Quotes About Power

the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss put it, ancient writing's main function was "to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings.

society's structure created a conflict between the short-term interests of those in power, and the long-term interests of the society as a whole.

One of the conclusions that we saw emerging from our discussion of Maya kings, Greenland Norse chieftains, and Easter Island chiefs is that, in the long run, rich people do not secure their own interests and those of their children if they rule over a collapsing society and merely buy themselves the privilege of being the last to starve or die.

The reasons that Europeans colonized New Guinea, rather than vice versa, are obvious. Europeans were the ones who had the oceangoing ships and compasses to travel to New Guinea; the writing systems and printing presses to produce maps, descriptive accounts, and administrative paperwork useful in establishing control over New Guinea; the political institutions to organize the ships, soldiers, and administration; and the guns to shoot New Guineans who resisted with bow and arrow and clubs.

Knowledge brings power. Hence writing brings power to modern societies, by making it possible to transmit knowledge with far greater accuracy and in far greater quantity and detail, from more distant lands and more remote times.

The kings and priests of ancient Sumer wanted writing to be used by professional scribes to record numbers of sheep owed in taxes, not by the masses to write poetry and hatch plots.

Commoners had to prostrate themselves before high-ranking chiefs. All the members of chiefly lineages, bureaucrats, and some craft specialists were freed from the work of food production.

Todas las historias militares que glorifican a los grandes generales simplifican en exceso la prosaica verdad: los vencedores de las guerras del pasado no fueron siempre los ejércitos que disponían de los mejores generales y las mejores armas, sino que a menudo fueron simplemente aquellos que portaban los gérmenes más desagradables para transmitirlos a sus enemigos.

Part of the solution to that problem was for one person, the chief, to exercise a monopoly on the right to use force.

Thus, Norse society's structure created a conflict between the short-term interests of those in power, and the long-term interests of the society as a whole. Much of what the chiefs and clergy valued proved eventually harmful to the society. Yet the society's values were at the root of its strengths as well as of its weaknesses. The Greenland Norse did succeed in creating a unique form of European society, and in surviving for 450 years as Europe's most remote outpost.

truth: the winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals and weapons, but were often merely those bearing the nastiest germs to transmit to their enemies.

it is often government that organizes the conquest, and religion that justifies it. While nomads and tribespeople occasionally defeat organized governments and religions, the trend over the past 13,000 years has been for the nomads and tribespeople to lose.

Societies with effective conflict resolution, sound decision making, and harmonious economic redistribution can develop better technology, concentrate their military power, seize larger and more productive territories, and crush autonomous smaller societies one by one.

large societies cannot function with band organization and instead are complex kleptocracies.

Glorious Revolution overthrew King James, made William king in his place, weakened the king's power, increased Parliament's power, and thereby promoted the development of institutions more favorable for economic growth.

Descendants of those societies that achieved centralized government and organized religion earliest ended up dominating the modern world. The combination of government and religion has thus functioned, together with germs, writing, and technology, as one of the four main sets of proximate agents leading to history's broadest pattern.

Maori began to walk through Moriori settlements, announcing that the Moriori were now their slaves, and killing those who objected.

Atahuallpa was absolute monarch of the largest and most advanced state in the New World, while Pizarro represented the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (also known as King Charles I of Spain), monarch of the most powerful state in Europe.

As the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss put it, ancient writing's main function was "to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings.

Knowledge brings power. Hence writing brings power to modern societies, by making it possible to transmit knowledge with far greater accuracy and in far greater quantity and detail, from more distant lands and more remote times. Of

instead foresee one political party in power in the U.S. government or in state governments increasingly manipulating voter registration, stacking the courts with sympathetic judges, using those courts to challenge election outcomes, and then invoking "law enforcement" and using the police, the National Guard, the army reserve, or the army itself to suppress political opposition.

The U.S. is very unlikely to suffer a take-over by our military acting independently. I instead foresee one political party in power in the U.S. government or in state governments increasingly manipulating voter registration, stacking the courts with sympathetic judges, using those courts to challenge election outcomes, and then invoking "law enforcement" and using the police, the National Guard, the army reserve, or the army itself to suppress political opposition.

Suomi Suomi eikö meillä pelata shakkia ja jos pelataan niin millaisia saatanan nappuloita me ollaan? Ei kunua ei kuningatarta ja soltut talonpojat pelkkiä houruja, tornit hävinneet metsien myötä ja ratsut kaikki menossa makkaraksi, Suomi Suomi eikö sinulla ole kuin lähettejä, salkkuun rakastuneita kuriireja jotka luulee että maailma on liukuportaat ja himoitsee nukkua pressanlinnassa...

The devious manipulation of sheep, otherwise known as politics.