Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

"Want" Creation

MAN: But you could say that "to truck and barter" is human nature-that
people are fundamentally materialist, and will always want to accumulate
more and more under any social structure.

You could say it, but there's no reason to believe it. You look at peasant
societies, they go on for thousands of years without it-do those people have
a different human nature? Or just look inside a family: do people "truck and
barter" over how much you're going to eat for dinner? Well, certainly a
family is a normal social structure, and you don't see people accumulating
more and more for themselves regardless of the needs of the other people.
In fact, just take a look at the history of "trucking and bartering" itself:
look at the history of modern capitalism, about which we know a lot. The
first thing you'll notice is, peasants had to be driven by force and violence
into a wage-labor system they did not want; then major efforts were under-
taken-conscious efforts-to create wants. In fact, if you look back, there's a
whole interesting literature of conscious discussion of the need to manu-
facture wants in the general population. It's happened over the whole long
stretch of capitalism of course, but one place where you can see it very
nicely encapsulated is around the time when slavery was terminated. It's
very dramatic to look at cases like these.
For example, in 1831 there was a big slave revolt in Jamaica-which was
one of the things that led the British to decide to give up slavery in their
colonies: after some slave revolts, they basically said, "It's not paying any-
more." So within a couple years the British wanted to move from a slave
economy to a so-called "free" economy, but they still wanted the basic
structure to remain exactly the same-and if you take a look back at the
parliamentary debates in England at the time, they were talking very con-
sciously about all this. They were saying: look, we've got to keep it the way
it is, the masters have to become the owners, the slaves have to become the
happy workers-somehow we've got to work it all out.
Well, there was a little problem in Jamaica: since there was a lot of open
land there, when the British let the slaves go free they just wanted to move
out onto the land and be perfectly happy, they didn't want to work for the
British sugar plantations anymore. So what everyone was asking in Parlia-
ment in London was, "How can we force them to keep working for us, even
when they're no longer enslaved into it?" Alright, two things were decided
upon: first, they would use state force to close off the open land and prevent
people from going and surviving on their own. And secondly, they realized
that since all these workers didn't really want a lot of things-they just
wanted to satisfy their basic needs, which they could easily do in that trop-
ical climate-the British capitalists would have to start creating a whole set
of wants for them, and make them start desiring things they didn't then de-
sire, so then the only way they'd be able to satisfy their new material desires
would be by working for wages in the British sugar plantations.2o
There was very conscious discussion of the need to create wants-and in
fact, extensive efforts were then undertaken to do exactly what they do on
T.V. today: to create wants, to make you want the latest pair of sneakers
you don't really need, so then people will be driven into a wage-labor soci-
ety. And that pattern has been repeated over and over again through the
whole entire history of capitalism.21 In fact, what the whole history of cap-
italism shows is that people have had to be driven into situations which are
then claimed to be their nature. But if the history of capitalism shows any-
thing, it shows it's not their nature, that they've had to be forced into it, and
that that effort has had to be maintained right until this day.

Mike Rowe warns millions of men are quitting work

Mike Rowe, the renowned host of Dirty Jobs, has raised alarms about a troubling trend in the American labor market. Millions of able-bodied men are opting out of the workforce, creating what he describes as a “will gap.” This phenomenon is not only reshaping the labor landscape but is also poised to have far-reaching implications for the U.S. economy and society at large.

The Rise of the 'Will Gap': Understanding the Phenomenon

The “will gap,” as defined by Mike Rowe, refers to the growing number of men who are physically capable of working but choose not to participate in the workforce. This gap is distinct from unemployment rates, as it includes those who are not actively seeking employment. According to Rowe, this trend reflects a significant shift in societal attitudes towards work and responsibility.

Statistics paint a stark picture of this labor market shift. Reports indicate that approximately 7 million able-bodied men in their prime working years are neither employed nor seeking work. This has been highlighted in several studies, including one that Rowe referenced in his discussions. The decline in workforce participation among men is worrying, with potential repercussions for economic growth and community stability.

Communities and industries are feeling the impact of this trend. The absence of a significant portion of the labor force leads to gaps in industries that are already struggling to fill positions. The loss of potential productivity from these individuals not participating in the economy has broader implications, from reduced consumer spending to increased strain on social services.

Higgenbotham wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 2:14 am

He also points out that for the citizens of early rapacious regimes, collapse often improved their lives because they were freed from domination and taxation and returned to farming.

Higgenbotham wrote: Tue Aug 05, 2025 10:40 am A normal person might say, "You wouldn't think."

YOU wouldn't, but THEY would.

Well, the United States has been quite happy supporting that - so long as
it worked. But in the last few years, it hasn't worked. See, people with
power understand exactly one thing: violence. If violence is effective,
everything's okay; but if violence loses its effectiveness, then they start
worrying and have to try something else.

Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Jul 24, 2025 8:04 pm The level of nastiness and vindictiveness seems to be ratcheting up a lot:

Trump vs Powell
Macron vs Candace Owens
Gabbard vs Obama

are the examples I can think of where I said, wow, this is different.

Abbott orders arrest of Democrats who fled Texas

“Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans,” Abbott said in a statement.

Higgenbotham wrote: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:11 pm Nobody consents to QE or a million other things. Chomsky wrote a book called "Manufacturing Consent". The fact that it's not physical violence doesn't mean it's not violence. Just because they're not putting a boot on somebody's balls or rolling people around in barrels with nails driven through the sides doesn't mean it isn't violence. Probably more than half of the population is on some form of prescription for mental illness or medicating themselves with drugs or alcohol. The barbarism (politely referred to as bullying) starts in the schools, which is widespread and compulsory that most people be subjected to it. There is some kind of suicide reported from bullying in the public schools almost every week.

This will only get better is when people refuse to follow false media created images of leaders that don't exist in reality. When people decide that they will only follow local leaders that they personally know and trust and are vouched for by others in the local community then things will get better.

Higgenbotham wrote: Sun Jul 16, 2023 11:54 am In my opinion, they were pretty arrogant because they knew they were better communists than even the Chinese or Russian communists. They had progressed from boots on balls, starvation, and gulags to being able to say there are no dead bodies, what's the big deal.

Higgenbotham wrote: Sun Dec 11, 2022 3:23 pm If the large and highly centralized governments in this industrial civilization were to collapse, followed by important decision-making being made at the town level, I believe there would be improvement in the quality of decisions being made. Probably not uniformly, but at a minimum in isolated pockets, and those pockets of good decision-making will be the areas that will prosper and become models for other places to follow as they try to regain their footing.

Higgenbotham wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 2:14 am

The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.

Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism...

Instead, it is the few people high in the dark triad who fall into races for resources, arms and status, he says. “Then as elites extract more wealth from the people and the land, they make societies more fragile, leading to infighting, corruption, immiseration of the masses, less healthy people, overexpansion, environmental degradation and poor decision making by a small oligarchy. The hollowed-out shell of a society is eventually cracked asunder by shocks such as disease, war or climate change.”

History shows that increasing wealth inequality consistently precedes collapse, says Kemp, from the Classical Lowland Maya to the Han dynasty in China and the Western Roman empire. He also points out that for the citizens of early rapacious regimes, collapse often improved their lives because they were freed from domination and taxation and returned to farming.

Kemp says his argument that Goliaths require rulers who are strong in the triad of dark traits is borne out today. “The three most powerful men in the world are a walking version of the dark triad: Trump is a textbook narcissist, Putin is a cold psychopath, and Xi Jinping came to rule [China] by being a master Machiavellian manipulator.”

“Our corporations and, increasingly, our algorithms, also resemble these kinds of people,” he says. “They’re basically amplifying the worst of us.”

Kemp points to these “agents of doom” as the source of the current trajectory towards societal collapse. “These are the large, psychopathic corporations and groups which produce global catastrophic risk,” he says. “Nuclear weapons, climate change, AI, are only produced by a very small number of secretive, highly wealthy, powerful groups, like the military-industrial complex, big tech and the fossil fuel industry.

“The key thing is this is not about all of humanity creating these threats. It is not about human nature. It is about small groups who bring out the worst in us, competing for profit and power and covering all [the risks] up.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... l-collapse

aedens wrote: Tue Aug 05, 2025 9:57 am

Pathocracy is a disease of great social movements followed by entire societies, nations, and empires. In the course of human history, it has affected social, political, and religious movements as well as the accompanying ideologies… and turned them into caricatures of themselves…. This occurred as a result of the … participation of pathological agents in a pathodynamically similar process. That explains why all the pathocracies of the world are, and have been, so similar in their essential properties.

…Identifying these phenomena through history and properly qualifying them according to their true nature and contents - not according to the ideology in question, which succumbed to the process of caricaturization - is a job for historians. […]

The actions of [pathocracy] affect an entire society, starting with the leaders and infiltrating every town, business, and institution. The pathological social structure gradually covers the entire country creating a “new class” within that nation. This privileged class [of pathocrats] feels permanently threatened by the “others”, i.e. by the majority of normal people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain any illusions about their personal fate should there be a return to the system of normal man. [Andrew M. Lobaczewski Political Ponerology: A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes]

Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:38 am And they just didn't care how it might affect anyone but themselves. But they thought it might work for themelves so they did it anyway. That's how a psychopath operates. "The medical definition is simple: A psychopath is a person who lacks empathy and conscience, the quality which guides us when we choose between good and evil, moral or not. Most of us are conditioned to do good things. Psychopaths are not." There is only one thing that puts their evil behavior in check - and that is the threat of violence. And that is why it is my prediction that this will turn violent before it is done. Violence is the only thing that a psychopath understands. You cannot reason with a psychopath except when that reasoning involves something the equivalent of, "if you don't stop doing this to me I will smash your fucking head in with a hammer." That gets their attention. If you emote, squirm, etc., that will not work because a psychopath has no empathy and actually enjoys torturing people. Only normal people who have endured the torture of psychopaths for years on end can come to that inevitable conclusion. You cannot reason with a psychopath, period.

Higgenbotham wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2024 8:45 pm Large corporations in the US have a lot of problems and need to keep a lot of secrets. Part of their vetting process for hiring involves how well a prospective employee can make problems go away and keep secrets. Demonstrated skill in actually solving problems is not what's required.

A NEXT BIG IDEA CLUB'S MUST-READ BOOK • A radical retelling of human history through the cycle of societal collapse—"a Cassandra-like warning about the path today’s oligarchs have set [and] a sweeping and dire vision of a world on the brink.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

“Deeply sobering and strangely inspiring. . . . Read it now, or your descendants will find it in the ruins.” —Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus

“Anyone who doubts the importance of this conversation hasn’t been paying attention.” —Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun

12,000 years ago, human history changed forever when the egalitarian groups of hunter-gathering humans began to settle down and organize themselves into hierarchies. The few dominated the many, seizing control through violence. What emerged were “Goliaths”: large societies built on a collection of hierarchies that are also terrifyingly fragile, collapsing time after time across the world. Today, we live in a single, global Goliath—one that is precariously interdependent—under threat from nuclear war, climate change, and the existential risks of AI. The next collapse may be our last.

In Goliath’s Curse, Cambridge scholar Luke Kemp conducts a historical autopsy on our species, from the earliest cities to the collapse of modern states like Somalia. Drawing on historical databases and the latest discoveries in archaeology and anthropology, he uncovers groundbreaking revelations:

More democratic societies tend to be more resilient.
A modern collapse is likely to be global, long-lasting, and more dire than ever before
Collapse may be invisible until after it has occurred. It’s possible we’re living through one now.
Collapse has often had a more positive outcome for the general population than for the 1%.
All Goliaths contain the seeds of their own demise.

As useful for finding a way forward as it is for diagnosing our precarious present, Goliath’s Curse is a stark reminder that there are both bright and dark sides to societal collapse—that it is not necessarily a reversion to chaos or a dark age—and that making a more resilient world may well mean making a more just one.

"We can’t put a date on Doomsday, but by looking at the 5,000 years of [civilisation], we can understand the trajectories we face today – and self-termination is most likely,” says Dr Luke Kemp at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge.

“I’m pessimistic about the future,” he says. “But I’m optimistic about people.” Kemp’s new book covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years and took seven years to write. The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.

Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism...

Instead Kemp uses the term Goliaths to describe kingdoms and empires, meaning a society built on domination...

All Goliaths, however, contain the seeds of their own demise, he says: “They are cursed and this is because of inequality.” Inequality does not arise because all people are greedy. They are not, he says. The Khoisan peoples in southern Africa, for example, shared and preserved common lands for thousands of years despite the temptation to grab more.

Instead, it is the few people high in the dark triad who fall into races for resources, arms and status, he says. “Then as elites extract more wealth from the people and the land, they make societies more fragile, leading to infighting, corruption, immiseration of the masses, less healthy people, overexpansion, environmental degradation and poor decision making by a small oligarchy. The hollowed-out shell of a society is eventually cracked asunder by shocks such as disease, war or climate change.”

History shows that increasing wealth inequality consistently precedes collapse, says Kemp, from the Classical Lowland Maya to the Han dynasty in China and the Western Roman empire. He also points out that for the citizens of early rapacious regimes, collapse often improved their lives because they were freed from domination and taxation and returned to farming.

Kemp says his argument that Goliaths require rulers who are strong in the triad of dark traits is borne out today. “The three most powerful men in the world are a walking version of the dark triad: Trump is a textbook narcissist, Putin is a cold psychopath, and Xi Jinping came to rule [China] by being a master Machiavellian manipulator.”

“Our corporations and, increasingly, our algorithms, also resemble these kinds of people,” he says. “They’re basically amplifying the worst of us.”

Kemp points to these “agents of doom” as the source of the current trajectory towards societal collapse. “These are the large, psychopathic corporations and groups which produce global catastrophic risk,” he says. “Nuclear weapons, climate change, AI, are only produced by a very small number of secretive, highly wealthy, powerful groups, like the military-industrial complex, big tech and the fossil fuel industry.

“The key thing is this is not about all of humanity creating these threats. It is not about human nature. It is about small groups who bring out the worst in us, competing for profit and power and covering all [the risks] up.”