The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History

The brain of a bee is an insubstantial thing—a slender thread of neural fiber scarcely capable of anything we would call intelligence. But the strength of a neural net does not lie in the limited abilities of any one node in the web. The strength of the connectionist intelligence—its problem-solving ability—is in the web itself: the constant feelin

This pious self-aggrandizement of a conquering barbarian tribe led to the Indian caste system.

The nation slipping downward averts its eyes, but the country on the rise is often vigorously alert, looking for the tiniest opportunity to lunge toward the top. Instead of turning their backs and hoping for peace, superorganisms on the move often manufacture confrontations.

When the pecking order status of a national superorganism slides, a frustrated populace looks for someone to blame, preferably a character located conveniently close to home.

“Physical affection—touching, holding, and carrying.” The societies that hugged their kids were relatively peaceful. The cultures that treated their children coldly produced brutal adults.

Nature is like a sculptor continually improving upon her work, but to do it she chisels away at living flesh.

Some of these Hymenoptera are lazy and sit around all day doing very little; others work their tails off in the interest of the community. But try separating the ne’er-do-wells from the industrious and setting them up as two new colonies—one composed exclusively of layabouts and the other made up entirely of nose-to-the-grindstone types. A strange

The barnyard chickens studied by naturalist Schjelderup-Ebbe had their periods of peace, but they never had equality.

Why does the Hindu religion tell its adherents to go with the flow, to abhor the things of this world, to set aside earthly desires, to hope only for an improvement of their lot after this life is over? Because Hinduism was designed to keep the conquered Shudras in their place.