Found in 2 comments on Hacker News
pramsey · 2019-12-16 · Original thread
Best book on the subject I read is Wright's "A Short History of Progress" https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Progress-Ronald-Wright/... Jared Diamond's "Collapse" is in a similar vein, but less cleanly written.
adrice727 · 2018-09-07 · Original thread
A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright is another good one that touches on this quite a bit.

https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Progress-Ronald-Wright/...

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