"civilization is an experiment, a very recent way of life in the human career, 
and it has a habit of walking into what i am calling progress traps,”
ronald wright writes in a short history of progress. 
“a small village on good land beside a river is a good idea; 
but when the village grows into a city and paves over the good land, it becomes a bad idea. while prevention might have been easy, a cure may be impossible: 
a city isn’t easily moved. 
this human inability to foresee—or watch for—long-range consequences may be inherent 
to our kind, shaped by millions of years when we lived hand to mouth by hunting 
and gathering. 
it may also be little more than a mix of inertia, greed, and foolishness 
encouraged by the shape of the social pyramid. 
the concentration of power at the top of large-scale societies 
gives the elite a vested interest in the status quo; 
they continue to prosper in darkening times 
long after the environment and general population begin to suffer.”

-chris hedges in truthout.

i just found a short history of progress in the free box. i like very much the correspondence of chance, finding things in places where i happen to be looking, feels like i myself correspond, and these things find me. there has to be more than the cynicism and death dealing of facebook, the surveillance state and global war. civilization cannot be that blind and brutal. the corporate state can be that ruthless, but nature is, has got to be more subtle and ingenious than the apex predators whose masterminding is nothing more than a nihilistic corporate endgame.