Evolution with Andrew

Andrew joins us once again to discuss the evolutions of species and their effects and correlations with the evolution of society. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to it could happen on the Internet the only podcast.
I'm Robert evans Um and today we've got St. Andrew
back in the studio. We don't actually have a studio.
That was a lie. That was a lie that I
do think I was cooler, St. Andrew. How are you
doing today? I am good, I'm good. Andrew dropped the saint.

(00:28):
Oh shit, I'm sorry. You're right, you're right, you're right.
We should probably. I'm sorry. That's good because I'm no
longer a scene. You got to sainted. So okay, if
I understand Catholicism, right, that means you undid someone else's
three miracles. I know nothing about Catholicism. Okay, well, pretty sure.

(00:51):
We have the Protestants Protestant ground. My knowledge of Catholicism
is that to be a saint, you have to do
a couple of miracles, but the last one is always
something to do with being dead, Like they just decide
that whatever you do when you're a corpse, it's like, oh,
it's a miracle. Oh Catholicism, Andrew, what are we talking
about today? Um? Today we're gonna be talking about something

(01:15):
that I would see more traditional Catholics we have some
disagreements with Christians. We have some disagreements with them. That is,
I mean, that is our entire audience, is that this
this podcast is completely listened to by the Pope's Swiss
guards Vaticans. Yeah, we we have deep penetration in the Vatican.

(01:39):
That's an interesting choice of woods considering the end of
Pride month. But yeah, alright, so, um yeah, what are
we talking about. We'll be talking about human evolution, particularly
favorite kind of seems to human corporation. Okay, the origins
of human corporation. O. Yeah, I love this ship. I

(02:02):
think that, you know, people tend to emphasize human competition
a lot um because capitalism wants us to believe that
we have these competitive you know, dog eat dog. I
don't know where that term came from, By the way,
I've always been curious about that. Um. As far as
I know, dogs don't eat each other. Um. But it's

(02:23):
interesting phase and I think it's kind of apt here. Um.
This is this idea that that that we're just competing
all the time, that we're fighting is it's a survival
of the fittest, and only the strong survive. You know,
when people talk, you know, casually about prehistoric times. Is
this very it represents the stories that we've been told

(02:47):
about it, and as a result, it tends to be
very you know, competitive, highly patriarchal, highly violent, just constant
into put some violence. I mean that was the justification
used to you know, reinforce the state rights like or
the state of nature's everybody against themselves. And so as

(03:07):
a result, you know, a state had to be introduced.
We treated some of our freedoms for the safety that
the state is supposed to provide. But as far back
as Brudon and really even further, because let's be real,
it's a very European concept. That's something that can be
protected towards all human societies and all human philosophies. UM.

(03:29):
But Prudon was one of the first white guys, I guess,
in his time period and in his fields, really challenge
that notion with you know, mutually a fact of evolution.
Of course, the studies and stuff that he would have done, um,
the knowledge that he would have shared upon you know,
known unstudied by people before him, but he was one

(03:50):
of the first really bring all that knowledge together into
one place. UM. Years later, UM an anthropologist and armatologists
was born. I mean, she wasn't born that, but she
became that later in life. In ninety six, that would
be Sarah Blaff for Hordy. And so she made many
major contributions revolutionary psychology and sociology biology, especially pioneering our

(04:17):
modern understanding of the evolutionary basis of female behavior in
both non human and human primates. In two thousand two,
she was recognized as one of the fifth most Important
Women in Science, and in fourteen, Mothers and Others, together
with her earlier work, earned plready the National Academies Award

(04:38):
for Scientific Reviewing in honor of her insightful and visionary
synthesis of a broad range of data and concepts from
across the social and biological sciences to illuminate the importance
of biosocial processes among mothers, in funds, and other social
actors informing the evolutionary crucival of human societies. In essence,

(04:58):
she got an award because she recognized the fact that
the relationship between mother and child and you know how
humans raise their children, Um, it's vital in our evolution
and becoming human. Yeah, I mean that's um, yeah, that's fascinating.

(05:18):
I didn't know any of that. Yeah, I mean humans,
they we we do recognize now I'm starting to recognize
more and more parati parmatologists at least that um humans,
I let other great apes rather, they do care, they shay,
and they empathize a lot more than we may have
originally thought. But humans still when at you know, the

(05:44):
caring competition, I think we because of even something like
all official anatomy um and how we structure society use
is probably one of the more pro social of you know,
the other great apes. Yeah, it's interesting whenever I because
I've I've read stuff about like empathy and apes, but
it's always in the context of the ones that we

(06:05):
taught sign language to. The one I'm remember in particularly
is and I'm I'm spacing on the name that the
scientists gave her, but one of the apes, yeah, Cocoa,
when her reaction to like nine eleven um because it
was apparently like on the TV or some ship wouldn't happened,
but like I never here emphasized the same degree um
or you know, maybe I just have not sought it out,

(06:28):
but it's certainly kind of less uh less discussed as
like evidence of empathy within um within like the societies
that they built, I guess like would be the term
for them, the little their communities, I don't know, whatever
you wanna call them. Yeah, yeah, I was interesting as well,
I mean, was a guerrilla and regarding her sign language

(06:49):
is actually interesting video sc talking about how you know
about sign language. Then we assume, but Couco is a
gorilla and humans are well closely related to two groups
who was being bunobos and chimpanzees, And we tend to
look at chimpanzees, which tends to be more you know, violent,

(07:10):
and people use them as an example for this how
humans naturally are despite the fact that you know, we
have millions of years evolution diverging from chimpanzees. You know,
the last common ancestor was like six or seven million
years ago. Yeah that that's a bit just like yeah,
like I got five or six years and I consider

(07:31):
us pretty like pretty far apart. Yeah yeah, I mean,
and the on top of that, like there was enough
time for some serious dip regences. It's not happening, you know,
like the fact that humans, you know, walk up right
and chimpanzee is they still have you know that four

(07:54):
legged Gate. It's actually something that I learned recently, if
all them two separate occasions, that being that particular kind
of knuckle walk. Um. Yeah, I just want that kind
of fascinating kind of besides the point. Um, but yeah,
I mean, we we tend to look at chimpanzee as

(08:14):
our closest example, but nobles which are a lot more social,
I would say, a lot more cooperative and less violent,
and chimpanzees actually share a lot of you know, similarities
in terms of you all behavior, and they're also one
of the few animal species that have been you know,
recognized as having sex for pleasure and not just procreation.

(08:38):
So good for them. When we talk about evolution, a
lot of it has been shaped by Darwin, even though
science is not about figures and big figures and their
big ideas, it's about the ideas themselves. Um. But still,
seeing as Darwin was the one who really introduced, no,

(08:58):
the idea of competition, the idea of of all that
in evolution, those sorts of notions which came really out
of his time and industrializing competitive wood. Um, it really
overstates the rule of competition as of driving force and evolution,

(09:20):
when in reality cooperation was far more potent force when
it comes to like pro social human tendencies, UM, you know,
doing things to benefit others. That's what pro social is.
Dr Hardie really comes down on the cooperation side of
things in her book Mothers and Others especially, brings together

(09:40):
all this evidence that we are basically descendants of a
place to see in species of cooperative breeders. Corporative breeding
is a practice amongst some animal species. UM. Other mammals
do it, but I think we are one of the few.
We were were the only create a to do it.
And there are other primates to do it, or the

(10:03):
monkeys to do it, but none closely related to us.
Cooperative breeding is basically practice or the reproductive strategy UM
where alla parental care is provided to the offspring of
you know, the children of sitting parents in the group.

(10:26):
All parental care is basically the practice of UM. It's
basically non direct parents care care provided by individuals other
than the parents. And so by having that networking place,
by having the process of our parenting in place, that's

(10:48):
how we were able to be so successful as a
species and distribution you know, um, you know, establishing ourselves
in all these different environments because humans spread barely rapidly
around the globe and we used to. We've established ourselves
and created cultures and all sorts of unique environments, and honestly,

(11:08):
we are the most successful out of the primates, not
regard so kudus to us um. And that is because
of corporative breeding. Did you just woo Probert? Yeah, of course, yes,
like we have to, we have to racial the rest
of the primates, you know, very very based a us.

(11:33):
We literally reassoed them. Literally, we're re feeling everything on
this goddamn planet except for chickens. And no, except for chickens.
Corn is definitely ratioed us. Yeah, for sure. For sure
cows too. Man, Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. How
is chickens? And there's there's one for sure. We have

(11:59):
a lot of that. Yeah. But I mean there's many
different species of goods and there's only one species a
few months. Yeah, you know. I mean, what's the population
of dogs? Oh? It's actually every time I look, it's
less than you'd expect. What nine million? Yes, that's ridiculous,
less than I have expected. I want more. Give me

(12:22):
more dogs millions like rookie numbers. Like I was going
to expect like at least a couple of billion just
based on but no, just nine. Yeah. Every time I
look it up, I recall being like, oh, there's not
as many dogs as I thought there were. I guess
they would in corporative Fredasu're not and only four dred
million cats. Those are rookie numbers. Cats. Come on, cats,

(12:45):
But it's actually probably I mean, party for the best.
I do a lot of damage, my dad always says.
My dad always says that we need more dogs in
the world to fix the fun up humans. Yeah, I
mean I feel a lot of pressure to put on dogs.
That's completely fair. I feel like that's really our job

(13:09):
to fix fucked up humans. Yeah, no, no, no, well,
I mean dogs for that. I mean cats and dogs
are pulling a lot of weights as it is. You
know they are. What are ferrets doing? Yeah? Fish doing?
What are ferrets? Question? Andrew ferrets? Fucking ferrets? Yeah, and

(13:30):
like fucking goldfish right, what are you guys? What do
you what a goldfish? What have they been doing lately?
Motherfucker's like, get off your asses and stop us from
killing people. Goldfish, stop the war in Ukraine? Goldfish, Come on,
I mean to get to cut gold fish some slack.
They're busy dying because people would want to take care
of them. Yeah, yeah, they're like all of the people

(13:51):
treat them like house plants. I didn't think we would
have Andrew being a goldfish to apologist on this podcast,
but correctly if I'm wrong, But I don't think cool
Bishop committed any like wool crimes or anything in my
rights to defend them. They haven't stopped any war crimes either. Plus,
I mean, this is my police snell kill talk, and

(14:12):
I've I've you know, I've I've neglected my fair shaff Yeah,
you know, speaking of cross species cooperation. When I was
younger and living in Texas, there was this one day
where like we're out on this in our like fucking

(14:34):
backyard area and we see walking through the alley behind
our houses this massive turtle probably three pounds like like
easily like three or four feet uh in in circumference
on his shelf, just like an enormous animal, just like
strolling around the neighborhood, not a species that you that
you see in Texas wild. So we like kind of

(14:55):
try to corral him. We can't lift him, he's massive,
but we like corral him into the into our yard
area and given some cucumbers, and eventually his person comes
around and the guy explains that like, yeah, when teenage
mut ninja turtles came out, a lot of people bought
a bunch of different kinds of turtles, thinking they were
good pets. But they didn't realize that there's a lot
of the turtles that get sold like never stopped growing,
Like if you keep them alive, they just keep getting bigger,

(15:17):
and so he like and they smell about only if
they're time. He had adopted this turtle and it lived
in his yard and he said like, yeah, he's really strong,
Like I have a good fence, but every two or
three years he'll just walk through it. Like most of
the time he chooses to stay in the yard, but
every couple of years he was, I'm just gonna go
on a walk and and he's like yeah, he just

(15:39):
like breaks through the fence. It takes him about a second,
like if he wants to do it. That's like, I
don't know if you've seen Baki, have you seen Backy? No?
Is this is this me um and no, this is
not my my web coming out story. I have not
read if you would much um in that recod, but
I started backy recently and the foost at apisode, they

(16:00):
established that all these people are coming to Tokyo, right,
but like since kind of fighting competition, and the way
that they established those people as are dangerous is that
these are all like criminals and like death through and
so like the in the process of being put to death,
like one person is, you know, being injected, only one

(16:21):
persons being electrocutes, psons being hung, and they all managed
to break free after they die and like break off
the prison easily. This one guy, he was imprisoned underwater.
He breaks out of the underwater prison and swims several
miles up to the surface and then swims all the
way to Tokyo. And it's like for some reason, not

(16:44):
too it will break it out of his inclusion or
whenever he chooses. Just reminded me of like they're trying
to establish his power levels. You No, he's he's too
powerful to be contained, um, And he's probably still alive
because they live forever um, which is again why they're
bad pets. Yeah, because what did you do about slavery?

(17:07):
Yeah yeah, yeah, well that he may not have been
around for slavery. But what did you do? What are
you going to do the next time there's slavery turtle?
You know, are you going to stop it? I don't
think so. You're a turtle, may mean next time? Is
this something you should be telling me? What is attention
to the Supreme Court? It's not. Well in the future,

(17:27):
that's sure, that's sure. What leave the turtles out of this? Well,
if they stop the Supreme Court, I will stop shooting
on the turtle. Is you're just doing that meme from
where people were like I gave up my plastic straws
for the turtles. Where are they now? That was a thing? Yeah,
it was bad. I don't remember that. It's like, come on, well,

(17:55):
I will see that. I mean, at least what corporative
bredos and I think our our tendency of propertive breeding
tendency probably has something to do with the fact that
we adopt other species as pets and as members of
our family, because you don't really see other animals doing that. No,

(18:16):
you know, um, I think there's there's some kind of
like fish or crustation or something that that keeps another species,
like as live stock. Yeah, there's a couple of species
to do versions of that for sure, right, But I
mean we love our dogs and our cats, our ferrets

(18:37):
and our snakes and our tarantulas and our ferrets question moods. Yeah,
people are trying to like domesticate foxes. We could love
them too. You know. It's the people. There are people
who who keep big cats that people who keep like ms,
people who keep all kinds. We just you know, it's

(19:00):
like we've got to catch them all, you know, like
we just want to take all these creatures and we
wanted to love them. I don't know that says about
us other than the fact that our cooperative nature extends
beyond the boundaries of you know, us as a species.
We hrated very high levels of mutual tolerance of perspective

(19:22):
taken and other pro social impulses from ancestors who use
our parental care and provision of the young two survive.
I mean, we didn't invent complex corporation. Our pre human
ancestors did, but we elaborated upon it. Yeah, it's um.

(19:44):
It's always interesting to me to think about that. I
think back up to when of the first time I
ever went to a war zone was Ukraine and it
was this we were in this little town called of
Dificult that was getting shelled by the Russians, and there
was this big the way they do the heating over there,
they have these events going underneath, the tubes going underneath
all the houses to supply them with like gas and stuff.
And there's this this big was this big central like

(20:06):
kind of box thing and one there's a few of
them in the town and stuff that like is the
I don't know, I guess it's like the like nexus
of a bunch of different houses all whatever heating systems,
so it's warm, and the people they're like when the
war started, a bunch of people fled and they left
pets behind, you know, sometimes they didn't really have a

(20:28):
choice because it's war. Um. So there were all these
cats and dogs, and soon all these breeding cats and dogs,
all these kittens and puppies, and people who lived there
had like turned that little junction box for the heating
system into this like massive kind of open air cat
and dog sanctuary. So like there were all of these
like dozens and dozens of puppies and kittens just like

(20:49):
living together in this big heating box. Um in the
middle of this like being taken care of by all
these local ladies who would scrounge up food every morning
and make sure that they were all taken care of. UM.
And it was interesting because you could see all these
like cats and dogs living together and all of these
people coming together to take care of animals they didn't know. UM.

(21:09):
At the same time, like all of the people were
doing their level best to murder the folks like a
mile and a half away and vice versa. UM. So
we contain multitudes of human beings, definitely, I mean that
that's possible too. Rite like the fact that we are
soon eager to like share another emotional states, you know,

(21:30):
to empathize and do weither we assume eager to involve
ourselves and and give and share with those who are
unrelated to us. I mean, there are a lot of
species that do not realise the young at all, um.
And then there was the do and try to kill
other people's young, and then there was that tjest to

(21:53):
care of their own young. But you know, we even
in this like super individual realistic capitalists will we still
find ways to look out for each other. And I
think that's beautiful. Yeah, of course, you know, cooperative reading
doesn't mean that there's like constant like part either dynast

(22:14):
or like cooperation and yeah, all the time it's still
can't be competition, which you know all these different things. Yeah,
but behaviorally, anatomically, and emotionally modern humans cooperative breeders. And
the crazy part is those you know, three um traits

(22:37):
you know, behavior and not to be in an emotion,
those illustrats not evolved simultaneously. So for example, or physical
features like our eyes and the fact that our eyes
are are able to you know, we can see the
whites and our eyes and that way we can put
ourselves in the people's perspectives and that kind of thing.

(22:58):
We could see the emotions clearly, you know, the fact
that we are we were prone to sharing our smiles,
and the fact that, um, you know, our vocal courts
have such range, would be able to communicate to many
different things. Um. While these are hallmarks of the fact

(23:19):
that you know, even before our super big brains developed,
we were ready getting these treats that would have helped
us in cooperation. But I wanted a lot of time though,
because you know a lot of the shapes we developed
before language. Um, it's like what was the first word

(23:41):
of humanity. You know, what was the first sentence, what
was the first thing like we said, and how did
other people react when the person said it. I can
imagine that, you know, like agriculture, something that's developed independently, UM,
on multiple different occasions in different places. But I still wonder,

(24:03):
like what those Foost conversations might have been A vote, Yeah,
I mean I think a lot of them probably would
have been arguments with other people who didn't want us
to do words, UM, who were ultimately right, you know,
if if only yeah, yeah, I don't know, it's interesting,

(24:25):
like I think it probably like we we just did
a couple of episodes about the history of of of
gynecology UM, and one of the things that we talked
about at the start was like the prehistory of medicine,
which which likely began in an organized way UM by
like likely the first people practicing medicine in any way.
We're pregnant women and women who had been pregnant trying

(24:48):
to help each other survive pregnancy, right, UM. And I
wouldn't be surprised if that, I mean, food gathering is
obviously the other one, but I wouldn't be surprised if
like language started as a way to try and like
communicate and better survive making babies because it's it's like
super dangerous and also entirely necessary, um and and something

(25:12):
that kind of particularly benefits from communication. So I don't know,
I wouldn't be shocked if that was like the first
thing we talked about, so to speak. Mm hm, that
makes sense. But I'm also thinking as well, and it
just occurred to me it's pretty possible that like that
the first language was not spoken language. I feel like

(25:33):
it may have been like a form of sign language,
you know, because you know, we have these hands, and
people tend to talk with their hands, so yeah, oh yes,
I think the hypothesis is that, you know, we use
the hands to communicate things before we started speaking. I mean,
the fact that we were able to teach apes, you know,

(25:54):
other apes to use sign language, I think that's a
good sign that we can lead to communicate with that face. Yeah,
I mean, it's also you know, probably how our communication
with dogs started, because that's one of the things that
makes them special is they're pretty much alone in animals
and that they like and kind of instinctively grow up

(26:14):
understanding that when we gesture at them, it means stuff
like if you point, dogs will look where you're pointing
a lot of the time rather than at you, which
is like a rare trait in animals. So yeah, I
think you're probably right on the money there. Huh. I
didn't even think about that. That's true. That's true. And
of course that makes it fun because you could always
fake them out and throw something stupid. Yeah. Yeah, Anderson

(26:40):
doesn't fall for that ship, so I love she does
not fall for that. I can't fake her. I can't
fake her out. That's probably why she's the woman of
the host. I'm you're all wrong pretending to throw stuff
at a dog and then it goes running and then
it realizes that you faked it, Like that's the best.
I can't relate because if I try to do that,

(27:01):
she looks at me like a good try. Uh huh, okay, Sophie.
Where you need to go is corgy Con in San Francisco.
One of these years will they let Anderson? And even
though she's only she does she's only party. There's nothing,
there's nothing but acceptance of corgy Con, acceptance and hundreds
of Corgis frolicking in the surf. It rules. She'll try

(27:23):
to hurt them all. Yeah, they are all trying to
hurt all of them. I'm into it. They are all
very excited and don't know what to do with each other.
It moves so as the book progresses, party spend some

(27:49):
time talking about how we are similar to and different
from other greed Eps's feeling about how we use eye
contact and smiles to and even from a young age. Um,
you know, we we've be tend to hear about it.
But the fact that babies cries are so attuned towards

(28:11):
attention and capturing the attention of people, Um, these are
all in like basterds. Yeah, yeah, I mean I was.
I was a screamer. Apparently I used to real real ball,
ball and ball and ball. In fact, one story I

(28:32):
was told was that the neighbor called and was like
something happening to Andrew, and my parents were like, nah,
he's just grant. There's like three o'clock in the morning.
But I mean, look at me now, I'm balling for justice,
that's right. Yeah. One interesting treat that you know, humans

(28:58):
have is all willingness to like share our babies with others,
other grade apes. You know, those mothers, they tend to
have like constant contact and care with their children, you know,
like they don't let others touch their children at tall,
probably because like other mothers tend to want to kill
their kids or of course harm to their kids, tend

(29:20):
to be very protective of them. Whereas you know, as
our parents, we are you know, full of fledged cooperative readers.
You know, we have not only shared our young with others,
but our pear intervals have been been recorded breastfeeding the
young of others, you know, and and masticating and passing
like hard to digest foods to infunts. I'm mixing up

(29:47):
my terms a bit in terms of you know, what
what is a primate and what isn't ape versus what
is you know, just whatever. But mamosetts and tamarins which
are colored stry kids to litricids collect kids. They are
also corporative breeders and they're very fast breeders as well,

(30:07):
rapid rapid breeders. Um, so you know, good for them.
It's also typical of our species. We tend to be
very fast breeders, and that's why we really shoot all
the other great tapes. What I find interesting as well,
is that we be able to breed so rapidly despite
the fact that our um do you remember um the

(30:29):
word for like carrying a child. I'm just black and
right now breggors. No, no, no, I think you're you're
thinking of the incubation period. Is that what we're trying
to think of. Yeah, but that's such a that that
feels like a very the humanizing way of witness. Yeah,

(30:49):
I'll just say that carrying a baby, you know, and
the costs because on you know, woman's body, on humans body, Um,
it is like whole thing. It's a whole thing. Yeah.
I mean if a people of having so many in
one lifetime despite the cost necessary to raise each I
mean other animals they have like meets and seasons and

(31:13):
you know, they have set amounts of children they could
have in their lifetime. But no, mm hm, you know
we could just I mean, they're their stories of women
who have had like dozens of kids, which is you know,
unfortunate circumstances because you know, in those cases it tends
to be um, not necessarily willing. But the fact that

(31:36):
we are capable of having many kids is lends towards
the importance of having support systems in place because other
animals don't tend to have more children they can care
for if that is you know, they care for children.
A lot of them just eat their kids if they
can't care for them exactly. Can't do that once it's

(31:59):
you know, makes sense, Yeah, whereas we kind of evolved
to have support systems in placement speaking of eating babies,
kind of the kind of is a dark side to that,
um because even though we tend to have you know,
these children and stuff, and we tend to supposed to

(32:21):
how these support networks to care for them, the practice
of infanticide is actually something that has a long long
history UM in human practice, where if a mother determines
that they're not able to raise their child, they don't
have the support systems in place to care for that child.

(32:45):
Different practices would typically be used to you know, deal
with that child. And that's of course what makes anti
abortion stances um so inhumane, you know, because Yeah, the

(33:08):
whole reason we that abortion is so um important is
because it protects the you know, the autonomy and the
agency of you know, people who can carry children. And
yet in this will it continues to atomize us and
individualize us and separate us um. You know, shipping some

(33:31):
people of their support network so we can in our
support networks. It's still expected to and punished heavily if
you do not just pump out as many children as
you can, and it's it's sick, it's really sick. Yeah,
that's not great when it comes to those support networks.

(33:51):
Most people are familiar with, you know, extended family like
for example, grand appearance UM and if as an infant,
survival is significantly affected by a grandmother's presence, which is
why humans tend to live long past there reproductively viable period.

(34:15):
You know, human females live after menopause for pretty long
time in commarison to other species, and of course their
grandmothers and there of course fathers. UM. There are sisters
and god parents and really a lot of other um

(34:36):
cultural systems in place, even polyandrous meeting UM. I think
I mentioned that in a previous in the previous episode.
There are also forms of like bilocal flexible residents patterns
where you know, you always have kin around to take

(34:58):
care of your infants. And I would say that it's
it's kind of tough because a lot of people these days,
you know, struggled with the extended families. Um, it's very
much cool. UM, I love you, but I'm glad we

(35:21):
live in separate kind of situation, you know, Like extended
families definitely have a lot of prouis and comments. Um,
which is why we actually find I think interesting a
lot of examples of chosen families throughout different societies. And
also even there's some evidence that that might have been
the case in the past as well, where unrelated people

(35:44):
would form groups together um. As one example I remember
reading about and of course this can't necessarily extended to
prehistoric times, but I've seen in multiple different hunt gatherer situations.
But um, where you have this this clan system in place, um,

(36:07):
and you can not so how far you travel, you
can expect to receive care for members of your clan. UM.
In North America, I think it was like the Beyer
clan and the Elk Plan and all these different plans. UM.
In Aboriginal Australia, they also have different groups as well,
and so people were able to interrupt with each other
across huge distances and settle in different places and connect

(36:31):
with others to find kin. You really when necessarily directly related. Yeah,
there's a couple I mean there's a there's a book
called sets It On that I read many many years
ago that's about kind of like the evolution of human
sexuality and how some of it's been like how different
cultures have looked at things like like what makes someone
apparent UM, And there's all these different attitudes, Like before

(36:53):
we had kind of the scientific understanding of like where
you know, how how babies are conceived um, that we
have now there were all these different attitudes like this
idea and I forget the name of the people who,
but they still exist with somewhere in Latin America, and
their their their belief was essentially that when you got

(37:14):
someone pregnant, that was the start of the process, and
then after like conception, the person with the baby would
go around and right, yes, yes, I remember that woman
for the baby. And the idea was that like, well, yeah,
when they fucked, that person's like essence gets added to
this forming child. And one of the things that that
does socially is it means that it means that for

(37:36):
that community, UM, children weren't seen as having one father.
They're seen as having a bunch of fathers, all of
whom were like responsible for teaching the kid and raising it,
which is like, oh, that's a very sensible way to, uh,
to organize your little society is to is to is
to ensure that like the kids coming up have as
many adults who are like responsible for them as possible,

(37:57):
which is, broadly speaking, the best thing you can do
for kids is to have a bunch of adults being
interested in their their their success exactly, because I mean, like,
if you have like one of the best hunters in
the village rais in your child, and you have the
best craftsman in the villageries in your child, and you
have the best fisher villageries and child, that child is

(38:18):
gonna have a very well rounded education. You know, it's
going to be able to learn a lot of different
skills that they're going to need. I mean, that's just
one of the many positive effects of having multiple care givers.
The development of a child's would view and sense of self,
their concept of self and others, their concept of empathy,
the concept of independence, how they how they view the

(38:42):
world as either dangerous or insecure or giving and welcoming,
and so I mean we are so used to this
nuclear family would view, which is these independent um households
that we don't consider that the fact that having a

(39:03):
broad range of people raising them is actually crucial to
their personal development as children, to the human development really
having all of those different perspectives and stuff in place.
And I mean that's part of what Pretty talks about,
especially in her final chapter, that being how in modern times,

(39:29):
the accumulation of property UM, the emergence of patriarchy UM,
even the stuff in the post industrial era, all of
these would prompt to shift from cooperative breeding, from cooperation
between groups, two war between groups, especially with property, because

(39:50):
when you have property, you have a need to hold
onswer property. And the whole idea of property is you
in yours the exclusion of all others right now. And
so at the end of her book, she also speculates

(40:11):
we might be losing our art of nurture because we
are continually evolving um. But she wonders what might be
potential evolutionary effects we if we are we wearing children
who are not living in internet contact with of a
variety of caregivers, because especially within those first two years
of life, influence rare and responsible care taking relationships developed

(40:36):
in a potentials for empathy, mind reading and cooperation and collaboration.
I mean, these behaviors are the outcome of complex interactions
between both genes and nurture. So the question is how
can these in their potentials remain more than potentials, you know,

(40:57):
I mean because the development of them is far from
garen teed. A lot of children these days are raised
without extensive social contact um. I mean, even in the
year of COVID, where a children are isolated at home,
especially the heights of pandemic. I already wonder if we
will see like a Mark at like distinct generation of

(41:21):
like within a range of two years of children who
just aren't as socialized because for those first two years
of their life they were kind of isolated. Well those
first few years, they're like they're kind of isolated because
there's this lack of empathy, lack of corporative skills, and

(41:46):
lack of attachment that make cause it's to Mr Mark,
it's it's really trauma. Um. But trauma doesn't necessarily stop
people from continuing that drauma from reproducing and carrying that on.
And so I really I'm really curious as to see
what the effects that might be and also what we
can do to try to um cube that negative impact.

(42:15):
The last question she asked is, really, will humans in
the future still be empathetic and curious and about the
emotions of others because of our ancient heritage? You not
care I'm paraphrasing here, or will these systems that we
have in place evolve us in the more Marcavillion direction. Well,

(42:41):
I guess that's the mystery that we're all going to
get to watch unfold in pieces, at least over the
course of you know, the rest of our lives and
everyone else's lives. It is, I don't know. I I
think the overall arcade speaks more to the things that
about us that are good into increasing cooperation, because that

(43:03):
is like the story of the last couple hundred thousand
years of human evolution, although at the same time some
of that a lot of that cooperation has gone towards
fucked up ends as well. Like, I mean, all of
the good and the bad things happening right now are
are one way or the other examples of cooperation, right
Like it's it's, uh, yeah, I don't know, let's help

(43:29):
things get better. So I think we could do more
than hoop. I think we cannot. Yeah, we're going to
have I mean like like that's the thing, right, Like
part of how specifically in the United States, I mean,
but internationally to the right has gotten so much over
the last really five or six years, in particular is

(43:51):
cooperation across borders and across like ideological differences. Like there's
there has been like tremendous sustained cooperation that has allowed
them to amass power um the power that they're currently exercising.
And the only thing that's going to actually counter that
is the cooperation um an organization if a much larger
amount of people, Like there's not that many of those folks,

(44:12):
that's why they've had to be so organized. There's a
lot more of us. But we're also can't stop fighting
about ship. So it is it is like we are
going to have to evolve in real time to cooperate
better with one another and more effectively in order to
in order to wrench the wheelback. That's true. M hm. Anyway,

(44:35):
that's not lose uh and let's not lose your plug
doubles Andrew, Yes, you can follow me on Twitter. I
don't disclose seeming true. I'm finding on YouTube andruism hell yeah,
hell yeah, Well folks, that's gonna be all for us
here today that it could happen here until next time,

(44:57):
go happen somewhere else. Okay, it could happen here as
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(45:18):
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