There are a lot of layers in your overall argument. So I will respond to pieces of it at a time. What you are saying in these quoted sentences is what I am trying to capture compactly with the idea of a means-of-destruction versus means-of-production dialectic. Technology and resources are in this model exogenous variables that condition the optimum state size and composition under various technology, resource, and competitive constraints. As you correctly note, state size on average can shrink as well as grow and states can both fracture and consolidate.
My most urgent question (about AI and nuclear weapons - see my reply above), focused on what is the nature of the current states that threaten the world with nuclear weapons and what current constraints prevent nuclear war from breaking out? Also, what role does AI play in either strengthening or weakening such constraints? The first research answer I got was disturbing - AI pretty clearly tends to weaken launch constraints. We had just better hope that other constraints hold up long enough for political, economic, and ideological systems to evolve beyond current configurations.
A really key question is, what economic and political configurations are required to support the current nuclear standoff? That all draws on geopolitics, which in turn is fueled by ideological deep history. Putin is pretty clearly working off of traditional Russian scripts going back to early Russian liberation from the Mongols. Xi is likewise following a traditional Chinese centralization script analogous to the early Han or especially the Qin. Trump thinks of himself as a Viking warrior or some such. Delusional, but sadly consequential for the rest of us. In any case, the political and economic models all rely on these metaphors of conquest and empire building. Want to attribute all that to “five passions”? Fine by me! In any case, we need to arrive at a different cognitive-emotional architecture to assure the future of the world.
I do not imagine mass conversions to what Gebser calls integral consciousness anytime soon. The conversion of a creative minority to such consciousness does, however, seem feasible. That minority, working collectively, with an eye toward strategic leverage points, may indeed have a positive impact. Like Margaret Mead put it: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” My main question about AI is, to what extent can it facilitate the formation of that small group of thoughtful, committed citizens?". Again, I use it all the time to prepare for discussions like this one. So I’m certainly not anti-AI. But I also have no interest at all in anthropomorphizing AI either. I’m a humanist who does understand a fair bit about technology. But at bottom, I’m a humanist.