Tag Archives: Human progress

Last week I released a new book on Post-Primate Society. I posted it to our members page, available to all our paid subscribers. I’ve also uploaded it to Kindle. A printed book may follow at some point, but I’m not sure when. 

There is a lot to be said about this book, but I think I’d like to let others say it. I see the book as good, compelling and important, but I’ll stop there. 

Here, in this public post, is the introduction to the book, which I called (in the parlance of classical music) an overture. 

* * * * *

The dark ages still reign over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear. (Buckminster Fuller, Cosmography)

The golden age is before us, not behind us. (William Shakespeare, Simon The Zealot)

Humanity is just now hitting its stride, or at least we’re threatening to. We approached it before World War I, then suffered through a long, ugly period. Over the past couple of generations, however, our leading edges have started to push through the thorns and weeds, and there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll make it this time. But even if this attempt fails, one of the generations that follows us will make it. Post-primate society is coming; it’s only a question of when.

This much is certain, because the development of mankind – of the human race – has been nothing short of spectacular. We have risen so fast that any other conclusion must stand upon a demand for gloominess and depression. The long-term record is clear, and in fact it is shocking.

I’ll go through the facts about humankind’s meteoric rise in Movement One, but it’s one of the more obvious facts to be seen in this world. In fact, the only way people avoid seeing mankind this way is to insist that mankind is not part of the natural world, but is some type of unspecified other, so we can be more harshly judged. Seeing the human as part of nature, there is no getting around the fact that our development spectacularly exceeds that of anything and everything else.