Our base instincts tend to function only for populations fewer than one hundred. Once there are more people than your Facebook friend list, people start to get the sense that renegades and degenerates have infiltrated and are corrupting the community.

This means hierarchal system in our post-agrarian non-migratory civilization will always be driven to corruption and injustice, which has so far led universally to the dissolution of civilizations to warfare and collapse.

Maybe well find a way to reshape civilization to end hierarchy so that rule of law applies equally and everyone is assured a minimum standard of life. Until we do humankind will always be only centuries away from catastrophic risk.