4 ms·
It's kind of revisionist to consider the last 60 years (if we're generous) but more like 10 years as proof that intelligent beings got there through some massiv
by eanzenberg 8y ago
It's kind of revisionist to consider the last 60 years (if we're generous) but more like 10 years as proof that intelligent beings got there through some massive amount of cooperation across borders and beyond close-knit groups
>>Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers.
Human intelligence has been around a lot longer than a few decades and for the vast vast majority of that time has not only still dominated the world but sects of people were uncooperative and competing with each other all the time, wiping out people here and there without a though otherwise.
If the main thesis is that a common language lead to cooperation and therefore world dominance, that's false too. People have dominated the earth for a while, and with a language, and without much cooperation but through fighting and spilled blood.
- golergka 8y ago> sects of people were uncooperative and competing with each other all the time And those groups who cooperated with in-group better have repeatedly outcompeted groups that didn't cooperate as well.
- eanzenberg 8y agoUp to a point. Successful cooperation seems to be through family ties or common upbringing, such as the vikings or spartans.
- jpadkins 8y agomodern corporations outcompete family or upbringing based orgs.
- golergka 8y agoIf you look at history, cultures that have managed to form a wide group identity have wiped out cultures that relied on close, tribe-like cooperation. Here's a short clip from Sapolsky's lectures on behavioural evolution about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQKTnau5AEY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQKTnau5AEY I originally watched the whole lecture course, so I don't know how well the point gets across in this clip, but I highly recommend his lectures for this and other related subjects.
- joe_the_user 8y agoIndeed, It's still a testament to human flexibility that human went from small bands of anarchistically organized gatherer-hunters only actively cooperating with each other to larger agricultural groups cooperating within a hierarchical framework. If one wanted to find a full explanation for this, it seems like one look for what gave humans the ability to do either.
- Retric 8y agoTrade routes have demonstrated cooperation across vast areas for thousands of years. This is not selfless cooperation, but was dependent on multiple nations and cultures.
- eanzenberg 8y agoCooperation, until the next war started.
- Retric 8y agoWars would often not interrupt trade routes. It’s a revenue source, so each side would want trade to continue such that they could get revenue from it.