In the second episode of season five of the Antifa Book Club, we're reading chapter 2, of Fully Automated Luxury Communism, titled "The Three Disruptions."

It provides a historical framework for understanding the profound societal changes currently underway, arguing that they are comparable to the two most momentous shifts in human history. The chapter establishes that change is not uniform, distinguishing between simple progress and disruptive ruptures that alter the very meaning of what it means to be human. The First Disruption, occurring approximately twelve thousand years ago, was the transition to settled agriculture through the domestication of plants and animals, generating the necessary social surplus for cities and culture. The Second Disruption began roughly 250 years ago with the Industrial Revolution and the first machine age, fueled by fossil fuels and steam power, leading to extended life expectancy and increased production. The present era is now defined by the Third Disruption, which promises a liberation from scarcity in vital areas like energy, cognitive labor, and information, moving beyond the mechanical power defined by the Industrial Revolution.

The fundamental basis of this current historical rupture is the modern transistor and integrated circuit, which serves as the general-purpose technology—the contemporary analogue to Watt's steam engine. The rapid, epoch-defining nature of the Third Disruption is explained by the accelerating rate of historical change, driven primarily by non-linear, exponential trends. This concept is illustrated by examples like Moore's Law in computing, where the performance of computer chips has doubled every two years for decades, and the predictable decrease in the cost of photovoltaic cells governed by the experience curve. This accelerating improvement is ushering in an era of "extreme supply," not only in information but also potentially in labor (through automation), energy (through solar power), and resources (through space mining). The chapter concludes that this combination of advanced technology and abundant resources completes a chain that allows humanity to exceed its present planetary limits.