[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fL7AHENHmPTp7iaaB0CX0kFI6_y0YYANqj3qTS2kHrPc":3,"$fDAhP0LIxIHlMvDiD-liiRuVIoO39nnZhiTliC2wvkno":12},{"author":4,"tags":11},{"author_id":5,"author_name":6,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"bio":9,"short_bio":9,"slug":10,"image_url":9},83181,"Ronald Wright","R",19,null,"ronald-wright",[],{"quotes":13,"pagination":108},[14,22,28,35,42,53,64,75,86,97],{"id":15,"quote_text":16,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":19,"source":20,"quote_tag":21,"commentary":9},3397923,"The perfection of hunting spelled the end of hunting as a way of life. Easy meat meant more babies. More babies meant more hunters. More hunters, sooner or later, meant less game. Most of the great human migrations across the world at this time must have been driven by want, as we bankrupted the land with our moveable feasts.",6,false,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":23,"quote_text":24,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":25,"source":26,"quote_tag":27,"commentary":9},3397914,"Benjamin Disraeli had anticipated Erewhon’s fears in his novel Coningsby: “The mystery of mysteries,” he wrote, “is to view machines making machines, a spectacle that fills the mind with curious and even awful speculation.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":29,"quote_text":30,"author_id":5,"source_id":17,"has_image":18,"author":31,"source":32,"quote_tag":33,"commentary":34},3397896,"To use a computer analogy, we are running twenty-first-century software on hardware last upgraded 50,000 years ago or more. This may explain quite a lot of what we see in the news.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],"**The Backstory**\nRonald Wright, a Canadian novelist and historian, wrote this quote in the context of his 2004 book \"A Short History of Progress.\" Wright's work explores the intersection of history, science, and human behavior, and this quote reflects his concern with the mismatch between our technological advancements and our primitive, primal nature. At the time, Wright was likely reflecting on the state of the world, particularly the Iraq War and the global economic crisis, and how these events were influenced by our innate, tribal tendencies.\n\n**The Hidden Insight**\nThe quote reveals a profound paradox: despite our incredible technological progress, our fundamental human nature remains unchanged, stuck in a 50,000-year-old evolutionary groove. This insight highlights the tension between our capacity for innovation and our enduring susceptibility to primal instincts, which can lead to destructive behavior when unchecked.\n\n**How to Use This**\nTo apply this mindset, modern professionals and creatives can benefit from acknowledging and working with their own primal tendencies, rather than trying to suppress or deny them. By recognizing the persistence of our primitive nature, we can develop strategies to manage and channel these impulses in ways that promote collaboration, creativity, and constructive progress.",{"id":36,"quote_text":37,"author_id":5,"source_id":38,"has_image":18,"author":39,"source":40,"quote_tag":41,"commentary":9},2766608,"the most compelling reason for reforming our system is that the system is in no one's interest. It is a suicide machine.",4,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[],{"id":43,"quote_text":44,"author_id":5,"source_id":38,"has_image":18,"author":45,"source":46,"quote_tag":47,"commentary":9},2766596,"Like most problems with technology, pollution is a problem of scale. The biosphere might have been able to tolerate our dirty old friends coal and oil if we burned them gradually, but how long can it withstand a blaze of consumption so frenzied that the dark size of this planet glows like a fanned ember in the night of space.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[48],{"id":49,"tag":50},5742329,{"id":51,"tag_name":52},7477,"dirty",{"id":54,"quote_text":55,"author_id":5,"source_id":38,"has_image":18,"author":56,"source":57,"quote_tag":58,"commentary":9},2766580,"Like all creatures, humans have made their way in the world by trial and error. Unlike other creatures we have a presence so colossal that error is a luxury we can no longer afford. The world has grown too small to forgive us any big mistakes.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[59],{"id":60,"tag":61},5742312,{"id":62,"tag_name":63},13751,"errors",{"id":65,"quote_text":66,"author_id":5,"source_id":38,"has_image":18,"author":67,"source":68,"quote_tag":69,"commentary":9},2766568,"Societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[70],{"id":71,"tag":72},5742300,{"id":73,"tag_name":74},462,"history",{"id":76,"quote_text":77,"author_id":5,"source_id":38,"has_image":18,"author":78,"source":79,"quote_tag":80,"commentary":9},2766554,"Even today, some opt for the comforts of mystification, preferring to believe that the wonders of the ancient world were built by Atlanteans, gods, or space travelers, instead of by thousands toiling in the sun. Such thinking robs our forerunners of their due, and us of their experience. Because then one can believe whatever one likes about the past - without having to confront the bones, potsherds, and inscriptions which tell us that people all over the world, time and again, have made similar advances and mistakes.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[81],{"id":82,"tag":83},5742287,{"id":84,"tag_name":85},266,"mistake",{"id":87,"quote_text":88,"author_id":5,"source_id":38,"has_image":18,"author":89,"source":90,"quote_tag":91,"commentary":9},2766541,"Capitalism lures us onward like the mechanical hare before the greyhounds,\ninsisting that the economy is infinite and sharing therefore irrelevant. Just enough greyhounds catch a\nreal hare now and then to keep the others running till they drop. In the past it was only the poor who\nlost this game; now it is the planet.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[92],{"id":93,"tag":94},5742278,{"id":95,"tag_name":96},692,"running",{"id":98,"quote_text":99,"author_id":5,"source_id":38,"has_image":18,"author":100,"source":101,"quote_tag":102,"commentary":9},2766524,"America seemed a virgin land waiting for civilization. But Europe had made the wilderness it found; America was not a virgin, she was a widow.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":10,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":9},{},[103],{"id":104,"tag":105},5742257,{"id":106,"tag_name":107},158,"europe",{"currentPage":109,"totalPages":110,"totalItems":8,"itemsPerPage":111},1,2,10]