Joe Rogan Experience #1201 - William von Hippel

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   All right, here we…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      All right, here we go. Four, three, two... (hands thwack on desk) Hello, Bill.

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel0:08

      Hi.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:09

      What's going on, man?

   4. WHWilliam von Hippel0:10

      I am very excited to be here.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:11

      I'm excited to have you here.

   6. WHWilliam von Hippel0:12

      Excellent.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      Um, The Social Leap.

   8. WHWilliam von Hippel0:14

      Yes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      What's The Social Leap?

   10. WHWilliam von Hippel0:16

       I'll tell you all about it.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:17

       Please do.

   12. WHWilliam von Hippel0:18

       Okay. So, um, the story that I wanna tell is basically how we got here, how we became human. And so, that story begins about six or 7 million years ago, when our ancestors left the rainforest. And so, the question is, why would they leave and how would they survive once they left? And, and that's what The Social Leap is. So it takes a second to get it all out there, okay?

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Yeah.

   14. WHWilliam von Hippel0:40

       All right. So here's the story. (smacks lips) So if you look back about seven million years, our ancestors and chimps, we had a common ancestor at about that point in time, six or 7 million years ago. And that common ancestor, we don't know exactly what it looked like, but it was... from all we can tell, it was awfully close to today's chimps. And so there... if you look at chimps today, you can get a pretty good sense of what life was like then. And chimps today are really interesting. They're basically at the top of the food chain in the rainforest. They're super fast up in the trees, super athletic, and (stutters) because they travel in groups, even amazing tree climbers like leopards won't try to attack them in trees. It's just... they would-... it's-... they're too dangerous, too fast. But if you look at a chimp on the ground, it can't even lock its knees. It's this kinda cute little stumbling along thing. And then the question is, why would an animal that runs the show in the canopy leave the rainforest for the savanna, and then how would it survive once it did that? A- and that's, that's the story of this book, and then how that manifests itself to where we are today. So really, my goal, I'm a psychologist. I wanna understand why we are the way we are. And so, in trying to figure that out, I said, "Well, let's take a look back all the way to our common ancestors and see some of the key events and how they might have had an influence on how we are today." So the first question is, why would we leave the trees, right? Here we are. We're dominant position. We're, we're food on the ground. Why would we ever take that risk? And the basic story there is the Great African Rift Valley. I'm not sure if you've-... if you're familiar with it at all. But basically, it runs down from, um, up at the Red Sea down to the coast of Mozambique. And you can think of it like a geographic zipper. You know, all the world sits on these tectonic plates, and sometimes they crash into each other, like, uh, how India's smashing into Asia and creates the Himalayas. Sometimes they literally tear apart, and Africa's tearing apart at the Great African Rift Valley. So that plate that has Somalia and Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, that's moving off to the lower right. The rest of Africa is moving off to the upper left. And (smacks lips) I got no d- no idea why. It's been going on for quite a while. But one of the consequences of that is that the... East Africa's starting to rise up slowly bit by bit, and when it rises up, the rainforests dry out. And so basically, what you have is a situation where our ancestors were on the east side of that rift valley and it started to dry out, and now they're in a situation where they've got this great lifestyle, they're a dominant position, but now they're pushed... they're forced out onto the ground increasingly more and more because there's more and more ground and less and less rainforest. And so how do they survive that? What do they do in order to make that work?

   15. JRJoe Rogan3:10

       And this is, uh... What, what period of time is this? How many millions of years ago?

   16. WHWilliam von Hippel3:14

       (smacks lips) Six or 7.

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:15

       Six or 7. Does this coincide with the l-... When, when was the jump of the human brain size, where it doubled-

   18. WHWilliam von Hippel3:22

       Oh, we'll get to that. So-

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:23

       Okay, but-

   20. WHWilliam von Hippel3:23

       ... i- it's a super interesting question about-

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:25

       Mm-hmm.

   22. WHWilliam von Hippel3:25

       ... why that happened as well. So basically, if you track us across the next three million years, how did our ancestors survive when they're basically chimpanzees on the open savanna? And you can get a hint of how they did it, because there's one chimpanzee group that does live on the savanna in Senegal, and they, um, they show some differences between themselves and other chimps. They travel in slightly larger groups. They share more nicely with each other, which is interesting. That's kind of a human trait as well. And, uh, they also avoid open space. Like, they're just kind of s-... trying to stay near the trees as much as possible. And so... (smacks lips) And if you look at other apes, they're... not apes, but other primates that are on the savanna, like savanna baboons, they're only monkeys, so they're not as sharp as chimpanzees are, but they have a similar strategy, large groups to try to protect themselves and lots of eyes to look out for predators. And they do fine on the savanna. And so what I suspect happened is for the first few million years, basically what you've got is this chimp-like animal that's kind of skirting the edges of savanna, nowhere near the top dominant position they used to be, and just kind of noodling around. And that takes... I suspect that takes us for about the first three, three and a half million years. And if you look at who we are then, we're Australopithecus afarensis. So it's... if you looked at one of them, you'd think it belongs in a zoo. It looks almost like a chimpanzee. And so a chimp brain, in answer to the first part of your question, is about 380 grams, and an Australopithecus brain is about 450 grams. So three million years of evolution, and all we've got for it is 70 grams. So (smacks lips) why did we get so smart? Why did we take off in the next few million years? And what is it that Australopithecus did that, that helped us survive? And, and why do I call that the social leap?

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:02

       Mm-hmm.

   24. WHWilliam von Hippel5:02

       That's all kind of tied together. And the basic story is that by this point, Australopithecus has become bipedal. And we can talk about how that happened, if you'd like. And so, because they're bipedal, their waist is now stretched out. Their, um, their musculature, like if you look at chimpanzee pecs, they aim upward because, of course, chimps climb all the time. Um, Australopithecus is more lateral, like we are. We're basically completely lateral, because things are side to side as far as we're concerned. It's harder to climb a tree, but it's a whole lot easier to do a lot of other things. And, um, (smacks lips) we have a much more limber shoulder. We have much more limber wrists, all that sort of thing. And a lot of that was in place by Australopithecus. So once they became bipedal, they gained a lot of these qualities. And then the question is, why do those qualities matter? Well, the... if you watch a chimpanzee throw, it's terrible at it. Even though they're stronger than you and I are pound for pound by a sizeable margin, when they throw, they're inept. They can't aim very well, and they typically use two hands, because they're not lined up well to throw. If you watch a really good thrower, like, y- you know, a gridiron... a, a football player, baseball player or hunter-gatherer throw, you know, it's a full body motion, step forward with the other leg. There's this rotation, and the very last minute, you bring your wrists through. Well, what that does is it creates an enormous amount of elastic energy across your muscles, tendons and ligaments. And the end of that throw for a human is like the snapping of a rubber band. So-Chimps can't do that. They're not lined up properly. But australopithecus got to the point where they could probably do that pretty well. And so now, and this purely a byproduct of bipedalism, because it stretched out their whole body and they don't, they're not climbing as much anymore, so their musculature is more lateral, which would have been helped them for throwing. So now you get to a point where they have access to the single most important military invention in history, which is the capacity to kill at a distance. So if you and I are running around the savanna and a lion attacks us, and we got 50 of our best friends, we could kill it with our bare hands, but a lot of us are going to die in the process, right? 'Cause-

   25. JRJoe Rogan7:01

       You think 50 of us could kill a lion?

   26. WHWilliam von Hippel7:03

       I, let's make it 100. The, if someone-

   27. JRJoe Rogan7:05

       You really think even 100 of us could kill a lion? (laughs)

   28. WHWilliam von Hippel7:07

       (laughs) It would, you know, with a bunch of knives and shit.

   29. JRJoe Rogan7:08

       If I was a lion, I'd be super confident-

   30. WHWilliam von Hippel7:10

       Yeah, you, you wouldn't worry.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      it to a sanctuary and they would go to visit it, and the chimp would remember them, and they went to visit it and it was on its birthday, so they brought him a cake. And the other chimps in the sanctuary were furious that they didn't get the cake, uh, as well.

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel15:11

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:11

      They didn't think it was fair or they were angry.

   4. WHWilliam von Hippel15:13

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:13

      So they figured out somebody had left the gate open and they got out and tore this guy apart ...

   6. WHWilliam von Hippel15:18

      Yeah. So-

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:19

      ... because he didn't give them a cake.

   8. WHWilliam von Hippel15:20

      Yeah, so there's a m- the, the most famous example of that is actually with Capuchin monkeys, which aren't nearly as smart as k- chimps. And it's this amazing study by Sarah Brosnan and Frans de Waal. And if you wanna see it in action, de Waal has it on a TED Talk. It's really quite something to see.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:33

      Mm.

   10. WHWilliam von Hippel15:33

       And what they do in that study is they teach these Capuchin monkeys to ... They, they give them pebble, and they teach the Capuchins to return the pebble and they give it a cucumber slice. And so it's learned the game for cucumber slices. So if, if you wanted to ask, "Does the monkey think that's a fair reward?" The answer has to be yes, right?

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       Mm-hmm.

   12. WHWilliam von Hippel15:49

       'Cause it's, it's doing that for cucumber. So now you and I are both monkeys and we're in our cage. I return the pebble, I get a cucumber. Now you return the pebble and they hand you a grape. Capuchins much prefer grapes over cucumbers. And so then you ... What happens next? Well, I've been doing this behavior for cucumbers, but as soon as you get a grape, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not playing anymore." And you watch this tape and the Capuchin, it, uh, th- they give you a grape, they give me the cucumber, and the thing looks totally pissed. It starts pounding on the ground, it throws the cucumber back at the experimenter.

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:17

       Whoa.

   14. WHWilliam von Hippel16:17

       It's amazing, yeah?

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:18

       (laughs) Whoa.

   16. WHWilliam von Hippel16:19

       And so the question is, what does that mean? Why do they care about fairness in that way? And, and I think the answer to that question is sexual selection.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:26

       Oh.

   18. WHWilliam von Hippel16:27

       And so the key to sexual selection is, it doesn't matter what everybody's getting so long as I'm getting about as much as everybody else. But at the second that you're starting to get more than I h- have, well then whatever female's in our group, she's gonna pick you before she picks me.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:41

       Mm.

   20. WHWilliam von Hippel16:42

       And so everything is relative. We may think, you know, why do you care so much about what other people are doing? Why don't you just be happy with what you got? But literally the day you find out that the guy in the next studio over's salary's twice yours, your salary sucks.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:55

       Right.

   22. WHWilliam von Hippel16:55

       Because e- ... And it, it makes sense, because literally, sh- she's gonna choose him now before she chooses you.

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:01

       Comparison is the thief of joy.

   24. WHWilliam von Hippel17:03

       Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a-

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:04

       Yeah.

   26. WHWilliam von Hippel17:04

       It's a really unfortunate fact, because ... And sometimes it matters a lot. Like, for example, imagine I invent a drug and I say, "Here, take a dose and it'll double your IQ." Instantly, you're gonna feel like a genius. But unbeknownst to you, I gave everybody two doses.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:17

       Wow.

   28. WHWilliam von Hippel17:17

       You walk out of there, you're gonna feel like a dumbass, because there's ... People are saying stuff you can't understand, right?

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:21

       (laughs)

   30. WHWilliam von Hippel17:22

       So then it would matter.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Right. And the only…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      when they don't get exercise, their testosterone drops. Well, those are two things that absolutely happen when you get married and have children.

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel30:05

      Right. And the only thing I would say is the times, uh, the time span of this study was only over a few years.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:11

      But that's even worse. The thing about... Having this kind of a study and making these kind of, kind of conclusions based on... I mean, we kn-... We, the... See, we, we know these mechanisms are in place. We already know that there's natural effects of sedentary lifestyle, lack of sleep and, and the, the effects are your hormone production drops, your body suffers, you become less healthy. And this is, this is not in- indicating monogamy. This is just indicating poor health. This is not like an evolutionary advantage to having low testosterone because it helps you raise children. You can have high testosterone and still be a, a good dad and raise children and still have empathy-

   4. WHWilliam von Hippel30:50

      Of course.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:51

      ... and be a good partner.

   6. WHWilliam von Hippel30:51

      Of course. All these things are bell curves, right?

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:52

      Yeah. But just-

   8. WHWilliam von Hippel30:53

      The higher T you are, the harder it gets. I would say-

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:54

      But my, my part...

   10. WHWilliam von Hippel30:55

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:55

       My... The problem I'm having is, is drawing conclusions on this one study and stating them as if they're facts.

   12. WHWilliam von Hippel31:01

       No. You're absolutely right. If I say it's a fact, it's certainly overstated because we only know... The problem with almost all of our studies is the exact one you point out. We've got 'em on us, right?

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:09

       Right.

   14. WHWilliam von Hippel31:09

       We don't have... And so like the, the sex studies are a perfect example. Like things like female orgasm, what role does it play? Well, you need really good data on hunter-gatherers to know the answer to that question. If you look at hunter-gatherers, they don't have dad bod, right? They're all lean.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:23

       Right.

   16. WHWilliam von Hippel31:23

       And whether they're fathers or not, because they're out there hunting every day or gathering every day.

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:27

       Right. Very physically active.

   18. WHWilliam von Hippel31:28

       Yeah. So if I, if I oversold that, my apologies, because you're absolutely right. I suspect though that you'd find the same thing. I don't know it. It's all we got right now.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       Yeah. But how can you suspect it?I mean, it just ... There's no data.

   20. WHWilliam von Hippel31:40

       Yeah, there is no data. It's-

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       It just... I mean, when you look at these guys of ... I, I have a friend of mine who, um ... He was w- uh ... Yeah. Was it ... How do you say the name, the Yanomami in, uh-

   22. WHWilliam von Hippel31:49

       Yanomami.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:50

       ... Bolivi- Bolivia?

   24. WHWilliam von Hippel31:51

       Well, they're in Venezuela, Brazil.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:53

       Yeah. And, uh, he spent some time with them and you, you see these people and the, the lifestyle they live. They're all barefoot, wandering through the jungle. They have these crazy looking feet where their toes splay out because they're just constantly gripping the floor with their toes. I mean, they probably could choke you with their feet-

   26. WHWilliam von Hippel32:07

       (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan32:07

       ... you know?

   28. WHWilliam von Hippel32:08

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:08

       And these people just look so fit and healthy-

   30. WHWilliam von Hippel32:11

       Yeah.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. WHWilliam von Hippel45:00

      invented that tool. This, this Acheulean tool with this bifacial hand ax. Um, second of all, and, and one of my, one of the coolest findings, there's some interesting work in a 1.2 million-year-old site in India, uh, by Kerry Shipton, where he finds that the, um, the m- the production of these Acheulean tools is separated spatially about the place. So, the, the first step is bashing loose a big piece of rock, and that's done here, and then 10 meters over there, somebody's doing the initial chipping on it, and 10 meters over there, somebody's sharpening up the final touches. Now, if you were making it by yourself, why would you systematically walk around the site as you made it?

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:35

      Mm-hmm.

   3. WHWilliam von Hippel45:36

      You almost assuredly wouldn't.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:37

      Right.

   5. WHWilliam von Hippel45:37

      But if you've got division of labor, you're the big strong guy, you do the first thing, then you hand it to me and I do the finer sharpening, it makes sense that it would be spatially distributed about the site.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:47

      Hmm.

   7. WHWilliam von Hippel45:47

      So, there's that evidence for division of labor. There's the evidence that they're bringing down some pretty fast animals like horses and potentially even bringing down elephants, which in those days were like twice the size of an elephant. And then, uh-

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:59

      Were they using spears at that point?

   9. WHWilliam von Hippel46:00

      We don't know because they didn't survive, right?

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       Right. Right.

   11. WHWilliam von Hippel46:02

       And nothing wood is still around. There's no sign of hafting anything. So, if it was spears, it would've been a wooden point.

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:07

       Mm-hmm.

   13. WHWilliam von Hippel46:08

       So, I think what they could do-

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:08

       Hafting meaning the end of it-

   15. WHWilliam von Hippel46:10

       Like-

   16. JRJoe Rogan46:10

       ... cut in half so you can stick a-

   17. WHWilliam von Hippel46:11

       No. No. Uh-

   18. JRJoe Rogan46:11

       ... spear tip into it.

   19. WHWilliam von Hippel46:12

       Yeah. Exactly.

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:13

       And then-

   21. WHWilliam von Hippel46:13

       Exactly. Strapping it on.

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:15

       ... tie it down.

   23. WHWilliam von Hippel46:15

       Or, or any of a variety of way put. Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:17

       Yeah.

   25. WHWilliam von Hippel46:17

       And so, they ... There's no sign of that yet, but there's no reason why they couldn't have a sharpened spear. In fact, we know that, remember the, I mentioned the chimps in Senegal that live on the savanna. They're the only chimps on earth who do this. They'll bite the stick to sharpen it and poke, um, monkeys to ... When they're in the hollow of a tree and stab 'em.

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:34

       Did you see that recent discovery, and I mean, it's really recently. There was an article I read one or two days ago about orangutans, when they gave them wire, they used the wire to fashion it into fish hooks.

   27. WHWilliam von Hippel46:44

       No, I didn't.

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:45

       Yeah.

   29. WHWilliam von Hippel46:45

       That's totally cool.

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:46

       Yeah. They figured out what a f- how to make a fish hook, independently.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:04:24

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:00

      so once we get to Homo erectus, they're basically like us, although their, our brains, they're around 960, we're around 1350.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:06

      Mm-hmm.

   3. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:06

      So we literally have a chimp brain added on top of theirs.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

      Right.

   5. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:09

      So there's a big difference. And, and you're absolutely right. It's accelerating like crazy. And I, I, I'm totally convinced... Well, I believe Wrangham's right. I mean, we don't know for sure, of course, but I believe he's right that it was fire that played a huge role in that.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

      Mm-hmm.

   7. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:21

      And so what you got is this process where our evolution facilitates a further evolution, right?

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:26

      Right.

   9. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:26

      So you get the cognitive capacities to control fire, and now that allows you to grow your brain even larger, because we can, we can store fat. We can get more nutrients from the food we eat. We can detoxify other things.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:37

       Mm-hmm.

   11. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:37

       Fire is super valuable. Even chimps will eat... If they go through an area where there's a forest fire, you know, speaking of what's going on locally, they'll eat like the roasted nuts first.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:46

       Mm-hmm.

   13. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:46

       They really like that because... I mean, you know, just, you go in your kitchen, you smell a raw steak, it's like, unpalatable.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:52

       Right.

   15. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:52

       You smell it when it's cooking, it's delicious, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

       That is interesting, right?

   17. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:55

       And that's us-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:56

       Even with no salt or anything on it, yeah.

   19. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:57

       Yeah. It's our nose telling us that is a great source of food-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

       Right.

   21. WHWilliam von Hippel1:01:00

       ... and nutrients, that's not so much.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:02

       That is interesting. I've never thought about it that way. But yeah, there's a tremendous difference in the way your, your body reacts to it.

   23. WHWilliam von Hippel1:01:08

       (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

       And it's not just based on your experience eating it. It just (sniffs) smells amazing.

   25. WHWilliam von Hippel1:01:13

       Oh, yeah, yeah, smells amazing.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:14

       Yeah.

   27. WHWilliam von Hippel1:01:14

       And so Wrangham talks about... He argues that you, you can't live on a diet of raw food unless you're eating these like super fruits and stuff like that, that basically we've horticultured into existence, because raw food just doesn't give you enough calories. So the example that he uses, which is a great one, is chimps literally spend something like six to eight hours a day chewing-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:34

       Mm-hmm.

   29. WHWilliam von Hippel1:01:34

       ... just to soften up the food enough so that they can swallow it and digest it.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

       Right.

Episode duration: 3:00:24