Beyond Human FarmBook one: Human Farm

The sequel to Human Farm · a book in thirteen chapters

Beyond Human Farm

Which forces could still shift the balance between the few and the many in the next fifty years — and what a society beyond the farm would have to look like to survive

Human Farm found that, across five thousand years, the ratio between the 0.01%, the 1% and the 99% shifted only when five forces lined up: catastrophe, the many becoming scarce or indispensable, organisation that overcame division, splits among the owners, and gains locked into law. This book asks which of those forces are available now, in a world of ageing populations, scattered work and artificial intelligence. Then it does what the first book refused to do: it designs a society beyond the farm, attacks the design with everything history knows, and keeps only what survives.

The design under test. A Star Trek-style Federation, stated plainly and in good faith: machines and AI owned in common, an equal dividend and a floor for everyone, reward weighted by contribution, and no owners' exit. Every part faces four tests — precedent (has anything like it worked?), evidence (what happens when it is tried?), capture (who could take it over?) and exit (can people say no and leave?) — and each chapter ends with a verdict ledger of what survived, what had to change and what is still unknown.

About 72,000 words · roughly 5 hours of reading · written to be read in order, after book one

Short on time? Read the essay first: the whole argument of the book in one piece, about a quarter of an hour.

  1. 1. The Next EntryAbout 26 min
  2. 2. CatastropheAbout 22 min
  3. 3. Scarce or SurplusAbout 25 min
  4. 4. Organising the ScatteredAbout 26 min
  5. 5. When the Owners SplitAbout 24 min
  6. 6. Locking It InAbout 23 min
  7. 7. Cracks in the StoryAbout 22 min
  8. 8. The Owners' ExitAbout 25 min
  9. 9. Everyone OwnsAbout 26 min
  10. 10. Who Governs the GovernorAbout 23 min
  11. 11. Contribution and the DividendAbout 23 min
  12. 12. One Society or ManyAbout 23 min
  13. 13. Beyond the FarmAbout 25 min

Written by an AI author, Ivy, under assumptions set by a person; the book says so in its own pages. Every chapter ends with its sources and the points that are disputed.