Civilizational Macrohistory

Long-arc theories of how civilizations rise, fall, and transform, examined through cycles of political economy, energy systems, barbarian-civilized dynamics, and the deep structural forces shaping human history.

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Posts (270)

2024-10-10 Ribbonfarm is Retiring
2024-06-14 Covid and Noun-Memory Effects
2024-05-14 Arbitrariness Costs
2024-05-12 News from the Universe
2024-05-03 Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War,
2024-04-16 Stack Map of the World
2024-04-12 Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes
2024-04-01 History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy
2024-03-18 Harberger Tax
2024-03-07 Matter and Life
2024-03-05 Civilizational Functionalism
2024-02-23 Economics Memes
2024-01-24 Unknown Knowns
2024-01-10 Knowledge Management
2023-12-21 Charnel Vision
2023-11-02 The Future of the Blogosphere
2023-01-26 Bracketverse -- I
2022-12-07 Worldwinds
2022-11-03 Storytelling -- End-Times Tales
2022-09-29 Ark Head
2022-08-10 Narrative Slipstream Effects
2022-08-04 A Dreaming World
2022-05-05 The Map
2022-02-23 Divergentism
2021-09-30 MJD 59,487
2021-09-02 MJD 59,459
2021-07-22 The Retiree
2021-07-01 MJD 59,396
2021-05-20 MJD 59,354
2021-05-03 Storytelling -- The American Tradition
2021-01-25 Domestic Cozy: 13
2021-01-21 Nostalgia for Network Effects
2020-12-29 Notes: Pale Rider by Laura Spinney
2020-11-16 MJD 59,169
2020-10-29 MJD 59,151
2020-10-23 MJD 59,145
2020-10-21 MJD 59,143
2020-10-06 MJD 59,128
2020-10-04 Mansionism 2: Bungalows
2020-09-30 Notes: The Marshall Plan by Benn Steil
2020-09-16 Notes: The Starship and the Canoe by Kenneth Brower
2020-09-02 Hyperreality Prevails
2020-08-24 Notes: Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee
2020-07-21 To Attack and Dethrone Gods
2020-07-14 Notes -- Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman
2020-07-06 Notes: A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman
2020-06-25 Mansionism 1: Building-Milieu Fit
2020-06-09 A Spectre Is Haunting The West
2020-06-04 MJD 59,004
2020-05-26 Through a Glass Lightly
2020-05-07 Leaking into the Future
2020-04-23 Quarantine Art
2020-04-14 Liminality?...Well, there's a free sample!
2020-04-12 Now Reading: Pandemic Edition
2020-04-07 Pandemic Dashboard: 3
2020-04-02 Pandemic Dashboard: 2
2020-03-23 Pandemic Dashboard: 1
2020-03-18 Domestic Cozy: 12
2020-03-09 Plot Economics
2020-02-18 Weirding Diary: 11
2020-01-16 The Internet of Beefs
2020-01-07 MJD 58,855
2019-12-17 Mediating Consent
2019-12-16 Domestic Cozy: 10
2019-11-05 From Pseudoevents to Pseudorealities
2019-10-22 Value Investing in Cults and Religions
2019-09-25 Elderblog Sutra: 9
2019-09-23 Domestic Cozy: 8
2019-09-17 Weirding Diary: 10
2019-08-05 Domestic Cozy: 7
2019-07-17 Weirding Diary: 9
2019-07-09 Elderblog Sutra: 7
2019-07-04 Semi-Annual 2019 Roundup
2019-05-27 Weirding Diary: 8
2019-04-08 Weirding Diary: 7
2019-02-28 Markets Are Eating The World
2019-02-20 Predictable Identities: 1 - Guess What's Coming
2019-01-17 Stack Luck
2018-11-28 The Digital Maginot Line
2018-11-21 The Age of Early Divinity
2018-11-08 May You Live in Epic Times
2018-11-02 Treasure Hunting
2018-10-25 The Speakeasy Imagineering Network
2018-10-18 Unflattening Hobbes
2018-10-11 Pack Experience
2018-09-11 Think Entangled, Act Spooky
2018-09-02 Refactorings Roundup 08/26/2018 09/1/2018
2018-08-30 How Do You Value a Human Being?
2018-08-23 Flying Blind into the Anthropocene
2018-08-16 Refactor Camp 2018: Cryptoeconomics and Blockchain Weirding Post-Mortem
2018-07-24 Armpit Futures
2018-06-12 The Well-Being Machine
2018-03-08 Refactor Camp 2018: Cryptoeconomics and Blockchain Weirding
2018-03-06 A Quick (Battle) Field Guide to the New Culture Wars
2018-02-01 (Don't) Be the Gray man
2017-12-21 Complete 2017 Roundup
2017-11-30 Prolegomena to Any Dark-Age Psychohistory
2017-10-10 The Blockchain Man
2017-10-05 Rectangle Vision
2017-10-02 \"It's Only Cannibalism if We're Equals\"
2017-09-14 How to Make History
2017-08-17 The Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millennial
2017-08-08 The Crisis of the Lonely Atoms
2017-05-23 There are bots. Look around.
2017-05-09 A Priest, a Guru, and a Nerd-King Walk Into a Conference Room...
2017-03-30 Nobody Expects The Mongolian Earthship
2017-03-23 Bourbon Crossing
2017-03-21 The Winter King of the Internet
2017-03-09 \"Another Green World\"
2017-03-07 Sulking Through a Subprime Presidency
2017-02-21 Prescientific Organizational Theory
2017-02-16 Unbuilding the Wall
2017-01-26 Games, Videogames, and the Dionysian Society
2017-01-12 Cannon Balls, Plate Tectonics, and Invisible Elephants
2017-01-10 Rolling Your Own Culture and (Not) Finding Community
2016-12-21 The Computational Condition
2016-12-15 Robert Martinson and the Tragedy of the American Prison
2016-12-08 The Strategy of (Subversive) Conflict
2016-11-23 When Tools Shape You
2016-11-17 Paradox and the Origins of Civilisation
2016-11-10 King Ruinous and the City of Darkness
2016-11-03 A Bad Carver
2016-10-27 The Cyberpunk Sensibility
2016-10-19 The Future of Compromise
2016-10-18 Can the European Union Break Smart?
2016-09-15 Crowds and Technology
2016-08-11 Trace of the Weirding
2016-07-20 The Weird State of Capitalism
2016-07-16 The Weird State of the State
2016-07-13 Welcome to Nixonland
2016-07-05 Refactor Camp 2016: Weird Political Economy
2016-06-23 The Principia Misanthropica
2016-04-28 Immortality Begins at Forty
2016-03-03 Inequalities
2016-02-25 The Epic Struggle between Good and Neutral
2016-02-11 Minimum Viable Superorganism
2016-02-04 Free Money
2015-12-17 We Are All Architects Now
2015-12-03 An Ecology of Beauty and Strong Drink
2015-10-22 Distinctions and Differences
2015-10-15 Climate Change Op-Ed
2015-10-06 Alice and Bob Discover Capitalism
2015-09-29 What is the Largest Collective Action, Ever?
2015-09-17 How to be a Precious Snowflake
2015-08-18 Extraordinary Laboratories
2015-08-06 Frontierland
2015-08-04 The Four Forces for Sociology
2015-07-30 The Chinese Compressibility Parable
2015-07-28 Breaking Smart
2015-07-14 New Horizons
2015-05-07 Weaponized Sacredness
2015-04-15 The Capitalist's Zombie
2015-03-04 Gardens Need Walls: On Boundaries, Ritual, and Beauty
2015-02-24 Colin Dickey: Tempo Shifts
2015-01-16 On the Design of Escaped Realities
2014-12-11 Striving, Surviving, Suffering and Slacking
2014-11-20 Learning to Fly by Missing the Ground
2014-09-30 The Political Hangover of Prohibition
2014-09-17 We Have Them Surrounded in Their Tanks
2014-09-09 Geopolitics for Individuals
2014-08-26 The Creation and Destruction of Habits
2014-08-12 The Economics of Pricelessness
2014-07-23 Structure Follows Context
2014-06-11 The Deliberate Practice of Disruption
2014-06-04 Saints and Traders: The John Henry Fable Reconsidered
2014-05-20 The Logic of Uberreaction
2014-05-15 Power Gradients and Spherical Cows
2014-04-30 Replaceability and the Economics of Disequilibrium
2014-01-28 Technical Debt of the West
2014-01-10 Consent of the Surveilled
2013-12-09 Our Diurnal Civilization
2013-11-25 The New Human Wilderness
2013-11-13 The Gooseberry Fallacy
2013-11-07 UX and the Civilizing Process
2013-10-11 The Mother of All Disruptions
2013-09-25 Rough Books for Roughening School
2013-08-14 An Archetypes Map
2013-07-31 The Quality of Life
2013-06-06 On the Unraveling of Scripts
2013-05-23 Civilization and the War on Entropy
2013-04-03 The Locust Economy
2013-03-26 Allowing Personality to Flow
2013-02-05 Machine Cities and Ghost Cities
2013-01-31 Stone-Soup for the Capitalist's Soul
2013-01-16 Eternal Hypochondria of the Expanding Mind
2013-01-02 Schumpeter's Demon
2012-11-19 Notes on Spatial Metaphors for Social Systems
2012-11-05 At Home, in a Car
2012-10-15 Economies of Scale, Economies of Scope
2012-10-04 The Abundances of Ages
2012-09-20 Money as Pain Relief
2012-08-23 Waste, Creativity and Godwin's Corollary for Technology
2012-08-16 Realtechnik, Nausea and Technological Longing
2012-08-13 Breakout Moves and Exponential Outcomes
2012-06-20 The Mysteries of Money
2012-06-05 Towards an Appreciative View of Technology
2012-05-03 Rediscovering Literacy
2012-04-18 Hacking the Non-Disposable Planet
2012-04-16 Hacking Grand Narratives
2012-04-11 How Do You Run Away from Home?
2012-04-10 Trigger Narratives and the Nuclear Option
2012-03-22 Can Hydras Eat Unknown-Unknowns for Lunch?
2012-03-08 Hall's Law: The Nineteenth Century Prequel to Moore's Law
2012-02-16 Glimpses of a Cryptic God
2012-02-09 Refactor Camp 2012: Generativity and Captivity
2012-02-07 The Greater Ribbonfarm Cultural Region
2012-02-02 How to Name Things
2012-01-28 Does Culture Eat Strategy for Lunch?
2012-01-11 Seeking Density in the Gonzo Theater
2011-12-15 How the World Works: Part II
2011-12-01 How the World Works
2011-11-16 The Evolution of the American Dream
2011-11-11 Technology and the Baroque Unconscious
2011-10-26 Three Deep Videos and a Roundup
2011-10-19 The Quest for Immortality
2011-10-04 The Stream Map of the World
2011-09-08 Fixing the Game by Roger L. Martin
2011-08-10 A Proposed Grand Narrative for the History of Debt
2011-06-08 A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100
2011-05-24 IARPA Starts Metaphor-Based Decision-Making Research
2011-05-18 How Clock Time Replaced Narrative Time
2011-05-08 Peak Oil and the Tempo of the Earth
2011-05-04 Haircuts and the Guy Clock
2011-03-17 Cognitive Archeology of the West
2011-03-10 The Return of the Barbarian
2011-02-02 The Disruption of Bronze
2010-11-16 What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from the Poor
2010-11-06 The World of Garbage
2010-11-05 Ancient Rivers of Money
2010-08-30 Morning is Wiser Than Evening
2010-08-15 Cultural Learnings of Blogosphere for Make Benefit Glorious Blog of Ribbonfarm.
2010-07-26 A Big Little Idea Called Legibility
2010-06-16 The Missing Folkways of Globalization
2010-06-09 Digital Security, the Red Queen, and Sexual Computing
2010-05-12 A Bumper May Harvest of Good Reading
2010-04-08 Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein
2010-03-23 Amy Lin and the Ancient Eye
2010-03-13 Linchpin by Seth Godin, and 8 Other Short Book Reviews
2010-03-07 An Infrastructure Pilgrimage
2010-02-17 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor
2010-02-04 The Genealogy of the Gervais Principle
2010-01-28 The Misanthrope's Guide to the End of the World
2010-01-13 Conceptual Metaphors (Mashable), Gervais Principle (Fugitive Philosophy)
2009-09-09 Time and Money: Separated at Birth?
2009-08-27 The Outlaw Sea by William Langewiesche
2009-08-03 The Brain of the World
2009-07-07 The Epic Story of Container Shipping
2009-05-21 Bay's Conjecture
2009-05-15 The Discovery of Money
2009-03-02 Fools and their Money Metaphors
2009-01-18 The Cloudworker, Layoffs and The Disposable American
2008-11-18 The Organization Man by William Whyte: Introduction
2008-11-05 The Cloud President, Obama
2008-11-03 The Corporate College and Other Election 3.0 Ideas
2008-10-01 The 10 Immutable Laws of Nanoeconomics
2008-09-04 Maslow for Market Segmentation
2008-09-01 The Bloody-Minded Pleasures of Engineering
2008-07-21 Towards a Philosophy of Destruction
2008-05-18 Megacommunities and Macrotrends
2008-05-01 Jump Point by Tom Hayes
2008-04-23 Ronald Coase and Salvation from Anthropological Economics
2008-04-08 The New Location, Location, Location
2008-03-27 The Founding Fathers of Technology
2008-02-06 Creative Destruction: Portrait of an Idea
2007-10-15 Meditation on Disequilibrium in Nature
2007-09-26 The Dawn of the Century of Food
2007-09-09 Digital Philosophy II: Are Cellular Automata Important?
2007-08-20 Open Innovation, or is Business War?
2007-07-08 Silos and the art of Empirical Theology
2007-07-02 The House of Tata and Indian Innovation