The End of History and the Last Man

What Hacker News says

1. jonbaerMar 2017
   Prisoners of Geography - Tim Marshall

   The Revenge of Geography - Robert D. Kaplan

   Prisoner's Dilemma - William Poundstone

   The Master Algorithm - Pedro Domingos

   Zero-Sum Future - Gideon Rachman

   The End of History and the Last Man - Francis Fukuyama

   Entanglement - Amir Aczel

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2. _trampeltierAug 2026
   Thats why people wrote books like ..

   The End of History and the Last Man is a book of political philosophy written in 1992 by American political scientist Francis Fukuyama which argues that with the ascendancy of Western liberal democracy—which occurred after the Cold War (1945–1991) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)—humanity has reached "not just ... the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: That is, the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...

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3. epistasisJun 2026
   Exactly, the problem is not left/right it's the authoritarianism, which is again a huge threat to the world after being held mostly in check in Western democracies for many years.

   People tend to forget about the "Last Man" part of Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man", but we are definitely in the phase of the Last Man seeking conflict and fighting against our hard-won freedoms.

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4. scottLobsterFeb 2026
   "The End of History and the Last Man" was a book written in 1992 about the end of the Cold War and how previous historical patterns no longer applied, and Western liberal democracy would sweep the world and usher in a world of peace.

   The "return of history" is snarkily pointing out how historical trends have been reasserting themselves, and Fukuyama (the author) was, at best, overly optimistic

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5. AnimatsMay 2025
   > With AGI, Knowledge workers will be worth less until they are worthless.

   "Knowledge workers" being in charge is a recent idea that is, perhaps, reaching end of life. Up until WWII or so, society had more smart people than it had roles for them. For most of history, being strong and healthy, with a good voice and a strong personality, counted for more than being smart. To a considerable extent, it still does.

   In the 1950s, C.P. Snow's "Two Cultures" became famous for pointing out that the smart people were on the way up.[1] They hadn't won yet; that was about two decades ahead. The triumph of the nerds took until the early 1990s.[2] The ultimate victory was, perhaps, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. That was the last major power run by goons. That's celebrated in The End of History and the Last Man (1992).[3] Everything was going to be run by technocrats and experts from now on.

   But it didn't last. Government by goons is back. Don't need to elaborate on that.

   The glut of smart people will continue to grow. Over half of Americans with college educations work in jobs that don't require a college education. AI will accelerate that process. It doesn't require AI superintelligence to return smart people to the rabble. Just AI somewhat above the human average.

   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

   [2] https://archive.org/details/triumph_of_the_nerds

   [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...

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6. kipchakApr 2023
   Something like "Ibn Khaldun cycles" might be a more accurate descriptor with Asabiyyah being the identified driving force. I think the two are pretty close, though the meme is vague enough to allow for a fair bit of projection.

   Asabiyyah is strongest in the nomadic phase, and decreases as the civilization advances as the ruling class begins to focus more on maintaining their wealth/power individually at the expense of the group, which covers the Strong Men and Good Times phase. As decadence increases group solidarity decreases Weak men and bad times occurs, which readies the cycle to start anew with additional strong men, which matches with Khaldun's period of 3 generations per cycle.

   It's a pretty bare bones social cycle theory by modern standards but the core idea common to both seems to be that history is a cycle of barbarians conquering decadent civilizations, only to eventually become fragmented, self serving and vulnerable themselves at some point. The applicability to the modern world seems to depend on whether the underlying causes have been eliminated, in a "The End of History and the Last Man" sort of sense.

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