2 miles from where I live is a hillfort

it was built about 4000 years ago, give or take. It covers several acres, was built entirely by hand. It has double ramparts, and inner and outer walls, all of which had to be hauled 1000ft uphill

15 miles south, is another hillfort, then another, then another.

these forts were built for a reason: the constant threat from people who desired what they had.

they did not live in a world of idyllic bliss, their forts were part of their fight for survival. Inter-tribally they were not nice to each other. Just like us. The strong survived. The weak died.

my point being that our current predicament is nothing new, it’s just of a bigger, more immediate scale.

4000 years ago the UK had 2m inhabitants, maybe fewer. The proportional diversion of available energy into fort building was colossal. But it was their only available survival strategy. They never anticipated the Romans turning up and wiping them out in short order. Faired haired Britons were much prized as slaves in Rome.

So much for American starting the slave trade! African slavers were raiding Britain and Ireland for slaves in the 15th c! The 17th c slave trade consisted of Africans selling africans to people with the means to ship them across the Atlantic

Greed, in other words.

But back to survival. We are doing the same thing. Pouring more and more of our available resources into survival strategies that must ultimately fail. Just as my local hillfort failed against the onslaught of superior force. The list you give above would have fitted my local ancient peoples just as well, in their interactions with each other. If they’d stopped fighting each other they would all have been better off.

And so would we.

We are on our way the reliving the history they gave us:

https://medium.com/@End_of_More/you-wont-like-downsizing-975571bc846d