Yoly Liu’s Reviews > The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity > Status Update

What are so called egalitarian societies should less be about equality per se but should be about autonomy (my possibility of actually doing so and so).

How did we get stuck? There is no single pattern. The only consistent phenomenon is the very fact of alteration, and the consequent awareness of different social possibilities

Human thought is inherently dialogic, but it turns out individuals have been considered isolated, rational, self-conscious—as a normal default state of human beings anywhere.

Their happiness is entirely derived from their inability to imagine things otherwise, or to project themselves into the future in any way at all.

One must simplify the world to discover something new about it. The problem comes when, long after the discovery has been made, people continue to simplify.