The framing of slavery and conquest as maximum extensions of the Adaptation-Agency dynamic is a fascinating lens. What strikes me is how the 'grow or die' imperative you describe has been modulating downward since that peak, almost like a wave that crested. I'd push back slightly tho: modern economic systems and corporate structures might be softer manifestations of the same principle, just with more layers of abstraction between the agency and the dominated. The drive hasnt disappeared, it's just gotten more subtle and legalized.
For sure, the dynamics are still there, but I think that Cultural Intelligence tends to spread the dynamics across a wider range of both population and time, which tends to mediate the effects. So we don't get quite so much overt Slavery and Conquest, but smaller and more ameliorated versions, with boundaries that shift and morph more easily. As I say at the end, when we finally understand Intelligence and how it evolves, and that understanding becomes widespread, then we may be in a position to supersede these dynamics, and move into a different set of dynamics, in the Age of Intelligence.
The framing of slavery and conquest as maximum extensions of the Adaptation-Agency dynamic is a fascinating lens. What strikes me is how the 'grow or die' imperative you describe has been modulating downward since that peak, almost like a wave that crested. I'd push back slightly tho: modern economic systems and corporate structures might be softer manifestations of the same principle, just with more layers of abstraction between the agency and the dominated. The drive hasnt disappeared, it's just gotten more subtle and legalized.
For sure, the dynamics are still there, but I think that Cultural Intelligence tends to spread the dynamics across a wider range of both population and time, which tends to mediate the effects. So we don't get quite so much overt Slavery and Conquest, but smaller and more ameliorated versions, with boundaries that shift and morph more easily. As I say at the end, when we finally understand Intelligence and how it evolves, and that understanding becomes widespread, then we may be in a position to supersede these dynamics, and move into a different set of dynamics, in the Age of Intelligence.