But in general I think that while our societies have changed a lot, many things have stayed the same. Especially, the food system and its importance for societies is still very similar. Also, if you read a lot of history, you come to realize that humans often tend to follow the same trajectories, in the sense of “history does not repeat, but it rhymes”.
Views like the one from Lenton that I discussed in the post are also independent of the industrial revolution shift and if we could validate them, I think this would make a stronger case for the validity of historical comparisons.
That’s the big question of contemporary history. I discussed this a bit more here: https://existentialcrunch.substack.com/p/lessons-from-the-past-for-our-global
But in general I think that while our societies have changed a lot, many things have stayed the same. Especially, the food system and its importance for societies is still very similar. Also, if you read a lot of history, you come to realize that humans often tend to follow the same trajectories, in the sense of “history does not repeat, but it rhymes”.
Views like the one from Lenton that I discussed in the post are also independent of the industrial revolution shift and if we could validate them, I think this would make a stronger case for the validity of historical comparisons.