Chapters & Articles

1. They saw it coming - introduction to the book's themes
2. Hostile environments - how humans came to see the world as a hostile place
3. Ingenuity and Inertia - with innovations come obstacles
4. Separated from living things - the concept of man as distinct from the natural world
5. Historical trajectories - evolution of the rise, decline and fall of social entities
6. Reconcilable differences - how the division between humans and nature is harmful, yet reconcilable
7. Forward and backward - insulating humans from their natural environment sows the seeds of societal collapse

Part 2: The solution

8. A two-sided story - neurological support for the fact of mental specialization
9. Playing God - the self-referencing realm of science and technology fosters notions of irreproachability
10. Excuses, excuses - rational methods can be put to any use; they are not a guarantee of accuracy
11. A Fork in the road - excessive mental specialization gives rise to the failure of ingenuity
12. Audacious and brilliant intuitions - the most creative scientists have often relied on intuition
13. Nurturing Genius - "The genius creates good ideas because we all create good ideas" - S. Pinker
14. Resilient adaptations - human resilience argues that societal collapse, and the failure of ingenuity can be avoided
15. Afterthought (electronic edition)

Insight

Traps