSzczebak]

This is awesome!

[@cherilynnfisher5658]

Fascinating!

[@StephBer1]

I have always thought that people in general only want a good life, the basics of life, food, shelter, friendship and family. If all that is provided in an egalitarian way then there would be no reason for desire, envy and war. War has always been about envy. These envious people should be the outliers in society, not the norm, as it is today. We are all told from the earliest moment in life that we must be better, must climb above others, that only through this will "civilisation" prosper. What if we are told that we must support each other? I believe that this would create the world most of us so desperately want. Those with the aggressive tendencies, those that wish to be "above" others should be identified early, given therapy and not allowed to be in positions of power.

[@watchofficial6602]

He knows very well about human history embedded the first day in the earth back.😍

[@garden_3130]

So interesting ❤

[@ebrufineart]

He and David Graeber wrote a fabulous 700 page book on the subject- one of the best reads I have experienced in a very long time: The Dawn of Everything...

[@sylvieflore3724]

Absolutely 💯; the book is exhilarating!!!

[@HablaCarnage63]

Well done.

[@circleasylvan8802]

Rest in power David Graeber

[@alexludwig_music]

Amazing stuff.

[@mjc01]

Superb.

[@AlexHop1]

Thank you!

[@ligiasommers]

Super interesting 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🙏🏻✨🌹

[@Ragnarokgar]

The book with the late Gaeber was amazing 👏 we need more people to read it

[@janetbayford133]

I strongly recommend reading ‘The Dawn of Everything” by David Wengrow and the late David Graeber. It will change the way you think. What we are taught about the way civilisation works has been imposed on us by the rich and powerful because it suits them to have the rest of us think that inequality has always existed and is necessary. But it is only necessary for them. Time for a revolution!

[@AngelosGeorgopoulos]

Remarkable. Thank you

[@maggieo6672]

What an awesome presentation, I thoroughly enjoyed it! You are so right, the people are the power! The power to choose is in our own hands, this is of our free will, this is what sovereignty means - to keep your power, not hand it over to anyone, to be your "king or ruler."!! Thank you for pointing out to us, that humanity has tried it all, we have made it thus far. And we made it b4, peacefully for many many years, without these tyrannical and oppressive "world leaders", who only, time and again, over + over repeatedly, have shown themselves to be, not leaders, but greedy slave drivers, to their own benefit, and not with the prosperity + survival of humanity in mind, as their main goal. They only have themselves in mind, with dreams of riches and power. Look where that got us! We are the people who take back our power from these "trickster hoodwinkers" and build a better system - one that is based on the kind of world we want to live in. For and by We, the People. Your message is very much appreciated. Thank you for sharing. ❤️🎶🌹 Sending love to all of you there from all of us here in Ontario Canada. 🎶🇨🇦❤️🍁

[@thesurvivorssanctuary6561]

Preach sister! ✊😄

[@Natella3312]

A well known people invented a well known religion with their god - Gold Bull... the world is under them as we have seen so far...

[@maggieo6672]

@@Natella3312 absolutely!

[@JustAThought01]

See the world not as it is; but, as it could be. Let‘s use our skill of intelligence to make rational, logical choices rather than use ideology to further divide humanity and succumb to the tragedy of the commons. There are but two choices: dominate or cooperate. One leads to disaster the other to a better life for all.

[@Gary-ys9be]

Well that’s the best talk I’ve ever heard on Ted 👈

[@packardsonic]

PLEASE HELP SPREAD THIS MESSAGE: Everybody can and must foster mutual aid in order to make society sustainable and humanitarian. 1. Advocate mutual aid and call to end the need to earn a living. 2. Organize Free Collaboration Networks that meet needs unconditionally 3. Teach others to be leaders in fostering mutual aid in their cities and online. We got this!

[@zarkospasojevic6272]

As I sit here reading the lectures of a two thousand year old teacher Epictetus, I get a small sense of the decline of our understanding over the millennia. History is taught like a sunk cost fallacy, no wonder it is always repeating.

[@peterclark6290]

One word: Specialisation, in particular of complex items requiring guarantees. It doesn't matter a heck of a lot if one arrow or spear misses, at least you were in the hunt. But building boats, heavy duty wheels and wagons or buildings required multiple skills and very careful attention to many details. BTW the agricultural methods they developed back then required constant movement, or fallow periods (reduced use), and these have only recently been totally overturned; by *Regenerative Agriculture,* starting in the 50's with André Voisin. Ploughing is now known to be brain dead, fertilisers are wasteful (indicating ignorance of what soil needs) and all the -cides are a denial that everything everywhere on this planet is part of an ecosystem. Stress free and well paid farmers are the new result.

[@noahedelson3618]

I think you mean standardization

[@peterclark6290]

@@noahedelson3618 I think you need to up your analytics game. No. I mean experts and expertise, and the single-minded pursuit of perfection - of form, of capacity and style.

[@sansm5285]

I wouldn't say well paid farmers, but profitable supermaket conglomerates. Because farmers, from North Germany to the Mexican backcountry work a lot and don't earn much. Only a few inherited a lot of land and money and manage their riches.

[@peterclark6290]

@@sansm5285 Regen Ag does offer less stress, less uncertainty and worry. The market for their goods is another issue entirely. Regen offers the customer nutritionally higher value products so it's a matter of consumer demand and them electing sympathetic governments for progress: i.e. well reimbursed farmers are a vital element in a healthy society. OTOH there will always be incompetent farmers.

[@sansm5285]

@@peterclark6290 oh now I see I missread your comment. I thought you were saying well paid farmers is the result of herbicides and pesticides. My point was to say that though productivity is raised, the political structure (capitalism) determines who gets the profit. I will now go an read a bit about regenerative agriculture. Thanks :)

[@AzEagletarian]

I'm skeptical of Wengrow's claim that everything we thought we knew about development of civilization is wrong. I'm with him on learning new detail about long ago history. However, he stated his claim in a way seemingly intended to demolish previous historians/archeologists/anthropologists insights. Did Wengrow even mention how introduction of money in various societies influenced them?

[@pauldrake9312]

Agreed. Its this new woke reinvention of history, throwing out everything from the past because it wasn't perfect, and then offering as a substitute something far worse which has a political agenda but nothing about actual history.

[@levmoses742]

Great question, and particularly because of slavery, we are still learning the origin stories of our species. Until we are capable of trusting the brilliance of African scholars, there will always be questions.

[@mrafard]

the use of written language must have been a big thing to divide people

[@pauljohnson6377]

Agreed. If a society/civilization couldn’t survive the test of time, there is a good chance they couldn’t make the most of their geography and technology. I don’t know how much we should say “oh let’s be like the dead civilizations that didn’t evolve to the times”

[@mkteku]

He is not claiming that EVERYTHING is wrong. He is saying that there is to much emphasis on how inequality was always a necessary prerequisite to all the "progress" we are (well, some of us are) enjoying... Intended to demolish? Once a scientist is clinging to his or whoever's theories just for the sake of clinging... that is not called science anymore. It sounds like you are not "prepared to look at" the new evidence :p. I mean, you mention you are with him on learning new details but you leave out the desire and willingness to actually APPLY the new knowledge for change, NOW. Are you a fan of consensus and collaboration? ;-D

[@lmhwellens]

If it was that way in our distant past, we certainly can do it again.

[@jamesbarlow6423]

No. You can't return to the past. Rousseau thought so abd the result was Robespierre's guillotine.

[@kalaimugilanph.d.5988]

Interesting diversified idea of how humans may have lived in harmony in the past.

[@terencenxumalo1159]

good work

[@openaccessguy]

Bravo! RIP David Graebar. Long live an Open Access Economy!

[@fractal_gate]

This was a profound lecture.

[@artscience9981]

It’s a good talk and an important thesis, but I kept waiting for more details on the discoveries he described. To my engineer’s ear, it was not enough data to prove such a sweeping thesis.

[@ramaraojonnalagadda3970]

Very good

[@christinespencer6933]

I wonder if all those who have commented here treat everyone they know, or meet as equals. Rather than blame civilisations for attitudes of inequality perhaps we should each look to ourselves and how our own attitudes to each other may give rise to inequality. In my experience inequality arises in even small groups through our inability to discover and respect the strengths and weaknesses that we all have.

[@sparky7915]

In the beginning there was Adam and Eve. The serpent convinced Eve to bite into the apple. The serpent was evil and selfish. So, since the beginning of man on earth there will always be some people who are evil and selfish like Putin or Hitler. They convince others to be like them. Some are. We must be on guard for these kind of people because they destroy people.

[@christinespencer6933]

@@sparky7915 According to Ted Hughes Theology “No, the serpent did not Seduce Eve to the apple. All that’s simply Corruption of the facts. Adam ate the apple. Eve ate Adam. The serpent ate Eve. This is the dark intestine. The serpent, meanwhile, Sleeps his meal off in Paradise - Smiling to hear God’s querulous calling.”

[@petepete2284]

What I was taught in school? I don't think there is any left in me. Because now I listen to the real teachers. The people that actually do the work.

[@levonchakmakian8002]

Thank you, Thank you

[@drphosferrous]

It makes total sense that complex forms of theivery wouldn't have developed before prosperity and resource concentrations.

[@batsnackattack]

Uh huh. so they'd be simply forms like straight up raiding or mugging.

[@drphosferrous]

@@batsnackattack yeah totally. We used to think that governments,states, and farming all came about together but new archaeology shows us ppl who knew how to farm for a long time before the first city states. I'm sure there were raiding economies and slavery but not states or organized religion. Maybe states and religions evolved out of raiding or slavery,and not farming as previously thought.

[@bobcornwell403]

This is very interesting. I can almost infer that the hunter-gatherers could be the real villains of how hierarchies arose. Could it be that environmental change cut their food supply to such an extent that they had to conquer the agrarians just to survive? It seems that any effective military has to be a hierarchy of some sort, with at least soldiers and commanders.

[@AbtinX]

Maybe the authoritarianism arose through the conflict itself?

[@brunolerman2108]

This guy proposes that our beloved empires (Egypt, Greece, Rome), have never been that "civilized", on the contrary. That is revolutionary, that is freedom which opens possibilities never imagined.

[@AbtinX]

@@brunolerman2108 beloved?

[@brunolerman2108]

@@AbtinX "most important"?

[@AbtinX]

@@brunolerman2108 I think we attribute things to these empires that really have nothing to do with them. They rewrite our history in their image.

[@georgeflitzer7160]

Loved this truthful talk.❤❤❤

[@arbor-pro8717]

congratulations and thank you, this is really challenging status quo thinking

[@martinzarzarmusic5338]

They say the winners of wars write history, and the losers of wars write the songs. I prefer the songs. Excellent lecture!

[@jenna2431]

Wow, who could have imagined that a feudal hierarchical era would claim that feudal hierarchies were an advancement?

[@alwinter-ny5ix]

brilliant

[@noneofyourbizness]

Marvelous.

[@herbertdarick7693]

Perhaps these more egalitarian people were simply different from us - Neanderthals?

[@gorkemgulan]

I have his book, now I need to read it quicker. Im curious. I KNEW the history told us was wrong and exactly because of Gobeklitepe that he mentions.

[@Avianthro]

To me, on this initial listen, what it sounds like Wengrow is describing would be a natural period of transition from the culture of hunter-gathering (HG) to urbanization and state-formation. That the process required perhaps thousands of years is not surprising, especially back in a time of much slower travel and communication techs, as well, of course, as other techs essential to power concentration-hierarchialization. There was a tremendous inertia in the human social-psyche from HG ways, the way we had lived for a couple of hundred thousand years (We still have much of this inertia today.) and there was also a need for other techs, not just the techs of ag& animal husbandry, before fully hierarchical social organisms running on grain agriculture could develop. What grain agriculture did was provide the enabling technological way of life basis on which everything else needed to get to where we are now was able to develop. The first enablement given by ag was that it set a large enough number of people free from the need to do HG activities...it increased "labor productivity" and freed-up labor to start doing-inventing other things, and that was the "devil's workshop".

[@ryun_d3v]

Wengrow canno't argue with you in 17 minutes, but if you read his book, he has 704 pages of well backed arguments to make his point. It is a great read. Interesting and thought provoking

[@Avianthro]

@@ryun_d3v I also cannot argue with him at this point, not having read his book to give a fair hearing to everything he claims. I have the feeling though that his thinking is not really all that radical and can easily be merged-harmonized with previous thinking, that he's probably just filling in some details of how the process ran. In my current situation, lack of both money and time, all I can say is that I'll put his book on my future reading list. Thanks for your feedback.

[@matthewsmith2362]

Either way The overall point is we as a human species are getting tired of inequality, the very fact that we’re asking the ? When was the start of inequality proves that it’s wired in us to be free. I just started this journey with a simple ? To my wife. Has a large number of people existed before without a government of ruler. It seems the white man stumbled across this happening in the americas (but kinda up in Canada) liked the idea of not being enslaved, but then eventually they came to the conclusion that they just wanted more and slaves were gonna be necessary for food production. And so it started I guess. Man I just have this feeling that my energy is my real currency, and I’m tired of it being middle-mended. So I asked the ? How far do we have to go back in history to find a time when man’s labor was not middle-mended? I know there has to have been a time where you did your own thing without any overloads ruling over.

[@Avianthro]

@@matthewsmith2362 Suggested reading: James Scott's "Against the Grain", Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel", Robert Sapolsky's "Behave", John Gray's Straw Dogs", and Ronald Wright's "A Short History of Progress" In short, ever since we started down the road of technological "progress" and especially with the transition to agriculture, we enabled an unfair, excessively hierarchical society to develop. We've never been able to make a society-civilization with good rules for preventing this. H&Gers needed some rules and traditions too in order to keep others from getting too "uppity", to maintain a sense of fairness, but the task for them was far easier, without the added element of technological "progress" making unfairness so much more prone to develop. If you want to go back to a time without the middle men, the hierarchy, then it's the time of H&Ging. Otherwise, if you don't want to throw away all the post H&Ger tech progress, you have to make rules to prevent excessive wealth-power gaps in our societies, and that's the motive behind socialism-communism, but even under that, we've always had excessive power gaps...the bureaucratic ranking hierarchy of the socialist-communist party. So, I honestly don't think we can go back to H&Ger type fairness, non-middlemenned society unless we also greatly downscale our organizations back to scales much smaller than states...tribes.

[@shauntempley9757]

You can go as far as the 1700's in NZ to find societies that lived as he described in this talk. Our tribes have that angle of community, even today, and we are not the only ones. All the indigenous peoples alive today do the exact same structure in their communities we do. The key differences between us all, is the customs and cultures that are different, although there exist similarities, which is how we interact with each other. We are all more peaceful in our conversations than almost all the nations today.@@matthewsmith2362

[@kingmj87]

Telling people what they yearn to believe (no matter how overtly and persistently all evidence remains to the contrary) will never stop being profitable, as he and Graeber will continue to demonstrate

[@alexanderclaylavin]

Talk about the hypothesis leading the research!

[@heatherhill3]

I feel hope

[@gordybishop2375]

Exactly on so many levels

[@HiggsBosonandtheStrangeCharm]

....brilliant.....

[@parallel4th598]

I wonder if these egalitarian societies he mentioned had a common matriarchal predisposition? There's an interesting book called the Chalice and the Blade which describes the differences between patriarchal (dominator) societies and matriarchal (partnership) societies. Interesting stuff!

[@lemonblue6282]

My understanding is that the "egalitarian" Tlaxcalans helped because they were being enslaved by the Aztecs. The Europeans were seen as a means to an end they couldn't accomplish for themselves.

[@macdougdoug]

Finally! Someone has discovered the actual "good ol' days".

[@toms5996]

How strange I did not know this - while I should have a good education. I hope he would've talked about the path of Northern Europe (Nordics). Edit: It would be great to have a TED talk or similar on how the Nordics developed - meaning after the last ice age to present day.

[@ThePawcios]

His hypothesis is highly speculative I would be careful beliving it... What evidence he has shown? Lack of evidence does not mean there was no king/ruler....

[@codacreator6162]

Depends upon what you study. The modern education in America has gone off on a path devoid of history, philosophy, ethics - study of the Liberal Arts - in favor of “job training” that sacrifices knowledge of this sort for skills that make you a better cog. We’ve been denigrating the Arts for so long, we don’t even remember the real definition. Instead, we rail against the study of literature, music, art, and history as pointless, worthless because corporations won’t pay you to have those skills. In fact, they really don’t want you thinking like this guy because it messes up their future plans of domination and exploitation. Get a coding degree, take your place amongst the most thoroughly exploited laborers and overlook entirely the greater issues of humanity (like climate) in favor of profit. Yeah, it’s sick.

[@FairFolkMedia]

@@ThePawcios You might want to check out his 700 page book on the subject, the Dawn of Everything.

[@almishti]

@@ThePawcios yeah, he actually has mountains and mountains of evidence to support every single one of his claims. It's not speculative at all, it's firmly based on archaeological and anthropological evidence. The way a city or settlement is physically organized tells a trained eye an awful lot about how they organized themselves socially, it's not a 'lack of evidence', it's an evidence of lack, if you get wht I'm saying.

[@ThePawcios]

@@almishti So send me those mountains of evidences :P He put to his presentation all best stuff he got. Scientific community has differed idea on that point. Lack of palaces doesn't mean there was no king/leader in the society :P That's why it is speculative hypothesis based on many huge assumptions

[@nicklevi5537]

you all know what this means right? kurzgesaght will have to remake their animation again 😁😁🤣🤣. thx for this. human will find our way. theres hope in this ❤

[@ThePawcios]

Not really :P Where is the evidence for lack of the kings/leaders? Lack of evidence is not evidence... it is highly speculative and cherry picked conclusion :P

[@nicklevi5537]

@@ThePawcios you think so? I think this is a very well presentation.. i mean, this is Ted here.

[@ThePawcios]

@@nicklevi5537 Presentation is very good, quality of arguments and reasoning are weak :P

[@nicklevi5537]

@@ThePawcios i guess you're right. But its not that he doesn't have any point right? At least some. I mean, it is possible for a society to exist w/o being ruled by one party. Even in a larger scale.

[@jimobyobiwan9005]

While there seem to be high levels of speculation regarding the distant past, with the modern main criteria of research being the materialistic content that people left behind and some tendencies,not laws, that human behaviour develops and which is used to kind of interpret some of the past, their suggestion to reject and criticise the idea that things are just naturally evolving around violence and inequality and extremism and crimes is a most welcome one.This idea can be used to justify things by someone who may have abandoned actual effort to actually push for a change, or one who may really become what many others have become. Extremists created by their cultural, ecological ,interpersonal relationships and by their own subconcious choice.

[@sonarbangla8711]

That a society swung between prosperity and exploitation, we don't have to look in the past with a sense of jealousy, we witness forces working for prosperity of all, even their enemy, we can witness forces working for win-win destiny in place of zero sum deals.

[@annaynely]

W/out kings & governance no permanent leaders above everybody else, those words are key.❤

[@MilanVosahlo]

This man should work on the Civilization videogames, that way he'd reach most ppl! :)

[@hannuback]

I was watching this like "wait, did Civilization games get it wrong too" :D

[@MilanVosahlo]

@@hannuback well Civ games are like a lego from whatever ppl invented (both socially and technically), this could be a cool mechanic for some city states.

[@codacreator6162]

No. Most of humanity either has no access to video games or shuns them. There are what? Seven BILLION people on the planet and the best-selling video game reaches tens of millions? That’s nothing. A drop in the bucket. The way to re-educate humanity is through formal education. We can teach egalitarianism as easily as we can reach exploitation, we just need to get the capitalists out of education and politics.

[@hannuback]

@@MilanVosahlo I've been playing Civ since it first came out and it really has changed a lot. I love how those games make you think about the history of mankind. This could be a nice feature or a new game mode :)

[@MilanVosahlo]

@@codacreator6162 reaching tens of millions is better than whatever you'll ever achieve with your approach...