A Revolution is Unfolding

Not with torches or guillotines—but with tweets, code, and crashing fertility rates. The systems that used to hold society together—governments, schools, economies, families—are all starting to shake and fall under the load they’re ill-equipped to support.

We’re watching the breakdown of the old social order in real time. Institutions are losing credibility. Trust is leaking out faster than company secrets on Reddit. The stories we used to tell ourselves about how the world works don’t hold up anymore—and fewer people are pretending that they do.

The question is not whether change is coming, but what will emerge in its place.

History gives us clues. Philosopher Thomas Kuhn had a name for these moments: paradigm shifts. He described them as times when the dominant way of understanding the world falls apart under the weight of too many contradictions. For a while, everything feels chaotic. The old system limps along, even though it’s dead on its feet. But eventually, a new framework emerges—one that better explains the world and helps people move forward.

For example, the Ptolemaic model of the universe with Earth at its center had survived for over a thousand years. But its foundations had started to crumble under the scrutiny of Copernicus, Kepler, and Brahe. Then Isaac Newton delivered the final blow with the flick of his quill. He published his theories of motion and forces in Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or Principia, and within fifty years the Ptolemaic model was all but forgotten.

Kuhn didn’t think of crises as passive events. They’re not car crashes we helplessly watch unfold. They’re more like demolition derbies: wild, dangerous contests to see who can survive the smash-up—and maybe even come out on top.

In other words, they’re contests of survival—something Colonel John Boyd understood better than most. He wasn’t a philosopher; he was a fighter pilot. But his study of war, strategy, and decision-making revealed something powerful: in moments of conflict, winners aren’t always the biggest or strongest. They’re the ones who move the fastest, think the clearest, and adapt the quickest. According to Boyd, change favors the most maneuverable.

Maneuvering through collapse, however, requires knowing the terrain. And our terrain isn’t made of hills or rivers—it’s made of people. The minefield we must navigate is social, created by our everyday interactions. 

Thankfully, there’s been a surge of research into the evolutionary roots of human psychology that helps to shed light on what that terrain looks like. Robin Dunbar, a British evolutionary psychologist, discovered that human relationships follow a kind of built-in architecture. You can only manage a certain number of meaningful connections at a time. There’s an inner circle of deep trust (like your closest family and friends), surrounded by expanding layers of looser ties (colleagues, acquaintances, internet frenemies). Dunbar’s research shows that our brains are literally wired to manage just over a hundred relationships at once.

If you want to survive (and thrive) in a collapsing system, knowing how to move through these social layers is key. You can’t bulldoze your way through this revolution. You have to learn how to dance.

And here’s the twist: you’re no longer dancing with just humans.

Artificial intelligence is changing everything. It’s not just disrupting jobs or remixing Drake’s voice onto TikTok hits. It’s rewriting the rules of human interaction itself. AI is unraveling the old systems, but also sketching out what comes next. It’s the smartest kid in the class and will rewrite the curriculum while the teacher panics in the corner.

That is, if we let it.

That’s why we begin this book with Kuhn, Boyd, and Dunbar. Kuhn helps us recognize when paradigms break. Boyd shows us how to move through the chaos. And Dunbar reveals the structure of the terrain we’re maneuvering across.

But this time, we’re not alone. For the first time in history, human intelligence isn’t the only intelligence shaping the game. Those who ignore AI will be swept aside. Those who understand it—really master the dance between humans and AI—will shape the future.

p.s. i would love to have your feedback on this draft. just reply this to email and let me know your thoughts. you could even have AI write them for you.

p.p.s. the pre-order for Anthroponautics: Mathematical Principles of the Anthropic Domain is now open. reply "pre-order" to reserve your copy.