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Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Our moral values may have evolved in step with our energy capture methods.
Chapter 2: Foragers rejected inequality and hierarchy, yet accepted violence as a part of life.
Chapter 3: Farming brought more energy, more children, and the earliest large-scale human societies.
Chapter 4: Agrarian societies were highly hierarchical and viewed violence more negatively than foragers had before.
Chapter 5: Fossil fuel societies thrived by harnessing vast quantities of energy.
Chapter 6: Fossil fuel societies prize equality and prefer peace over violence.
Chapter 7: We don’t know precisely how technological advances will alter our values, but we can be quite certain they will.
Description
Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels (2015) argues that the values we hold most dear stem from one fundamental source: energy. While anthropologists have spent centuries attempting to understand differences between cultures, few have attempted to explain those differences. These blinks do just that.
Who Should Listen
- History and philosophy enthusiasts
- Futurists wondering how and why our values and ethical concerns may soon change
- Anyone curious about how moral systems work