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Robert Sapolsky found the the most obvious predictor of stress in primate societies (measured via cortisol levels) was inequality. Speaking as a member of a hig

Robert Sapolsky found the the most obvious predictor of stress in primate societies (measured via cortisol levels) was inequality. Speaking as a member of a highly inequal primate society, it makes sense to me.

veunes 2y ago
It make sense to me too. Financial strain, limited opportunities, social exclusion and perceived unfairness can all contribute to heightened stress levels and anger towards life...
- ffsm8 2y ago
  It might be unfair to focus on this, but that "perceived unfairness" just jumped out at be. My first reaction was to think "it's not just perceived"... but after a little introspecting, I couldn't help but notice how grim that statement actually is. It means that any mistreatment is fine - as long as the person can be distracted from it. And thinking about that reminded me how every new tech since the internet/90th has been increasingly distracting. There is a reason we've started calling it the attention economy after all...
  - joquarky 2y ago
    Is something still considered an addiction if nobody cares to stop it? The way many people use the Internet now reminds me of an episode of Star Trek TNG ¹ where everyone is hooked on a game. ¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Nex...
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    A fundamental measurement for this in a modern society is payslope: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/how-one-company-levels-the-pay-slope-of-executives-and-workers/article15472738/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/h... and it really should be a fundamental aspect of how companies are viewed.
  - to11mtm 2y ago
    That's the dirty nuance of it. One can certainly have stress or frustration based on truly perceived unfairness. Take the case of someone who gets more test time because of a disability and the ADA. Those who don't know the why, may find it unfair. And there may be people that perceive it as unfair despite it being overall accepted as such. ---- That said your observation is also entirely true in it's own right. You can even distract from the real problem by focusing one's attention on a different unfairness, even if that unfairness impacts them less in the short and/or long term.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Inversely, any difference can become unbearable with enough attention fixated on it.
    - DougN7 2y ago
      And get a public figure/politician to drone on and on about it (whether they believe it or not) is an excellent way to fire up a base and get the base to stop thinking things through as thoroughly. That’s the thing that scares me - country size mobs.
nordstreem 2y ago
“Real stuff” retail logistics is 100% a game of physical statistics; keep enough necessities on shelves people don’t riot. Everything else about society is conservative political ideology Just angling for vanity rewards based upon peddling the best story, the best trauma, or best political network connections given contemporary zeitgeist; no Im the best aligned with set of virtues!. Whose family sold the most cars during the auto boom, and why we should still care… It’s hilariously bad
- tomrod 2y ago
  For those of us less in the loop, would you mind expanding/clarifying a bit on your comment?
  - nordstreem 2y ago
    Amazon, Kroger, Red Bull… brands… have all the capital, buy up supply, add their markups and fees, etc influence supply and demand through price fixing in abstract math games. Meanwhile the public is shackled to nickel and dime, dollars and sense finance and cannot get ahead, they tread water while also doing all the work to prop up the brands. We need to keep stuff on shelves or people will riot. But we also need to validate the past rulers for some reason by enabling them to monopolize capital. As we cling to Anglo-babble story about risk taking. When tree trimmer was number one most dangerous job in 2023, and the rest are blue collar jobs… police not on the list, fwiw… the rich investor is using story they won for some reason to avoid real risk of trimming a tree. But Protestant work ethic and so a generational Ponzi scheme to funnel dads post world war welfare job money and hand it to juniors startups and hedge funds is ongoing. Same as back in the day when landed gentry paid the church to let their kids avoid work by studying theology What’s great is since these are social hallucinations and they aren’t real it’s belief in social hallucinations not real stuff; it’s effectively nihilism given it ignores externalities of its resource use, but dressed up in ties, animated pitches that titillate and manipulate oxytocin and dopamine
    - nradov 2y ago
      Come on, you can't be serious. Red Bull is selling caffeinated sugar water. They can't possibly buy up all the supply.
andy99 2y ago
Is human equality lower now than it was in times past?
- kristiandupont 2y ago
  I imagine that it is lower in many western countries than it was in the 90's, but I have no data to back that up.
  - jjgreen 2y ago
    Figure 3 in [1] suggests the opposite [1] https://wid.world/document/inequality-trends-in-europe-world-inequality-lab-issue-brief-2022-04/ https://wid.world/document/inequality-trends-in-europe-world...
- zeroonetwothree 2y ago
  Perhaps awareness/perception of inequality has increased because of mass media (and social media). However I’m not totally convinced this is the main factor.
  - wddkcs 2y ago
    Inequality has clearly increased across the entire world.
  - TheHegemon 2y ago
    How could it not be? If someone was doing much better than you it would be hard to know or it was more formalized within the social hierarchy itself: nobles, kings, etc. Now all you have to do is open social media and see dozens of people doing things you could never even dream of doing.
  - james_marks 2y ago
    Maybe not the only factor, but a strong contributor. It's at least a few things: - Broader awareness, as you suggest. Police violence didn't necessarily increase, but the number of videos documenting it did, as did the distribution. - Highlight-reel effect on social media, so it feels like your peers are richer and happier than you. With previous generations' mass media, it felt like there was a separate "rich and famous" class, but the perception of the average person was a lot like yourself. - Tribalism from market segmentation and the echo effect. So we learn less tolerance and our convictions get stronger without reasonable, respected counter-arguments. - Actual increase in inequality through automation and globalization, without sufficient mechanisms (e.g., higher taxes, UBI, etc) to re-distribute the gains.
Qem 2y ago
There's a nice video from a psychological experiment that illustrates it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg I think evolution hardwired our primate brains against inequality. We go out of our way to punish those who don't play nice and share with the broader group. Otherwise complex societies would have never emerged, because assholes exploiting and taking advantage of peers would ruin and doom any group larger than a few individuals.
- etrautmann 2y ago
  But we also seem hardwired to want to feel superior and special.
  - dukeyukey 2y ago
    I don't know about that. Some people absolutely, but most people just want to belong to something and be a valued contributor. Like I really don't care about having the biggest house on the block, but some people having huge places and others stuck in tiny studios rankles me quite a bit.
  - tivert 2y ago
    >> I think evolution hardwired our primate brains against inequality. We go out of our way to punish those who don't play nice and share with the broader group. > But we also seem hardwired to want to feel superior and special. Both can be true simultaneously!
  - readyman 2y ago
    Nonsense. A healthy person in a healthy society desires to be valued by their peers above everything else. Only in the absence of this belonging does one pursue the antisocial behaviors you describe. Capitalism is barbarism.
    - cynicalkane 2y ago
      This point of view is not supported by anthropological evidence. I'll give an example. In the 90s and 00s, there was a wave of Marxist attempts to cancel anthropologists who had reported on the competition for dominance, competition for status, physical and sexual violence, and overall strife present in primitive societies that were studied. The whole affair about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_in_El_Dorado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_in_El_Dorado is the most famous example of this. The accusations were largely discredited, but the damage was done. One consequence is that unsympathetic anthropologists were banned from Venezuela, where there is now nobody allowed to report on the slow, systematic extermination of the country's indigenous peoples. The reduction of certain evils to economic essentialism is frequently itself a tool to assert ideological superiority--itself an 'antisocial behavior', one done not for money or profit but for the simple desire to feel superior to another, and excuse the evils of their in-group. In an ironic way, the above post is its own counterexample.
bsder 2y ago
I would argue agency is a bigger factor. My problem is that when a corporation does something super shitty to me, I have zero ability to punish them for it. Give people the ability to punish corporate bad actors, and they would get a lot happier.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

veunes 2y ago

It make sense to me too. Financial strain, limited opportunities, social exclusion and perceived unfairness can all contribute to heightened stress levels and anger towards life...

ffsm8 2y ago
It might be unfair to focus on this, but that "perceived unfairness" just jumped out at be. My first reaction was to think "it's not just perceived"... but after a little introspecting, I couldn't help but notice how grim that statement actually is. It means that any mistreatment is fine - as long as the person can be distracted from it. And thinking about that reminded me how every new tech since the internet/90th has been increasingly distracting. There is a reason we've started calling it the attention economy after all...
- joquarky 2y ago
  Is something still considered an addiction if nobody cares to stop it? The way many people use the Internet now reminds me of an episode of Star Trek TNG ¹ where everyone is hooked on a game. ¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Nex...
- WillAdams 2y ago
  A fundamental measurement for this in a modern society is payslope: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/how-one-company-levels-the-pay-slope-of-executives-and-workers/article15472738/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/h... and it really should be a fundamental aspect of how companies are viewed.
- to11mtm 2y ago
  That's the dirty nuance of it. One can certainly have stress or frustration based on truly perceived unfairness. Take the case of someone who gets more test time because of a disability and the ADA. Those who don't know the why, may find it unfair. And there may be people that perceive it as unfair despite it being overall accepted as such. ---- That said your observation is also entirely true in it's own right. You can even distract from the real problem by focusing one's attention on a different unfairness, even if that unfairness impacts them less in the short and/or long term.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Inversely, any difference can become unbearable with enough attention fixated on it.
  - DougN7 2y ago
    And get a public figure/politician to drone on and on about it (whether they believe it or not) is an excellent way to fire up a base and get the base to stop thinking things through as thoroughly. That’s the thing that scares me - country size mobs.

nordstreem 2y ago

“Real stuff” retail logistics is 100% a game of physical statistics; keep enough necessities on shelves people don’t riot. Everything else about society is conservative political ideology Just angling for vanity rewards based upon peddling the best story, the best trauma, or best political network connections given contemporary zeitgeist; no Im the best aligned with set of virtues!. Whose family sold the most cars during the auto boom, and why we should still care… It’s hilariously bad

tomrod 2y ago
For those of us less in the loop, would you mind expanding/clarifying a bit on your comment?
- nordstreem 2y ago
  Amazon, Kroger, Red Bull… brands… have all the capital, buy up supply, add their markups and fees, etc influence supply and demand through price fixing in abstract math games. Meanwhile the public is shackled to nickel and dime, dollars and sense finance and cannot get ahead, they tread water while also doing all the work to prop up the brands. We need to keep stuff on shelves or people will riot. But we also need to validate the past rulers for some reason by enabling them to monopolize capital. As we cling to Anglo-babble story about risk taking. When tree trimmer was number one most dangerous job in 2023, and the rest are blue collar jobs… police not on the list, fwiw… the rich investor is using story they won for some reason to avoid real risk of trimming a tree. But Protestant work ethic and so a generational Ponzi scheme to funnel dads post world war welfare job money and hand it to juniors startups and hedge funds is ongoing. Same as back in the day when landed gentry paid the church to let their kids avoid work by studying theology What’s great is since these are social hallucinations and they aren’t real it’s belief in social hallucinations not real stuff; it’s effectively nihilism given it ignores externalities of its resource use, but dressed up in ties, animated pitches that titillate and manipulate oxytocin and dopamine
  - nradov 2y ago
    Come on, you can't be serious. Red Bull is selling caffeinated sugar water. They can't possibly buy up all the supply.

andy99 2y ago

Is human equality lower now than it was in times past?

kristiandupont 2y ago
I imagine that it is lower in many western countries than it was in the 90's, but I have no data to back that up.
- jjgreen 2y ago
  Figure 3 in [1] suggests the opposite [1] https://wid.world/document/inequality-trends-in-europe-world-inequality-lab-issue-brief-2022-04/ https://wid.world/document/inequality-trends-in-europe-world...
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
Perhaps awareness/perception of inequality has increased because of mass media (and social media). However I’m not totally convinced this is the main factor.
- wddkcs 2y ago
  Inequality has clearly increased across the entire world.
- TheHegemon 2y ago
  How could it not be? If someone was doing much better than you it would be hard to know or it was more formalized within the social hierarchy itself: nobles, kings, etc. Now all you have to do is open social media and see dozens of people doing things you could never even dream of doing.
- james_marks 2y ago
  Maybe not the only factor, but a strong contributor. It's at least a few things: - Broader awareness, as you suggest. Police violence didn't necessarily increase, but the number of videos documenting it did, as did the distribution. - Highlight-reel effect on social media, so it feels like your peers are richer and happier than you. With previous generations' mass media, it felt like there was a separate "rich and famous" class, but the perception of the average person was a lot like yourself. - Tribalism from market segmentation and the echo effect. So we learn less tolerance and our convictions get stronger without reasonable, respected counter-arguments. - Actual increase in inequality through automation and globalization, without sufficient mechanisms (e.g., higher taxes, UBI, etc) to re-distribute the gains.

Qem 2y ago

There's a nice video from a psychological experiment that illustrates it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg I think evolution hardwired our primate brains against inequality. We go out of our way to punish those who don't play nice and share with the broader group. Otherwise complex societies would have never emerged, because assholes exploiting and taking advantage of peers would ruin and doom any group larger than a few individuals.

etrautmann 2y ago
But we also seem hardwired to want to feel superior and special.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  I don't know about that. Some people absolutely, but most people just want to belong to something and be a valued contributor. Like I really don't care about having the biggest house on the block, but some people having huge places and others stuck in tiny studios rankles me quite a bit.
- tivert 2y ago
  >> I think evolution hardwired our primate brains against inequality. We go out of our way to punish those who don't play nice and share with the broader group. > But we also seem hardwired to want to feel superior and special. Both can be true simultaneously!
- readyman 2y ago
  Nonsense. A healthy person in a healthy society desires to be valued by their peers above everything else. Only in the absence of this belonging does one pursue the antisocial behaviors you describe. Capitalism is barbarism.
  - cynicalkane 2y ago
    This point of view is not supported by anthropological evidence. I'll give an example. In the 90s and 00s, there was a wave of Marxist attempts to cancel anthropologists who had reported on the competition for dominance, competition for status, physical and sexual violence, and overall strife present in primitive societies that were studied. The whole affair about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_in_El_Dorado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness_in_El_Dorado is the most famous example of this. The accusations were largely discredited, but the damage was done. One consequence is that unsympathetic anthropologists were banned from Venezuela, where there is now nobody allowed to report on the slow, systematic extermination of the country's indigenous peoples. The reduction of certain evils to economic essentialism is frequently itself a tool to assert ideological superiority--itself an 'antisocial behavior', one done not for money or profit but for the simple desire to feel superior to another, and excuse the evils of their in-group. In an ironic way, the above post is its own counterexample.

bsder 2y ago

I would argue agency is a bigger factor. My problem is that when a corporation does something super shitty to me, I have zero ability to punish them for it. Give people the ability to punish corporate bad actors, and they would get a lot happier.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]