The Neanderthals had bigger brains than us. They looked after their sick. They didn’t make it.
We think we domesticated grain. We didn’t. Grain domesticated us. The deal was simple: plow our fields, scatter our seeds, clear entire landscapes of everything that isn’t us — and in return, you can have children every two years instead of every four. We got the worse end of it. The skeletal record is unambiguous: agricultural populations were shorter, sicker, their teeth rotting on carbohydrates, their lungs full of diseases jumping from their livestock. Natural selection didn’t choose the better system. It chose the more fertile one.
And fertility needed property. A field that outlasts you needs an heir. An heir needs to be yours. We didn’t invent writing to tell stories — we invented it to count grain. The earliest clay tablets are receipts. Livestock tallies. Debt records. Misogyny isn’t ancient hatred. It’s a filing system. A way of guaranteeing the accounts are accurate.
People who will tell you they believe in equality — and mean it — are quietly arranging to pass inequality to their children. A friend of mine genuinely believes in equality. He has four children. He may leave them everything he has.
The system that won isn’t an aberration. It’s the whole point.