All politics is either
a) talking or
b) fighting.
Therefore information technology and military technology determine everything.
These technologies are constantly shifting but the institutions they support – states, churches, empires, and businesses – have inertia and change very slowly.
When the stresses between the fluid technology layer and the solid institutional layer that sits on top of it get too great, something breaks.
The breaks are not gradual; they are catastrophic.
See all State Tectonics posts.
More
State Tectonics – the big picture
Magnitude-Nine Politics – expanding on the idea of State Tectonics.
Communications Technology – social media, propaganda, memetics
Make Christendom Great Again – he’s not Hitler; he’s Luther
Many-to-many Propaganda – democratising propaganda changes everything
Measles Goes Viral – children on the front lines of bio-info-war
Money and Economics
Warfare – guerilla warfare, cyberwar, state power, the logic of violence
Nobbling the Nobility – how the Greeks created democracy
The Medieval Hiroshima – how gunpowder ended feudalism
Is Poland a Real Country? – what happens when borders don’t match reality
The Apollo Mirage – a Cold War logic that no longer exists
Tim Whatsit – why governments like surnames
An Air Force in Your Pocket – industrial age warfare vs information age warfare
Work – AI, automation, the gig economy
Conclusions no one has yet dared to draw
Bernard Darnton 