With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in … - Jared Diamond

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Let us inquire what glory there was in an omnipotent being torturing forever a puny little creature who could in no way defend himself? Would it be to the glory of a man to fry ants?

Jared Diamond

With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.

Chiefdoms, Encounters, History, Kill, People, Years

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The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean — once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help.

Easter, Islands, Obvious, Ocean, Way

History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.

Complicated, Consistency, Enterprise, History, Simplicity

The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.

Adoption, Agriculture, Life, Recovered, Toward, Way

Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.

Food, Population, Production, Starvation, Trying, Warfare

Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping the outcomes [of the various societies' histories] towards success or failure: long-term planning and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives.

Core, Long, Planning, Reflection, Role, Two