As I'm delving into the Fourth Turning, I'm piqued by the idea of how their theory overlaps or jives with similar historical cyclic theories like Secular Cycles. Bigger span theories like Ian Morris ought to fit in to some of these, though Morris' data may not be granular enough to show it. Similarly one has to wonder with increasing technology, do these cycles speed up over time?

• Turchin, Peter, and Sergey A. Nefedov. 2009. Secular Cycles. 1st ed. Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691136967/secular-cycles (September 30, 2026).
• Review: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2weRdcvqANDq3zdPH/book-review-secular-cycles

250. Tackling ‘Big History’ feat. Ian Morris<br /> unSILOed Podcast with Greg LaBlanc

• Most of human history and evolution is about energy capture.
• Investing 80x energy into land to get 4x output from it has been transformational for modern farmers. (Turning oil into bread.)
• Marshall Sahlins - synopsis: agriculture is a really bad idea.
• Morris Theorem: human history is driven by lazy, greedy people.
• "Fossil fuel values" (00:39:00)
• fairness is a fundamental human value; justice is dramatically different across time and space (00:45:08)
• Morris' "5 Horsemen of the Apocalypse" (the five problems humans encounter when they reach the limits of energy extraction): massive movements of people (mobility); epidemics; climate change; war; governmental collapses;
• The price of overhunting for one person versus the price for the collective. How do we solve these collective problems (particularly for lazy, greedy humans)? (00:52:35)
• Regional failures were the general pattern before; now failures are a global scale problem.
• Morris' explanation of Brexit based on his Big History thesis as one of how Britain maintains power with respect to both China and Europe. (01:05:40)

250. Tackling ‘Big History’ feat. Ian Morris<br /> unSILOed Podcast with Greg LaBlanc

Watched 2026-07-29

)Morris, Ian. 2022. “Against Method: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber and David Wengrow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2021. Pp. 704. $35. ISBN 9780374157357 (Paper).” American Journal of Archaeology 126(3): E65–75. doi:10.1086/720603.

not too dissimilar to Piketty's Capital.