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All societies that become greatly unequal eventually fail to adapt technologically and become unsustainable. [...] When inequality rises, you pour more and more resources into your armies and into new technology for them--not into truly productive and co-operative purposes. Slaves and scribes are l…

Perfect verticality is a completely unachievable abstraction but it does not stop bricklayers continually checking that walls and lintels are as vertical and level as they can possibly be

imposing 'structural adjustment' agreements: drastic cuts to public-sector spending and the sell-off of public-sector assets to fund debt-servicing

It was Wiener who coined the word 'cybernetics' from the ancient Greek word for a helmsman: kybernetes