I’m investigating a fundamental question: what happened between 12,000 and 5,000 years ago that transformed human societies from largely egalitarian to hierarchical and extractive—and why we’ve largely accepted these systems since?
Something shifted in that period. Agriculture, settlement, population growth—these created new conditions. But I don’t think hierarchy was inevitable. I think dark triad personality types seized power during a vulnerable moment, we largely chose complicity over conflict, and that choice cascaded into everything we see now: patriarchy, colonialism, land ownership, suffering, and ultimately, systems in ecological overshoot.
Understanding this history isn’t academic nostalgia. It’s essential. We built civilizations on extraction and domination. For 5,000 years, there was enough frontier. Now we’re on a finite planet. If we’re going to survive what comes next, we need to understand how we got here—and choose differently.
I approach this as an evolutionary thinker, a wide reader, and someone genuinely curious about what we’re missing. I write essays, host a podcast (coming soon) interviewing people who’ve thought deeply about these questions, and build community around this investigation. This is my work. I invite you to join it.
