5 ms·

> Cooperation is literally why we are humans. Cooperation within the tribe. (Often violent) competition against the others. And the evolution of human intelli

• hnbad 5y ago
  Yes, tribal rivalries and fragmentation escalate when resources become scarce. Luckily we've solved that problem: housing, food and even luxury goods exist in abundance. It's important to keep in mind that even the "alpha wolf" phenomenon was only observed in captivity, while wolf packs roaming freely had a much more egalitarian dynamic. The reason we see ruthless competition everywhere is not that humans are naturally antagonistic, it's that we've created a superstructure that perpetually creates artificial scarcity and "hacks" our stress response. We know that this is true in the small: "limited offers", countdowns and "exclusive deals" are widely understood cheap marketing gimmicks. We even came up with a catchy acronym for this: FOMO, emphasis on "fear". We're less ready to acknowledge this exists in the large. We've become so accustomed to the so-called Great Man Theory and a Capitalist Realism lens of history that we struggle to even imagine a different version of prehistory than the violent struggle for survival we proposed under colonialism to justify our subjugation of the "savages" _for their own good_.
  • rbanffy 5y ago
    > that we've created a superstructure that perpetually creates artificial scarcity and "hacks" our stress response. Capitalism extracts work from material scarcity gradients the same way a Stirling engine extracts it from temperature gradients.