What are your favorite philosophical 3rd-party observations of human society in general?

I’ve always found it interesting how outsiders can bring a fresh_view to familiar topics. So I am interested to know what observations people have, about humanity as a whole, from outside sources. Interesting insights from a philosophical perspective about what it means to be human and how we function as a society. <br><br>A good example is the observation by Yuval Harari that humans only work because we believe in value systems enough to deem money as valueable. <br><br>Another example is that of Marshal Sahlins who observed that hunter-gatherer tribes only spend on average 6 hours a day hunting & gathering. Which led him to conclude in his book "Stone Age Economics" (a mammoth of a tome) that since hunter-gatherer tribes spend so little time working/gathering; the transition to agriculture was actually a step backwards for humanity and that hunter/gatherer societies are much closer to utopias than agricultural/factory societies ever could hope to be.