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So dogs, camels, and chimps all have hierarchys, but humans don’t? Strong claim.
by tiahura 3y ago
So dogs, camels, and chimps all have hierarchys, but humans don’t?
Strong claim.
- mrguyorama 3y ago>dogs If you're referring to the whole "alpha" thing, remember that was shown to be invalid and only occurred in captivity. Wild dogs are pretty communal.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoA school of fish is not a hierarchy. Other things exist besides hierarchies
- komali2 3y agoFamously, humans are the only creatures on earth that do lots of stuff. Like talking, writing, drawing pictures, or riding rockets into orbit. I don't see what's so unbelievable about our massively unique cognitive ability vs instinct ratio leading us to also have different forms of social organization, or that this could lead to our social organization being detached from instinct almost entirely. I feel like this whenever people try to do that Lobster argument. "right, but we aren't lobsters."
- Sprocklem 3y agoAdditionally, humans are unique in their ability to create complex social constructs and realities, which is a reasonable prerequisite for a potential to create novel methods of social organization.
- thworp 3y agoThis is a truism. Of course we could create social organizations that are totally unconstrained, but they will fail catastrophically. We are (and will always be) constrained and as soon as we prefer one goal to another we want to bring that hierarchy to reality. To do that we necessarily need to adjust the rewards for working towards that goal, thereby creating a social hierarchy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- komali2 3y agoEven if that were the case, the "lobster arguments for social hierarchy" usually lean far more rigid and totalitarian than human history indicates. For every Roman empire you show me I can find you five cultures with fluid or nearly flat hierarchies.