The historical record doesn’t cover any culture at all which does not in some way have to deal with agricultural and imperial societies, even if those cultures are resisting these forces.

Exactly my point.

Agriculture is not the enabling factor of human existence in most areas. Agriculture is the enabling factor for settlements of many people in most areas. Humans populated the entire Earth prior to agriculture.

Again, exactly my point. Agriculture is the thing enables hierarchies like this. Personal agrarian community is a compromise to me because we already have people to support who wouldn’t survive a transition to a system we know hierarchy can’t proliferate, which is hunting and gathering. I think civilization is possible (however unlikely) only at the most personal level, and every step beyond that personal level we see the consequences of empires.

The problems shared by cultures according to historical records are the problems of cities I’m talking about. Whether you would call them cities or not, among the fertile crescent civilizations there were definitely empires and there have been empires ever since. The written records history is based on are more modern than either empires or agriculture. I struggle to think of any issue which exists in my lifetime which was not caused in some way by the effects of empires.

Agriculture is the enabling factor for empires, so in my opinion agriculture must be practiced in a deliberate way which prevents the formation of empires. To this end I think people living intentionally in agrarian communities which minimize the burdens of regular life is less likely to plant the seeds of caste and hierarchy than a community in which people are alienated from the influence of their labor or have weaker connections to the people sustaining their lives.

What’s the most obvious question?

I’m biased against urban agriculture since it caused all of the problems humanity has been beset with for the last 10,000 years. Maybe if there was some kind of check against a city that starts using its massive resources to be predatory on less defensible communities as they always have.

There are too many people to live in a way other than agrarian at this point.

Dolphins will get there one day too.

This is actually fascinating because it demonstrates a social construct created by animals. Not all animals have the same intelligence, and in nature intelligence is typically found among animals living in groups. It requires intelligence to live and cooperate with others. To me it seems that these animals actually used their intelligence to preserve socially constructed zones for the general good of multiple groups of wolves, likely by staying where the right smell is and not going where the wrong smell is. Hopefully none of the wolves discover the prisoner’s dilemma and become a wolf emperor by suddenly invading and enslaving their unprepared neighbors.

Egg -> Coot -> Dead

Egg -> Dead

Dead