What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other’s shoulders and kicking each other’s teeth in. It’s not a pleasant situation. And yet, you can stand back and look at this planet and see that we have the money, the power, the medical understanding, the scientific know-how, the love and the community to produce a kind of human paradise. But we are led by the least among us — the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary — we are led by the least among us — and we do not fight back against the dehumanizing values that are handed down as control icons.
Terence McKenna: Psychedelics in the Age of Intelligent Machines or as I prefer “Culture is Not Your Friend”.