Abstract
Is there something in humanity’s nature that makes us seek out unsafety and risk? Already in the hunter-gatherer society of prehistory, a pattern of communal living for the sake of survival and cooperation to obtain food, clothing, and shelter was universal. Well before recorded history, as humankind progressed from the New Stone Age to the Bronze Age and then the Iron Age, groups of people specialized in making farming tools, weapons, horse tackle, and other forms of metalworking and needed a system of cooperation at the level of the village, community, and state. Meanwhile, from the time of the first agricultural revolution, ruling the waters, for instance, by predicting the timing of river floods to assist with seed sowing, tilling, and harvesting, was the basis for the existence of the state.