As Martin said, some of the people that read this, including me, already "know all this stuff", but I am hoping you reach an audience with this article that goes well beyond academia.
I especially liked the link between our lifespans versus that of a mosquito explaining why humans can't evolve fast enough to cope with our rapid changes in our relatively new societal reality, versus a simple creature like the mosquito that has been able to very quickly adapt to pesticides. That is the kind of thing mere mortals like me can wrap their head around.
You also gave an excellent explanation for the rise in sociopathic / psychopathic behaviour, including in people that would not normally be given that diagnosis.
I recently read someone's lengthy diatribe about patriarchy being the cause of all our society's problems. Specifically, that women in our species, like dogs or wolves or lions or some insects she gave as examples, are naturally supposed to lead "our packs". She opined, (although she certainly didn't present it as opinion), that the root cause of our current situation is that we are ruled by men, who are, as she put in so many, many words, dumb and violent. I like the word poppycock and have used it a lot but couldn't be bothered to provide a comment.
But this I liked, and without even a hint of sarcasm, took the time out of my busy schedule of finding the perfect gluten free oatmeal carrot muffin recipe to comment.
Bill, I have a natural behavioral trap version, so, much more particular, but causing error in the evolutionary path we took. See if this makes sense to you!
George, there are few more poetic ways of putting it, but I think leave out the critical events in how it happened. What caught on like a disease ~7,000 years ago looks to me fairly clearly to have been the very high productivity of managing agriculture, and then the services that well organized agriculture produced excess products to support, thus beginning the compound investment of profit to multiply diverse products. Though it was the organization of the system as a whole, the manager’s, using numbers to represent productive relationships, failed to see the relationships served as the source of value, and instead assumed it was their management that created the profit, not the creative relationships working together, beginning the maximized exponential exploitation of resources, and hoarding of wealth by individuals.
That developed from the first organized farming in the Jordan River valley about 13,000 years ago, that spread and was improved on in two different ways, one to the north, and the Fertile Crescent, the other to the south, to Egypt, which used the other use of agricultural profit, triggered by the annual floods of the fields, requiring support in the off season, and the ingenious social project of alternating collective work on great monuments to their nature based societies. That too required accounting, but it was in service of the society’s work, not the managers.
The northern development appeared much more successful, creating diverse innovation of many kinds, but also pushed the working relationships of the people and the available resources, setting up a cycle of splendidly successful enterprise, held in awe by all, and passed on from one region to another, more or less also following the catastrophic collapses of each creative civilization it created, the Tower of Babel, Bronze Age Atlantis, Greece2, Rome, and now “us,” all catastrophically destroying the human and natural contexts of relationships that the math unwittingly sacrificed for profit to managers who then had no idea quite what they were doing, madly collapsing one wonderful innovation in how to live after another.
So, that “separation from nature is right in the middle of the story, by all the important decisions being made by the numbers and largely ignoring the human, cultural, and ecological relationships, as we still do, and appears to be the best way to point to our preset civilization’s rapid progression toward pervasive disorienting collapse, as for all of Mesopotamia when the tower of good relationships collapsed in Babel, apparently mistranslated as a place, but first spoken for the other, lower case meaning, of confusion. That appears to have been the result all the deals that had been so fruitful for the twenty or so city-states of Mesopotamia all collapsing more ore less at once.
As an aside, and not in any way challenging to any of your points, I believe that cars and speed are major contributors to the chronic elevated stress hormone levels in developed societies.
This is very relatable. I live on a main road, for two days in February they shut the road outside my house to re-tarmac it. It was bliss! Just, the no-noise. I asked them if they could shut the road for 6 months....
I don't think we realise, especially those that drive everywhere, how much of an oppressive barrage of noise we inflict on ourselves as a species.
The purpose of civilization is to lead easier lives, so that we may avoid suffering. Natural selection created beings who abhor the physical discomfort that arises from lack of technology. Thus, we are driven by our physical and psychological make-ups to seek comfort. How many animal species would seek relief from suffering if they had the sapience and prehensile skills to do so?
I see nothing 'normal' in naked apes surviving in climates unsuited to our bodies. Without the wearing of animal skins we would've remained within the tropics out of necessity. Even the most basic technology changes the way we live.
Civilization can serve a purpose; evolutionary processes do not serve any purpose. They are neither adaptive or maladaptive. Natural selection is a function.
If we are to move beyond our existence as products of a billion years-old process, we have to take matters into our hands. It is well within our mental reasoning to design a sustainable civilization. Our failure to do so is the basis for discourse.
Dr. Rees. After reading this piece and several of the references, I have decided to give up on my experiential finding and naïve belief in the innate and infinite beauty of the universe, and instead buy into the scientific fact proven in part through the experimental ethical torture and follow-up dissection of rats back in the 1930’s that we humans and our limited brain capacity can’t overcome the natural selection process that inevitably produced a planet turned into in essence a series of interconnected concentration camp carnivals of horror for the well intentioned power elites to play in as they simply continue to be driven by their competitive dominant genes after the human population outgrew its carrying capacity thanks to agriculture. With that realization, it seems point less to waste anymore time here looking for ways to find a meaningful way out of this scenario, and it reminds me to change my previous salutation of “have a good day”, and will instead simply say “thanks for the memories”! Tom Jablonski
Tom, you managed to pack about 14 potential essays into that first sentence. Good to see you 'moving on' -- but don't drop your wonder at the infinite beauty of the universe (and Beethoven).
One last comment, on the Beethoven suggestion, actually trying to keep looking at the bright side with the music of Michael Jackson in the song Ben that keeps playing in my mind, from the movie of the same name about the rat named Ben, who forms an army of rats that then attacts police as a way of seeking revenge for wrongs committed against them, and sorry about run on sentences, and grammatical errors as correct use of English was one of my many failings, or at least that's what I took the grades of D in english classes for after I realized it didn't mean dang good. Cheers!
I sympathize but here's how I look at it: humans in general have been acting like cancer cells. Even in advanced cases, cancer sometimes spontaneously goes into remission, and humans could go into remission too, if we wanted to. I still believe a majority of people would want to change behavior, if they realized how destructive and self-destructive our civilization is.
Cancer cells are a problem for the organism's immune system. But within the logic of conflict one can also say immune system is the problem for cancer cells. Is conflict, rivalry, win-loose game given and inevitable human predicament - or sovable problem?
Seems to me that unlike cancer cells, most people are well aware that the highway to hell has obvious consequences, despite best attempts at advertising campaigns of the power elite contractors to convince us that injection of more toxic chemicals can reduce side effects and prolong life of unchecked power addiction.
I lived among hunter-gatherers for several years in the late 1970s in a remote part of Botswana. I now beleive it is the absolute best economic option for huimans. So.. what do we do about the long term effects of “civilization”?
Thank you, Helga, for your first-hand support of the concept that humans are maladapted to modernity. As for the long-term effect of 'civilization', the safest thing might be simply to let it run its course. So far most of what people have done to 'fix' things have mainly served to prolong our extractive/consumptive/polluting pillaging of the ecosphere.
I agree. All I have become certian of is that, after thousands and thousands of years living as hunter-gatherers, humans tend to react badly (with high stress levels etc) to existing in an inegalitarian culture, and to be almost endlessly compassionate at the same time. Those who do not have an share t(normally excessive?) of these common characteristics actually do “better” in non-egalitarian systems, just as you pointed ouit: civilization brings out the worst aspects of human nature, and those that would be rejected in a hunter-gatherer economy are most likely to “succeed” financially in a “civilized” society, especially one that extolls financial gains and indivdual ownership of land and other resources.
You write "...those that would be rejected in a hunter-gatherer economy are most likely to “succeed” financially in a “civilized” society, especially one that extolls financial gains and indivdual ownership of land and other resources."
Pretty much sums up the situation as I see it--scaling up takes us down.
Please forgive me if this is an indulgence. It is too long, I apologize.
However, I want to offer two excerpts from articles co-authored by D S Wilson. They align it seems to me, with Dr. Rees’s essay and add some insights from studies of cultural evolution The first quote refers to the fact that there are 2 kinds of complex systems that get mixed up in scientific literature. CAS 1 is truly integrated and thus adaptive at systems level while the much more common CAS2 is about complex systems with adaptive agents that can as Dr Rees showed go over into maladaptiveness. The second excerpt refers to that aspect of the mechanism of multilevel selection that produces maladaptation
1. Excerpts concerning 2 types of CAS taken from: Multilevel cultural evolution: From new theory to practical applications David Sloan Wilsona ,b,1 , Guru Madhavanc,1, Michele J. Gelfandd , Steven C. Hayese , Paul W. B. Atkinsa,f, and Rita R. Colwellg,h PNAS 2023 Vol. 120 No. 16 2023, Downloaded from https://www.pnas.org
pages 3 -4 Complex Systems Science and Engineering. The developments in evolutionary science that we have recounted, start- ing roughly in the 1970s, were paralleled by developments in complex systems science (55). With the advent of widespread computing, a Pandora’s box was opened for the study of complex systems of all sorts—physical, biological, and social. Cellular automata and agent-based models showed that very simple behaviors at the level of the agent could produce very complex behaviors at the level of the whole system.
Patterns in nature could now perhaps be explained as properties of complex systems rather than as products of natural selection. Terms such as “chaos”, “the butterfly effect,” and “multiple attractors” captivated the public imagination (56). Integrating the developments of evolutionary science and complex systems science is still a work in progress.
In particular, it is important to identify two meanings of the key phrase “complex adaptive system” (CAS):
--A complex system that is adaptive as a system (CAS1)
- and a complex system composed of agents following their respective adaptive strategies (CAS2; 57).
Multilevel selection theory speaks clearly about this distinction: Despite being complex, CAS2 systems do not automatically self-organize into CAS1 systems.
Instead, a process of selection at the level of the whole system is required and tends to be undermined by selection at lower levels within the system.
Most accounts of complex systems theory do not make this distinction, intermixing examples of CAS1 systems (e.g., the immune system, the brain, and social insect colonies) and CAS2 systems (e.g., ecosystems, traffic flows, and war; 58). There is little awareness that CAS2 systems can be profoundly maladaptive as whole systems. A search on the Web of Science resulted in over a thousand hits for the phrase “complex adaptive systems” and zero hits for the phrase “complex maladaptive systems” (59).
The main reason why complex systems theorists fail to make the distinction is because CAS1 and CAS2 systems alike can be highly interdependent and exhibit emergent properties, multiple basins of attraction, nonequilibrium dynamics, and so on. The properties of all complex systems cannot address the specifically evolutionary question of how a complex system can evolve into an adaptive unit
The practical relevance of multilevel selection is therefore immense. Nearly every positive change effort is an attempt to create a system that functions well as a system (CAS1). Nearly every social pathology is a result of agents within a system acting at cross-purposes with each other (CAS2). How to convert CAS2 systems into CAS1 systems is therefore the policy question across all topic domains
2. Excerpt concerning maladaptation through upscaling -Peer Review article :In: This view of Life: May 2024 title: Conscious Multilevel Cultural Evolution: Theory, Practice, and Two Case Studies
Multilevel: If natural selection favors individuals that survive and reproduce better than other individuals, then how can it explain the evolution of behaviors that benefit others at one’s own expense? Darwin was the first person to confront this prob- lem and propose a solution: Groups whose members behave altruistically toward each other will robustly outcompete groups of selfish individuals who can’t cohere. A modern sum- mary of Darwin’s insight is “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary” (Wilson and Wilson, 2007; see Wilson 2015 for a book-length account).
Notice that for altruism to evolve, between-group selection must be strong enough to oppose within-group selection favoring more self-serving behaviors. Also, the highly cooperative groups that evolve by between-group selection can compete harmfully with each other. Between-group selection doesn’t eliminate conflict so much as elevate it to the level of between- group interactions, where it can take place with even more destructive force than before.
This logic can be expanded to multiple levels of a multi-tier hierarchy, such as from genes to ecosystems in biological sys- tems and small groups to global governance in human social systems. In human terms, self-preservation—a good thing—eas ily becomes self-dealing. Helping kith and kin—a good thing— easily becomes cronyism and nepotism. My nation first—a good thing—leads to international conflict. Growing a strong econo- my—a good thing—results in overheating the earth. It is sobering that nearly every anti-social behavior at large scales can be traced to forms of prosocial behaviors operating at smaller scales.
Conscious: It should be clear from the foregoing that evolution—whether genetic or cultural—doesn’t make everything nice. It often results in outcomes that benefit individuals at the expense of other individuals, groups at the expense of other groups, and that yield short-term benefits at the expense of the long view. Also, in a changing world, adaptations to past environments can become mismatched to current environments and maladaptive in every sense of the word.
Thank you for this extended comment -- no apology necessary.
I do have a couple of ill-informed responses ('ill-' because I haven't read the references from which you quote) so won't stick my neck too far out.
In discussing reference #1, you write (or quote):
"Cellular automata and agent-based models showed that very simple behaviors at the level of the agent could produce very complex behaviors at the level of the whole system.
Patterns in nature could now perhaps be explained as properties of complex systems rather than as products of natural selection. "
I'm always a little wary of what amounts to 'either/or' statements. It's not clear to my simple mind why "complex behaviours at the level of whole systems", need be understood either as complex systems behaviour or the result of natural selection. As the first sentence of this passage itself suggests, simple (naturally selected) behaviours at the component level might well produce complex whole system patterns, so are not both natural selection and whole systems properties involved?
More generally, I've not been too comfortable with DSW's descriptions of multilevel selection (or with the CAS1 CAS2 distinction but that's another story). It would take a lengthy essay to explain, but my sense of this continuing debate is that evidence for individual selection (Dawkins would take this down further) is stronger than for group selection -- again it's not either or but both (and in some case I have seen what appears to be group selection can be explain as co-selection of adaptive individuals within the group)'
On your second selection, again I have mixed reactions. You quote D.S Wilson et al.
"Multilevel: If natural selection favors individuals that survive and reproduce better than other individuals, then how then how can it explain the evolution of behaviors that benefit others at one’s own expense? Darwin was the first person to confront this problem and propose a solution: Groups whose members behave altruistically toward each other will robustly outcompete groups of selfish individuals who can’t cohere. A modern summary of Darwin’s insight is “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary”
I was jarred by inclusion of this passage, because the question "...how can it explain the evolution of behaviors that benefit others at one’s own expense?" was answered long ago and the summary here of Darwin's insight is spot on, as I understand matters (as suggested by my footnote #5)
[5] Interestingly, cooperation within groups or species can be interpreted as a means of enhancing their competitive advantage over less cooperative groups/species.
What's the controversy? Am I missing something? is this out of context?
Finally these paragraphs:
"This logic can be expanded to multiple levels of a multi-tier hierarchy, such as from genes to ecosystems in biological systems and small groups to global governance in human social systems. In human terms, self-preservation—a good thing—easily becomes self-dealing. Helping kith and kin—a good thing— easily becomes cronyism and nepotism. My nation first—a good thing—leads to international conflict. Growing a strong economy—a good thing—results in overheating the earth. It is sobering that nearly every anti-social behavior at large scales can be traced to forms of prosocial behaviors operating at smaller scales.
Conscious: It should be clear from the foregoing that evolution—whether genetic or cultural—doesn’t make everything nice. It often results in outcomes that benefit individuals at the expense of other individuals, groups at the expense of other groups, and that yield short-term benefits at the expense of the long view. Also, in a changing world, adaptations to past environments can become mismatched to current environments and maladaptive in every sense of the word."
To my way of hearing, these are unscientific statements. Such concepts as "cronyism and nepotism" and "self-dealing" don't exist in the absence of human interpretation: these are social constructs, value judgements, about objectively advantageous (from a natural selection perspective) things. "Growing a strong economy" and "my nation first" are assumed to be good things-- again, these are merely value judgements.
By objecting here I am actually agreeing with the assertion that "evolution doesn't make everything nice" but, again, "nice" is a human construct, a value preference.
My point: nature doesn't give a damn about human preferences.
Finally, to end on a more harmonic note, I agree completely with the final sentence:
"Also, in a changing world, adaptations to past environments can become mismatched to current environments and maladaptive in every sense of the word."
This was the whole point of my reflections on the human maladaptation syndrome.
How kind of you to respond to the 2 quotes from D S Wilson and others. I will need to read it again slowly for there is much food for thought in your reaction. It does me good that you share your doubts and critique, I can learn from this so I am grateful.
D S Wilson does sometimes express himself in let's say, too 'humanistic' terms, I can appreciate that you are wary of that. In addition cultural evolution and multilevel selection are still being developed by researchers like Wilson and I get the impression that there are many difficulties with definitions, conceptualization, modelling etc. Niche construction, social learning, dual inheritance, none of them seem to be a done deal. (see for example an article by Grant Ramsey called: Is Cultural Fitness Hopelessly Confused?) In 2024 Ryan Nichols and many colleagues wrote a review article entitled: Cultural evolution: A review of theoretical challenges" and they made it unmistakably clear how far cultural evolutionary science is from 'conceptual clarity'!
So an outsider like me may be forgiven for being confused although not without hope of improvement
Marion, I think it fair to say that we are all a bit confused here. These matters are the subjects of long on-going debate.
One thing that helps my thinking on the matter of individual selection vs group selection is reference to the four conditions for natural selection listed at the beginning of my piece. To repeat, there has to be: 1) a population of entities (individuals or groups) for selection to work on; 2) there have to be heritable qualities that are of significance to survival of the entities; 3) there has to be variability among the entities in the expression of those traits and 4) the environment must favour (select for) some variants over others.
Here's the thing: while individual humans exist in large populations and have myriad heritable (gene-based) traits that are highly variable across populations, groups per se, no matter how numerous, do not possess heritable qualities (and in any case, do not reproduce). So, the question is, "what is being selected for in 'group selection'"? The plausible answer is, 'the better adapted individuals within the group.' So if cooperative groups survive better than non-cooperating groups it is because natural selection is acting on (selecting for) the cooperative traits expressed by individuals within the group. These qualities may generate meta-properties at the level of the group but these are generated by the behaviour of cooperative individuals.
Some would ask, "why call on groups selection at all?" Richard Dawkins used to (and may still) argue that it's not even the individuals that are being selected, but rather particular genes. (From this perspective, each of us is simply a meat puppet used by our genes to ensure that they get passed on.)
Here's another admittedly simplistic mental exercise. Imagine a field with a large population of posies, most of which are tall. But the population carries a mutant variant; let's say 5% of the population produces very short flowers. Now let's introduce a radical change in the posies' environment. Call it 'the lawnmower'.
After this change is in effect, the field is largely leveled and sterile, but scattered among the detritus are a few short flowers that complete their reproductive cycle. This is no doubt individual selection, and subsequent generations of posies will have an increasing proportion of short individuals.
Now imagine the same field and same total population of posies, but this time there are 20 groups of posies--19 groups of the standard variety, but out there somewhere is a single cluster of short posies. Introduce the same radical change in the environment. At the end of the day, there will be only one group of viable posies composed of short individuals. My question for you is: "Is this group selection or an illusion of group selection?"
Thank you for sharing these excerpts.. the CAS1/CAS2 distinction and the multilevel selection framing are highly relevant here. I agree that complex systems composed of adaptive agents do not automatically become adaptive wholes, and that within-group selection pressures can undermine system-level coherence. That distinction feels essential to understanding the dynamics Dr. Rees is pointing toward.
Where my own work (the Psychopathic Selection Hypothesis) attempts to extend this conversation is at the level of cognitive differentiation. Multilevel selection theory models selfish and cooperative strategies at the structural level. PSH asks whether certain cognitive profiles.... particularly those characterized by heightened instrumental reward pursuit and comparatively reduced affective inhibition.... may gain disproportionate advantage in high-abstraction, scaled, anonymous, and low-accountability institutional environments or scaled symbolic ecosystems (I've actually developed a game theoretic model that proves this).
In other words, the issue may not simply be that “selfishness beats altruism within groups,” but that specific low-empathy, strategically adaptive profiles are structurally amplified under symbolic, scaled civilizational architectures. Over time, this could help explain why certain modern institutions repeatedly fail to transition toward CAS1-level integration despite clear long-term maladaptiveness...
I see strong conceptual alignment between multilevel selection theory and this argument....PSH simply places greater emphasis on how cognitive asymmetries interact with scale, abstraction, anonymity and institutional design or "scaled symbolic ecosystems"....
So is it you win, we lose, and we’ll be out of here? Maybe. So what to do? I say this is a conversation everyone with smarts should be in. If all roads are marked no exit, how to live the lives we have? Or does anyone see any hidden maps we could be traveling on? It’s almost comical that we barrel ahead going faster and faster to get to falling off the cliff we are headed for. All that AI capacity devouring the resources we need to survive. Pretty crazy. How about you hosting some intelligent conversation? Even here, in your comments. See what we can come up with.
Well, Sue, you write "How about you hosting some intelligent conversation?" I humbly submit that I am trying to do just that. But be aware that my starting point is something the late eco-philosopher Alan Drengson once wrote (from memory, so slightly paraphrased):
"No amount of scientific analysis, logical argument, or legal or ethical axiology will solve a problem that is misunderstood".
I believe that because of basic human nature (including our limited cognitive abilities), short time horizon, lousy education systems and fixation on the material economy, most people, including scientists and politicians, misunderstand most of our serious problems most of the time. Or when they do understand them, go into deep denial and deflect attention indto actions designed to maintain the status quo. Most of the public happily go along for the ride.
Consider just global heating: seeing this serious issue as THE fundamental existential crisis facing humanity is a distraction from its cause, ecological overshoot, which in turn is caused by excess extractive/polluting industrial activity on a finite planet. The result of distraction (intentional or merely ignorant) is today's massive investment in so-called green alternative energy -- wind turbines, solar panels, EVs etc., which are neither green nor alternative -- all manufactured or constructed using fossil fuels. Don't worry folks -- technology will solve any problem resulting from previous technology.
So it is that since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was birthed in 1992, emissions have increased ~70%, atmospheric carbon dioxide is at the highest levels in recorded history and rising (as is mean global temperature) and many parts of the world are reeling from chaotic climate extremes. Even if contemporary climate strategies worked, they would merely enable 'business-as-usual-by-alternative-means' increasing overshoot and ultimately societal simplification. So again, misunderstanding the issue (the public) or deliberate distraction from its real cause (corporate sector and governments) simply worsens the crisis. AI is most likely to compound the issue .
The solution to 'too many people consuming and polluting too much' is reduced economic throughput (consumption and pollution) and smaller populations but these are taboo subjects for MTI society for all the reasons discussed in this and earlier articles.
My bottom line: Until people understand that our ecological and social crises are the inevitable result of human evolutionary/behavioural predispositions; until we raise to consciousness our natural but self-defeating truth-avoidance strategies; until we shed our self-imposed reality blinders, H. sapiens is doomed, in your words, to "barrel ahead going faster and faster to get to falling off the cliff we are headed for.)
I agree with every word you’ve written. My Substack is Now What? And my current suggestion for the most impactful thing to be done is to inform everyone so our situation is common knowledge. That gets everyone to pay attention, as the next best movement to be made. Subscribe to me. I have ideas. I’ve been paying attention to you since Nate Hagens. I wrote a whole Substack then, but it didn’t work well enough and I didn’t use it.
Sue, Bill is everywhere on YouTube and probably other platforms. How can we get him interviewed by mainstream media? Now there's the challenge. But the think tank that documents our predicament is there waiting for your support: https://www.postcarbon.org/
That’s not the challenge I’m seeing. We need to think together, among ourselves, about what he says — not him as the be all end all to tell the world. There are others with profound expertise about collapse and I see all of us dealing with one another as what’s next.
Your hopium is exhausting Suzanne. Please let us know when your crew of profound experts have something to challenge Bill's expertise and wisdom. In the meantime you might try working on acceptance:
Please take some time and learn the difference between a problem and a predicament. It seems you may be relatively new to collapse, have you really explored and fully understand overshoot, debt, energy and complexity? Many of us have been studying this for decades, including Bill of course.
Do your homework - Make your way to Erik Michaels "Problems, Predicaments, and Technology" stack. Or Postdoom.com, both explain why you won't succeed with "shifting mass consciousness" and why many have moved on from that. Your comment got one like, mine got five, that alone should speak to you...Good luck Suzanne.
Your presumptuousness is in high gear. It isnt a friendly tone. You don't know enough about me. Do you pay attention to Marianne Williamson. She'd be a good one for you to pick up on as supportive for how I'm thinking.. Here's my playlist for posts she's significantly in: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/marianne-williamson
That looks interesting. More than the Post Carbon Institute. Thanks for the tip. Will see about connecting with them. I think Revolution, too. Here's what I've been poking around with in the States:
How about a coup to install a presidential team? Let's say Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Anne Applebaum, and Marianne Williamson. Just picture such warm, smart, human-loving human beings leading our way. If they state that they are taking charge, so many millions would be on the streets in Washington that we couldn’t be thwarted.
Well, Sue, Roger Hallam declares he doesn't want policy change but he wants a change in way that policies are made. His ideas might be optimized for existential growth in political action as he's a proponent of sortition which is basically choosing people at random (from a pool) for limited time in office to address the tendency towards corruption of long-ruling legislators. I'm sorry to say you really own it to yourselves, Sue and her readers, to watch the full THREE hour talk to the camera in which he lays it all out. He's very dedicated to non-violence but also explains why people need to be willing to be arrested in obstructive political action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZINXPXVrDY
Choosing people at random is an idea that I think goes back to the Greeks. By me, what's up now isn't siloed people delivering ideas, but people with smarts talking to each other to come up with what's best to do. I'm on that track in my Substack. Watch for a proposal on Tuesday about that.
Yep, you nailed it. We face a tremendous problem of scale (overgrowth) that acutely impacts ourselves as well as other life and the wellbeing of habitable Earth.
Let’s highlight a paradox here by focusing on your phrase “the environment “naturally selects” those individuals who are best adapted to prevailing conditions.”
But if humans are part of nature, it goes that the “environment” includes the sum of humans too, which is neither a trivial population nor a very “natural” one, as it appears today.
Suddenly, as humans-part of nature are involved and play crucial role in this "environment" that “naturally selects” who is best adapted, which [environment] now exerts extreme pressures, “natural selection” does not seem so “natural” and “blind”, after all. It is like “artificial”, up to a certain degree.
I understand that I enter an obscure field where the limits of notions are not clearly demarcated, but it is worth it from a philosophical point of view. If humans are natural, part of nature, then why their civilization and artifacts are considered “artificial”? Aren’t natural beings supposed to do natural things? Why a termite mound is considered natural and not a mega-city for example?
There is a paradox here, I insist. One cannot accept that natural selection is doing its a-moral, "blind" stuff, and at the same time accept that homo sapiens lives in artificial conditions. This is a contradiction in terms. Artificial environment should imply artificial selection.
George, I'm not convinced there is a paradox here, a semantic problem, maybe, but not a paradox.
I agree completely that humans are part of nature and, indeed, the human enterprise has essentially (unsustainably) merged with the natural environment. This is a natural phenomenon. In fact, I have long argued that H. sapiens has always been potentially unsustainable 'by nature' (we expand into all suitable accessible habitats; we tend to use up all available resources; we are capable of geometric population growth under favourable circumstances).
Normally these tendencies (shared with all other species) are held in check by negative feedbacks but can be 'released' in special circumstances. Recent centuries constitute special circumstances. In short, the unsustainability crisis is arguably the result H. sapiens following its genetic script as circumstances 'evolve'.
Indeed, what this illustrates is that certain survival traits that were adaptive (indeed, necessary) in paleolithic times have become maladaptive today. Cultural evolution has outpaced bio-evolution. Modern technology unleashed H. sapiens' full potential for explosive growth (see the three key points above), particularly during the temporary period of resource abundance we have 'enjoyed' in the past century or so. The problem is that the Earth is finite and the human explosion is undermining the biophysical basis of our own existence. The likely outcome will be a period of rapid simplification of 'civilization' and a major population decrease.
All this is perfectly natural -- in fact, it is merely a human version of the population boom-bust cycle that is fairly common in nature when certain species enjoy an interval of unusually benign conditions and abundant food. Their populations crash when food runs out or the environment otherwise changes (e.g., predators or disease take advantage) so that it no longer supports the bloated population.
I submit that humans are nearing the peak of a one-off population boom-bust cycle on a global scale ('global' is really it's only distinguishing feature).
I don't think I called civilization 'artificial' and if I did it was a slip. What I did argue is: a) that conditions, particularly the socio-eco-environment that has emerged in the past five centuries (in the two minutes before midnight on the compressed-to-one-day history of modern H. sapiens) are 'abnormal' relative to the conditions in which H. sapiens evolved (during the first 23 hours); and b) that modern MTI people are maladapted to these atypical conditions. But since 'abnormal' is all living people have ever known, we don't recognize it as such.
Now let's turn to your crucial question:
"Why a termite mound is considered natural and not a mega-city for example?"
My answer is that both termite mounds and mega-cites are natural phenomena. However, while termites and termite mounds are usually ecologically stable, integral components of their supportive ecosystems [1], mega-cities are growing, already massively extractive overly-consuming, toxic-polluting, dissipative structures that are destroying their supportive ecosystems [2]. The former are therefore normal structures that have evolved in ways that enable their continuity; the latter are abnormal (as defined) structures that have developed in ways that deplete the biophysical basis of their own existence.
To reiterate, normal human qualities that were once adaptive and helped ensure the survival of pre-agricultural people can--and have--become maladaptive in the massively changed contemporary global environment. Thus, MTI culture, if not all of H. sapiens, may well be selected out. But it's all 'natural.'
[1] I suppose some termite populations occasionally get out of control but then the outbreak is 'sorted' by negative feedback.
[2] On writing this I realized that many artifacts of civilization, including tens of thousands of chemicals, many of them toxic to life, are 'unknown in nature' and hence are, indeed, artificial by that definition.
Bingo! Many artifacts of civilization are indeed artificial. So, is it only strictly a semantic problem or is there a gray area and more than meets the eye? Hellenes gave semantics to science, but they never had a word for "civilization". On the contrary, they had “Polis” (Πόλις, Άστυ) and “politics” (πολιτικά, related to Polis). The word “civilization” was introduced in Greek after 1800, following its invention in Europe. So, we have a notion invented in the Enlightenment, and people tend to ascribe it retroactively to previous forms of organized life. That is like judging by they own modern standards. In antiquity there was the Cosmos (nature and man together) and now we have “civilization” (only man’s artifacts-without nature). Cosmos (Κόσμος) means “order” and “ornament” as well, a harmonious order in general. The notion of “artificial” (τεχνητός, man made) existed from Hellenic antiquity -as opposed to the natural-. My point is that there cannot be a word persisting in time where the corresponding meaning does not exist in reality.
I use this reference because we discuss “natural selection”. Darwin used the term “natural selection” but he also described selective breeding (artificial selection). If everything humans do is natural, a potential already inscribed in presumably natural human behavior, then the term “natural selection” is a pleonasm. “Selection” alone would suffice, and “natural selection” would coincide with artificial selection.
My argument is that “artificiality” exists, and because it now happens at the expense of the natural world, nature is now correcting. Humans are near the peak of an one-off boom-bust cycle, if not already there.
As we are obliged to insist on semantics and notions, before we accept and use further inadequate notions, and as far as we are talking about complex issues (nature, Cosmos, human creations etc.) other crucial related notions should be brought to the table. Such notions may be the following: “Μεταμόρφωσις” (Metamorphosis=Τransformation) and its counterpart “Παραμόρφωσις” (Paramorphosis=Deformity, Distortion). Surprisingly, the Greek term “Παραμόρφωσις” remained unpopular and is found only as a technical term, while in Hellenic language both terms are of the same gravity but of opposite meaning. Speaking of notions, the West borrowed the term “Metamorphosis” from Greek as it sounded so exotic. While even biology would embrace “Metamorphosis”, the word “Paramorphosis” (Distortion) is a no-no. People thinking in this context assume that all change is “positive” or “exotic”. This is a bias stemming from selective use of language. Orwellian “newspeak” in a sense.
Interesting that you cite so much from ancient Greek culture. I happen to be reading a book, Envious and Deceived, by a psychiatrist correspondent (pen name, J.J. Penniman) who argues that a classical education based on Greek thinking and 'paideia', combined with the deep-truth seeking (about oneself) of psychoanalysis, might have saved humanity. I mention this only because, late in my career as a scientist, I came greatly to regret the extraordinary limitations of my education in science. 'Penniman' argues that MTI cultures 'lost it' when they abandoned deep humanist education and embraced post-enlightenment human exceptionalism and the materialist-mechanistic narrative of Cartesian/Newtonian science. So much to learn, so little time.
You write that "Darwin used the term 'natural selection' but he also described selective breeding (artificial selection). If everything humans do is natural, a potential already inscribed in presumably natural human behavior, then the term 'natural selection' is a pleonasm. “Selection” alone would suffice, and “natural selection” would coincide with artificial selection."
Perhaps I misunderstand what exactly you are getting at here because you seem to contradict it in the subsequent paragraph. A couple of points. I disagree that 'natural selection' or, for that matter, 'artificial selection' are pleonasms. To treat both or either merely as 'selection' involves a non-trivial loss of information. The adjectives add meaning--it is useful to know there are different processes in play. For example, something is missing when we say that 'the chihuahua evolved by selection'. Chihuahuas are in effect, human-designed bio-artifacts -- they could not have evolved by 'natural selection'. This is important information. Perhaps, if you don't like 'artificial selection' you would prefer the term anthro-selection? In any case, I think we need to distinguish 'selection' that occurs free of human intervention and 'selection' that serves some human purpose, no matter how absurd.
Now, in the subsequent paragraph you write:
"My argument is that 'artificiality' exists, and because it now happens at the expense of the natural world, nature is now correcting. Humans are near the peak of an one-off boom-bust cycle, if not already there."
Here you state that 'artificiality' is a real thing, so why not 'artificial selection' (again, to distinguish it usefully it from 'natural selection')? Beyond that, we can agree completely that all manner of human-induced 'artificiality' exists (even if it is 'natural') and that it is taking humans to the peak of a one-off boom-bust cycle! Negative feedback ultimately has to prevail.
Finally, thank you for introducing the term 'paramorphosis' I am unfamiliar with it for precisely the reasons you describe. We birth our understanding, our perception, of the world first in words and language. Why do we not think of, or even accept, 'paramorphosis'? I suppose it's more comforting to think in terms of the positive 'grub-to-butterfly' implicit in 'metamorphosis' than to raise the possibility of a negative 'deviance, deformity or distortion' butterfly-to-grub phenomenon. The only use of the term I found is in minerology where it refers to a change in structure with no actual chemical change.
This is an excellent visual metaphor, *diamond to graphite*! My point is exactly what you have identified, yet in a lateral way: The question is not what I “like” or not, but where to distinguish natural selection from artificial selection. I understand that my syllogisms may appear contradictory, but I want to let possibilities open in my thinking, so I tend to think “backwards”. Where to draw the line, if the distinction between natural and artificial selection is not obvious, apart from “human intervention”? Assuming all human behavior as “natural”, then “human intervention” in selective breeding counts as a “Force of Nature”, and the line disappears.
And if all human behavior is perfectly natural, it gets even scarier: where can one classify “Artificial Intelligence”? Even discussing with you on the internet feels like an odd thing, in my eyes. You and I miss critical information about each other: tone of voice, physical presence of the other, etc.
You mention the Chihuahua case. In my “backwards” mode, I ask: How sure are we that modern homo sapiens is not a “bio-artifact” (a case of "paramorphosis") himself, a self-engineered bio-artifact unaware of its own self-engineering, that has drifted away from his ancestors? Is homo sapiens exempt from self-engineering, only occurring “naturally”? Wouldn’t that be somehow “human exceptionalism”? When Darwin proposed natural selection, as contrasted to artificial one, he did it within the historical context of “human exceptionalism”, and the binary schema "Nature-Man". If man can modify species in only a few generations, if man can alter the whole climate, and his influence has been even proposed as a “geological force” (“Anthropocene” - diamond to graphite!), this is a totally legitimate question.
So, are modern humans a product of (real) natural selection, since modern life, in my eyes at least, is unfolding in an environment with altered and artificial elements? To be honest, I would not exactly characterize the MTI regime as “natural”. Were not antibiotics, medical treatment for chronic diseases and ample industrial food supply there, then nature would probably annihilate 90% of the population in the blink of an eye. This is a real trap; infrastructure lock-in, getting more energy expensive over time. And perhaps this is the case: that man tries to bypass, and has already bypassed natural procedures, up to a point of seriously altering his environment. The assumption that “technology will save us” is illusory, and doubling down the efforts on this path amounts to a plunge in entropy, in my opinion. What cost is to be payed remains to be seen in the (not so distant) future.
Modern humans are permeated by the ideology of the MTI regime up to a point of behavioral modification, affecting all aspects of life: acting from fear of loss of social standing to mating preferences. What an ideology does is well-described in the history of ideas: it creates a blind spot in cognition, rendering the subject unaware of its influence. It all goes back to what premises the subject has internalized as “true” and what it has identified with, so it cannot take the necessary distance. So, in a sense, peer pressure and the compulsion to “conform” and “fit in” the MTI regime (this is called “social intelligence” in the MTI newspeak), could probably count as “environmental pressure” in evolutionary terms, as it modifies behaviors, a self-imposed “environmental pressure”, insert neuroplasticity here. Mechanistic thinking was not always the case in cognition, this is what I hypothesized in your previous post/essay on psychopathy. And the question is not what one thinks about himself, but how he behaves, as behavior is observable: “Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way” (all time classic- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd Book, 1103b).
Regarding your remarks on Hellenic Paideia (Ελληνική Παιδεία), I dare to ask: Were ancient Hellenes “homines sapientes”? Hellenes never subscribed to a centralized model of governance and life, they lived in dispersion. In my opinion, the Hellenic language, due do its mathematical architecture, does not allow much space for neologisms/verbalisms/newspeak as an attempt to embellish reality. It structures synapses in such a fashion that makes the internalization of newspeak difficult. Hellenes grappled with notions as what counts as “human scale” and where to find “measure” (Μέτρον = balance), totally relevant questions today, and they did it selflessly, as they never thought of commodifying their language and inventing “intellectual property rights”. They had the fear of “hubris” (Ύβρις), apart from other “brakes” that restored them to balance. ΜΤΙ homo sapiens appears to ontologically lack this critical “reality check” and faculty of self-reflection within the entire Cosmos. Today, “hubris” has weakened and receded in a philological concept, a figure of speech, its fear not ontologically embedded in modern “human” behavior. Hellenes never aspired to “save the world” and the Hellenic world disappeared, it is dead. What perennial lesson remains from them to whoever interested is “στωική φαιδρότης ψυχής”, which I am not sure how to translate in English as I cannot find a relevant term: maybe “stoic animated-shining soul”, and how to reach such a state.
If we were face-to-face, George, the conversation would probably take the following tack if not the exact wording. You speak first in quotation marks; I respond:
'Where to draw the line, if the distinction between natural and artificial selection is not obvious, apart from “human intervention”? Assuming all human behavior as “natural”, then “human intervention” in selective breeding counts as a “Force of Nature”, and the line disappears."
I still disagree, sort of—“human intervention” may be a “force of nature” but it defines a line not to be dismissed. This line is a visible divide through the territory of “selection” that conveys meaning; it does not disappear. Selective breeding has produced thousands of varieties of apples. They are all “apples” but when I go shopping for apples my wife expects “Cosmic Crisp” and I choose “Granny Smiths”. Can there not be varieties of ‘selection’ that are worth specifying because their mechanisms differ? “Natural” and “artificial” are well-understood categories—though, starting over, one might prefer ‘eco-selection’ and ‘anthro-selection’?
"And if all human behavior is perfectly natural, it gets even scarier: where can one classify 'artificial Intelligence'?"
Assuming we agree on your premise, and on a definition of “intelligence”, we could specify that AI is “machine intelligence”. This preserves its “naturality” while distinguishing it from animal intelligence.
'Even discussing with you on the internet feels like an odd thing, in my eyes. You and I miss critical information about each other: tone of voice, physical presence of the other, etc.'"
Yes, it is a bit odd— but is this not a different matter? Human communication is a hydra-like multi-dimensioned affair that cannot be captured in mere script. And even different languages cannot convey exactly the same message in their respective scripts—my psychologist/humanist friend tells me that no translation of ancient Greek comes close to capturing the full meaning, nuances and music of the original.
"You mention the Chihuahua case. In my 'backwards' mode, I ask: How sure are we that modern homo sapiens is not a “bio-artifact” (a case of 'paramorphosis') himself, a self-engineered bio-artifact unaware of its own self-engineering, that has drifted away from his ancestors? Is homo sapiens exempt from self-engineering, only occurring 'naturally'?"
Agreed! Brilliant! This is actually what I was getting at in arguing that MTI persons are not “normal”. We are, in effect, bio-artifacts of our own creation and observably paramorphic. We are regressing in that we are becoming techno-dependent from the individual to the cultural scale, self-engineering away from ancestral health and even (some would say) intelligence.
"Wouldn’t that be somehow 'human exceptionalism'? When Darwin proposed natural selection, as contrasted to artificial one, he did it within the historical context of 'human exceptionalism', and the binary schema 'Nature-Man'. If man can modify species in only a few generations, if man can alter the whole climate, and his influence has been even proposed as a 'geological force' ('Anthropocene' - diamond to graphite!), this is a totally legitimate question."
Is this, again, a question bordering on semantics? “Human exceptionalism” is a well-defined term/philosophical concept – it argues that H. sapiens stands uniquely apart from nature, is possessed of a soul, is exempt from natural laws, etc. “Exceptionalism” has a singular meaning quite distinct from that conveyed by use of the ordinary term “exceptional”. The latter merely means outstanding in whatever particular is under discussion—physical strength, creativity, musical talent, toxicity, etc. Surely this difference is useful. So, without invoking “human exceptionalism” we can still say that H. sapiens is exceptionally profligate and exceptionally careless in the application of technology to the point of becoming a unique geological force.
"So, are modern humans a product of (real) natural selection, since modern life, in my eyes at least, is unfolding in an environment with altered and artificial elements? To be honest, I would not exactly characterize the MTI regime as 'natural'”.
I argued in my article that, yes, modern humans are a product of natural selection, but that post-agricultural, particularly post-enlightenment societies are ‘abnormal’ in the sense of deviating from the original ‘normal’ small-scale, essentially bioregional societies. Modern humans are adapted to the former but maladapted to the latter. In short, I think the distinctions between ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ (‘unnatural’ and ‘abnormal’) are useful. Think of it this way: Cancer is a natural phenomenon, but it is not the normal state. It is abnormal in that cancer cells have broken from the cooperative mode of existence normal in, and necessary for, multicellular lifeforms.
"Were not antibiotics, medical treatment for chronic diseases and ample industrial food supply there, then nature would probably annihilate 90% of the population in the blink of an eye. This is a real trap; infrastructure lock-in, getting more energy expensive over time."
Undeniably so—and further evidence of the paramorphic de-development induced by MTI culture. MTI persons cannot survive the abnormal conditions we have created without supportive techno-prosthetics.
"And perhaps this is the case: that man tries to bypass, and has already bypassed natural procedures, up to a point of seriously altering his environment. The assumption that 'technology will save us' is illusory.
No disputing this (well, not from me, at least).
"Modern humans are permeated by the ideology of the MTI regime up to a point of behavioral modification, affecting all aspects of life: acting from fear of loss of social standing to mating preferences. What an ideology does is well-described in the history of ideas: it creates a blind spot in cognition, rendering the subject unaware of its influence. It all goes back to what premises the subject has internalized as “true” and what it has identified with…: “Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way” (all time classic- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd Book, 1103b)."
Such is ‘the social construction of reality’ (or rather, the social imposition of ‘perception-as-truth’).
"Regarding… Hellenic Paideia (Ελληνική Παιδεία), I dare to ask: Were ancient Hellenes “homines sapientes”? Hellenes never subscribed to a centralized model of governance and life, they lived in dispersion. In my opinion, the Hellenic language, due do its mathematical architecture, does not allow much space for neologisms/verbalisms/newspeak as an attempt to embellish reality. It structures synapses in such a fashion that makes the internalization of newspeak difficult. Hellenes grappled with notions as what counts as “human scale” and where to find “measure” (Μέτρον = balance), totally relevant questions today, and they did it selflessly, as they never thought of commodifying their language and inventing “intellectual property rights”. They had the fear of “hubris” (Ύβρις), apart from other “brakes” that restored them to balance."
This is very close to the meaning of paideia voiced by my psychiatrist correspondent—a form of learning that promoted mental growth by teaching one to identify error (e.g, ‘newspeak’), work through the tensions evoked by truth/reality, and otherwise avoid self-deception. I took this to mean that paideia demanded (among other things) that one live in the real world as we find it, not ‘out of’ socially constructed obfuscating narratives.
"ΜΤΙ homo sapiens appears to ontologically lack this critical 'reality check' and faculty of self-reflection…"
Regrettably true, and the reason why MTI peoples will never achieve the state implicit in “στωική φαιδρότης ψυχής .
"Human communication is a hydra-like multi-dimensioned affair that cannot be captured in mere script."
Nevertheless it is normal, even least evolved jungle tribes since millennia communicate using oral languages. And Hydra was the important element of rich, complex and coherent Hellenic oral culture. Hellenes were scattered throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas, from Gibraltar to Georgia, cultivating cooperation, communication, and art – that is, culture – while ignoring the earlier ancient civilizations. Common (koine in their language) language was essential to do it. So no wonder, having at least 2 thousand years experience, they created alphabetic script (borrowing from Phoencians) and decimal numeracy (from Arabs).
MTI persons are not “normal” because they believe to communicate in non physical, abstract dimension. You don't have to be psychologist/humanist to notice it is directly related to "semantic problem". Arises when real time natural communication isn't aligned with exosomatic memory, stored in English scripts or (quite recently) machine languages. But Anglophone sematic problem, and delusion as its effect are indeed modern - English language and its scripts didn't exist as a coherent whole before 15th century.
In the same English language there are words, coined only in the 17th century, that expresses this problem: "indoctrinate" and indoctrination".
Hellenic world dissapeared, but hellenic words did not. There are 150k English words directly borrowed from Koine Greek and still greater number clearly influenced by it. I believe we could join forces - you as a Greek and I, as a Polish native studying Greek mythology, aiming at understanding the origins of English and its American dialect.
If this is the Prof Wm Rees from BC, then I am a huge fan/student, including the "ecological footprint" notion. For folks interested in the topics you explore here, they might also benefit from the "Stress R Us" PDF out at Stanford, available free on the net by a Google search and download. SRU goes much deeper in her 120,000 words into the history of stress research and its physiological roots. Have a blessed day.
Hi Greeley. My first in depth learning about stress was via reading Saplosky's, book "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" in the late 1990's. I found it to be very helpful in maintaining my sobriety in the early days. I've also read and learned from the SRU essay - thank you. If fact I have it book marked.
There are 2 other essays in PDF - 'Life in Our Overpopulated Future?' & 'Population Density Stress Is Killing Us Now!' - available to download on the same page/link.
Again, good work in using evo-psych terms to wade into the morass that is contemporary humanity, but A) some of us know all this stuff, and for a long time, and B)this overview leaves out the necessary personal dimension and application.
Remember all the conspiring no-talents in administration at UBC? Remember the desultory class discussions with students who wanted money jobs? Ever witness your political "leaders" in action? That's the practical effects of your theoretical ruminations, and they ain't gonna get better.
Hi Bill. A bit late to the show but thanks for the very interesting if not discomforting read.
I am wondering however whether your analysis is making things a tad complicated in terms of abnormal ecological environments (urbanisation), maladaptive behaviour (evolutionary lag) and psychopathy (population scaling).
Instead I am wondering whether the predicament is that the 'adaptive' positive and negative feedback mechanisms associated with intra group cooperation - competition and inter group cooperation and competition have simply broken down due to disparate hierarchical scaling due to class stratification, belief stratification, race stratification and ethnic stratification.
I know you touch on this hierarchical scaling somewhat and investigate it quite deeply with the conclusion that it is all the fault of psychopaths but my experience of this breakdown is everywhere to see. Whether it is the political loudmouth at a meeting with everyone 'too polite' to say shut up or the fact that abhorrent behaviour is politicised by both the Left and the Right. For example, the Iranian Regime just slaughtered 7000 people because they had the audacity to effect a negative feedback mechanism in the form of a street protest. Yet the most vocal elements of leftwing activism are now supportive of the Iranian Regime simply because they are Muslims and they want their votes.
You probably get my point by now. There seems to be a catastrophic breakdown in the adaptive feedback mechanisms that ensure that the balance between cooperative and competitive behaviours within groups and between groups in order to ensure collective survival have irretrievably broken down into false binaries whereby good is bad and bad is good. Not just at the top, but in the middle and at the bottom too.
I know you argue it is because of top down psychopathy but mutual social accountability broke down the instant that different groups fought over scarce resources and territory even before the advent of civilization which is something that you seem to miss in your analysis when you largely focus on ingroup cooperation.
In this respect, what is actually different to our prehistoric ancestors other than the scale and complexity of human societies.
Now intra group dynamics are simply subjected to multiple levels of cooperation and competition as are inter group dynamics with class stratification, belief stratification, race stratification and ethnic stratification shaping the dynamics of intra and inter group cooperation and competition with the resulting effect being a complete lack of consensus about anything.
So arguably it is this complete lack of consensus as a result of highly complex cooperation/competition dynamics that is leading us to collapse. Not well placed psychopaths, not abnormal ecological environments, not maladaptive traits but the sheer complexity of intra and inter group cooperation and competition dynamics that leads to a complete lack of meaningful consensus at any meaningful socio-political level.
It is, I argue therefore, the sheer complexity of intra and inter group cooperation and competition dynamics leading to a complete lack of consensus at any meaningful socio-political level that is resulting in a "continuum of destructiveness" and "general adaptive syndrome". 😊
I enjoyed this very much.
As Martin said, some of the people that read this, including me, already "know all this stuff", but I am hoping you reach an audience with this article that goes well beyond academia.
I especially liked the link between our lifespans versus that of a mosquito explaining why humans can't evolve fast enough to cope with our rapid changes in our relatively new societal reality, versus a simple creature like the mosquito that has been able to very quickly adapt to pesticides. That is the kind of thing mere mortals like me can wrap their head around.
You also gave an excellent explanation for the rise in sociopathic / psychopathic behaviour, including in people that would not normally be given that diagnosis.
I recently read someone's lengthy diatribe about patriarchy being the cause of all our society's problems. Specifically, that women in our species, like dogs or wolves or lions or some insects she gave as examples, are naturally supposed to lead "our packs". She opined, (although she certainly didn't present it as opinion), that the root cause of our current situation is that we are ruled by men, who are, as she put in so many, many words, dumb and violent. I like the word poppycock and have used it a lot but couldn't be bothered to provide a comment.
But this I liked, and without even a hint of sarcasm, took the time out of my busy schedule of finding the perfect gluten free oatmeal carrot muffin recipe to comment.
Anyone who takes a gluten free oatmeal carrot muffin (or recipe) as an excuse to comment has got to be taken seriously.
Bill, I have a natural behavioral trap version, so, much more particular, but causing error in the evolutionary path we took. See if this makes sense to you!
George, there are few more poetic ways of putting it, but I think leave out the critical events in how it happened. What caught on like a disease ~7,000 years ago looks to me fairly clearly to have been the very high productivity of managing agriculture, and then the services that well organized agriculture produced excess products to support, thus beginning the compound investment of profit to multiply diverse products. Though it was the organization of the system as a whole, the manager’s, using numbers to represent productive relationships, failed to see the relationships served as the source of value, and instead assumed it was their management that created the profit, not the creative relationships working together, beginning the maximized exponential exploitation of resources, and hoarding of wealth by individuals.
That developed from the first organized farming in the Jordan River valley about 13,000 years ago, that spread and was improved on in two different ways, one to the north, and the Fertile Crescent, the other to the south, to Egypt, which used the other use of agricultural profit, triggered by the annual floods of the fields, requiring support in the off season, and the ingenious social project of alternating collective work on great monuments to their nature based societies. That too required accounting, but it was in service of the society’s work, not the managers.
The northern development appeared much more successful, creating diverse innovation of many kinds, but also pushed the working relationships of the people and the available resources, setting up a cycle of splendidly successful enterprise, held in awe by all, and passed on from one region to another, more or less also following the catastrophic collapses of each creative civilization it created, the Tower of Babel, Bronze Age Atlantis, Greece2, Rome, and now “us,” all catastrophically destroying the human and natural contexts of relationships that the math unwittingly sacrificed for profit to managers who then had no idea quite what they were doing, madly collapsing one wonderful innovation in how to live after another.
So, that “separation from nature is right in the middle of the story, by all the important decisions being made by the numbers and largely ignoring the human, cultural, and ecological relationships, as we still do, and appears to be the best way to point to our preset civilization’s rapid progression toward pervasive disorienting collapse, as for all of Mesopotamia when the tower of good relationships collapsed in Babel, apparently mistranslated as a place, but first spoken for the other, lower case meaning, of confusion. That appears to have been the result all the deals that had been so fruitful for the twenty or so city-states of Mesopotamia all collapsing more ore less at once.
Sage analysis. Can't help wondering what modern medical practice has done for 'survival of the unfittest'...
I think about this oftten, Julian
As an aside, and not in any way challenging to any of your points, I believe that cars and speed are major contributors to the chronic elevated stress hormone levels in developed societies.
As a cyclist and motorcyclist, I share that auto anxiety.
Not for the faint of heart, in Vancouver traffic....
This is very relatable. I live on a main road, for two days in February they shut the road outside my house to re-tarmac it. It was bliss! Just, the no-noise. I asked them if they could shut the road for 6 months....
I don't think we realise, especially those that drive everywhere, how much of an oppressive barrage of noise we inflict on ourselves as a species.
The purpose of civilization is to lead easier lives, so that we may avoid suffering. Natural selection created beings who abhor the physical discomfort that arises from lack of technology. Thus, we are driven by our physical and psychological make-ups to seek comfort. How many animal species would seek relief from suffering if they had the sapience and prehensile skills to do so?
I see nothing 'normal' in naked apes surviving in climates unsuited to our bodies. Without the wearing of animal skins we would've remained within the tropics out of necessity. Even the most basic technology changes the way we live.
Civilization can serve a purpose; evolutionary processes do not serve any purpose. They are neither adaptive or maladaptive. Natural selection is a function.
If we are to move beyond our existence as products of a billion years-old process, we have to take matters into our hands. It is well within our mental reasoning to design a sustainable civilization. Our failure to do so is the basis for discourse.
Dr. Rees. After reading this piece and several of the references, I have decided to give up on my experiential finding and naïve belief in the innate and infinite beauty of the universe, and instead buy into the scientific fact proven in part through the experimental ethical torture and follow-up dissection of rats back in the 1930’s that we humans and our limited brain capacity can’t overcome the natural selection process that inevitably produced a planet turned into in essence a series of interconnected concentration camp carnivals of horror for the well intentioned power elites to play in as they simply continue to be driven by their competitive dominant genes after the human population outgrew its carrying capacity thanks to agriculture. With that realization, it seems point less to waste anymore time here looking for ways to find a meaningful way out of this scenario, and it reminds me to change my previous salutation of “have a good day”, and will instead simply say “thanks for the memories”! Tom Jablonski
Tom, you managed to pack about 14 potential essays into that first sentence. Good to see you 'moving on' -- but don't drop your wonder at the infinite beauty of the universe (and Beethoven).
One last comment, on the Beethoven suggestion, actually trying to keep looking at the bright side with the music of Michael Jackson in the song Ben that keeps playing in my mind, from the movie of the same name about the rat named Ben, who forms an army of rats that then attacts police as a way of seeking revenge for wrongs committed against them, and sorry about run on sentences, and grammatical errors as correct use of English was one of my many failings, or at least that's what I took the grades of D in english classes for after I realized it didn't mean dang good. Cheers!
I sympathize but here's how I look at it: humans in general have been acting like cancer cells. Even in advanced cases, cancer sometimes spontaneously goes into remission, and humans could go into remission too, if we wanted to. I still believe a majority of people would want to change behavior, if they realized how destructive and self-destructive our civilization is.
Cancer cells are a problem for the organism's immune system. But within the logic of conflict one can also say immune system is the problem for cancer cells. Is conflict, rivalry, win-loose game given and inevitable human predicament - or sovable problem?
Isn't it exactly a question here?
Seems to me that unlike cancer cells, most people are well aware that the highway to hell has obvious consequences, despite best attempts at advertising campaigns of the power elite contractors to convince us that injection of more toxic chemicals can reduce side effects and prolong life of unchecked power addiction.
I always refer to this quote from John Kenneth Galbraith
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material portion of their privilege.”
If we are like cancer cells, then we are cancer cells with a preference for comfort.
I lived among hunter-gatherers for several years in the late 1970s in a remote part of Botswana. I now beleive it is the absolute best economic option for huimans. So.. what do we do about the long term effects of “civilization”?
Thank you, Helga, for your first-hand support of the concept that humans are maladapted to modernity. As for the long-term effect of 'civilization', the safest thing might be simply to let it run its course. So far most of what people have done to 'fix' things have mainly served to prolong our extractive/consumptive/polluting pillaging of the ecosphere.
I agree. All I have become certian of is that, after thousands and thousands of years living as hunter-gatherers, humans tend to react badly (with high stress levels etc) to existing in an inegalitarian culture, and to be almost endlessly compassionate at the same time. Those who do not have an share t(normally excessive?) of these common characteristics actually do “better” in non-egalitarian systems, just as you pointed ouit: civilization brings out the worst aspects of human nature, and those that would be rejected in a hunter-gatherer economy are most likely to “succeed” financially in a “civilized” society, especially one that extolls financial gains and indivdual ownership of land and other resources.
Helga -
You write "...those that would be rejected in a hunter-gatherer economy are most likely to “succeed” financially in a “civilized” society, especially one that extolls financial gains and indivdual ownership of land and other resources."
Pretty much sums up the situation as I see it--scaling up takes us down.
Please forgive me if this is an indulgence. It is too long, I apologize.
However, I want to offer two excerpts from articles co-authored by D S Wilson. They align it seems to me, with Dr. Rees’s essay and add some insights from studies of cultural evolution The first quote refers to the fact that there are 2 kinds of complex systems that get mixed up in scientific literature. CAS 1 is truly integrated and thus adaptive at systems level while the much more common CAS2 is about complex systems with adaptive agents that can as Dr Rees showed go over into maladaptiveness. The second excerpt refers to that aspect of the mechanism of multilevel selection that produces maladaptation
1. Excerpts concerning 2 types of CAS taken from: Multilevel cultural evolution: From new theory to practical applications David Sloan Wilsona ,b,1 , Guru Madhavanc,1, Michele J. Gelfandd , Steven C. Hayese , Paul W. B. Atkinsa,f, and Rita R. Colwellg,h PNAS 2023 Vol. 120 No. 16 2023, Downloaded from https://www.pnas.org
pages 3 -4 Complex Systems Science and Engineering. The developments in evolutionary science that we have recounted, start- ing roughly in the 1970s, were paralleled by developments in complex systems science (55). With the advent of widespread computing, a Pandora’s box was opened for the study of complex systems of all sorts—physical, biological, and social. Cellular automata and agent-based models showed that very simple behaviors at the level of the agent could produce very complex behaviors at the level of the whole system.
Patterns in nature could now perhaps be explained as properties of complex systems rather than as products of natural selection. Terms such as “chaos”, “the butterfly effect,” and “multiple attractors” captivated the public imagination (56). Integrating the developments of evolutionary science and complex systems science is still a work in progress.
In particular, it is important to identify two meanings of the key phrase “complex adaptive system” (CAS):
--A complex system that is adaptive as a system (CAS1)
- and a complex system composed of agents following their respective adaptive strategies (CAS2; 57).
Multilevel selection theory speaks clearly about this distinction: Despite being complex, CAS2 systems do not automatically self-organize into CAS1 systems.
Instead, a process of selection at the level of the whole system is required and tends to be undermined by selection at lower levels within the system.
Most accounts of complex systems theory do not make this distinction, intermixing examples of CAS1 systems (e.g., the immune system, the brain, and social insect colonies) and CAS2 systems (e.g., ecosystems, traffic flows, and war; 58). There is little awareness that CAS2 systems can be profoundly maladaptive as whole systems. A search on the Web of Science resulted in over a thousand hits for the phrase “complex adaptive systems” and zero hits for the phrase “complex maladaptive systems” (59).
The main reason why complex systems theorists fail to make the distinction is because CAS1 and CAS2 systems alike can be highly interdependent and exhibit emergent properties, multiple basins of attraction, nonequilibrium dynamics, and so on. The properties of all complex systems cannot address the specifically evolutionary question of how a complex system can evolve into an adaptive unit
The practical relevance of multilevel selection is therefore immense. Nearly every positive change effort is an attempt to create a system that functions well as a system (CAS1). Nearly every social pathology is a result of agents within a system acting at cross-purposes with each other (CAS2). How to convert CAS2 systems into CAS1 systems is therefore the policy question across all topic domains
2. Excerpt concerning maladaptation through upscaling -Peer Review article :In: This view of Life: May 2024 title: Conscious Multilevel Cultural Evolution: Theory, Practice, and Two Case Studies
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1123706 David Sloan Wilsona, Robert Stylesbc*, and Paul W.B. Atkins
pages 2/3
Multilevel: If natural selection favors individuals that survive and reproduce better than other individuals, then how can it explain the evolution of behaviors that benefit others at one’s own expense? Darwin was the first person to confront this prob- lem and propose a solution: Groups whose members behave altruistically toward each other will robustly outcompete groups of selfish individuals who can’t cohere. A modern sum- mary of Darwin’s insight is “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary” (Wilson and Wilson, 2007; see Wilson 2015 for a book-length account).
Notice that for altruism to evolve, between-group selection must be strong enough to oppose within-group selection favoring more self-serving behaviors. Also, the highly cooperative groups that evolve by between-group selection can compete harmfully with each other. Between-group selection doesn’t eliminate conflict so much as elevate it to the level of between- group interactions, where it can take place with even more destructive force than before.
This logic can be expanded to multiple levels of a multi-tier hierarchy, such as from genes to ecosystems in biological sys- tems and small groups to global governance in human social systems. In human terms, self-preservation—a good thing—eas ily becomes self-dealing. Helping kith and kin—a good thing— easily becomes cronyism and nepotism. My nation first—a good thing—leads to international conflict. Growing a strong econo- my—a good thing—results in overheating the earth. It is sobering that nearly every anti-social behavior at large scales can be traced to forms of prosocial behaviors operating at smaller scales.
Conscious: It should be clear from the foregoing that evolution—whether genetic or cultural—doesn’t make everything nice. It often results in outcomes that benefit individuals at the expense of other individuals, groups at the expense of other groups, and that yield short-term benefits at the expense of the long view. Also, in a changing world, adaptations to past environments can become mismatched to current environments and maladaptive in every sense of the word.
Really sorry for the length.
Thank you for this extended comment -- no apology necessary.
I do have a couple of ill-informed responses ('ill-' because I haven't read the references from which you quote) so won't stick my neck too far out.
In discussing reference #1, you write (or quote):
"Cellular automata and agent-based models showed that very simple behaviors at the level of the agent could produce very complex behaviors at the level of the whole system.
Patterns in nature could now perhaps be explained as properties of complex systems rather than as products of natural selection. "
I'm always a little wary of what amounts to 'either/or' statements. It's not clear to my simple mind why "complex behaviours at the level of whole systems", need be understood either as complex systems behaviour or the result of natural selection. As the first sentence of this passage itself suggests, simple (naturally selected) behaviours at the component level might well produce complex whole system patterns, so are not both natural selection and whole systems properties involved?
More generally, I've not been too comfortable with DSW's descriptions of multilevel selection (or with the CAS1 CAS2 distinction but that's another story). It would take a lengthy essay to explain, but my sense of this continuing debate is that evidence for individual selection (Dawkins would take this down further) is stronger than for group selection -- again it's not either or but both (and in some case I have seen what appears to be group selection can be explain as co-selection of adaptive individuals within the group)'
On your second selection, again I have mixed reactions. You quote D.S Wilson et al.
"Multilevel: If natural selection favors individuals that survive and reproduce better than other individuals, then how then how can it explain the evolution of behaviors that benefit others at one’s own expense? Darwin was the first person to confront this problem and propose a solution: Groups whose members behave altruistically toward each other will robustly outcompete groups of selfish individuals who can’t cohere. A modern summary of Darwin’s insight is “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary”
I was jarred by inclusion of this passage, because the question "...how can it explain the evolution of behaviors that benefit others at one’s own expense?" was answered long ago and the summary here of Darwin's insight is spot on, as I understand matters (as suggested by my footnote #5)
[5] Interestingly, cooperation within groups or species can be interpreted as a means of enhancing their competitive advantage over less cooperative groups/species.
What's the controversy? Am I missing something? is this out of context?
Finally these paragraphs:
"This logic can be expanded to multiple levels of a multi-tier hierarchy, such as from genes to ecosystems in biological systems and small groups to global governance in human social systems. In human terms, self-preservation—a good thing—easily becomes self-dealing. Helping kith and kin—a good thing— easily becomes cronyism and nepotism. My nation first—a good thing—leads to international conflict. Growing a strong economy—a good thing—results in overheating the earth. It is sobering that nearly every anti-social behavior at large scales can be traced to forms of prosocial behaviors operating at smaller scales.
Conscious: It should be clear from the foregoing that evolution—whether genetic or cultural—doesn’t make everything nice. It often results in outcomes that benefit individuals at the expense of other individuals, groups at the expense of other groups, and that yield short-term benefits at the expense of the long view. Also, in a changing world, adaptations to past environments can become mismatched to current environments and maladaptive in every sense of the word."
To my way of hearing, these are unscientific statements. Such concepts as "cronyism and nepotism" and "self-dealing" don't exist in the absence of human interpretation: these are social constructs, value judgements, about objectively advantageous (from a natural selection perspective) things. "Growing a strong economy" and "my nation first" are assumed to be good things-- again, these are merely value judgements.
By objecting here I am actually agreeing with the assertion that "evolution doesn't make everything nice" but, again, "nice" is a human construct, a value preference.
My point: nature doesn't give a damn about human preferences.
Finally, to end on a more harmonic note, I agree completely with the final sentence:
"Also, in a changing world, adaptations to past environments can become mismatched to current environments and maladaptive in every sense of the word."
This was the whole point of my reflections on the human maladaptation syndrome.
Thanks again for the engaged interest.
How kind of you to respond to the 2 quotes from D S Wilson and others. I will need to read it again slowly for there is much food for thought in your reaction. It does me good that you share your doubts and critique, I can learn from this so I am grateful.
D S Wilson does sometimes express himself in let's say, too 'humanistic' terms, I can appreciate that you are wary of that. In addition cultural evolution and multilevel selection are still being developed by researchers like Wilson and I get the impression that there are many difficulties with definitions, conceptualization, modelling etc. Niche construction, social learning, dual inheritance, none of them seem to be a done deal. (see for example an article by Grant Ramsey called: Is Cultural Fitness Hopelessly Confused?) In 2024 Ryan Nichols and many colleagues wrote a review article entitled: Cultural evolution: A review of theoretical challenges" and they made it unmistakably clear how far cultural evolutionary science is from 'conceptual clarity'!
So an outsider like me may be forgiven for being confused although not without hope of improvement
Marion, I think it fair to say that we are all a bit confused here. These matters are the subjects of long on-going debate.
One thing that helps my thinking on the matter of individual selection vs group selection is reference to the four conditions for natural selection listed at the beginning of my piece. To repeat, there has to be: 1) a population of entities (individuals or groups) for selection to work on; 2) there have to be heritable qualities that are of significance to survival of the entities; 3) there has to be variability among the entities in the expression of those traits and 4) the environment must favour (select for) some variants over others.
Here's the thing: while individual humans exist in large populations and have myriad heritable (gene-based) traits that are highly variable across populations, groups per se, no matter how numerous, do not possess heritable qualities (and in any case, do not reproduce). So, the question is, "what is being selected for in 'group selection'"? The plausible answer is, 'the better adapted individuals within the group.' So if cooperative groups survive better than non-cooperating groups it is because natural selection is acting on (selecting for) the cooperative traits expressed by individuals within the group. These qualities may generate meta-properties at the level of the group but these are generated by the behaviour of cooperative individuals.
Some would ask, "why call on groups selection at all?" Richard Dawkins used to (and may still) argue that it's not even the individuals that are being selected, but rather particular genes. (From this perspective, each of us is simply a meat puppet used by our genes to ensure that they get passed on.)
Here's another admittedly simplistic mental exercise. Imagine a field with a large population of posies, most of which are tall. But the population carries a mutant variant; let's say 5% of the population produces very short flowers. Now let's introduce a radical change in the posies' environment. Call it 'the lawnmower'.
After this change is in effect, the field is largely leveled and sterile, but scattered among the detritus are a few short flowers that complete their reproductive cycle. This is no doubt individual selection, and subsequent generations of posies will have an increasing proportion of short individuals.
Now imagine the same field and same total population of posies, but this time there are 20 groups of posies--19 groups of the standard variety, but out there somewhere is a single cluster of short posies. Introduce the same radical change in the environment. At the end of the day, there will be only one group of viable posies composed of short individuals. My question for you is: "Is this group selection or an illusion of group selection?"
Hi Marion, great to reconnect.
Thank you for sharing these excerpts.. the CAS1/CAS2 distinction and the multilevel selection framing are highly relevant here. I agree that complex systems composed of adaptive agents do not automatically become adaptive wholes, and that within-group selection pressures can undermine system-level coherence. That distinction feels essential to understanding the dynamics Dr. Rees is pointing toward.
Where my own work (the Psychopathic Selection Hypothesis) attempts to extend this conversation is at the level of cognitive differentiation. Multilevel selection theory models selfish and cooperative strategies at the structural level. PSH asks whether certain cognitive profiles.... particularly those characterized by heightened instrumental reward pursuit and comparatively reduced affective inhibition.... may gain disproportionate advantage in high-abstraction, scaled, anonymous, and low-accountability institutional environments or scaled symbolic ecosystems (I've actually developed a game theoretic model that proves this).
In other words, the issue may not simply be that “selfishness beats altruism within groups,” but that specific low-empathy, strategically adaptive profiles are structurally amplified under symbolic, scaled civilizational architectures. Over time, this could help explain why certain modern institutions repeatedly fail to transition toward CAS1-level integration despite clear long-term maladaptiveness...
I see strong conceptual alignment between multilevel selection theory and this argument....PSH simply places greater emphasis on how cognitive asymmetries interact with scale, abstraction, anonymity and institutional design or "scaled symbolic ecosystems"....
Thank you for this thoughtful reaction. Yes PSH is a great lens to gain perspective in structures and organisations of great density and opacity
So is it you win, we lose, and we’ll be out of here? Maybe. So what to do? I say this is a conversation everyone with smarts should be in. If all roads are marked no exit, how to live the lives we have? Or does anyone see any hidden maps we could be traveling on? It’s almost comical that we barrel ahead going faster and faster to get to falling off the cliff we are headed for. All that AI capacity devouring the resources we need to survive. Pretty crazy. How about you hosting some intelligent conversation? Even here, in your comments. See what we can come up with.
Well, Sue, you write "How about you hosting some intelligent conversation?" I humbly submit that I am trying to do just that. But be aware that my starting point is something the late eco-philosopher Alan Drengson once wrote (from memory, so slightly paraphrased):
"No amount of scientific analysis, logical argument, or legal or ethical axiology will solve a problem that is misunderstood".
I believe that because of basic human nature (including our limited cognitive abilities), short time horizon, lousy education systems and fixation on the material economy, most people, including scientists and politicians, misunderstand most of our serious problems most of the time. Or when they do understand them, go into deep denial and deflect attention indto actions designed to maintain the status quo. Most of the public happily go along for the ride.
Consider just global heating: seeing this serious issue as THE fundamental existential crisis facing humanity is a distraction from its cause, ecological overshoot, which in turn is caused by excess extractive/polluting industrial activity on a finite planet. The result of distraction (intentional or merely ignorant) is today's massive investment in so-called green alternative energy -- wind turbines, solar panels, EVs etc., which are neither green nor alternative -- all manufactured or constructed using fossil fuels. Don't worry folks -- technology will solve any problem resulting from previous technology.
So it is that since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was birthed in 1992, emissions have increased ~70%, atmospheric carbon dioxide is at the highest levels in recorded history and rising (as is mean global temperature) and many parts of the world are reeling from chaotic climate extremes. Even if contemporary climate strategies worked, they would merely enable 'business-as-usual-by-alternative-means' increasing overshoot and ultimately societal simplification. So again, misunderstanding the issue (the public) or deliberate distraction from its real cause (corporate sector and governments) simply worsens the crisis. AI is most likely to compound the issue .
The solution to 'too many people consuming and polluting too much' is reduced economic throughput (consumption and pollution) and smaller populations but these are taboo subjects for MTI society for all the reasons discussed in this and earlier articles.
My bottom line: Until people understand that our ecological and social crises are the inevitable result of human evolutionary/behavioural predispositions; until we raise to consciousness our natural but self-defeating truth-avoidance strategies; until we shed our self-imposed reality blinders, H. sapiens is doomed, in your words, to "barrel ahead going faster and faster to get to falling off the cliff we are headed for.)
There is no "until" as you've amply demonstrated in your writings.
Exactly so -- unfortunately!
I agree with every word you’ve written. My Substack is Now What? And my current suggestion for the most impactful thing to be done is to inform everyone so our situation is common knowledge. That gets everyone to pay attention, as the next best movement to be made. Subscribe to me. I have ideas. I’ve been paying attention to you since Nate Hagens. I wrote a whole Substack then, but it didn’t work well enough and I didn’t use it.
You may find Adrian Lambert on this platform (A Grand Unified Theory of Doom) of interest.
Know it well!
Great! Actually, that was a reply to Sue, as she seemed to be looking for options.
Thanks so much. News to me. Impressive. I'll make some connection there.
Sue, Bill is everywhere on YouTube and probably other platforms. How can we get him interviewed by mainstream media? Now there's the challenge. But the think tank that documents our predicament is there waiting for your support: https://www.postcarbon.org/
That’s not the challenge I’m seeing. We need to think together, among ourselves, about what he says — not him as the be all end all to tell the world. There are others with profound expertise about collapse and I see all of us dealing with one another as what’s next.
Your hopium is exhausting Suzanne. Please let us know when your crew of profound experts have something to challenge Bill's expertise and wisdom. In the meantime you might try working on acceptance:
https://chickenfoot.substack.com/p/why-collapse-acceptance-matters-d27
Huh? How can I help you have more energy to be able to cope? All smart hands on deck needed, because we’re smarter together than we are separately.
Please take some time and learn the difference between a problem and a predicament. It seems you may be relatively new to collapse, have you really explored and fully understand overshoot, debt, energy and complexity? Many of us have been studying this for decades, including Bill of course.
Do your homework - Make your way to Erik Michaels "Problems, Predicaments, and Technology" stack. Or Postdoom.com, both explain why you won't succeed with "shifting mass consciousness" and why many have moved on from that. Your comment got one like, mine got five, that alone should speak to you...Good luck Suzanne.
Your presumptuousness is in high gear. It isnt a friendly tone. You don't know enough about me. Do you pay attention to Marianne Williamson. She'd be a good one for you to pick up on as supportive for how I'm thinking.. Here's my playlist for posts she's significantly in: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/marianne-williamson
Exactly. Think global, work local.
An interesting development, Sue, I just signed up for the March 7 launch of 4 Billion Dead: https://rogerhallam.com/treason-at-the-end-of-the-world/?ref=weekly-updates-newsletter
That looks interesting. More than the Post Carbon Institute. Thanks for the tip. Will see about connecting with them. I think Revolution, too. Here's what I've been poking around with in the States:
How about a coup to install a presidential team? Let's say Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Anne Applebaum, and Marianne Williamson. Just picture such warm, smart, human-loving human beings leading our way. If they state that they are taking charge, so many millions would be on the streets in Washington that we couldn’t be thwarted.
Well, Sue, Roger Hallam declares he doesn't want policy change but he wants a change in way that policies are made. His ideas might be optimized for existential growth in political action as he's a proponent of sortition which is basically choosing people at random (from a pool) for limited time in office to address the tendency towards corruption of long-ruling legislators. I'm sorry to say you really own it to yourselves, Sue and her readers, to watch the full THREE hour talk to the camera in which he lays it all out. He's very dedicated to non-violence but also explains why people need to be willing to be arrested in obstructive political action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZINXPXVrDY
Too long. How about more summary from you?
Choosing people at random is an idea that I think goes back to the Greeks. By me, what's up now isn't siloed people delivering ideas, but people with smarts talking to each other to come up with what's best to do. I'm on that track in my Substack. Watch for a proposal on Tuesday about that.
Großartig und absolut schlüssig. Danke für diesen Text.
Yep, you nailed it. We face a tremendous problem of scale (overgrowth) that acutely impacts ourselves as well as other life and the wellbeing of habitable Earth.
Let’s highlight a paradox here by focusing on your phrase “the environment “naturally selects” those individuals who are best adapted to prevailing conditions.”
But if humans are part of nature, it goes that the “environment” includes the sum of humans too, which is neither a trivial population nor a very “natural” one, as it appears today.
Suddenly, as humans-part of nature are involved and play crucial role in this "environment" that “naturally selects” who is best adapted, which [environment] now exerts extreme pressures, “natural selection” does not seem so “natural” and “blind”, after all. It is like “artificial”, up to a certain degree.
I understand that I enter an obscure field where the limits of notions are not clearly demarcated, but it is worth it from a philosophical point of view. If humans are natural, part of nature, then why their civilization and artifacts are considered “artificial”? Aren’t natural beings supposed to do natural things? Why a termite mound is considered natural and not a mega-city for example?
There is a paradox here, I insist. One cannot accept that natural selection is doing its a-moral, "blind" stuff, and at the same time accept that homo sapiens lives in artificial conditions. This is a contradiction in terms. Artificial environment should imply artificial selection.
George, I'm not convinced there is a paradox here, a semantic problem, maybe, but not a paradox.
I agree completely that humans are part of nature and, indeed, the human enterprise has essentially (unsustainably) merged with the natural environment. This is a natural phenomenon. In fact, I have long argued that H. sapiens has always been potentially unsustainable 'by nature' (we expand into all suitable accessible habitats; we tend to use up all available resources; we are capable of geometric population growth under favourable circumstances).
Normally these tendencies (shared with all other species) are held in check by negative feedbacks but can be 'released' in special circumstances. Recent centuries constitute special circumstances. In short, the unsustainability crisis is arguably the result H. sapiens following its genetic script as circumstances 'evolve'.
Indeed, what this illustrates is that certain survival traits that were adaptive (indeed, necessary) in paleolithic times have become maladaptive today. Cultural evolution has outpaced bio-evolution. Modern technology unleashed H. sapiens' full potential for explosive growth (see the three key points above), particularly during the temporary period of resource abundance we have 'enjoyed' in the past century or so. The problem is that the Earth is finite and the human explosion is undermining the biophysical basis of our own existence. The likely outcome will be a period of rapid simplification of 'civilization' and a major population decrease.
All this is perfectly natural -- in fact, it is merely a human version of the population boom-bust cycle that is fairly common in nature when certain species enjoy an interval of unusually benign conditions and abundant food. Their populations crash when food runs out or the environment otherwise changes (e.g., predators or disease take advantage) so that it no longer supports the bloated population.
I submit that humans are nearing the peak of a one-off population boom-bust cycle on a global scale ('global' is really it's only distinguishing feature).
I don't think I called civilization 'artificial' and if I did it was a slip. What I did argue is: a) that conditions, particularly the socio-eco-environment that has emerged in the past five centuries (in the two minutes before midnight on the compressed-to-one-day history of modern H. sapiens) are 'abnormal' relative to the conditions in which H. sapiens evolved (during the first 23 hours); and b) that modern MTI people are maladapted to these atypical conditions. But since 'abnormal' is all living people have ever known, we don't recognize it as such.
Now let's turn to your crucial question:
"Why a termite mound is considered natural and not a mega-city for example?"
My answer is that both termite mounds and mega-cites are natural phenomena. However, while termites and termite mounds are usually ecologically stable, integral components of their supportive ecosystems [1], mega-cities are growing, already massively extractive overly-consuming, toxic-polluting, dissipative structures that are destroying their supportive ecosystems [2]. The former are therefore normal structures that have evolved in ways that enable their continuity; the latter are abnormal (as defined) structures that have developed in ways that deplete the biophysical basis of their own existence.
To reiterate, normal human qualities that were once adaptive and helped ensure the survival of pre-agricultural people can--and have--become maladaptive in the massively changed contemporary global environment. Thus, MTI culture, if not all of H. sapiens, may well be selected out. But it's all 'natural.'
[1] I suppose some termite populations occasionally get out of control but then the outbreak is 'sorted' by negative feedback.
[2] On writing this I realized that many artifacts of civilization, including tens of thousands of chemicals, many of them toxic to life, are 'unknown in nature' and hence are, indeed, artificial by that definition.
Bingo! Many artifacts of civilization are indeed artificial. So, is it only strictly a semantic problem or is there a gray area and more than meets the eye? Hellenes gave semantics to science, but they never had a word for "civilization". On the contrary, they had “Polis” (Πόλις, Άστυ) and “politics” (πολιτικά, related to Polis). The word “civilization” was introduced in Greek after 1800, following its invention in Europe. So, we have a notion invented in the Enlightenment, and people tend to ascribe it retroactively to previous forms of organized life. That is like judging by they own modern standards. In antiquity there was the Cosmos (nature and man together) and now we have “civilization” (only man’s artifacts-without nature). Cosmos (Κόσμος) means “order” and “ornament” as well, a harmonious order in general. The notion of “artificial” (τεχνητός, man made) existed from Hellenic antiquity -as opposed to the natural-. My point is that there cannot be a word persisting in time where the corresponding meaning does not exist in reality.
I use this reference because we discuss “natural selection”. Darwin used the term “natural selection” but he also described selective breeding (artificial selection). If everything humans do is natural, a potential already inscribed in presumably natural human behavior, then the term “natural selection” is a pleonasm. “Selection” alone would suffice, and “natural selection” would coincide with artificial selection.
My argument is that “artificiality” exists, and because it now happens at the expense of the natural world, nature is now correcting. Humans are near the peak of an one-off boom-bust cycle, if not already there.
As we are obliged to insist on semantics and notions, before we accept and use further inadequate notions, and as far as we are talking about complex issues (nature, Cosmos, human creations etc.) other crucial related notions should be brought to the table. Such notions may be the following: “Μεταμόρφωσις” (Metamorphosis=Τransformation) and its counterpart “Παραμόρφωσις” (Paramorphosis=Deformity, Distortion). Surprisingly, the Greek term “Παραμόρφωσις” remained unpopular and is found only as a technical term, while in Hellenic language both terms are of the same gravity but of opposite meaning. Speaking of notions, the West borrowed the term “Metamorphosis” from Greek as it sounded so exotic. While even biology would embrace “Metamorphosis”, the word “Paramorphosis” (Distortion) is a no-no. People thinking in this context assume that all change is “positive” or “exotic”. This is a bias stemming from selective use of language. Orwellian “newspeak” in a sense.
https://www.nature.com/collections/fhijchfaec
Interesting that you cite so much from ancient Greek culture. I happen to be reading a book, Envious and Deceived, by a psychiatrist correspondent (pen name, J.J. Penniman) who argues that a classical education based on Greek thinking and 'paideia', combined with the deep-truth seeking (about oneself) of psychoanalysis, might have saved humanity. I mention this only because, late in my career as a scientist, I came greatly to regret the extraordinary limitations of my education in science. 'Penniman' argues that MTI cultures 'lost it' when they abandoned deep humanist education and embraced post-enlightenment human exceptionalism and the materialist-mechanistic narrative of Cartesian/Newtonian science. So much to learn, so little time.
You write that "Darwin used the term 'natural selection' but he also described selective breeding (artificial selection). If everything humans do is natural, a potential already inscribed in presumably natural human behavior, then the term 'natural selection' is a pleonasm. “Selection” alone would suffice, and “natural selection” would coincide with artificial selection."
Perhaps I misunderstand what exactly you are getting at here because you seem to contradict it in the subsequent paragraph. A couple of points. I disagree that 'natural selection' or, for that matter, 'artificial selection' are pleonasms. To treat both or either merely as 'selection' involves a non-trivial loss of information. The adjectives add meaning--it is useful to know there are different processes in play. For example, something is missing when we say that 'the chihuahua evolved by selection'. Chihuahuas are in effect, human-designed bio-artifacts -- they could not have evolved by 'natural selection'. This is important information. Perhaps, if you don't like 'artificial selection' you would prefer the term anthro-selection? In any case, I think we need to distinguish 'selection' that occurs free of human intervention and 'selection' that serves some human purpose, no matter how absurd.
Now, in the subsequent paragraph you write:
"My argument is that 'artificiality' exists, and because it now happens at the expense of the natural world, nature is now correcting. Humans are near the peak of an one-off boom-bust cycle, if not already there."
Here you state that 'artificiality' is a real thing, so why not 'artificial selection' (again, to distinguish it usefully it from 'natural selection')? Beyond that, we can agree completely that all manner of human-induced 'artificiality' exists (even if it is 'natural') and that it is taking humans to the peak of a one-off boom-bust cycle! Negative feedback ultimately has to prevail.
Finally, thank you for introducing the term 'paramorphosis' I am unfamiliar with it for precisely the reasons you describe. We birth our understanding, our perception, of the world first in words and language. Why do we not think of, or even accept, 'paramorphosis'? I suppose it's more comforting to think in terms of the positive 'grub-to-butterfly' implicit in 'metamorphosis' than to raise the possibility of a negative 'deviance, deformity or distortion' butterfly-to-grub phenomenon. The only use of the term I found is in minerology where it refers to a change in structure with no actual chemical change.
Diamond to graphite, anyone?
This is an excellent visual metaphor, *diamond to graphite*! My point is exactly what you have identified, yet in a lateral way: The question is not what I “like” or not, but where to distinguish natural selection from artificial selection. I understand that my syllogisms may appear contradictory, but I want to let possibilities open in my thinking, so I tend to think “backwards”. Where to draw the line, if the distinction between natural and artificial selection is not obvious, apart from “human intervention”? Assuming all human behavior as “natural”, then “human intervention” in selective breeding counts as a “Force of Nature”, and the line disappears.
And if all human behavior is perfectly natural, it gets even scarier: where can one classify “Artificial Intelligence”? Even discussing with you on the internet feels like an odd thing, in my eyes. You and I miss critical information about each other: tone of voice, physical presence of the other, etc.
You mention the Chihuahua case. In my “backwards” mode, I ask: How sure are we that modern homo sapiens is not a “bio-artifact” (a case of "paramorphosis") himself, a self-engineered bio-artifact unaware of its own self-engineering, that has drifted away from his ancestors? Is homo sapiens exempt from self-engineering, only occurring “naturally”? Wouldn’t that be somehow “human exceptionalism”? When Darwin proposed natural selection, as contrasted to artificial one, he did it within the historical context of “human exceptionalism”, and the binary schema "Nature-Man". If man can modify species in only a few generations, if man can alter the whole climate, and his influence has been even proposed as a “geological force” (“Anthropocene” - diamond to graphite!), this is a totally legitimate question.
So, are modern humans a product of (real) natural selection, since modern life, in my eyes at least, is unfolding in an environment with altered and artificial elements? To be honest, I would not exactly characterize the MTI regime as “natural”. Were not antibiotics, medical treatment for chronic diseases and ample industrial food supply there, then nature would probably annihilate 90% of the population in the blink of an eye. This is a real trap; infrastructure lock-in, getting more energy expensive over time. And perhaps this is the case: that man tries to bypass, and has already bypassed natural procedures, up to a point of seriously altering his environment. The assumption that “technology will save us” is illusory, and doubling down the efforts on this path amounts to a plunge in entropy, in my opinion. What cost is to be payed remains to be seen in the (not so distant) future.
Modern humans are permeated by the ideology of the MTI regime up to a point of behavioral modification, affecting all aspects of life: acting from fear of loss of social standing to mating preferences. What an ideology does is well-described in the history of ideas: it creates a blind spot in cognition, rendering the subject unaware of its influence. It all goes back to what premises the subject has internalized as “true” and what it has identified with, so it cannot take the necessary distance. So, in a sense, peer pressure and the compulsion to “conform” and “fit in” the MTI regime (this is called “social intelligence” in the MTI newspeak), could probably count as “environmental pressure” in evolutionary terms, as it modifies behaviors, a self-imposed “environmental pressure”, insert neuroplasticity here. Mechanistic thinking was not always the case in cognition, this is what I hypothesized in your previous post/essay on psychopathy. And the question is not what one thinks about himself, but how he behaves, as behavior is observable: “Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way” (all time classic- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd Book, 1103b).
Regarding your remarks on Hellenic Paideia (Ελληνική Παιδεία), I dare to ask: Were ancient Hellenes “homines sapientes”? Hellenes never subscribed to a centralized model of governance and life, they lived in dispersion. In my opinion, the Hellenic language, due do its mathematical architecture, does not allow much space for neologisms/verbalisms/newspeak as an attempt to embellish reality. It structures synapses in such a fashion that makes the internalization of newspeak difficult. Hellenes grappled with notions as what counts as “human scale” and where to find “measure” (Μέτρον = balance), totally relevant questions today, and they did it selflessly, as they never thought of commodifying their language and inventing “intellectual property rights”. They had the fear of “hubris” (Ύβρις), apart from other “brakes” that restored them to balance. ΜΤΙ homo sapiens appears to ontologically lack this critical “reality check” and faculty of self-reflection within the entire Cosmos. Today, “hubris” has weakened and receded in a philological concept, a figure of speech, its fear not ontologically embedded in modern “human” behavior. Hellenes never aspired to “save the world” and the Hellenic world disappeared, it is dead. What perennial lesson remains from them to whoever interested is “στωική φαιδρότης ψυχής”, which I am not sure how to translate in English as I cannot find a relevant term: maybe “stoic animated-shining soul”, and how to reach such a state.
If we were face-to-face, George, the conversation would probably take the following tack if not the exact wording. You speak first in quotation marks; I respond:
'Where to draw the line, if the distinction between natural and artificial selection is not obvious, apart from “human intervention”? Assuming all human behavior as “natural”, then “human intervention” in selective breeding counts as a “Force of Nature”, and the line disappears."
I still disagree, sort of—“human intervention” may be a “force of nature” but it defines a line not to be dismissed. This line is a visible divide through the territory of “selection” that conveys meaning; it does not disappear. Selective breeding has produced thousands of varieties of apples. They are all “apples” but when I go shopping for apples my wife expects “Cosmic Crisp” and I choose “Granny Smiths”. Can there not be varieties of ‘selection’ that are worth specifying because their mechanisms differ? “Natural” and “artificial” are well-understood categories—though, starting over, one might prefer ‘eco-selection’ and ‘anthro-selection’?
"And if all human behavior is perfectly natural, it gets even scarier: where can one classify 'artificial Intelligence'?"
Assuming we agree on your premise, and on a definition of “intelligence”, we could specify that AI is “machine intelligence”. This preserves its “naturality” while distinguishing it from animal intelligence.
'Even discussing with you on the internet feels like an odd thing, in my eyes. You and I miss critical information about each other: tone of voice, physical presence of the other, etc.'"
Yes, it is a bit odd— but is this not a different matter? Human communication is a hydra-like multi-dimensioned affair that cannot be captured in mere script. And even different languages cannot convey exactly the same message in their respective scripts—my psychologist/humanist friend tells me that no translation of ancient Greek comes close to capturing the full meaning, nuances and music of the original.
"You mention the Chihuahua case. In my 'backwards' mode, I ask: How sure are we that modern homo sapiens is not a “bio-artifact” (a case of 'paramorphosis') himself, a self-engineered bio-artifact unaware of its own self-engineering, that has drifted away from his ancestors? Is homo sapiens exempt from self-engineering, only occurring 'naturally'?"
Agreed! Brilliant! This is actually what I was getting at in arguing that MTI persons are not “normal”. We are, in effect, bio-artifacts of our own creation and observably paramorphic. We are regressing in that we are becoming techno-dependent from the individual to the cultural scale, self-engineering away from ancestral health and even (some would say) intelligence.
"Wouldn’t that be somehow 'human exceptionalism'? When Darwin proposed natural selection, as contrasted to artificial one, he did it within the historical context of 'human exceptionalism', and the binary schema 'Nature-Man'. If man can modify species in only a few generations, if man can alter the whole climate, and his influence has been even proposed as a 'geological force' ('Anthropocene' - diamond to graphite!), this is a totally legitimate question."
Is this, again, a question bordering on semantics? “Human exceptionalism” is a well-defined term/philosophical concept – it argues that H. sapiens stands uniquely apart from nature, is possessed of a soul, is exempt from natural laws, etc. “Exceptionalism” has a singular meaning quite distinct from that conveyed by use of the ordinary term “exceptional”. The latter merely means outstanding in whatever particular is under discussion—physical strength, creativity, musical talent, toxicity, etc. Surely this difference is useful. So, without invoking “human exceptionalism” we can still say that H. sapiens is exceptionally profligate and exceptionally careless in the application of technology to the point of becoming a unique geological force.
"So, are modern humans a product of (real) natural selection, since modern life, in my eyes at least, is unfolding in an environment with altered and artificial elements? To be honest, I would not exactly characterize the MTI regime as 'natural'”.
I argued in my article that, yes, modern humans are a product of natural selection, but that post-agricultural, particularly post-enlightenment societies are ‘abnormal’ in the sense of deviating from the original ‘normal’ small-scale, essentially bioregional societies. Modern humans are adapted to the former but maladapted to the latter. In short, I think the distinctions between ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ (‘unnatural’ and ‘abnormal’) are useful. Think of it this way: Cancer is a natural phenomenon, but it is not the normal state. It is abnormal in that cancer cells have broken from the cooperative mode of existence normal in, and necessary for, multicellular lifeforms.
"Were not antibiotics, medical treatment for chronic diseases and ample industrial food supply there, then nature would probably annihilate 90% of the population in the blink of an eye. This is a real trap; infrastructure lock-in, getting more energy expensive over time."
Undeniably so—and further evidence of the paramorphic de-development induced by MTI culture. MTI persons cannot survive the abnormal conditions we have created without supportive techno-prosthetics.
"And perhaps this is the case: that man tries to bypass, and has already bypassed natural procedures, up to a point of seriously altering his environment. The assumption that 'technology will save us' is illusory.
No disputing this (well, not from me, at least).
"Modern humans are permeated by the ideology of the MTI regime up to a point of behavioral modification, affecting all aspects of life: acting from fear of loss of social standing to mating preferences. What an ideology does is well-described in the history of ideas: it creates a blind spot in cognition, rendering the subject unaware of its influence. It all goes back to what premises the subject has internalized as “true” and what it has identified with…: “Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way” (all time classic- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd Book, 1103b)."
Such is ‘the social construction of reality’ (or rather, the social imposition of ‘perception-as-truth’).
"Regarding… Hellenic Paideia (Ελληνική Παιδεία), I dare to ask: Were ancient Hellenes “homines sapientes”? Hellenes never subscribed to a centralized model of governance and life, they lived in dispersion. In my opinion, the Hellenic language, due do its mathematical architecture, does not allow much space for neologisms/verbalisms/newspeak as an attempt to embellish reality. It structures synapses in such a fashion that makes the internalization of newspeak difficult. Hellenes grappled with notions as what counts as “human scale” and where to find “measure” (Μέτρον = balance), totally relevant questions today, and they did it selflessly, as they never thought of commodifying their language and inventing “intellectual property rights”. They had the fear of “hubris” (Ύβρις), apart from other “brakes” that restored them to balance."
This is very close to the meaning of paideia voiced by my psychiatrist correspondent—a form of learning that promoted mental growth by teaching one to identify error (e.g, ‘newspeak’), work through the tensions evoked by truth/reality, and otherwise avoid self-deception. I took this to mean that paideia demanded (among other things) that one live in the real world as we find it, not ‘out of’ socially constructed obfuscating narratives.
"ΜΤΙ homo sapiens appears to ontologically lack this critical 'reality check' and faculty of self-reflection…"
Regrettably true, and the reason why MTI peoples will never achieve the state implicit in “στωική φαιδρότης ψυχής .
"Human communication is a hydra-like multi-dimensioned affair that cannot be captured in mere script."
Nevertheless it is normal, even least evolved jungle tribes since millennia communicate using oral languages. And Hydra was the important element of rich, complex and coherent Hellenic oral culture. Hellenes were scattered throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas, from Gibraltar to Georgia, cultivating cooperation, communication, and art – that is, culture – while ignoring the earlier ancient civilizations. Common (koine in their language) language was essential to do it. So no wonder, having at least 2 thousand years experience, they created alphabetic script (borrowing from Phoencians) and decimal numeracy (from Arabs).
MTI persons are not “normal” because they believe to communicate in non physical, abstract dimension. You don't have to be psychologist/humanist to notice it is directly related to "semantic problem". Arises when real time natural communication isn't aligned with exosomatic memory, stored in English scripts or (quite recently) machine languages. But Anglophone sematic problem, and delusion as its effect are indeed modern - English language and its scripts didn't exist as a coherent whole before 15th century.
In the same English language there are words, coined only in the 17th century, that expresses this problem: "indoctrinate" and indoctrination".
Hellenic world dissapeared, but hellenic words did not. There are 150k English words directly borrowed from Koine Greek and still greater number clearly influenced by it. I believe we could join forces - you as a Greek and I, as a Polish native studying Greek mythology, aiming at understanding the origins of English and its American dialect.
If this is the Prof Wm Rees from BC, then I am a huge fan/student, including the "ecological footprint" notion. For folks interested in the topics you explore here, they might also benefit from the "Stress R Us" PDF out at Stanford, available free on the net by a Google search and download. SRU goes much deeper in her 120,000 words into the history of stress research and its physiological roots. Have a blessed day.
Yep, for what it's worth I am the Wm Rees from UBC. Thanks for the boost and reference.
Hi Greeley. My first in depth learning about stress was via reading Saplosky's, book "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" in the late 1990's. I found it to be very helpful in maintaining my sobriety in the early days. I've also read and learned from the SRU essay - thank you. If fact I have it book marked.
There are 2 other essays in PDF - 'Life in Our Overpopulated Future?' & 'Population Density Stress Is Killing Us Now!' - available to download on the same page/link.
https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/StressRUs_2017_Miklashek-1.pdf
Many thanks for the validation and kind words. Have a blessed evening.
Again, good work in using evo-psych terms to wade into the morass that is contemporary humanity, but A) some of us know all this stuff, and for a long time, and B)this overview leaves out the necessary personal dimension and application.
Remember all the conspiring no-talents in administration at UBC? Remember the desultory class discussions with students who wanted money jobs? Ever witness your political "leaders" in action? That's the practical effects of your theoretical ruminations, and they ain't gonna get better.
sterilise all humans at birth. problem(s) (eventually) solved.
This post provides historical context for your argument. I suspect he reads your posts.
https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-threat-of-a-good-example-how?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=al84p
Hi Bill. A bit late to the show but thanks for the very interesting if not discomforting read.
I am wondering however whether your analysis is making things a tad complicated in terms of abnormal ecological environments (urbanisation), maladaptive behaviour (evolutionary lag) and psychopathy (population scaling).
Instead I am wondering whether the predicament is that the 'adaptive' positive and negative feedback mechanisms associated with intra group cooperation - competition and inter group cooperation and competition have simply broken down due to disparate hierarchical scaling due to class stratification, belief stratification, race stratification and ethnic stratification.
I know you touch on this hierarchical scaling somewhat and investigate it quite deeply with the conclusion that it is all the fault of psychopaths but my experience of this breakdown is everywhere to see. Whether it is the political loudmouth at a meeting with everyone 'too polite' to say shut up or the fact that abhorrent behaviour is politicised by both the Left and the Right. For example, the Iranian Regime just slaughtered 7000 people because they had the audacity to effect a negative feedback mechanism in the form of a street protest. Yet the most vocal elements of leftwing activism are now supportive of the Iranian Regime simply because they are Muslims and they want their votes.
You probably get my point by now. There seems to be a catastrophic breakdown in the adaptive feedback mechanisms that ensure that the balance between cooperative and competitive behaviours within groups and between groups in order to ensure collective survival have irretrievably broken down into false binaries whereby good is bad and bad is good. Not just at the top, but in the middle and at the bottom too.
I know you argue it is because of top down psychopathy but mutual social accountability broke down the instant that different groups fought over scarce resources and territory even before the advent of civilization which is something that you seem to miss in your analysis when you largely focus on ingroup cooperation.
In this respect, what is actually different to our prehistoric ancestors other than the scale and complexity of human societies.
Now intra group dynamics are simply subjected to multiple levels of cooperation and competition as are inter group dynamics with class stratification, belief stratification, race stratification and ethnic stratification shaping the dynamics of intra and inter group cooperation and competition with the resulting effect being a complete lack of consensus about anything.
So arguably it is this complete lack of consensus as a result of highly complex cooperation/competition dynamics that is leading us to collapse. Not well placed psychopaths, not abnormal ecological environments, not maladaptive traits but the sheer complexity of intra and inter group cooperation and competition dynamics that leads to a complete lack of meaningful consensus at any meaningful socio-political level.
It is, I argue therefore, the sheer complexity of intra and inter group cooperation and competition dynamics leading to a complete lack of consensus at any meaningful socio-political level that is resulting in a "continuum of destructiveness" and "general adaptive syndrome". 😊
(By the way, the reference for (5) isn't working)