Rethinking Human History

It's time to discard some common misconceptions and rethink our perspective on human history, so that we can truly reckon with the scope of our political possibilities.
The list of artists used is in the outro.
Thumbnail art by Richard Tongue.
Introduction - 0:00
Optimum Inequality - 3:10
Agriculture and the "Inevitable" - 7:38
The Wealth of Evidence - 14:20
Rethinking Human History - 23:53
Outro - 30:52
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Music:
Sun (prod. salmon the ghost)
Rodeo days (prod. Zeus The God x Greg Sekeres)
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Sources & Resources:
Against the Grain by James C Scott
How To Change The Course of Human History by David Graeber and David Wengrow (www.penguin.co.uk/books/314/3...)
www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/op...
www.eurozine.com/change-cours...
• Graeber and Wengrow on...

[@Andrewism]

Glad y'all enjoyed the video! edit: check out this history video that goes further to break down how material conditions impacted early human societal development: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZiyoGCYiJyCgKs Just want to bring some of the great reading recommendations to the top of the comment section. I haven't read these myself yet, but they look rell worth a read, and I wouldn't be surprised if they inspire many more future videos: As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition by Glen Sean Coulthard Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan Capitalism and Ideology by Thomas Piketty

[@renlevy411]

This is the best iteration/evolution of dialectical materialism theory I have ever seen Comrade. You are literally the new Marx.

[@ParadoxHorde]

As We Have Always done is a phenominal book, can't recc that enough! I also highly recc Reconciliation Manifesto by Art Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson

[@purrcatharsis]

The video you linked is from a pretty zealous and unreflected materialist. I wouldn't call that just a "history video". His critique of Graeber is ironically (or maybe willfully) ignorant of how materialism is itself subject to the imagination and that the perspective of materialism and how it understands itself has changed over time and is strongly influenced by bougie ideology and interests (something Graeber talked about in several publications). But that doesn't stop this materialist from treating (his interpretation of) materialism as self-evidently true and the sheer sense of self-importance and superiority that drips from his juvenile posturing in each of his videos is pretty cringey. And in this video specifically his whole argument is one big contradiction, where he wants us to believe that material conditions lead to deterministic outcomes, but also we can totally all become anarchists if we just want to.

[@WHATISPOLITICS69]

wow, this is a wonderful video - i’m honoured that you linked to my video here! this is especially true given that my video harshly critiques the Graeber & Wengrow article that you used as a source for some of your video, which shows rare humility on the internet. But your video goes way beyond rephrasing that article or any article, you really synthesized information from all sorts of sources, and best of all, you clearly dove deeper into the source material from the articles and books you’ve drawing from. You don’t take the authors at their word, you checked their sources! Also the art choices are wonderful, and great voice helps too… this is a great channel, and thanks again for linking to my video.

[@WHATISPOLITICS69]

@@purrcatharsis materialism can certainly be an ideological tool, and coloured by prejudice and narrow mindedness. I’m certain that Graeber rebelled against materialism in part due to the robotic 2 dimensional marxist materialism that was common in anthropology in the 1970s. but at the same time without materialism we can’t understand the most basic aspects of life, society or politics. the dynamics involved with male dominance and patriarchy that I used in this video make this quite clear and there are infinite other examples. And there is no contradiction between agency and materialism. Materialism doesn’t entirely determine behaviour. It just limits it. I may want to go to Tanzania for lunch today because they have the best food, but I cannot fly, nor can i afford the flight, nor do i have the time to do it even if i could afford it. My free will is limited by material realities. Sometimes this does make behaviour very predictable. We are not gods we are human beings. In subsequent episodes i explain how social change happens (see episode 8 and upcoming episode 10.2, 10.3) - within the range of possibilities of given conditions. in industrial civilization, with all of our enormous wealth and productive capacity and communication and computing tech we have all the conditions necessary in my opinion to live free and equal lives. It’s a matter of realizing it and taking collective action to that end. as for graeber and wengrow’s article, it’s too long to get into here, but so many of statements that graeber makes in that article and in his new book can only be made by ignoring 50 years of hunter gatherer scholarship. i will explain this in my next episode 10.1. he’s purposefully ignoring it in order to spin a false narrative which gives us hope which is good, but which at the same time makes us blind to important dynamics that we need to understand in order to be successful in our activism. we have better reasons for hope. people do not choose hierarchy for kicks or experimentation. we choose it when it is a practical solution to circumstances, or else more often we do not chose it at all, it is imposed on us.

[@geoffdparsons]

hearing you say that most of human history has been a constant process of societal experimentation and reinvention really gave me a lot of hope. it feels like 50 years of neoliberalism, 250 years of capitalism, 500 years of colonialism are an eternity, that they are inescapable, but in the grand scheme they are not just short periods, but typical in the cycle of authoritarian and egalitarian social arrangements. we are clearly in a time that is significantly different from those that came before, but the underlying human nature is one of dialectic experimentation, not a monomythical forward march to our deaths

[@mtlewis973]

hope for people in 500 years, maybe. it’s done for our lifetimes. we’re fucked.

[@Stretesky]

I wish this were new. I've been trying to break the glass ceiling for 41 years, and you are now noticing.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

"To those that can hear me I say do not despair, the misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed and the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress, the hate of men will pass and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people, and so long as men die liberty will never perish"

[@seekingabsolution1907]

@@thedistinguished5255 you've got to try your best. Find a group of friends in similar circumstances and look to curb the predations of capitalism in your lives.

[@avavavavaz]

based

[@Itharl]

So much of my journey towards more leftist thinking has basically boiled down to "you need to challenge your assumptions". There's so many things that we take for granted as being truth, it's staggering.

[@antiroman458]

@Papa B = clown

[@antiroman458]

@Karl Hall please do, its sheer incoherence will drive you further to the left.

[@iswitchedsidesforthiscat]

@Papa B 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

[@legoboy468]

@Karl Hall you mean the people that explicitly reject science and the evidence that their policies don’t work?

[@antiroman458]

@Karl Hall There it is! The 1000000099909 billion killion dead, Vulveza arguement. Unironically! If you say Iphone you get bingo! We could also look at Venezula from 1999 to 2013 too, ya know, before the sanctions . And accuse me of whataboutism or whatever, but America and the Western Europeans have much more bodies all around the world to account for and far less to show for it. So wah wah cry me a river about the (steadily decreasing) number of dead in Russia.

[@undeadwolf5844]

The phrase of "It didn't *have* to be this way, and it didn't *need* to be this way." really applies here I think.

[@geoffdparsons]

holy shit looked at the sources and seeing david graebers name hit me so hard. i just keep running into him. first i just happened to run into his paper about the origin of money not being bartering but actually gift economies, then I read bullshit jobs for school, then caelan conrad's video about unions sent me to "fragments of an anarchist anthropology" and i noticed how much i was seeing this guy, how much his thinking seems to be pointing in a real tangible direction, so i looked him up and found out he died last year and was just crushed. i wish i could walk by his side on this intellectual journey im excited to chase down his paper trail and take the baton even farther. ps started typing before the end of the video and i am so so so excited to read that book gonna pre order right now

[@annasimpson4147]

The Occupy Movement was arguably Graeber's brainchild. His death was a huge loss but we have the opportunity to carry his legacy forward, if we try.

[@FlauFly]

Yeah, I have similar experience. I stumple on his influence all the time in my little political bubble. Even his posthumous articles with Wengrow still didn't fully end its impact. And their books sure make big splash too.

[@CCDR07]

Hiya, your comment resonates with me as well. I just enjoyed hearing him speak, and feel his death was a real loss for mainstream society. Though, argueably, it's now easier to access/find a lot of his videos and written work now that his website has been re-organized (updated since his death I think). In addition to his book with D. Wengrow soon to be available, and "Debt, the first five thousand years", two other books that carry a lot of weight in a similar manner are Sarah Hrdy's "Mothers and Others" about human evolution/development, and another one I think that absolutely sheds a lot of light on Western Society and cultural evolution is Ian McGilchrist's "The Master and his Emissary". Neither of them are light reads however, so you need a good chunk of time to devote to them (I'm still not through McGilchrist's after close to a year of bouts of intensive reading with long periods of leaving it alone to let it sink in...). Lastly, I also recommend Robin Wall-Kimmerer's "Braiding Sweetgrass" for just an inspiring, informative, and enjoyable read that literally weaves American Indigenous perspectives to biology/ecology and western-science. And provides many inspiring visions about human-nature relationships based on the thousands of years of cultural development and traditions that evolved in North America within those societies.

[@urabagofcells2228]

I read critiques that Graeber ignores the construction of Blackness in his formulations... esp. in his book, Debt. He might include "Africa" but not Blackness. Like falls into the trap of categorizing slavery (American Chattel Slavery) as "forced labor." Any thoughts? (Please, no defensiveness).

[@CCDR07]

@@urabagofcells2228 Hi, thanks. I don't really have any thoughts to offer off hand. I think that what you say is probably a very legitimate critique of Graeber. A critique, which I might say doesn't counter any of his arguments or central points he tries to make, but rather indicates omissions or re-intepretations needing to be rectified. And, in some ways, I might suggest that filling these ommissions or providing elaborations and re-interpretations is probably best done by the people with lived experience and knowledge of being a minority and living within the cultural legacies of imperial oppression, etc. I like your name. Loren Eisley, an ecolgist and evolutionary theorist/fossil hunter among other things, once wrote in reference to our cells that we are all walking bags of seawater... that cellular structure and osmotic and chemical regulation of intra cellular fluid basically mimics the chemical conditions of the sea in which life arose, and enables these fundamental life processes to continue independent of actual sea water... The book was "The Immense Journey", think it was published in the 50s...

[@1Dimee]

"Oreos > Equality" - John Jack Roooso

[@christianrokicki]

Some prefer Hydrox!

[@sieltan5618]

wait wasn't he saying the opposite?

[@LemonDove]

@@christianrokicki after years of my dad insisting Hydrox were better I finally managed find some for us to all try on Father’s Day. And he was right!

[@christianrokicki]

@@LemonDove Nice!

[@peterhooper2643]

Roooso

[@NakariSpeardane]

This is a really important video! The idea of social inequality as inevitable and part of linear progress is really limiting and you did a good job deconstructing it. I knew a few bits of the history here but this has given me a lot more to read and more insight on applying it to the present :D

[@Andrewism]

Absolutely! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Your worldbuilding vids are probably my favourites on this site because you go above and beyond to construct unique worlds. Keep it up!

[@otherperson]

Team-up of the century

[@otherperson]

This also connects really well with the concept of the summer family and winter family that you've set up for one of your projects, and how they have distinct social structures depending on the time of year.

[@FlauFly]

Oh hey, I love your videos. Fact that you're watcher of Saint Andrewism make it even better. Never enough good leftist/anarchist propaganda.

[@romefromiris7424]

huh didnt expect to see my other favorite youtuber here

[@ForeignManinaForeignLand]

Big man, I only a few minutes in and so much facts been disseminated. The fact that human history is written from a Eurocentric perspective particularly also presents a great deal of biases to societies that the rest of the world had. We need to revisit the history of humanity

[@dainironfoot5198]

Eurasian-centric might be a better term here, since the cultural theme of "civilisation" vs. "barbarians" was common across settled civilisations throughout Eurasia, from Europe to India to China.

[@ThomasAndersonPhD]

But... human history isn't written from a Eurocentric perspective in non-Eurocentric cultures. Do you think that human history taught in China is taught from a Eurocentric perspective? Different places learn different parts of history that are focused on where they are. Americans learn more about American history. Canadians learn more about Canadian history. Europeans learn more about European history. It makes sense that a basic into to history in Europe would be Eurocentric. For the person interested in history, they can learn a variety of perspectives. European history is huge in terms of influence on the world today, so it is worth understanding. It is also really informative to learn about Chinese history. Hell, it's informative to learn more about ancient history, too, like the Persian empires. If you want, you can learn about Mongol history and Russian history, too. The more angles from which you learn, the more you can see the different connections and perspectives. Indeed, Mongol history interweaves with Russian, Chinese, and Roman/European history, and these all interweave with Indian history and the Silk Road, and naturally European cultures eventually interacted with African cultures. These cultures all interacted at different times and in different ways, and these are not even all the cultures! You cannot expect EVERYONE to learn all that, though. In any case, the idea of the "noble savage" was was a reasonable myth at the time, but now it is well-known to be a myth and a fallacious way of thinking. If someone thinks that way, they're just uninformed, but we're not taught that "noble savage" is an accurate depiction of the way things were (at least, I wasn't).

[@tikayscake2416]

Another one is how history is written entirely by men. Looking up “why are there few women in history” as a kid and seeing how only .5% of recorded history involves women broke my tiny heart and soul. Role models or a matching perspective are so far and few between, it’s depressing. There needs to be more emphasis on marginalized viewpoints in our history

[@MikeWhiskyTango]

@@tikayscake2416 so do it. That's the problem.

[@aguilarraliuga1777]

@@tikayscake2416 simple, because most women simply did nothing of note. And the ones that did are considered legendary. Simple as is.

[@SJKlapecki]

It's been a really genuinely soul-shaking experience to learn about history and perspectives outside of the dominant narratives - how much of what I was taught was at best biased and at worst outright propaganda. Human history needs to be rewritten from page one.

[@alexandra_isabel_official]

You should look into the history of cataclysmic events. It's likely that our human history has been broken up by massive catastrophic natural disasters (like what the story of Noah detailed) and this helps to explain the sophistication of ancient civilizations that seemingly collapsed out of nowhere despite being way more advanced than we are today. Atlantis was submerged after one such event. There's a much stranger truth out there than anything this guy said. This was more ideology than history imo.

[@garybobst9107]

Human history is a tangled mess,with civilization rising and falling all the time.It looks like we're crashing again,I wonder what they'll think about our ruins when they dig them up...

[@theexchipmunk]

@@alexandra_isabel_official We are and can pe pretty damn sure that there has never been a civilisation as or more advanced than us. For one simple reason. While all we have build would disappear in short order after our civilisation ends, there is stuff that will be left for millions of years, hundreds of millions even. Our civilisation has left its mark on the geologic record already, and so lasting, that if 200 million years from now aliens landed on Earth they still could tell that there was an advanced civilisation here. Namnely the massive and insanely quick change in our atmosphere, all these rare and uncommon elements spread far and wide, and fissile elements and their fission products. There will be a slim layer that contains that for a long long time. Thats also why we can tell that if there were intelligent dinosaurs, they never went further than ancient/medieval high culture. Because if they had industrialised? We could tell.

[@wickedlee664]

Wow… you can’t make this stuff up. You just come right out and say it eh? History is not a grand conspiracy. 99% of the world’s events are lost to us. Western civilization has constructed its narrative using some first hand accounts, some archeology, some religion and some analysis of present day affairs. It’s certainly partly propaganda. The bottom like Is that you hate western culture as want to reshape it. You are going to have to use violence to get that done. There are plenty of people who are not interested in spending their lives rejecting a culture that is useful. Culture and history are tools. The work is the raising of families and leading meaningful lives. Resentment and lack of purpose motivates someone interested in destroying the culture that supports them. Rewriting history will not get you any closer to a “truth”. It will be your attempt to reshape the world in you image. I doubt you even understand what it would take to actually reshape the world. History was lived first and then written. What will you live? Or do you just intend to type up your new history and teach it to our children? We will see.

[@olikwinther7586]

Pretty much

[@DrAnarchy69]

I ducking LOVE David Graeber. Debt: The First 5000 Years is amazing and shows how commodity production led to sexism (women being the first commodity) and how commodities contain violence (among other things). Small quibble: Graeber was a Jewish Anarchist anthropologist from the US, he taught in London.

[@nkanyisoinnocentkhwane3752]

18:48 🤣 that Free Skillshare premium line killed me

[@joshuakleinberg4855]

Recently, I read a paper about debunking the myth of Jewish moneylending in Medieval Europe by Prof. Julie Mell, and one of the things I took away from that paper was that the idea that we went from feudalism to capitalism as some sort of natural progression or stage was completely wrong. It takes hundreds of years to "switch" from one system to another, and it was not like everyone in the region had the same system at the same time and not every city, nation, state, province, or fiefdom "developed" at the same rate. This stage narrative is pervasive not just in the documenting of history of the ancient past, but also of the not-so-distant past, and in more modern times as well as people ignorantly parrot the narrative. It is easy to say that history is complex, but it is another level to realize how far that complexity goes.

[@DuncanL7979]

Enclosure was the main driver towards capitalism in Britain. Traditional peasant feudal farming was no longer economically viable. Take the peasants off the land and you now have a surplus workforce ready to toil at various enterprises.

[@maxkanefield3775]

I have huge issues with Civ for the exact reason Andrewism points out -- what are these "barbarians" who do nothing but attack, have no ambitions but their own deaths at the end of a spear? How are they worse than the soldiers building my empire? They don't build because the game programmed them not to, so who are these people supposed to represent?

[@s3.14dervision]

I laughed so hard when you used the phrase "a window into the past". Nearly all my history teachers in school used that tired, insipid phrase and I remember in one of my last history classes (before my protest where I quit school) thinking to myself "how could such sophisticated cultures still existing today be a window to some primitive past?". Maybe I didn't get it.

[@apogeecreativitee7596]

As a huge fan of Civ and HUMANKIND, and a game developer who’s been planning on making my own Historical 4X, I would love to see a video about the Historical Inaccuracy and perpetuated myths. I think it might help me change my game to be a little better too

[@jameso2290]

It would be cool if you could figure out a way to do a "pre-history 4x" styled game, where you can play as one of many early hominid species. It wouldn't really be a "civ building game" I guess, since it's pre-civilisation. But you could have it so you're basically just wandering the map "expanding your hunting territory" and thus increasing your tribe's population. And instead of having one huge "centralized empire" -- when you population gets too big, your tribe splinters into multiple smaller off-shoot tribes. And if you don't maintain good social connections with your split-tribes, they might develop their own language and culture over time, and end up becoming a rival tribe instead of an ally tribe. In short, instead of a 4x game based on expanding one single massive centralized empire, its more about constantly moving around the map (nomadic) to meet new tribes, and managing social & cultural connections, through rituals and shared. So the game's difficulty is more based on "do you want to explore a thousand miles away from your homeland, find potential new resources, and fracture away from the other tribes? Or do you want to stick close to home in Africa and maintain good relations with existing tribes?" Random events like storms, droughts, etc, could be used to "force" the player to move away from homeland, thus adding an element of pressure.

[@BenLoula]

This just came out a week ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2fIqquOjLJlo7M

[@tikayscake2416]

The best advice for smoothing inaccuracies and myths is getting people of different backgrounds to say their piece. The extra perspective is a world of difference

[@LNYuiko]

Would love to see this kind of take in a Historical game. About time that the dominance of tired formulaic imperialistic Civ games was challenged.

[@KootFloris]

I now start to believe hierarchy was an 'invention' by some people with psychopath traits. Like Trump they invent stories, lie (which many honest people don't consider happening to them). They swindle and force people into following their commands, because "hey , a divine voice told me I'm to be king." And this tribal gang approach is military stronger than a self organised collective that has a diversity of reactions, where a tribe falls apart into flee, fight or freeze. Just consider the force Putin uses to get his army filled, and orders such as 'kill those who flee'. And what we see is that robbers also learn and copy tricks, from ancient nobility stories to modern first strike 'defence', etc. And sadly nowadays 8 sociopaths may sit in a boardroom and 200.000 nice common people get no raise, nor a word in. In ancient times in a group of 40, there would at best be two such people, who if raised with love and warmth would be an asset for the community. People raised on disconnect, lack of love and 'always take care of number one first' most often become sad and or aggressive human beings. By the way, I'm also a game designer and now developing game concepts in this direction, either exposing the lies of say hierarchy, or 'benevolent leadership'.

[@ashurean]

As an aspiring writer, I've been seeking out more and more of these kinds of sources. I'm tired of every story having the same western tint, with so many unique worlds bound to such a restrictive path of progression, as though it's impossible to change things in any meaningful way.

[@darwinjones2059]

"a whole video essay could be written about how videogames perpetuate the logic of colonialism" fuck, I'm here for it.

[@revisehellenologo]

Boost

[@pahko_]

Folding Ideas did a video that kinda went into this. "Minecraft, Sandboxes, and Colonialism". It's not comprehensive, but it's definitely the first time I've thought about games in that way.

[@FigureOnAStick]

Hell yeah. I need more stateless grand strategy games

[@romefromiris7424]

yeah please its so bad

[@Mae_Dastardly]

@@pahko_ villagers are born to be exploited tho. Unlimited iron and mending books is 2good

[@bendem94]

As a history major, this is the one video I would share with someone whenever this conversation is brought up (which is all the time). Capitalist/colonialist realism is often framed by its benefactors as extending into the future in perpetuity, but that argument is based entirely on the presumption that humans everywhere have always lived in a capitalist or proto-capitalist "state". Even a cursory look at the diversity of human societies throughout time disproves that notion. Excellent vid

[@Johnnyapppleseed]

"Colonialist realism" is a term which doesn't show up on Google. Capitalism's framing well into the future is a projection, not an argument. There are arguments for it, which I'm sure you're talking about. However, none of them are based on the presumption that humans everywhere have lived in a capitalist or proto-capitalist "state". They rest upon the failure of anybody to present a compelling theory, never mind ever evidence for one, that there is a societal and economic structure other than capitalism which can as well serve the common good when regulated accordingly. Some commodities are considered public goods, and are therefore provided through publicly held and regulated businesses. Hospitals should arguably be treated this way to the extent roads are. People are rewarded for their effort, and given society's agreed-upon favor tokens which they can then exchange for goods and services. There are perhaps an insufficient number of social safety nets, perhaps too many depending on a person's perspective. However, in a well regulated society an appropriate balance is not difficult to achieve. Unfortunately, government officials are not effectively regulated away from taking bribes from businesses. There is anecdotal and theoretical evidence that this issue can be ameliorated. Red-herring movements such as all encompassed by leftism sap at the concerted effort necessary to compel people to attain amelioration of the issue. A cursory look at the diversity of human societies throughout time doesn't disprove the notion of capitalism's perpetuity unless you can name a single societal structure for which there is a compelling theory of a 21st century adapted version that could be lawfully or peacefully, and fairly, converted to. Additionally, I don't think you have any evidence to provide. This is leaving out the swathes of new societal structures, as well as communism since you believe the scope of your rebuttal is constrained to historical human societies.

[@lolfemfaillol3933]

I look forward to socialists who deny history, getting exactly the system they want.

[@dingusdingus2152]

Whether you love or hate capitalism, it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Since it utterly depends on growth it is inherently unsustainable. Oh we humans are very clever at sidestepping ecological reality in the short term. But the sand is running down in the hourglass. Pick your analogy of preference: we are on a runaway train going off the rails/hurtling over the edge of a cliff/heading for a brick wall etc. At some point there will be a massive collapse and appalling human dieoff. Entropy always has the last laugh

[@bendem94]

@@Johnnyapppleseed Ya sure made a loooot of assumptions about my beliefs based on a single paragraph... Literally all I said is that capitalistic and colonialist societies (and really every society, if we're splitting hairs to the point of pedantry) reframes history so that the current status quo is an inevitability of human nature. The video my postw as in response to goes into specific detail as to how that view of history is a contemporary construct that does not accurately reflect human societies

[@bendem94]

@@lolfemfaillol3933 lol okay. I already live in one of the "good" parts of the neoliberal hellscape. Think I might take my chances in the society that is socially conscious beyond guaranteeing the ability to virtue signal, thanks.

[@thekingoffailure9967]

As a 20 y/o Canadian just trying to scrape by and keep my small social circle afloat, it astonishes me how many books you've read and unique perspectives you've collected. And yet you still have the time to share memes on twitter. All I can wonder is how? How do you find the peace away from this chaotic world to read and explore all of this? I've struggled being the martyr described in your psychology of collapse video. Coming home from social events to catch up on live takes of rage inducing world events. There's always something terrible happening in the world, and sometimes it feels that merely knowing about it helps, even though I'm not actually able to share this info with any of my blissful compatriots. It's addicting. Yet I can't even convince my mother that our trailer park landlord is more than just a passive asshole and should be stood up to. That any real change is possible. It feels like I live in two completely different realities. Maybe this just trailed off into a rant... Anyways, thanks for your content and your hope. I come back to this channel whenever I am feeling beaten down. It's so very comforting to hear the voice of someone who "Gets It." I will leave my house again, powerless as I am, trying to inspire and agitate towards a better world. But first I need to call my ISP and complain about shitty service... Again. 🙃

[@nanwuamitofo]

Thank you for your heartfelt contribution! I, too, was wondering how Andrew manages to read so many books, create videos and write articles on Medium (Andrew Sage) and elsewhere. He's not well-off, it transpires from his essays, yet somehow he has the time, energy and focus for all of this. Let's draw inspiration from him and be the best we can be! Have faith and keep well!

[@fredericksmith7942]

“And our first cities were actually quite egalitarian.” THANK YOU! As someone active in a lot of historical communities, I thank you for this line from the bottom of my heart. I am so tired of fellow history buffs just accepting the false premise that inequality was some kind of necessary trade off for civilization. I haven’t watched the entire video yet, so it’s possible that you touch on this, but the Indus Valley civilization was a settled people with urban areas and quality metalworking who didn’t seem to have any noticeable social hierarchy (though this is somewhat disputed). Some of the largest and most advanced cities in the Bronze Age belonged to this culture, and so many people either ignore them, or take for granted that they must have had some sneaky priest king hiding SOMEWHERE.

[@PaulWHall]

Something to keep in mind is architectural inequality is rather uncommon historically, as a lot of societies held flashy houses to be in poor taste. That’s why the housing of many nobles in various Asian civilizations looked mostly the same as lower classes on the outside, but had luxurious courtyards and interiors behind the walls. Classical Athens was much the same way; had our knowledge of classical Athens been largely architectural (as archaeology can tend to be), we might think Athens was rather egalitarian.

[@melelconquistador]

I want to learn about this, I want to break away from the fatalism that the world spirals into inequality and hierarchy.

[@2b-coeur]

​@@melelconquistador right? it's so depressing, i've never liked the idea but in the realm of facts i never knew there was anywhere else to go

[@Hendur]

@@melelconquistador But there are so many voices, both in history and in psychology, that tell us hierarchy is inevitable. Its really difficult to question what you´ve been told your whole life.

[@Nate-sf6er]

'Inequality started at home' is gonna stick with me for a while

[@christianjarvis167]

As a 1st year undergrad anthropology major, this is the shit I need. Damn. Thank you for this. I'll be watching this again while I write my midterm next week. It's very relevant.

[@geoffdparsons]

let’s go 1st year anth majors! can’t believe i thought i was going to be a scientist up until this year, so happy i’m switching to anthropology. this video making me think i might have to start looking into archaeology too.

[@MrCarpelan]

1st year archaeology student here! This is some good shit!

[@zoejohnston9190]

howd the midterm go?

[@christianjarvis167]

@@zoejohnston9190 I literally was just in the middle of writing, it's going great between a sprained ankle, work and reading. Thanks for holding me to it, I'm rewatching currently! (It's due in 12 hours).

[@christianjarvis167]

@@zoejohnston9190 I got an 86%!

[@camazotzz]

The book Tending the Wild talks about how California Natives managed the land in sophisticated ways, maximizing food bearing plants.

[@hellaballooba]

Great video as always, Andrew. (kimonoko here.) I should preface this by saying my undergrad was in microbiology, so I'm sensitive to this point. One thing that always annoys me about the "evolutionary" view of human history is that it imagines evolution they way Pokémon does: a forward march toward bigger and stronger versions which subsumes the weak. But this isn't really at all accurate. Evolution, much like your slide with the arrows running in every direction, doesn't move "forward." The simplest way to think about it is as a sort of radial evolutionary bush, where all of the edges are modern organisms which are on equal footing (rather than the hierarchical "tree" which suggests progression and hierarchy). Each organism has has adapted to its environment in the way which is most appropriate. But consider what that means: a long neck is great with high trees, but useless if foraging is entirely in shrubs close to the ground. So is a giraffe "more evolved" than a horse? The truth is that we, humans, are not any more evolved than bacteria or archaebacteria. We're no more evolved than chimpanzees or elephants, roses or algae. And so, to come back to the evolutionary view of human history, it's clearer all the time that cultures did evolve, but that evolution moves in all directions. This speaks directly to your excellent refutation of the "living fossil" trope. What is best in New York City may not work well in the Serengeti or Amazon Rainforest (a forest, by the way, which is mostly artificial planted by indigenous cultures - check out 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus for more). No group is more evolved than the other, just adapted to a particular environment. In sum, if people used the term evolution correctly (i.e. not as a forward marching hierarchy of development), I think we'd have a much more coherent view of humanity and our place within the broader ecosystem of nature. But curious for your thoughts!

[@graemecreegan6749]

A modern human is no more evolved than a bacteria 🤔 what specific conditions did our brain evolve for that a bacteria did not encounter first ?

[@LowestofheDead]

@@graemecreegan6749 Our human brains adapted to being social omnivores in the savanna at 1-2m tall. Bacteria evolved to be single-celled organisms, 1-micrometer wide in our soil and water. They're both adapted to completely different environments.

[@graemecreegan6749]

@@LowestofheDead 🌊👋 cool avatar 🗾🇯🇵 But if the first life on earth were bacteria, and all life evolved from one form of bacteria or another, including the bacteria currently alive, then surely it follows that our ancestors were forced to evolve into ever more complex organisms by some set of external stimuli. And that these stimuli did not affect the ancestors of the bacteria which remained single cells. Therefore we are in fact are ‘more evolved’ because evolutionary processes have had more effect on our species 🤔

[@DinggisKhaaniMagtaal]

This is a great point. The only thing that gives me some hesitation is the continued assertion that human development is biologically determined. I’m just not big on such determinism personally, and while a lot of development and human thought is obviously connected to biology, the idea that culture evolves is such a broad claim that it would seem then that all human development is either reactionary or accidental. I’m not saying you think this, and I think this way of thinking of evolution can still be a good analogy, but I can’t say how objectively descriptive a claim like this can be. Edit: of course, maybe I’m not understanding it too well or I’m overthinking it, but that’s my impression, and perhaps that just comes from how many people I’ve seen use cultural evolution as a determinism for imperialism and indigenous people “losing” to colonialism

[@hellaballooba]

@@graemecreegan6749 But that's the point - we didn't evolve from bacteria. We evolved from a common ancestor with bacteria. And the two paths of evolution from that common ancestor led to us and to modern bacteria. Same story for anything else we have a common ancestor with.

[@LNYuiko]

The idea of mutable social organization based on the seasonal and environmental circumstances is such an alien concept, yet absolutely makes sense. This erodes the argument for a globalized, one-solution style of social organization and government. Each territory with its unique challenges can arrive at their own ideation of balance, channeling all the latent tendencies for different types of organization. Not any of which are perfect but are evolving experiments.

[@jemvee3830]

The funniest part about that Australian accent is that I didn't notice you'd done it until you started laughing at it. I love it. This is a fantastic video.

[@BladeValant546]

As someone in archeological circles this concept of prehistoric and eurocentrism is disappearing. slowly but it is happening. It tough because people are not taught world history. For example I challenge you to research our cousins neanderthals and how advanced they were.

[@Akrilloth]

Or even Homo-Denisovan

[@aguilarraliuga1777]

And homo erectus…

[@halweilbrenner9926]

I live with 4% er Neanderthal. She's smart, tough, and spiritual.

[@NoRockinMansLand]

I don't think that's moving away from eurocentrism lol they only started attributing good attributes to neanderthals once it was realised that eurasians carry small neanderthal admixture. They were not as advanced as homo sapiens

[@GastricProblemsHaver]

There's a real chance humans survived over neanderthals specifically because we're stupider lol

[@norsie24]

"the conversation is limited by our perception of our potential" made me tear up. So good.

[@hanshaus2672]

What helped me really rethink my understanding of agriculture and "progress" was the Fall of Civilizations podcast. Specifically, the Easter Island episode. In it the host goes into how the populace shaped and used the land in "unconventional" (to the first Europeans who arrived) ways. Really interesting, very complicated systems were built and maintained for quite some time.

[@cookiesnbubbles]

David Graeber is one of my all time favourite authors. His works should be read by everybody. Debt: The First 5,000 Years shattered my preconceived notions over and over again, and Bullshit Jobs is one of the books that started me on my anarchist journey and I never shut up about it lol.

[@krobbalt]

Thank you so much for all the labour you put into making these videos. I have nothing else to say just commenting for the ol' algae rhythm xoxo

[@jadziaschillzone]

When a KZbin video you randomly come across at 2am summarizes what you’ve been trying to figure out for 10 years since you got your anthropology degree. This is where my learning really begins ❤

[@geoffdparsons]

"peopled every planet" made me laugh out loud. i really hope if we find life off earth that they've figured things out better than us. thanks for the video man

[@ParadoxHorde]

Been waiting for a vid like this, I'll definitely have to do more reading to deconstruct my own learning about this but bless you for this

[@ryanrichey3245]

Read the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

[@ParadoxHorde]

@@ryanrichey3245 thanks so much!!!

[@ryanrichey3245]

@@ParadoxHorde It's a novel, but don't let that fool you. It's well worth the read and has completely changed how I view just about every piece of media and the things people tell me. Quite honestly it made me a better person.

[@jordanthompson5696]

This is the most inspiring video I’ve seen all year. Thank you for bolstering my suspicions about the ‘linear’ history narrative I’ve been conditioned into accepting. Fascinating stuff. Thanks for putting in this effort to hopefully ignite further effort from me and others!

[@valaur3]

This is a good debunking of a story of history I didn't realize I was telling myself

[@MoogDoog]

You're always opening me up to so many avenues for unlearning so many things and never fail to bolster my mood or optimism. Cheers ✌

[@spencerharmon4669]

I smiled the whole time. "Definitely based on How to Change the Course of Human History," I thought. Brilliantly done. Thanks so much for this.

[@ammanite]

Same here :)

[@comradesad6732]

Another banger comrade. Love your videos, they are amazing.

[@MIOLAZARUS]

This channel is one of my favorites. It's so so so good and makes me hopeful.

[@strawberrythiefproductions]

Another banger vid. Every time I watch your stuff I come away feeling like my horizons have been stretched, with so much to think about. Thank you ✌️🌿

[@TripleRoux]

Perfectly put! These videos are expansive! Just like the mind that created them... 🌹

[@iswitchedsidesforthiscat]

⬆️🤜🏾

[@nanothrill7171]

This was a very moving video, and the hopefulness and beauty brought me to tears. Thanks as always.

[@NotHPotter]

While I appreciate your thesis, the claim that we're "stuck" undermines your narrative when you discuss the lengths of time these other forms of organization have existed. It's dipping into a bit of capitalist realism to argue that we lack the imagination as a species to keep changing when we're only a few hundred years into the present order. Feudalism ran for over a millennium, and the societies you mention for multiples of that. It's worthwhile to recognize that just because we're living in the height of the present order doesn't mean we by any means gotten stuck in a rut.

[@spencerharmon4669]

Graeber also used the word "stuck" to describe our present situation in the article, and my read of it is the opposite of yours. Graeber talks about (I think in this one but definitely in On Kings) how people would have these festivals where someone would basically be made "god." The idea is that this order, inequality, was done as a temporary thing, like a game. For fun or tradition or something. So, the question isn't why did humans end up so unequal (the answer to this tends to be the raft of european bad takes illustrated in this video), but "How did we end up so stuck?" I.e. this isn't some inevitable outcome for an advanced society, but maybe somewhere along the way we forgot all of society is made up and we can stop pretending some people are more important than others, we could get ourselves unstuck.

[@CCDR07]

@@spencerharmon4669 Good points, which is also why I recommend some of the Indigenous scholars publishing stuff in Canada and the U.S., such as Glen Coulthard's "Red skin, white masks", or Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's "As we have always done". Both these books take the idea of "Grounded Normativity" based on American Indigenous knoweldge/wisdom and governance, wherein human's individual and collective values, worldviews, norms, institutions/traditions, land-use practices, etc. remain firmly grounded (i.e. in relationship with) the surrounding environment and ecology of their socio-ecological system. In other words' they argue societies can avoid many problems and find answers to others by looking to the rest of life / nature. And this they argue is absolutely a key component to enabling societies to flourish over the long-term in co-evolutionary relationships with their environments (but you have to pay lots of close attention to your surrounding human and non-human "kin" alike!). This approach also enables place-based environmental and cultural diversity to arise/adapt, and explicitly recognizes the importance of letting these dynamics shape different groups in relation to place (anti-homegenization of society). However, this also necessitates protocols designed to equitably enable co-existence and cooperation amongst different groups while minimizing competitve tensions. Here, humans have come up with all sorts of social mechanisms to enable this, some of the least palatable are warfare or ritualized violence, but there are many other social institutions/mechansims/protocols described in anthropological literature if you go loooking for them. Anyway, I got a bit long winded, but the short answer they argue is: start working with nature and seeking and exploring your relationships with it (e.g. growing food, plants, learning how your behaviour affects your non-human kin) wherever you happen to be, because embodying relationships with nature in each individual's life is an important foundation for grounding these values and norms in the social institutions that shape our societies...

[@andythedishwasher1117]

@@CCDR07 This was extremely well put. I think it falls in line quite closely with the technological goals of the Solarpunk movement that Andrew describes and references in many other videos. It seems to be oriented around manifesting the kind of place-based ecological diversity you're talking about in human societies. There is a strong tendency, from what I understand, to emphasize integration with naturally occurring architecture and technologies. Plant medicines (i.e. the plants "conventional medicines" are derived from) being cultivated in the place of pharmacies on every block, building stable structures around living, breathing wood instead of stacking and screwing dead wood, encouraging the proliferation of native flora, all these are things I've heard of Solarpunks doing. It seems to me that if these indigenous scholars you are summarizing were to link up with this social movement, some really beautiful things could arise from it.

[@spencerharmon4669]

@@CCDR07 thanks for these recommendations; I'll check these out for sure! I think a keyword here is "imagination." Here again, Graeber called attention to this word, referring to modern humans living under neoliberalism/neofeudalism as having an imagination problem. For me as well, looking outside eurocentric narratives to preindustrial historic record, prehistoric archaeological record, and to modern indigenous peoples' movements and narratives are all primary sources of inspiration to help imagine what a possible future may look like. Like with any creative process, being stuck isn't great, but through motivation, attrition, and inspiration like what you mention here, I think we can move past this stage. Like, society isn't so bad, it's just having a bit of writer's block.

[@CCDR07]

@@spencerharmon4669 Except, maybe it's more like writer's cramp! :) Anyway, thanks for the reply, I appreciate your additional comments and I completely agree. Going back too Graeber, I've also always liked his notion of a "revolution of the caring classes", though I'm not sure where he originally outlines this idea and arguments around it, but I think it comes through in some of his talks online to do with the Bullshit Jobs stuff.

[@Theballonist]

This video is so good. Mainstream history makes historical people sounds so unrealistic, like automatons following a story with no idea what it means. The history you are describing feels like the one that I live in right now.

[@miguelpereira9859]

Woah I'm half way through the video and I am impressed, I love how the central theme seems to be to question literally every bias and prejudice we may have, I will definitely subscribe and watch where this channel will o in the future

[@surgeland9084]

Jared Diamond is a fraud and I wish more people called him out on his blatant lies regarding history as well as you did here. That he claims to be "anti-racist" in his approach is an insult to the intelligence of his readership. Diamond frequently acts upon assumptions of western superiority and no matter how he dresses that up, it leads to some very eurocentric, racist conclusions of environmental determinism. Thanks again for another great video.

[@coppermoth6069]

My current understanding of environmental determinism can kinda be summed up like this: Two kids are in a classroom, one is given a pencil, one isn’t, they both need to finish a hand written essay, the kid with the pencil finishes the essay before the kid who didn’t have a pencil. Would it be fair for the teacher to compare their intelligence while basing it on which kid finished their essay first?

[@musicdev]

Well fuck. I just bought Guns, Germs, and Steel…

[@surgeland9084]

@@musicdev Return it and buy How Europe Underdeveloped Africa instead.

[@surgeland9084]

@@coppermoth6069 Yes, that's accurate. But the problem is it doesn't apply to history in any capacity and relies on some fairly racist assumptions about what an "advanced" society looks like.

[@musicdev]

@@surgeland9084 damn, that actually looks like a good read. Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll definitely be ordering that tomorrow morning!

[@venturaine]

i am so thankful for a channel like yours ! what a rich wholesome point a view ! this is the type of information that makes me feel alive! the Truth! to the opposition of feeling numb in a world that doesn't fit..

[@priceoffame]

Another fantastic video. You're one of the best creators on the platform tbh.

[@neodlehoko404]

I’m so glad you made this, because when I first listened to the OG essay, I was struggling to commit some of the meaningful parts to memory. I really needed something like this to sort of texturize the material. Fantastic. I guess I coulda just said this on the discord but I’m already here so.. And I can’t WAIT to dig into the book either 🔥 Thanks for introducing me to James C Scott, he seems interesting.

[@user-sb8ks1ij7b]

This blew my mind. I feel the need to change my perspective of human history. Thank you for sharing.

[@soencoda754]

That was absolutely incredible, thanks so much for everything

[@MainelyMandy]

Great video! Sometimes trying to explain this to other people (particularly fellow white people) is really challenging because they are so deeply entrenched in that way of thinking and not willing to push against the Eurocentric lens. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it! I'll need to remember this video the next time I'm trying to explain.

[@Blate1]

A major key to human advancement has been specialization. People do better jobs at things when they specialize. For people to specialize in things, they can’t spend all their time trying to subsist. In a nutshell, you have to have farmers to feed the scientists. You also need large scale cooperation for public works, and for defense against outside threats. A centralized government of some sort or another will out-pace and out-compete anarchic confederations 99 times out of 100. They can organize faster and more efficiently. This also goes back to specialization. If one person is doing the farming and another is doing the crafting or the science etc, you also need someone doing the organizing and someone doing the planning and someone doing the leading. You are correct that this carries many downsides, and you are correct that quality of life for the average person actually decreased for a while after agriculture took hold. But it paid off in the end did it not? Now the quality of life of the vast majority of society is far better than that if hunter-gatherers. Would it be nice if we had no leaders and voted on everything? Sure. But that is insanely inefficient. Representative democracy is the best we can do with our current tech, and especially with any tech level of the past. In conclusion, I don’t understand what your aiming at here. What system do you believe to be better than our current one, that we could achieve with our current level of technology? I don’t think there is one. I do believe future tech will enable better systems though. Once we get AI to a mature state and can have AI/robots doing most/all of the work that needs to be done, then we can fix many of the problems that we currently face. But until then, what exactly are you proposing?

[@tiredgardener]

That was my main take away from watching the video as well. I also found myself thinking that we live on a planet that has limited resources which aren't evenly distributed, so inequality is sadly only going to occur naturally. The part where he seemed to suggest that everything in hunter gatherer society was free, was also a bit of a head scratcher. Trading of skills for things would have still happened, just like it happens now, but those things are money. We're still the same species ad our hunter gathering ancestors, same mental capacity and human nature. Thinking that the past was a peaceful state of fairness and equality is a romanticism of out past, I think it comes from people looking at how bad things are now and projecting their wishes onto our past.

[@Dialogos1989]

Specialization comes with its downsides as well. The more time you commit to mastering a specific skill, the less time you have to develop other potential interests or skills you could cultivate. People are very “narrow minded” these days. We have lost our connection with each other, and with nature. We’ve lost the bigger picture.

[@Blate1]

@@Dialogos1989 it certainly does have its downsides, but they are far far outweighed by the benefits. All of our modern medical advancements, technology, and comforts are possibly only because of specialization. It’s not free, but it’s one of the best bargains in history.

[@dingusdingus2152]

Good for you, lucky you for having such a peachy keen wonderful quality of life. My life sucks. I bet we even live within 50 miles of each other. Maybe you have benefitted from civilization and central governments and etc. and etc. but I have not. Maybe you live in a representative democracy but I live in a plutocracy of oligarchs, or an oligarchy of plutocrats, however you'd prefer to frame it

[@PatrickCordaneReeves]

Surprised you made this video without using "Civilized to Death" by Christopher Ryan. It's right up this video's alley.

[@ryanrichey3245]

Have you heard of a novel called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn?

[@Andrewism]

Somehow I haven't heard of it! Yet another book to add to my Goodreads list lol.

[@andrewzhao444]

The linear model of human history is a vast oversimplification. But it is still useful. If you may, think of the linear model of tribe->agriculture->industry not as a natural progression of whatever half moralistic definition we tend to use for them, but as a progression of POWER. This power may be military or economic, cultural or religious. But it is power nonetheless. Agriculture maybe didn't "advance" humanity in whatever way you may define it, but it certainly made whoever has it a whole lot more powerful, through higher populations which brings along greater military might, social/cultural influence, and economic strength. Written/recorded language maybe didn't "progress" humanity in whatever way you may define it, but it certainly granted an insane amount of power. Memory is extremely, extremely imperfect. The recorded word is essentially an extension of your mind, and massively expands the amount of information a person can work with at any time. That means more complex plans and be drummed up, more complex thoughts can be transmitted accurately over larger scales. Same with centralized governments, same with industrialization, same with capitalism/free market/whatever you want to call it. The powerful almost inevitably squeezes out the less powerful. Even if it doesn't explicitly kill the less powerful, they get outcompeted and fade away. I almost want to say that its a fundamental way things work, just like entropy. You can succeed against it technically, but only possible in limited cases over time.

[@spencerharmon4669]

You repeated some falsehoods here which I think detract from a nuanced discussion of the nature of humans. Humans generally resist undue authority. Throughout history and likely prehistory, many cultures and large societies have thrived without it. Ignoring these facts of the historical and archaeological record is the opposite of useful since what we need right now is a narrative which helps dismantle (as opposed to one which reinforces) the inequality and individualism that have been the central themes of western hegemony. A more realistic and useful view is that european so-called enlightenment and subsequent colonialism represent together a massive step backward in human social development in a progression that otherwise tended toward liberation from violence and undue authority. The way we frame history inevitably affects how we frame questions about it and questions about ourselves. I guess what I mean is: I reject your reality and I substitute my own. In fact, there's no evidence for what you say, so mine is more like reality and yours is little more than a fairy tale (which reinforces the myths still used to justify a system posed to destroy life on earth as we know it). I guess: what do you think *is* useful about the simplistic, wrong narrative about human progress being predicated on inequality?

[@andrewzhao444]

@@spencerharmon4669 I'm really not understanding where you and I disagree. I'm not saying anything about "progress" being predicated on inequality. What I was trying to say was that structures that make a society more "powerful" will tend to proliferate, especially where different structures compete. That is all. Where the linear model (tribe->agriculture->industry) comes into play is that I'm saying we can explain this linear progression not through mechanism of "progress" (since it's so ill defined) but through power. The reason each structure arose and became widespread is because groups that adopted them outcompeted other groups. There's no morality or ethics or ideals involved here. To answer your question: linear model is useful because it gives insight into the nature of power and competition of systems. I'm not just following the model's conclusions or assumptions here. I'm taking something from it, and getting something out of it without agreeing with it. You can say it's an alternate model inspired by the linear one. You can also say Its an alternate interpretation of the linear model.

[@JEHill]

Very glad to have found your channel. Appreciate your thorough insight on these topics.

[@Anark]

Another wonderful video!! What a great resource on the subject!

[@otherperson]

Are you gonna talk about this super old history in your anarchist analysis video coming up?

[@Anark]

@@otherperson Nahhh. It's almost all a method of power structure analysis and the basis of a modern anarchist framework. I would like to make one on the subject at some point though!

[@serenity6831]

Just finished the human nature one, super excited!! ❤️

[@unkownnumber6778]

The art you use to demonstrate your points is so beautiful

[@belladonna8425]

I just came across your channel a couple days ago and absolutely love it. Fantastic content from what I have seen so far. Subscribed and looking forward to watching your other videos.

[@trotskyeraumpicareta4178]

Before kings and stuff we had free fursuits, they were clearly a superior form of organization

[@harveymcdeck5488]

The era before kings was a similarly difficult time - the age of hunter gatherers. In one era, one had to spend each day slaving for Emperor Sargon and getting conscripted. In the other, one had to spend each day hunting mammoths and fending off giant predators. And then there were the raiders - some sites have evidence of prehistoric massacres.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

Thank you so much. I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing how different groups of people both historic and contemporary live their lives differently to me. Unfortunately I can never remember their names, it all sort of blurrs together so I can't then cite them to other people because I keep forgetting who they were.

[@isaiahsavoie3332]

incredible video. i love your content and the community and conversations surrounding it. thank you for the education and wealth of information you share and reference

[@thefoolsjourney6885]

Really great video, thanks for putting this out here.

[@shellbeebo]

This video reinforced in my head that not everything you read in a book is cannon or gospel. the fact that you had to say "I'm not against agriculture" is sending me 🤣😅

[@literaterose6731]

This is such an excellent piece, thank you so much for all the work you clearly put into it. As a somewhat cynical curmudgeon (with more than a little misanthropic tendencies sometimes…), this might be the most optimism-inspiring thing I’ve encountered in quite some time. I’ll be sharing it with my kids (a historian, a farmer and an artist) and other folks I know. Also, thanks for the book rec-Graeber is a favorite of mine and my family already (we especially loved his book Debt), but I hadn’t heard about this one. It’s on my wish list and I’m looking forward to sharing it with my kids when it comes out. You put a smile on this old anarkitty’s (love that!) face today!

[@arp0ad0r]

This may be the fourth or fifth video of yours that I watch, and each one is more enlightening than the previous one. Having just finished "The Dawn of Everything", I was expecting a rehash and restructuring of what I already knew. And certainly, there was more reinforcement than surprise, which would have been more of my reaction had I watched this a year ago. But there's lots of useful new analysis here, and even reference to movements that are completely new to me (like Öcalan's Democratic Confederalism). Amazing. Thanks for your good work.

[@alkaloitongbam6684]

This is so beautiful, thanks for this

[@johnmckimmy2005]

I love your use of accessible movie references to convey your point. Reminds me of Fisher using Wall-E as a jump off for American post-Fordism

[@lyrablack8621]

This is fucking beautiful. Thank you. And thank you for recommending "What Is Politics" as well - they are perfect companions!

[@CplusO2]

Great work! Really enjoying your content. Thank you.

[@wuggldy]

Amazing video, thank you! I am an archaeology student, and this perspective on human history is a rare one, but one that is gaining some small academic ground.

[@nerdteacher]

"Literally a whole video essay can be written on" the 4X game genre. (Me: Sees Spice8Rack has conveniently done that within the past week.) Anyway, this is wonderful, and I'm so glad to be seeing a lot more focus on this topic.

[@dillon1037]

Yeah, I liked that video too. Using a review of Humankind as a frame for the imperialist narratives 4x games push was clever.

[@haileybalmer9722]

This is fascinating. I'm a student of pre-history, and I love everything you're saying here. People would like to think that the trajectory of human history can be boiled down to that monkey to ape to Neanderthal to modern man meme. I feel like that's missing a lot and gets a lot wrong. It's sort of like thinking that when the tide comes in, the water rises all at once, and the shore just fills up like a sink. Instead, in comes in waves. Not just one wave, but thousands. Such is our history. It comes in thousands of tiny events, all of them interconnected, to rise to now. Realizing that means taking the blind faith step of admitting that there's a lot we don't know and a lot we may never know. This is something smug academics aren't often willing to do. They prefer the narrative where they know everything and there's nothing left to study or question. See, this is how science stagnates. Also, weird aside, but the reason we have so much fossil evidence out of Europe and North Eastern Africa is entirely because of their distribution of limestone. It makes good fossils. There's less of it in Asia and in the Americas, where most of our fossils are preserved in much more delicate sandstone. Sandstone also preserves fossils, but it's also easily destroyed, leading to fewer fully preserved fossils. But you know what they say about fossils: you can always dig up an older rock tomorrow. Who knows what we'll find?

[@JohnPaulsonJohnisaStegosaurus]

i love your laughter about 13 minutes in. there's a lot of meaning in that laughter and i'm glad you kept it in.

[@ZephLodwick]

I love the artwork that you use in this video, especially the impressionist works.

[@KootFloris]

The book "The Dawn of Everything" is awesome, shocking (in a positive sense) and questions many of our believes. I now start to believe hierarchy was an 'invention' by some people with psychopath traits. Like Trump they invent stories, lie (which many honest people don't consider happening to them). They swindle and force people into following their commands, because "hey , a divine voice told me I'm to be king." And this tribal gang approach is military stronger than a self organised collective that has a diversity of reactions, where a tribe falls apart into flee, fight or freeze. Just consider the force Putin uses to get his army filled, and orders such as 'kill those who flee'. And what we see is that robbers also learn and copy tricks, from ancient nobility stories to modern first strike 'defence', etc. And sadly nowadays 8 sociopaths may sit in a boardroom and 200.000 nice common people get no raise, nor a word in. In ancient times in a group of 40, there would at best be two such people, who if raised with love and warmth would be an asset for the community. People raised on disconnect, lack of love and 'always take care of number one first' most often become sad and or aggressive human beings.

[@dustind4694]

Man it is refreshing to hear from someone else who knows that calling the iconic 4X game 'Civilization' tells us a lot.

[@maddie4w]

It’s so easy to feel hopeless right now with how the world is going, and I personally have been looking at the bad parts of history I feel are going to repeat themselves. Thank you so much for reminding us that there is hope!!!! Awesome video!

[@daniellecurrygravy8685]

watching this made my day tbh, excellent, excellent work! can't wait to get home from work to watch the rest!!!

[@JuglarEuskaldun]

I made an essay for my uni about evolucionist anthropology based on the game Civilization V. Was pretty interesting. The base idea of many strategy videogame is that there is an universal path of development for every race or faction that just has to be developed. The case of Civilization is just too ridiculous from an anthropological point of view.

[@ShamanJeeves]

Thanks for this. It's good to know more folks are realizing that ancient humans had the same capcity of thought we do. We may know things they didn't, but we don't know anything they couldn't have, given the opportunity.

[@zacwulf6987]

This was just powerful! Definitely going to delve into a copy of that book me self. Mad respect

[@rogozov]

Wow. Man, am I ever glad to have stumbled onto your channel. Thank you.

[@mm-rj3vo]

What if we planted and maintained enough sustainable permaculture crops in concentrations of human population to allow people to gather their own food? What if I could go down to the local apple orchard and get as many apples I wanted, and was part of a group of people devoted their time to getting those apples to people who wanted them, through direct ordering? Municipalism and hunter gatherer practices can culminate into solarpunk visions of the future.

[@FlauFly]

Good idea as a support, but too much of us right now to approximate something along the line of gatherer practices.

[@brandon7024]

why would we devote our time to gathering apples for others?

[@austinhegge1161]

South American crop cities are incredibly old. The density of edible plants peaks around population centers. It for sure would work. Many things would "work", in the end we just do. So it's been done before, maybe we will do it again.

[@leonelegender]

Because most people want to do other things with their lives besides being assigned as a farmer and gatherer.

[@austinhegge1161]

@@leonelegender yes because for food to be planted as a civic service, everyone would have to be doing that work. Like how when roads get repaired, everyone has to stop their normal jobs and work on the roads, cause otherwise it couldn't get done.

[@ben.patrick]

You deserve millions of subs.

[@kookiespace]

Whenever I watch one of your videos I find myself ordering 2-3 more books and adding them to my reading list. Gonna have to slow down to let myself catch up :'] Great video and thank you for talking about this. It's something I've been thinking about a lot recently, especially around the way that european history is taught in europe. How people perceive their role to this place and their ancestors...

[@GetOfflineGetGood]

Your videos are really good, love your work

[@ThrottleKitty]

If you think "linear progress" is a real thing, look into the Indus Valley civilization. By many accounts, they were the peek of civilization around 5,000 years ago, at least if you measure the happiness, quality of life, and personal freedoms of the citizens of a civilization as the bar by which you measure them. Then they where brutally wiped out, by another civilization so frail and unloved by its own people that it disappeared so fast we barely have records of them. Many of the greatest civilizations vanish into obscurities, all their great progress lost.

[@itsdonuttime7729]

Who wiped them out?

[@elijahclaude3413]

Indeed!! This also why I despise the argument that capitalism is so great because it 'beat out' the other societies... to me that's like rooting for the bully, or worse, the virus! There are PLENTY of viruses that can infect the host and then they both die (if the virus can't find another host). It's looking like capitalism is making it more and more likely that we will destroy ourselves. Then what? I think its far more practical to try and develop societies that can last as long as possible, which almost always means egalitarian, adaptable, and sustainable. If we can figure out how to build 'modern-day' foraging type of societies, or egalitarian farms and anarchic cities, that would be absolutely incredible!

[@ThrottleKitty]

@@itsdonuttime7729 A controversial and disputed civilization referred to as the "Aryans", which are variously sited as the origin of many cultures they are not in any way actually related too.

[@itsdonuttime7729]

@@ThrottleKitty I see. So the modern day culture in the "Indus river valley" is from the "Aryans"?

[@ThrottleKitty]

@@itsdonuttime7729 ..... No? Both civilizations vanished thousands of years ago. That'd be like claiming America is an extension of Neolithic native American cultures.

[@JonahThePigeon]

I've been hyped for this book the same way I've been hyped for the Dune movie, it's going to be such a banger

[@spencerharmon4669]

It's going to be better than this dune movie. 😂

[@sofiamielcitas4224]

you are quickly becoming one of my favourite channels ever!!!

[@MrSabotageCV]

Dude, very inspiring. Fantastic work.

[@blackflagsnroses6013]

Another great video?! I’d like to hear your thoughts on the current of “Anarcho-Primitivism”. Personally I’m in the camp that it isn’t an anarchist philosophy, it takes anti-modernity too far into Eurocentric views of hunter-gatherer societies and the world before the agricultural revolutions. You had some brilliant insights on archeological studies challenging the mainstream paradigms. I believe that if technology can be used in symbiosis or equilibrium with nature it is worth pursuing. That anarchy is ultimately a modern philosophy of the modern world, that seeks to deconstruct social structures, constructs, and powers to new forms of social organization not seen before, but inherited from a long history of striving towards social freedom and individual autonomy.

[@blessedistheflame3813]

At its best anarcho-primitivism is just a critique of civilization. Many have abandoned the term because primitive is so laden with racist connotations. If you want an anti-civ critique of the Tucker/Zerzan primal anarchy check out Corrosive Consciousness by Bellamy Fitzpatrick. Available on anarchist library or in audio book on Immediatism.

[@soaleha1]

I love your voice as much as I love your content, I wish there were recordings of bedtime stories with your voice I could listen to and sleep every night 💛

[@hackatthekeyboard]

Another great video, thanks so much 🖤

[@kipper1668]

An incredibly enlightening video, thanks for this!

[@eottoe2001]

Glad someone finally talks this about this. I remember commentator was talking to anthropologist. The anthropologist talked about how the Sumerian were grateful to the gods for bringing the gifts of agriculture, writing and stone work. The commentator said something like some gifts because like writing gave us linear thinking, agriculture gave us the reasons for war and stone work gave us walls that separated us. That's when the lights went on with me. I have never been able to talk to anyone about that. Wow! Thank you.

[@LexYeen]

Great video from a great channel. Thanks for your labor. 🤘 Edit: 27:46 This is the best evidence I can think of to prove that the rich and powerful need us _in order to be rich and powerful,_ and that _we_ don't need _them._

[@elijahwebb5547]

Good stuff, familiar concepts but I’ve heard them delivered so articulately and easy to pick up, thanks

[@acamon]

Really great and interesting video. Thanks for all your work!