Quotes About Power

Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully when they believe in common myths

la religión ha sido la tercera gran unificadora de la humanidad, junto con el dinero y los imperios. Puesto

These forfeited food surpluses fuelled politics, wars, art and philosophy. They built palaces, forts, monuments and temples.

When a single professional makes almost all the decisions, mistakes can be catastrophic.

Everyone always wants money because everyone else also always wants money,

is an iron rule of history that every imagined hierarchy disavows its fictional origins and claims to be natural and inevitable.

al perder las masas su importancia económica y su poder político, el Estado podría a su vez perder al menos algunos de los incentivos para invertir en su salud, su educación y su bienestar

This is why cynics don't build empires and why an imagined order can be maintained only if large segments of the population – and in particular large segments of the elite and the security forces – truly believe in it.

Thus the Romans conquered Etruria in order to defend Rome (c.350–300 BC). They then conquered the Po Valley in order to defend Etruria (c.200 BC). They subsequently conquered Provence to defend the Po Valley (c.120 BC), Gaul to defend Provence (c.50 BC), and Britain in order to defend Gaul (c. AD 50). It took them 400 years to get from Rome to London. In 350 BC, no Roman would have conceived of sailing directly to Britain and conquering it.

It was not food shortages that caused most of history's wars and revolutions

How did it happen that in the one species whose success depends above all on cooperation, individuals who are supposedly less cooperative (men) control individuals who are supposedly more cooperative (women)? At present, we have no good answer.

We should never underestimate human stupidity, it's one of the most powerful forces in history.

Writing and money made it possible to start collecting taxes from hundreds of thousands of people, to organise complex bureaucracies and to establish vast kingdoms.

These are sets of rules that, despite existing only in our imagination, we believe to be as real and inviolable as gravity. 'If

As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality.

THE LAST 500 YEARS HAVE WITNESSED A breathtaking series of revolutions. The earth has been united into a single ecological and historical sphere. The economy has grown exponentially, and humankind today enjoys the kind of wealth that used to be the stuff of fairy tales. Science and the Industrial Revolution have given humankind superhuman powers and practically limitless energy. The social order has been completely transformed, as have politics, daily life and human psychology.

Writing was born as the maidservant of human consciousness, but is increasingly becoming its master.

In the coming decades, it is likely that we will see more Internet-like revolutions, in which technology steals a march on politics.

Soon authority might shift again – from humans to algorithms.

Standardisation was a boon to emperors.

Just as human politicians on election campaigns go around shaking hands and kissing babies, so aspirants to the top position in a chimpanzee group spend much time hugging, back-slapping and kissing baby chimps. The alpha male usually wins his position not because he is physically stronger, but because he leads a large and stable coalition.

la vida moderna consiste en una búsqueda constante del poder en el seno de un universo desprovisto de sentido.

In ancient times having power meant having access to data. Today having power means knowing what to ignore. So considering everything that is happening in our chaotic world, what should we focus on?

Why are revolutions so rare? Why do the masses sometimes clap and cheer for centuries on end, doing everything the man on the balcony commands them, even though they could in theory charge forward at any moment and tear him to pieces?