human-meaning

In 410 AD, the Visigoths sacked Rome. The news spread across the Mediterranean like a shockwave. St. Jerome, writing from Bethlehem, captured the disbelief: "The city which had taken the whole world was itself taken." But here's the thing nobody talks about: Roman senators were still

What 10,000 Years of History Reveals About How Civilizations Fall—And Whether Ours Is Next Here's something that should bother you: every single civilization that's ever existed has, at some point, stopped existing. Not most. All. The Sumerians. The Romans. The Maya. Byzantium. Easter Island.

In 2010, a mathematical biologist named Peter Turchin made a prediction. Based on patterns he'd identified in historical data, he said America would experience major political instability around 2020. Not because of any specific policy or leader—not because of who would be president—but because of structural

In 1930, you could stick a pipe in the ground in East Texas and oil would practically jump out at you. The pressure underground was so high that the first wells were gushers—uncontrollable fountains of black gold. Drillers would cap them, pipe them, and collect. The energy required to

At some point, someone cut down the last palm tree on Easter Island. Think about that for a moment. The island had been forested when Polynesians first arrived. Over centuries, the trees disappeared—cut for firewood, for construction, for the log rollers that moved those famous statues. By the time

Your opinions feel like yours. They're not. They're infections—caught from the people around you, spreading through networks you can't see, following rules that have nothing to do with truth or logic. This isn't metaphor. It's network science. Over the