Humans are not built to survive alone or think alone. We are a species of storytellers. Drawing on the work of Joseph Henrich, Yuval Noah Harari, and more, this lesson explores how shared culture, stories, and moral codes formed the invisible networks that allowed our ancestors to cooperate, thrive, and build civilization. When these shared stories weaken, individuals and societies lose their sense of purpose, the very condition we call drift.

Discover how your brain constructs emotions, beliefs, and reality itself. Drawing on Barrett, Sapolsky, Henrich, Bennett, and Lembke, this lesson explains how prediction, cultural learning, stress, and dopamine shape what you feel and what you believe. Understand the biological and cultural machinery behind your worldview, and how to take greater control of it.

This lesson explains what an ideology is, how it differs from and overlaps with religion, and why both have shaped human behavior for thousands of years. We break down the four core parts of every ideology (history, orientation, evaluation, and prescription) to give you a clear framework for understanding any belief system, including your own.

Modern society runs on four powerful structural forces: fractional banking, which expands money through lending; reinvestment-driven growth, which compels constant competition and innovation; GDP as an organizing imperative, shaping national priorities; and wage labor as the primary way individuals access resources. Together, these forces create the economic engine driving modern life.

These are the adjustable “knobs and settings” layered over the four-part engine. Market rules, ownership patterns, distribution systems, culture, law, resource strategy, and revenue base interact with the engine to shape a society’s actual regime output, whether it becomes liberal democracy, neoliberalism, socialism, democratic socialism, or something else.

These six metrics offer a clear, cross-temporal way to evaluate any society: Starvation, Disease, Violence, Liberty, Happiness, and Sustainability. Each captures a core dimension of human well-being. Together, they allow us to compare societies across history and today using consistent, evidence-based indicators rather than ideology or opinion.

These classes describe how well people can meet their basic needs. They’re defined by three factors: access to currency, reliable family/community support, and a functioning Cultural Information Network (CIN). Together, they shape five groups (Elites, Middle Class, Collective Class, Cortisol Class, and the Underclass) allowing us to compare social structure across eras and societies.