Humanity and Law of Three

[ionelv]

All of humanity’s history (especially its major shifts) can be explained by 3 major processes:
1. Charisma+sociopathy (e.g. Caesar, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler)
2. Disruption: climate and innovations/inventions (e.g. major droughts, religion, war machines/tactics, computers)
3. Positive feedback mechanisms: compounding interest, rent seeking, oligopoly, monopoly, wealth concentration.

Comments

[jsburbidge]

There is a good argument - see The Roman Revolution - that Octavius Caesar is a successful sociopath.

Julius looks like an entirely more complex case.

[ionelv]

You are probably right as I have been very unkind to Julius Caesar whose only fault was to be born during a time of great turmoil and he was merely one of the last straws that broke the Roman Republic’s back, with Octavian being the very last one.