Human Tribalism: A Curse of Our Evolutionary Past? | Gifford Lectures 2019 | Prof Mark Pagel | Pt 3

26:00 - Mobs. I just hate mobs. And to actually engage in violence over a sports event??? That's... well, it's pathetic. 27:00 - It's not impossible to turn and walk away from the culture of your birth. I was born into 1960's Alabama, and as i moved through my teens it was all to plain to me that I didn't want to be deeply involved with the prevailing culture. All it really took was just to THINK about what I saw around me. I guess that caused me to miss the one big time in my life when that "imprinting" might have happened, because for the rest of my life I've had more or less zero interest in fretting about how I look to some group of people. I have my values, that I've given years of deep thought to - it pleases me when someone likes them, but if someone doesn't... well, it's a big world. No need for me to cross paths with everyone. One of my values is to form my opinion of a new person based on their own individual behavior, and not at all based on what sort of group they belong to. I've met plenty of people in nearly every group that I have high opinions of, and a few in nearly every group that I have low opinions of. But these opinions are based on them themselves - the person, and how they interact with me. A good person is a good person - it's as simple as that.

A sobering, humbling view at who we are and why we behave the way we do

18:30 - I think the significance of reputation has declined quite a bit in the last 20-30 years. Or at least something about how it's defined has changed. When I was young, there was still a very noticeable undercurrent in society about "being honorable," and not just succeeding but doing so in a fair and upstanding way. More recently, all that seems to matter to people is the success. If you've gotten ahead, you're almost worshiped - regardless of how many people you abuse and take advantage of a long the way. It's all become about $$$. It's a very bad thing, and I first actively noticed it around the time the Survivor TV show hit the airwaves as the first "reality TV show." Now it's been copied a million times, but it's always the same thing. Any backstabbing, any cheating, any bullying, etc. - it's all fair game. So long as you WIN. I'm not impressed with it, at all.

Would love to hear his answer/thoughts on how tribalism and… Bitcoin adoption works? Tribal group promotion.. growth through prosperity, started off with a few geeks/nerds, has morphed into a twitter religion, it would seem on a simple level greed might be the engine at the bottom of it.. Does this mean what could be a Ponzi scheme, could make this tribal group continue to grow and will it be unstoppable? Fascinating lecture - curse or benefit?! That is the question

It's a benefit with small groups and curse for big, modern groups.

Tribal = well managed common pool resource. Common pool = elevated cooperation. Management principles = clear publicly known moral prohibitions against cheating, aggression, every adult commits to adherence to and enforcement of rules. Tribe has a strong sense of identity, which helps tie them together in spite of being made up of different kin groups. See Ostrom: "Governing the Commons"

Can we assert that the depletion of resources and the decline in gainful employment contribute to the escalation of tribalism? Originating from Australia, where employment rates are notably high alongside abundant resources, and now residing in Europe, I've observed distinctions. For instance, while driving alone, I've noticed motorbike riders, who, despite lacking acquaintance, exhibit behaviors akin to belonging to a specific tribe. They exchange a distinctive gesture—a downward-pointing two-finger salute—signifying shared membership in a particular club, group, or cultural entity. This prompts an inquiry into the correlation between resource scarcity, employment shifts, and the rise of tribalistic inclinations.

Nice lecture

30:20 - I think it's unfair to deny the existence of altruism for altruism's sake. This made it sound like it's all a calculation for us, and I just don't think that's true. Maybe it's true for some people, but I do believe in the concept of the "good person" who can do things for selfless reasons. I don't know how one would tell the difference from the outside looking in, but I know how I feel when I do something kind or altruistic, and it's a warm, positive feeling - a happy feeling, and not a "sense of satisfaction" at having scored a virtue signaling point. And OF COURSE the man went and saved his dog. I have a dog and four cats. I don't know exactly how much I'd risk to save them, but it's darn sure not "nothing." These creatures become part of your life and you CARE about them. They show you their love, and it's simply impossible not to feel love toward them as a result. I just can't imagine simply standing there and watching one of them die when I could potentially do something about it. That's the kind of situation where your conscious, calculating mind is simply not in charge - you just ACT, from the heart. I don't see it as crazy at all - it's precisely the behavior I would expect. So many of the things you're saying here just seem to paint humans in such an ugly light. We ARE capable of great ugliness. Just watch news coverage - the media loves to cover ugliness. But we're also capable of tremendous compassion and kindness, and that doesn't seem to interest the media nearly so much.

So much to think about in a whole new way. I'll be watching more of his lectures.

Bonobos have a theory of mind

I was looking forward to learning from this but have to say that I found his presentation incredibly narrow as if he really doesn't have much of an understanding of human nature. As a thumbnail sketch way of trying to explain tribalism I guess it hit some reasonably good points, but clearly there is a great deal of nuance to human behavior, socializing, violence, communication, etc. It feels like every point he tries to make he gives these extremely black and white examples of how people behave when, in fact, there's a great variety of responses to situations (i.e. some people fight wars for their country and some dodge the draft and some are conscientious objectors and some provide medical services, some people stay in country and do political work, some people desert and go to the other side, etc., etc.) One argument I tend to have with people who are trying to understand evolution is that they seem to say that it always comes down to survival outcomes (whether on the organism level or the genetic level). That makes sense over the long arc of evolution but it's not how individuals actually live their lives in many moments. Some survival is based on cleverness, strength, camouflage, familial habit, etc. but there's an awful lot of luck, too, especially if the important survival skill is social rather than physical. If it was so clean and certain then evolutionary biologists could be accurate in predicting what kind of organism will be around 1000 years from now, but they don't have a clue where it's going to go. So, just saying that...perhaps tribalism of some sort has advantaged the human species for adaptation and population growth over the last 200,000 years....but if we wipe ourselves out in the next 500 years then tribalism isn't such a successful strategy after all. Those "primitive" cultures in the Amazon may have "Stone Age" technology....but they've been around a very long time. Our "modern" culture is a lot....and I mean a lot....shorter lived. We'll see what happens. (The approach that is more interesting to me is found in Erich Fromm's book from the 1940s "Escape from Freedom." It tries to get at reasons for tribal behavior from a social psychology perspective....he was living through the rise of fascism and wondered why that was a possible outcome for so many people who participated in it.)

He does not cite del Hymes on linguistic diversity.

Remarkably, in David Hare’s experiments, when bonobos are presented with another bonobo who is separated from a plate of food, and can only get access to the food if the bonobo in question helps the other bonobo (such as opening a door to allow the other bonobo in), the bonobo can recognize that the other animal wants the food and that they cannot reach it, that he is capable of helping, and that by helping the other animal (empathizing with the other animals desire to eat the food), the helping animal will get less food-the bonobo helper is capable of understanding this scenario and will often (not always) choose to open the door, even for a stranger bonobo, sometimes more often for the other bonobo, and share the food with that other bonobo. Does this not demonstrate a theory of mind?

34:30 - Ok, this has just taken a turn I find extremely disturbing. I can't believe you included the monk and the Jihad guys in the same moral category. The monk *killed himself*. The Jihad guys went off and signed up to kill *others*. Because of words printed on a page in some ancient book. It's monstrous, and in no way compares to the sacrifice the monk made. Not even close. I'm out of here. I'm incredibly surprised that no one in your audience stood up and challenged you on some of these things; I likely would have.

Man, these lectures went downhill. Each gets more preachy and clearly less scientific.

too simplistic and falsely overstates cerain things. bigger herds of wilderbeast go on yearly migrations than humans would be in a stadium. hunter gatherers did store food and started building some large permanent settlements. we were farming acorns before we farmed grains. our warring stances and trans-national trade is still mostly resource based, not technology.

Till we get a comfort zone, we il jostle for food jostle for shelter, jostle for sexual orientation and so on inshort every day our bodies are decomposing and we are trying to recompose with help of doctors👨‍⚕ that's all

Dynamic and sweet presentation

Love from Pakistan ❤️☺️