"After hundreds of millennia in which all humans had direct access to the commons, it took only a few centuries... to cut off the vast majority of people on Earth from direct access to the means of economic production and therefore to rob them of the power to say no. It took only a few generations to convince most people that this situation was natural and inevitable. That false lesson needs to be unlearned." - Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall
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npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga Profile Code
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2026-05-16T01:22:17Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? Well, that's your choice. But it's not a very helpful reply in this context since there are a great deal more references being offered here than just Wengrow, and I think the linked essay by Wengrow is very valid and relevant regardless. npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? I don't think human nature is that simple or limited. While I oppose hierarchy and state, that does not mean I reject other forms of human cooperation and collective actions. Societies that went beyond nomadic HG bands did not automatically go down the path of hierarchy and oppression. Human nature is vastly creative and flexible and there are many examples of more egalitarian societies that went well beyond small nomadic bands. This is thoroughly addressed in some of the links I already shared: npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? I also have an issue with his next piece in the series, "Human Supremacy". I do agree that human supremacy is a toxic school of thought that we need to abolish. He connects it to monotheism, and I suppose there is some truth to that. But he then pushes the scenario that monotheism emerged because of agriculture (specifically intensive, mono-crop type of agriculture), and also paints agriculture as an outcome of human supremacy. All of this is treated as part of natural human evolution in general, as if cultures gradually on their own developed these ideas and went with them. npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? Appendix 4: One attempt to tell a new story npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? on Poverty npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? Another quote from THE PREHISTORY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY: npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? on the enclosure of our roads and car dependency as capitalist rent: npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? (continued) npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? Here are two short threads from @npub1s02…zz9t on the Labor Theory of Property and John Locke: npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? (continued) npub18f9mpdueu3629a4q56n9zvedlg03fy7fr4zrcnmz56yzwvgheguqwslvga How did we get here? To explore this new understanding further here is a more detailed look at the stories we've been told and who has been telling them (this one is a longish read, dive in if you find it interesting, otherwise don't get bogged down here, move on to the next post!):
