All of human history in seven paragraphs
Once upon a time humans lived in tribes: of 150 people at most. Everyone would have known and felt some responsibility for everyone in that tribe. There would have been a balance of evolved traits so some people were more adventurous than others (which was good for hunting and finding new foods) and some more neurotic than others (which was good for the tribe because someone was always on high alert for any danger that might arrive). Emotions evolved for us to live like this: to optimise chances of survival and as part of that survival, to make us socially palatable to others so that we were not kicked out of the tribe. The tribe lived to serve each other and of all was well, would survive to reproduce. Then we learnt how to farm. This changed things and introduced the capacity for inequality as some people could accumulate more than others, and they did. Thousands of years later, for example, a miller had accrued enough wealth to build a mill. This meant he could work less by chargi...