The influence of stories in Genesis is an outstanding feature of the parables. Patriarchal misconduct is particularly in focus. Activities depicted in the parables are inspired by incidents involving the very first ancestors of Israel. Luke presents Jesus as the creator, a patriarch in some sense, of the final redeemed community of a new Israel awaiting the kingdom of God. His disciples, “sons of light,” are its first members.

This chapter employs ethnographic insights to develop a generalizable theory of criminalized governance. The theory accounts for why gang organizations and their members engage in varying levels of coercion and benefits provision to residents living in areas where they operate. When gangs compete, they rely more on coercion and violence as they demand heightened levels of obedience from local communities. When police are actively enforcing against gangs, however, they will provide more responsive benefits to local populations to gain resident support in their effort to avoid detection and arrest. Although gang-level incentives may seem to predominate, the role of residents is crucial. The chapter describes how resident responses within these various security environments can shape the nature of the threats to gangs and, thereby, governance outcomes. The chapter concludes by describing the dynamics that should be observed within each of the ideal-typical criminalized governance regimes and addresses several alternative factors that may shape these outcomes.

This chapter analyses a case of party-building by agrarian elites in Chile. It presents evidence of Chilean landowners’ financial support of the political right, their identification with rightwing legislators, and the programmatic convergence between agrarian elites’ preferences and the policy positions of rightwing parties, Renovación Nacional (RN) in particular. The chapter argues that agrarian elites in Chile decided to invest in an electoral strategy of political influence at the time of the democratic transition because they feared a center-left government would endanger their property rights. It presents evidence of how this perceived threat was founded on landowners’ previous experience with democracy during the 1965–1973 period, when their farms were expropriated. The chapter also illustrates how low intragroup fragmentation facilitates party-building. Shared political and economic interests among the Chilean economic elite in general, and agrarian elites in particular, decreased the coordination costs associated with building a party to represent them. The chapter analyses the tax reform of 1990 and the Water Code reform of 2022 to show how the partisan strategy works.

Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) or superintelligence promises great disruption in the law, economy, and society. The world is close to reaching an inflection point; the so-called existential threat of superintelligence with the potential of replacing human control and decision-making with its creation. The focus should be on mitigating the negative effects of disruption and using smart design to prevent AI from ever becoming an existential threat to humankind.

There is an overwhelming case against the current regulation of AI for existential risks. The regulation would compromise the progress in AI because regulators could not tell which lines of research make existential threats. Part of the reason is that these risks are not imminent and are not probable, thus making identification even harder. Finally, regulating at the national level might empower rogue nations to threaten the national security of well-functioning democracies. But international regulation is not possible, because it is difficult, if not impossible, to verify that prohibited lines of research are not occurring within another nation’s territory. Encouraging with subsidies the development of AI that is not an existential threat is the best way forward, because it will build up knowledge of potential dangers.

The ‘greatest existential emergency in history’ facing humanity. The ten mega-threats and the need to solve them together and in an integrated way. How the chemical threat interacts with the other nine threats. Solution of all ten threats is the key to human survival, wellbeing and prosperity.