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I'm talking about the hundreds of thousands of years we spent as tribes of hunter gatherers. We still carry much of the social needs and behaviors formed in tha
by dwaltrip 8y ago
I'm talking about the hundreds of thousands of years we spent as tribes of hunter gatherers. We still carry much of the social needs and behaviors formed in that landscape.
- mmirate 8y agoRight, and I'm saying that the landscape has changed enough that many of the behaviors and characteristics we evolved back then, are maladaptive today; just because most humans happen to have a certain trait, does not mean that others should hold that trait sacred and kowtow+mold themselves to it. There are other examples, too; ones with even fewer exceptions. Our minds and bodies both help hoard energy; that trait-set was useful when animals were difficult to hunt, but today it just foments carb-poisoning, obesity and a raft of other pointlessly energy-efficient design tradeoffs. (The modern world is so much more energy-abundant than the ancestral landscape, yet we can't actually make use of anything past ~8 MJ a day for anything but high-endurance physical exertion. A human brain is like a Pentium II hooked up to a 500W PSU.)
- dwaltrip 8y agoThe environment has changed significantly, yes. However, I don't agree that it has changed in ways that make pro-social behavior maladaptive.
- wsy 8y agoThe fact that you engage in this discussion here seems a strong indicator to me that the landscape has not changed that much. Otherwise you would just exploit everybody around you, and not talk about it.