Conjecture

Part I argues that risk made us, and this is the claim most likely to be attacked. Its position: evolution, whether individual or cultural, requires variation and selection of the fittest, and without extinction, the pruning of genetics, ideas or governance structures, there can be no progress. Collective risks destroyed societies that could not organise themselves, letting those that could thrive and spread. Viewed individually these were traumas that wrecked families; viewed at species scale they were a grindstone. The argument is used to justify attention to risk, not to welcome it, but as written it licenses more than Part I intends.

Human nature