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A group consisting entirely of self-regarding agents will never be able to cooperate. So cooperation is possible only if some agents are motivated by ‘extra-rational’ prosocial norms, including the norm of moralistic punishment.

— Peter Turchin

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More quotes by Peter Turchin

It really is a very coherent understanding of these problems.

Human environment across time (2023)

Can we model and forecast the dynamics of social resilience and its opposite, social breakdown?

How resilient are our societies to internal and external shocks?

SDT is a general theory that guides our understanding of political violence dynamics and social breakdown in all large-scale state-level societies.

In the late 1970s there was a definite phase transition.

Human environment across time (2023)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Peter Turchin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.