We are approximately 300,000 years old. For the most part, 240,000 of those years is pretty boring in terms of change, dispersed foraging tribes doing what they do around the planet.

50-60,000 years ago some sort of “cognitive leap” happened: more sophisticated tools, language, art.

10-12,000 years ago we start farming. This marks the first major population boom, from approximately 5 million – 500 million people. This boom decimates ecosystems and species in the way. * Farming is a tradeoff: more labor in exchange for greater food security.

6000 years ago food and resources became concentrated, cities and states emerge, specialty work emerges (farmers, builders, soldiers, merchants).

4000 years ago great religions emerge – they make sense of the world and prescribe ways to live.

1500AD modern imperialism, science, global trade emerge, creating economic interdependency.

1700 fossil fuel and industrial revolution. This marks the second major population boom, from 500 million to 8 billion people.

1880 science begins to overtake religion’s explanatory power.

1930 explosion of luxuries and consumerism.

1970 first prominent study of the resource capacity of earth – remains very political.

2000 early internet.

2010 smartphones, social media, and information Armageddon.

2020 gradual loss of civil discourse.

* Not all ancient societies were equally responsible for decimation. [ref, ref] However, the most destructive societies displaced the others.

Themes & Current State

Much of human history can be characterized as:

• Increasingly aggressive energy and resource harvest
  (from agriculture to the industrial revolution)
• Population explosion
• Conflict

Over time, physical conflict is mostly displaced by idea conflict. Idea conflict is more civilized, however, the idea landscape is becoming murkier due to information overabundance and distrust of institutional sense making.

Ecologists suggest we deplete earth’s resources faster than they can be renewed, implying we are in “overshoot” – i.e. heading toward collapse. Symptoms of this are climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The main cause is growth-dependent economies (more people, more productivity, more consumption) decoupled from earth’s constraints.

Some economists argue we will innovate our way around constraint. Others counter 1) we can only make assumptions based on what is certain today, 2) we are already too-close to tipping points for best-case innovations to have impact, 3) Jevon’s paradox shows that increased efficiency leads to more consumption, not less.

The industrial revolution, while creating enormous wealth and short-term abundance, has gradually revealed long-term existential risks.

This mix of unsustainable risk, ambiguous shared values, and impaired consensus sense-making make for a precarious state of affairs.

Note

This history serves as context for Self-Investigation – for understanding the how our behaviors are reflected in the species – and the species behaviors reflected in us. It suggests how some risks today may be unique to our times, versus repetition of our past.

This is abbreviated – choosing what to include or exclude is imperfect but necessary to keep it simple. If you notice glaring omissions or misrepresentation of significant events, please discuss them. The criteria is, the event must highly influence the way our lives are organized today.

Last revision: 6/15/25

Thanks to Lance for the input on this latest revision.

Discussion

This has been posted to reddit for voting and discussion.

Human History in Bullets
byu/self-investigation inSelfInvestigation