My only issue is with the lack of agency implied by saying "the modern world makes us miserable" - less catchy but perhaps more accurate, "how ignoring the implications of evolutionary psychology in the modern world is a choice that people make to increase the likelihood that they let themselves become and stay miserable." : )
My hunch is that the evolutionary function of outgroup avoidance is much more on the lines of "don't get murdered", rather than pathogen avoidance. The recent experience of the old and new worlds combining and killing a huge chunk of the New World is a once in an epoch phenomenon in its scale, occurring after 20,000 years of isolation. A group of hunter gatherers probably would not have a lot of circulating diseases that are fatal to outsiders but more or less commensal to them seems unlikely, whereas warfare is quite well attested
I do believe mismatch applies to some human woes (sugar and diet, artificial lights and diurnal rhythms, family dispersal), but am amused by how the table assumes that the ancestral environment was egalitarian relative to today (which is likely the most egalitarian time in human history) and the implication that a “natural” ancestral diet was all-in-all, preferable to our diet today. One theory posits that the human appendix was (is) a safe haven for gut flora in a species that once endured constant bouts of diarrhea.
Yeah, there’s definitely a danger of romanticizing the past. To some extent, we’ve just exchanged one set of problems for another. And I personally prefer our modern problems to the old ones. Give me a little excess status anxiety rather than high child mortality any day.
Re: egalitarianism then and now - I guess it depends how you measure it. In terms of material wealth, the gaps are much larger today than they were in the past, because in the past, everyone had close to nothing.
As we in the States mark our 250th, there is no shortage of opinion pieces revolving around “What would our founders think?” The assumption is that they would be preoccupied with our political situation. I’m inclined to think that they would say things like, “Babies don’t die??!! And you can fly??!!”
My only issue is with the lack of agency implied by saying "the modern world makes us miserable" - less catchy but perhaps more accurate, "how ignoring the implications of evolutionary psychology in the modern world is a choice that people make to increase the likelihood that they let themselves become and stay miserable." : )
Haha, fair!
I dunno... I've been reading a lot of history lately, and there is hardly an individual who had (what we would call) a happy life.
Agreed.
My hunch is that the evolutionary function of outgroup avoidance is much more on the lines of "don't get murdered", rather than pathogen avoidance. The recent experience of the old and new worlds combining and killing a huge chunk of the New World is a once in an epoch phenomenon in its scale, occurring after 20,000 years of isolation. A group of hunter gatherers probably would not have a lot of circulating diseases that are fatal to outsiders but more or less commensal to them seems unlikely, whereas warfare is quite well attested
Yeah, I agree - avoiding violence seems more plausible to me than avoiding diseases.
I do believe mismatch applies to some human woes (sugar and diet, artificial lights and diurnal rhythms, family dispersal), but am amused by how the table assumes that the ancestral environment was egalitarian relative to today (which is likely the most egalitarian time in human history) and the implication that a “natural” ancestral diet was all-in-all, preferable to our diet today. One theory posits that the human appendix was (is) a safe haven for gut flora in a species that once endured constant bouts of diarrhea.
Rousseau just won’t die, will he?
Yeah, there’s definitely a danger of romanticizing the past. To some extent, we’ve just exchanged one set of problems for another. And I personally prefer our modern problems to the old ones. Give me a little excess status anxiety rather than high child mortality any day.
Re: egalitarianism then and now - I guess it depends how you measure it. In terms of material wealth, the gaps are much larger today than they were in the past, because in the past, everyone had close to nothing.
As we in the States mark our 250th, there is no shortage of opinion pieces revolving around “What would our founders think?” The assumption is that they would be preoccupied with our political situation. I’m inclined to think that they would say things like, “Babies don’t die??!! And you can fly??!!”
Right, yeah - great point!