Reflections 26 April...

A Short Absence

Hello all

I hope you’re enjoying this late spring early summer sunshine. I’m travelling for a couple of weeks, largely sans signal :-), but will be back in a fortnight. Until then, go well.

A Thought

We are used to assuming that advances in technology are continually making the world a smaller place. In a purely physical sense, of course, this is true: the domestication of the horse, and gradual improvements in seafaring, to take just two examples, certainly made it much easier for people to move around. But at the same time, increases in the sheer number of human beings seem to have pulled in the opposite direction, ensuring that, for much of human history, ever-diminishing proportions of people actually travelled – at least, over long distances or very far from home. If we survey what happens over time, the scale on which social relations operate doesn’t get bigger and bigger; it actually gets smaller and smaller.

David Graeber, The Dawn of Everything

R