"Evolution Played A Dirty Trick On Us" - Why Modern Life Feels So Empty - William von Hippel

1. 0:00 – 11:01

   Why We Aren’t Happier When We Have Everything

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Episode 41 was when you were last on the show.

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel0:04

      Wow, long after that.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:04

      And this will be 910 or something, maybe? So-

   4. WHWilliam von Hippel0:10

      You've been busy.

   5. CWChris Williamson0:11

      (laughs) Yeah. Well, so have you. Uh, but I've, you've barbelled, uh, two ends of a half decade of, of lots of content. Um, so I was thinking, I was just, I just got back from a walk, and, uh, I was thinking about your new book, and I had this sort of consideration in my mind whether it would be useful for us to still have hunter-gatherers living amongst us today, just to remind all of the modern humans about how good we've got it across human history, this sort of weird inequality reminder that would sort of be lingering there in the back of our minds.

   6. WHWilliam von Hippel0:43

      Yeah, that would be awesome. I mean, it, we, uh, not long ago, I remember ordering a pizza, and it came with barbecue sauce (laughs) instead of tomato sauce on my meat lover's pizza, and I was just devastated. I was like, "How could this happen to me?" And a l- a couple of hunter-gatherers in our existence, and I would go, "Oh, who cares about my pizza," right?

   7. CWChris Williamson1:02

      Yeah. So why, given the fact that, obviously the joke that everybody hates to hear, I hate to hear it, I hate to be reminded of my opulent, bourgeois, luxurious, you know, 21st century life, uh, but given the fact that living standards are objectively the best that they've ever been, why is it that so many people are struggling to lead happy lives despite being relatively blessed?

   8. WHWilliam von Hippel1:26

      Yeah, that's, that's the sort of shocking fact that got me started on this book. Um, and I always thought it was everybody else. You know, I read this literature, I know it very well. Being wealthy doesn't make you happy, and I kind of admit I felt a little superior to wealthy people, and I thought, "Well, you know, here I am, just middle class guy. If I were wealthy, I would be happier because I would appreciate what I have."

   9. CWChris Williamson1:47

      Mm-hmm.

   10. WHWilliam von Hippel1:47

       Um, and I even remember visiting an old friend and just marveling at his inability to appreciate this extraordinary wealth that he'd accumulated when, since we were kids. Um, but it wasn't until I was reading, um, Frank Marle's wonderful book on the Hadza that I realized, you know, I'm just as bad as he is. We all are. We don't appreciate these amazing riches that we have, and if you think about them, you might say, "Well, what does it really matter that we have, you know, a fancier chair or something like that?" But it's not just the trivial comforts. They, hunter-gatherers buried almost half their children. You know, they lived in a world that was dangerous and uncomfortable and unpredictable, and we live in this world that's comfortable and safe and, um, and has an endless opportunities for entertainment, and yet we're not any happier than they were. And if you look at the literature, there's all sorts of bits and bobs of advice, you know, express awe, express gratitude, do these things, and those are all, are pretty good pieces of advice. They, they help in the moment. But it doesn't answer the question of, how can we possibly not be happier than they are? And that's what got me started in, about 10 years ago, and it took me th- forever to figure out what I think might be an important part of the answer.

   11. CWChris Williamson2:52

       Yeah, it's, uh, I don't know. It's, uh, it's a upsetting realization that we all know in the back of our minds, and we all have this sense of ungratefulness, or at least I do. I, I, I have this, you know, I, I understand I can one-click order my Amazon parcel and it arrives one day late to, to my house, but I really wanted that sun cream so that I could-

   12. WHWilliam von Hippel3:14

       (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson3:14

       ... go to the beach, you know, on that day or whatever, and I had to go-

   14. WHWilliam von Hippel3:16

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson3:16

       ... to the corner shop, and I mean, the corner shop had it too, but th- you know, I was, how inconvenienced I was, and it just, I don't know. I, I don't necessarily like being reminded of it, but it does s- give us a very fascinating insight into the way that human psychology, well-being, satisfaction, happiness, uh, the way that that works, because it's so stark, and it's so front and center to all of our experiences. Even, even just over the last 50 years, the last 100 years, the difference in the quality of our lives, and yet, uh, are we, we, we, we, you might even know this, w- w- how do we rank in modern society in terms of happiness rates overall across the span of human history?

   16. WHWilliam von Hippel3:57

       Well, across the span of human history is a little hard. Um, we can look at the last 50 years where income has tripled basically in the US and Western Europe, and we can see that average happiness levels haven't increased an iota. They're completely flat. It's called the Easterlin paradox, while country gets richer. And so, the little conveniences don't seem to make much difference. The, you would think, uh, and it, and, it's fair enough because it probably annoyed you slightly to, your package was a day late, but then you probably got on with life, right? You probably didn't lie there all night going, "I can't believe I didn't have sun cream today," right? Um, so the little things make sense, but what doesn't make sense to me is the big things, that when you look at the data... So for example, um, some investigators went to Tanzania and asked the Hadza, "How happy are you?" And over 90% said they're happy. Basically, that was their answer, "I'm happy." Whereas when you ask the same question in Poland, which is where the investigators were from, less than 50% said that, "I'm happy." They chose instead of sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm sad, or even, "I'm sad." And so hunker-gatherers look like they're happier than we are, and, and that life of theirs is so difficult to lead, and so part of the story is clearly they, we get caught up, everybody gets caught up in the details of life. But there's gotta be a, a bigger part of the story when we zoom out that would explain why, you know, despite all these modern wonderfulnesses about our lives, we don't, uh, we don't have a greater, higher life satisfaction. You know, it's human nature to get annoyed at the small things, but why is it that we're not just walking through life going, "God, life is great"? You know, why don't we just appreciate this enormous opportunity and wealth that we have? Which I was feeling very superior for those people not appreciating it till I realized I'm not doing it either, right? None of us are.

   17. CWChris Williamson5:32

       Why do you think that is? What did you come to understand?

   18. WHWilliam von Hippel5:35

       So after a whole lot of (sighs) cogitating on the problem and looking into the details, what I've come to decide is that it all comes back, it comes down to this fundamental tension between our two most important needs. So humans evolved, uh, the most important need that we evolved after we left the trees and moved onto the savanna was a need for connection, and this is super important for lots of social animals. They connect with each other for their safety. Now, humans connect for each other for a host of reasons, and more than happy to chat about that if you're interested. But basically, it, it, we connected so that we could cooperate so that we could work together and we could, instead of scurrying around the edges of the savanna, we could slowly rise back to the top of the food chain. So it was connection that, that turned us into the apex predators on the planet. Took a long time, but it did the job.But simultaneous with our evolution of connection, which is- I would regard our most important need, this desire to cooperate, to form friendships, to form romantic relationships. Simultaneous with that, we also developed this need for autonomy. And by autonomy, I mean things like self-governance, choosing your own path in life. And the reason for that is that, well, you have to stand out a little bit so you can get chosen as a coalition partner. When you're out going on a hunt, I- I want you to pick me so that I've got a good chance, you know, you, you, you know, and I will catch something together. When there's, uh, a woman in our group who's looking for a partner, I want her to pick me so that my genes get in the next generation. That might not be my personal motive, but that's my evolutionary writ large motive. And so the problem is that our need for autonomy and our need for connection are in direct opposition to each other. Evolution kind of played this dirty trick on us, that in, you know, in order to be happy, we need both. But to the degree that I'm autonomous, I have to sacrifice my relationships. If- if you say, "Hey, let's go to the bar," and I wanna go play pool or, uh, well, that would be in a bar. If I- I wanna go swimming, uh, I- I have to decide, well, do I value my relationship with Chris so I can go out with him or do I really wanna do what I want to do? And the same with relationships. As soon as I agree to do what you want, I have to sacrifice my own individual needs. Unless we happen to align perfectly-

   19. CWChris Williamson7:32

       Mm-hmm.

   20. WHWilliam von Hippel7:32

       ... and then we get lucky. And so what I think is the problem is that our ancestors had a balance between these needs that made sense for humans and the modern world has kicked that balance out of whack.

   21. CWChris Williamson7:42

       So from a- an evolutionary lens, explain to me why autonomy is so important.

   22. WHWilliam von Hippel7:49

       So that- that's a great question. The, um, the thing about autonomy is if we were dung beetles, it- it probably wouldn't matter. You know, a dung beetle has one path to success in life. If it's a male, it has to roll the biggest ball of poo that it possibly can. And then the female will go, "Oh, that's a big ball of poo. I'll mate with you." And then she lays her eggs and then Bob's your uncle, you're ready to go. But if you're a human, there's many, many routes to success. And so you have to decide, "What's my best possible avenue?" And you know what your motivations are, you know what your, what you enjoy and you know what your proclivities are. And so the person who's best placed to choose your route to success is you. And you could argue, well, maybe your- your parents have watched your whole life, are really better than you are and you don't need autonomy, you just need to do what you're advised to do. But, you know, there's a zillion stories of people whose parents said, "No, no, I want you to do X," and- and they were determined to do Y and they were a success. I mean, you can... the- the author of The Godfather talks about how his mother wanted him to be a clerk in a railroad station because that's a reliable job and you'll always have, you know, they... it's hard to fire you and you'll always have an income. And, you know, if- if he'd taken her advice, we wouldn't have those amazing books and movies. And so... and probably every rockstar, I can't imagine one of their parents said, "Oh, I think you should be a rockstar." (laughs) So the... you need to decide that for yourself. And once you decide that, you need to decide what the route is to pursue that goal. And so autonomy is what motivates us to find our area of expertise, where we might be a success. Because remember, as humans, we're not like a dung beetle. We've got a million routes. Autonomy helps us identify what that'll be by seeing where we think we have good prospects, seeing what we enjoy and then pursuing it relentlessly.

   23. CWChris Williamson9:20

       What does success look like in the paradigm that you're talking about here?

   24. WHWilliam von Hippel9:25

       So, you know, from- from an evolutionary point of view, success only cares about reproduction. All that matters is, um, do you leave people in the next generation who carry your genes? And obviously that's a very biological perspective on success. But what that means is that if you think about the ways that our ancestors achieved that goal, it's all the things that we think about s- as success. And so what allowed me to find a partner and be a success? Well, a good reputation, having other people in my camp say, "I want Bill on my team when I go hunting," or, "I wanna hang out with Bill around the fire and share stories with him so we both learn from each other." All the kinds of daily things that matter. And success was a-

   25. CWChris Williamson10:02

       That sounds like a c- that, that sounds like a connection element rather than an autonomy element.

   26. WHWilliam von Hippel10:05

       Oh, absolutely.

   27. CWChris Williamson10:07

       Yeah, that's interesting.

   28. WHWilliam von Hippel10:07

       Absolutely. No, that's the thing. The irony here is that our autonomy evolved in service of connection. The reason that we want to be autonomous is so we can be a success, so people will connect with us, so that they'll choose us. Now, if we were ants, we wouldn't need autonomy to get there. You know, there's lots and lots of animals who don't need that. That's not a route to s- their success. We are in this unfortunately circumstance where connection is all that matters, but in order to be more likely to connect, you need autonomy. And so think about one of the... some of the greats in our world, LeBron or Steph Curry or somebody who spent hours and hours in the gym. You know, that's a lot of alone time, that's a lot of autonomy. But what it did is it made them some of the most connected humans in the planet. Everybody loves them, right?

   29. CWChris Williamson10:44

       Mm-hmm.

   30. WHWilliam von Hippel10:45

       And so they're, uh, in our- in ancestral terms, they're not only a success in our modern world, but they're a huge evolutionary success because everybody wants to be around them, everybody wants their company. And- and what... the way they achieved that enormous connection is through incredible autonomy.
2. 11:01 – 20:36

   Connection Through an Evolutionary Lens

   1. CWChris Williamson11:01

      So just give me whatever we've missed on the evolutionary lens on connection. I think everybody has this sense that a- a- a solo human doesn't last very long in the wild. It's important that you- you- you versus a lion is not a very good fight. You plus 15 of your mates against a lion is a little bit more fair of a fight. You plus 15 of your mates who've whittled a bunch of weapons for the last couple of weeks, that- that might be even more fair of a fight. Um, w- what else haven't we got from the, uh, evolutionary lens on connection?

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel11:30

      Well, so th- what you've got, what you've said so far is exactly on target. Those are the kinds of things that make connection important for all animals. And then humans start to become different because remember you just said whittling your weapons for a few weeks. Humans are the only species that can think about tomorrow, think about where they are today, and think about what do I need to do between now and tomorrow in order to make that a success rather than a failure? And so we sit around whittling weapons for weeks when no other animal has ever occurred to them to do that. And I say to you, "You know, Chris, maybe this time if you hide behind the tree and I come out from the right." And you're like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm left-handed. You come out." And I go, "Oh, great idea." You know, we make plans, right? All that really matters. There's one more element to human connection, though, that makes it magical and that, that I think is what makes our society such an incredible success. And the threat to connection is always that, um, A, there might be free riders. So, like, I do all my cooperating and hard work and then you run off with the prize. And B, there might be, um, uh-... there, there might be a cost to it that I can't pay. And so for example, if I'm a vampire bat and you are too, and we've gone out hunting for the night, we can't go for too many nights with, without success. And so, if you haven't had any success, you'll come to me and you'll, you'll expose yourself in a certain way that, that's sort of begging for some of the blood that I successfully hunted for that night. And if we're buddies, I'll give it to you. I'll... it's not pleasant but I'll regurgitate into your throat. I'm sure they think it's fine. So the problem is though that you and I could be best mates, but if I was a failure too, I, I can't give you anything. I'm like, "Sorry, Chris, man, I'd love to help you but I'm, I, I got no blood. I, I'm starving too." And so now we're both at risk. Now when you think about what humans share that matter the most, sometimes it's food, sometimes it's shelter, but nine times out of 10 it's information. I tell you something that's incredibly valuable and you're like, "Holy cow, I will invest in Apple," or, "Wow, I, I won't go around that corner because there's a lion right there." You know, and it kills me-

   3. CWChris Williamson13:17

      I will sell my OpenAI stock. Yeah.

   4. WHWilliam von Hippel13:20

      (laughs) Exactly. So the, um, the thing is that I can give you that for free. If, if I know something that you don't know, it doesn't matter if you're ever gonna repay me. You know, you and I are walking through the national park and I say, "Hey, mate, you may wanna turn around. There's a bear 50 meters ahead of you." And you go, "Oh, I'd like to turn around." So I just saved your life, I don't even know you, it doesn't matter, and I don't... the, the fact that you'll never repay me doesn't matter 'cause it was so easy to give you that.

   5. CWChris Williamson13:43

      Essentially costless.

   6. WHWilliam von Hippel13:45

      So, yeah, so we're information machines. That's our niche, and it turns out we're so good at communicating, we can give it to each other for free when we want to.

   7. CWChris Williamson13:52

      Okay. How does that add complexity in?

   8. WHWilliam von Hippel13:57

      Well, it, it, it solves a bunch of problems. So if I'm a, um, a vampire bat and I'm gonna give you some of my blood, I, I have to say, "Well, let me think. What happened? What did Chris say last time I asked him?" And, and, you know, "Is he gonna come through for me next time and how do I know?" Well, I just don't care if all I'm doing is telling you something because you don't ever need to repay me. I can... it's, it's costless for me to give it to you. And so humans have created societies where by and large we pay it forward. We live in a world where we all kind of trust each other, where we all look out for each other, and it's so easy, it's so costless. Um, I remember, you know, i- it's all so nice because what happens along with the costlessness is the person who received it doesn't reflect on the cost of the giving, they reflect on the value of the receiving. And so I remember the first time I ever went to a conference and, um, I, I didn't know a soul. And so I, I got my plate, you know, I'm, I'm sitting down next to my fellow academics, I'm really excited 'cause I'm this brand new academic and I'm learning about my world, and I sit down between these two people who I now know well and are really nice people but they're actually super shy, and they literally turned their back on me. And so I'm like, uh, I'm sitting all by myself at this first conference, I don't know a soul, and this, this pretty famous professor from Santa Barbara sees this situation and he walks over, plops down at the table behind me, turns his chair around and says, "Hey, I'm Dave. Great to meet you. What do you do?" Like I, I'm sure he couldn't care less but he's just like politely welcoming me to the fold because it's costless. It's just chitchat and information. Well, now, I, I remember that so fondly that many years later when he's retiring, I wrote about that in his little retirement blog, and he... uh, we run into each other again and he goes, "Oh, that was so nice of you to write about that. I have to admit I have no memory for it at all."

   9. CWChris Williamson15:33

      (laughs)

   10. WHWilliam von Hippel15:33

       And I was, uh... I was like a little bit hurt, like, "How could he have saved me at my very first conference and he can't even remember?"

   11. CWChris Williamson15:40

       Mm.

   12. WHWilliam von Hippel15:40

       Well, now the shoe's on the other foot, and I run into a colleague of mine who's a good 15 years younger, and I say to ano-... he and I run into each other in the hall and I say to the person who's with him, "Oh, he and I have known each other since we were grad students." Or he was a grad student. And he goes, "No, no, I met you when I was an undergrad." And I was like, "Really?" And he goes, "Yeah, yeah. I was at a conference, um, I, I was standing there. You just walked up to me and asked me how I'm doing and what I'm interested in, and then the people you were with were going off to lunch or, or a talk or whatever and you invited me to come along." And I was like, "Oh, sorry. I, I don't remember that." Because it's like so easy to do that for somebody else but it means so much to them.

   13. CWChris Williamson16:13

       Mm.

   14. WHWilliam von Hippel16:14

       And so obviously I was just channeling the lesson I had learned before. It was so easy to do, it was nothing, and the consequence of all this is that we feel this enormous debt when others help us out. We think, "I'm gonna do that myself. I'm gonna pay forward in this kind of way." And we create these sort of societies with these virtuous circles in them where people are actually really good to each other all the time because it's so easy to do that. No other animal can come close to that.

   15. CWChris Williamson16:36

       Yeah. I imagine the, the complexity, the compute that's needed to be able to keep track of all of this, because there is a sense of coalition going on here, there is a sense of reciprocity, even if it's relatively costless. Uh, that means that the information can be spread more strategically. You can give it to some and not to others. If you're a bat that's only got however many milliliters of seal blood that it's got over the last n- evening of, of hunting, uh, it... uh, algorithm's relatively easy. It's like, is this enough for me to survive? If yes, maybe I can give some to my friend. How long ago was it that they gave me it? Whereas if it's free information, well, how valuable is this information and how close to my coalition is this person and do I really want them to know that?

   16. WHWilliam von Hippel17:19

       Yeah. And th- there's all those computations, but, but nine times out of 10... you know, every once in a while I know something that I just don't want you to know, and we can talk all about privacy, 'cause that's where privacy gets all caught up into it. But setting that aside... and also every once in a while I know some really cool information that I can leverage if you don't know it, and so I wanna keep that to myself. Those two things definitely happen. But it's also the case that most of the things I know are, are... aren't necessarily valuable to me but could be very valuable, valuable to you. So if we take a look at the, one of the most cited papers in the social sciences, it's called The Strength of Weak Ties, and in that paper the ar- the author argues that it's not your close friends who are really valuable to you in making career moves and things like that, it's your distant friends. And the reason for that is your close friends are highly motivated to help you, but you know what they know. Your distant friends are barely motivated to help you, but you don't know what they know. And so the moment they run across a job that's in your, uh, in your, you know, wheelhouse, th- it's not theirs, th- they don't want it, but they know of its existence. If you ask them, "Oh, hey, anybody hiring at your firm?" They go, "Oh, yeah, actually we're looking for a new engineer to work on the wing," and you're like, "I'm a wing engineer. I'd love to do that," right? So he argued this. Um, they tested it on LinkedIn, and sure enough it's true. The, the people who are m- your more distant ties, they manipulated the algorithm as an experimental test across millions of people, and your more distant ties were more likely to help you find a job than your close ties were.Now, humans are- th- well, there's one of the species that can kind of do this, dolphins can do this. Um, males form these coalitions across very broad networks where they, um, cooperate with each other in interesting kinds of ways in their mating competitions. But so far as we know, no other animal can come close to what humans can do by forming these kind of coalitions across distant ties where we can transmit information that's so valuable.

   17. CWChris Williamson19:04

       So how did hunter gatherers manage this balance?

   18. WHWilliam von Hippel19:08

       So hunter gatherers man- managed this in interesting ways. You know, they... First of all, they... Hunter gatherers have very tight group boundaries and so if you- you're, you're one of us or you're not. Now, it, it... That's an ethnic linguistic kind of decision. People in the, in our ancestor world never met somebody who was a different color because, of course, those gradients were, were long across latitudes. But they would meet somebody who dresses or marks themselves differently, they would meet somebody who has a different accent, and those meetings were always fraught with danger. You know, sometimes they're an opportunity. It doesn't mean things are gonna go badly. Like, maybe my group meets yours and, and, um, some of the people switch groups or, or find partners in the other group so we can avoid inbreeding, et cetera, but, but it was risky business. It's inside the group where everybody knows everybody or at least knows them by relationship. And so, for example, in Papua New Guinea, if two strangers run into each other, they stop at a safe distance. This is in the North Highlands traditionally where it's really risky, very violent culture. They stop at a safe distance and they say, "Hi, I'm, I'm Bill, son of Art," and you say, "Oh, I'm Chris, son of Bob," and I go, "Hmm. Don't know Bob. All right, um, my cousin is Joe Schmoe," and you say, "Oh, Joe's my sister's niece's brother." I go, "Oh, we're good." And so we just have to look for a way that we... that things are gonna be okay, right?

   19. CWChris Williamson20:22

       Mm-hmm.

   20. WHWilliam von Hippel20:22

       We have to look for a way that we can connect so that it's not a risk. But so long as it's not, so long as we're okay, then we're happy to share information, we're happy to do all those kinds of things, so long as we're not, you know, giving away things that are critically important for us.

3. 20:36 – 25:16

   What Drove Hunter-Gatherers to Connect?

   1. WHWilliam von Hippel20:36

   2. CWChris Williamson20:36

      I'm gonna guess that without laws and police and stuff, hunter gatherers needed more connection to enforce group norms to ensure the behavior didn't get too crazy, so that that need for connection is driven by a need for, uh, cooperation, uh, calmness inside of the group.

   3. WHWilliam von Hippel20:59

      Hunter gatherers create their own kind of informal laws, and so they police each other, they monitor each other, but there's no formal network of protection. And so if you decide that... to pummel me, um, and I can't stop you either physically or maybe I... y- your coalition is stronger than mine, well, pummeled I will be, right? And so we have to find a way to navigate our social networks. It's a little bit like the grade school was when I was a kid in the '60s and early '70s where, you know, you... teachers let you resolve your differences. Your, your bloody nose will dry up in the cold weather and things are gonna be fine. And so you, you have to resolve your own differences, and what that means is that I... you know, I, I'm a little guy, how am I gonna navigate this world where everyone can pummel me? Well, I've gotta have good friends, I've gotta have a lot of people who see my value. And then even though you're twice my size, when you run into me, you're not gonna even consider pummeling me 'cause you go, "If I pummel Bill, all sorts of other people who matter and who are large- matter, matter to him are gonna be angry at me. And so I'll treat him with kindness because that's in my best interest." And, and so not only do... people were kind to each other 'cause they like each other, but they're kind to each other 'cause they're members of coalitions that demanded it.

   4. CWChris Williamson22:10

      The selection pressures, the difficulty of the environment, I imagine, also must have driven way more connection because you need... i- it's, it's you versus the elements, whereas-

   5. WHWilliam von Hippel22:22

      Sure.

   6. CWChris Williamson22:22

      ... all I need to go d- do is twist the nest thermostat and-

   7. WHWilliam von Hippel22:26

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson22:26

      ... the e- ele- the, the elements can go fuck themselves.

   9. WHWilliam von Hippel22:28

      Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And so we formed super tight connections 'cause we had to. And so remember earlier I talked about how we've lost the balance of our ancestors? Well, they lived in a world where connection was everything, and so if you... if, if I'm gonna go off in the savanna, I wanna go with you because, like, there's two of us and now we can defend ourselves much more easily. I want to be with my group, and there's all sorts of rules that demand that I share with my group, that I do things that help us protect each other. The clearest example is that even though humans form societies that are all sorts of... the rainbow of colors of ways of doing things, there's a couple of rules that never change, and one of those rules is that in immediate return hunter gatherer societies where you eat today what you kill today, so that's why we call them immediate return, you always have to share the proceeds of the hunt. And so if women go out, they typically did the gathering, if they gathered up lots of food, they don't have to share that outside their household if they don't want to. They would typically share it with the people at the gathering, but men have to share the proceeds of the hunt across everybody. So there's a lot of rules that we simply can't violate, and I could decide to. If I'm the biggest guy, I'm like, "Okay, I'm eating all this elk. You guys can all piss off." Well, tomorrow morning when I wake up, I'm sitting there by myself. Few guys have pissed off and now I'm in deep doo-doo because I might have been the biggest guy in a group, but I still am not a force that I can contend with nature on my own. And so everybody's compelled to th- keep the group interests in mind, to do what the group wants you to do and feel these really, really tight connections to say safe- to stay safe.

   10. CWChris Williamson23:52

       What are some of the other universal rules?

   11. WHWilliam von Hippel23:56

       Bizarrely, I, I, I can't make heads or tails out of this one. Maybe somebody... uh, and I've never met anyone who knows the answer. Um, women always do the cooking. So, uh, I, I don't know why that is. You know, people have conjectured. Well, maybe it's, it's the, the, the process of giving her the meat from the hunt is a form of connection, but I, I can't... It's, it's possible. I haven't... I've never heard a compelling answer. Sharing the proceeds of the hunt makes good sense because-

   12. CWChris Williamson24:21

       Mm-hmm.

   13. WHWilliam von Hippel24:21

       ... most hunts fail, so you want an insurance policy where everybody gets to eat at least something. But, but why should she always cook? I have no idea.

   14. CWChris Williamson24:28

       That's interesting. I'm trying to think about some sort of psychological sex differences. Women's better local, uh, memorization, like spatial memorization close by. Maybe they know what...... herbs go in the pot more effectively or something.

   15. WHWilliam von Hippel24:46

       (laughs)

   16. CWChris Williamson24:46

       I mean, I'm really, I'm really grasping at straws here th- that she knows the difference between thyme and sage because she can remember it more effectively. I'm like... Uh, yeah, that's, that's really interesting.

   17. WHWilliam von Hippel24:56

       It's possible.

   18. CWChris Williamson24:56

       That's really interesting.

   19. WHWilliam von Hippel24:56

       It's possible. And, and women are more connected. You know, men are more autonomy-ish machines, and women are more connected machines. Both need both. And, and maybe that connection compels you, i- is part of the process where you're preparing for... I, I don't know. I have no idea. I'm only... Yeah, I like your thyme-sage explanation, though.

   20. CWChris Williamson25:12

       I, uh, we'll sh- we'll go with that one. Um,

4. 25:16 – 29:58

   How Materialistic Were Hunter-Gatherers?

   1. CWChris Williamson25:16

      materialism. Uh, how materialistic did you find out hunter-gatherers were?

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel25:21

      Well, that's a funny one. So, you know, hunter-gatherers essentially own nothing and for a host of, not nothing, but very little, for a host of reasons. Um, A, it's hard to make things when you're a hunter-gatherer because you don't have the modern equipment. B, you gotta carry it with you everywhere you go, so you can't exactly own that winter coat that you might want to use two days out of the year 'cause you're schlepping it the other 363. Um, and then the final reason for that is, remember I mentioned this, this, this mandatory sharing of meat. Well, there's mandatory sharing of anything if you own more than one or two of them because it's this society where everybody has to work together. And so what that means, it creates this really remarkable lifestyle where this rule about meat sorta gets spread across to everything. And so if I own two or three shirts, you could say, "You know, Bill, I really like your shirt." And the right answer is, "Oh, okay," you know, "Here you go, mate." And so the thing is that we... You end up with this society that's, that's wonderfully equal in the sense that everybody shares everything with each other, but this... And, and so that looks really nice. It looks kinda utopian. But the downside of it is I don't actually have the right to keep my own stuff. And so I remember this anecdote where this old guy in Hadza, I think he was, had been given a, a sweatshirt, um, from a tourist. And he's talking to the anthropologist who visits the group and he says, "I'm meant to share this. I know I shouldn't keep it for myself, but I'm tired of sharing everything I own with everybody and I just want to keep it. I want to be comfortable." And you, you kinda can't blame the guy, right? You know, he's probably feeling old and cold sometimes, and he just wants to keep it. We see this in a lot of different domains. Um, I remember I worked with this, uh, I worked up on this remote island in northern Australia with the Anindilyakwa people and, um, I, I joined them for a couple of days while we're doing what's called ghost netting. These nets get, break loose from fishing boats and kill lots and lots of fish, and so people around the world gather them up, catalog what they are, and then we can see where the, they're getting accidentally released and what might be done to help the problem. And it's crazy hard work because these nets get caught up in everything, and so you're dragging this, like, rubbish out of the sea. Anyway, th- these guys were doing an amazing job and I was talking to their manager afterward, and he goes, "Yeah, so they're doing amazing work. I mean, they're crazy hard-working in the hot sun." And so I tried to give them a raise and they were like, "No, thanks." And he's like, "No, thanks?" And they're like, "When I come home, everybody takes all my money that I earn, and so I don't benefit from that r- at all. It's just kinda frustrating that now I'm losing more money." And he says, "Oh, well, how about if I bought you a really nice breakfast when you arrive in the morning?" And they're like, "Oh, I'd love a really nice breakfast." And so, you know, they're, they're just as materialistic as we are. All humans are materialistic. And in fact, anthropologists say that when they arrive they're constantly saying, "Well, look, you've got two of those. I'd like to have one of them."

   3. CWChris Williamson27:58

      (laughs)

   4. WHWilliam von Hippel27:59

      "I actually, I actually need these," right? And so they s- they look like they're not materialistic, but they're just the same as we are in that regard. They just don't judge others by their material goods. So if I see-

   5. CWChris Williamson28:09

      Mm-hmm.

   6. WHWilliam von Hippel28:09

      ... you in the street and you're in a flash car, I'm like, "Wow, that Chris Williamson's really cool. He's more successful than I am." They don't do that because they'd say, "Hey, can I have your car?" (laughs) And you've got no choice but to give it to them, right?

   7. CWChris Williamson28:19

      Mm. W- uh, there has to be an incentive... It's such an, it's such an interesting game that was played there where, um, let me give you a thing that you can consume without the conspicuous consumption of the rest of your group seeing you consume it. Uh, there must be hunter-gatherer stories where they make a kill and they just eat there and then. They don't bring it back-

   8. WHWilliam von Hippel28:42

      Yes.

   9. CWChris Williamson28:42

      ... to the tribe. There must be a time where they find a new berry bush or nu- nut bush or something and they just go to town. They're like, "Well, I mean, we came back with, it's a few berries, but there w-"

   10. WHWilliam von Hippel28:50

       (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson28:50

       You know, the, the tree, it was-

   12. WHWilliam von Hippel28:52

       Oh, it's much better.

   13. CWChris Williamson28:52

       ... it was very, it was kind of sparse overall, be- berry juice all over his face.

   14. WHWilliam von Hippel28:56

       Yeah. Yes. No, that's exactly right. That happens all the time. And the classic example is honey. The, um, honey is the, they, they, they'll find honey up in the tree, you know, it's pretty dicey business getting it, but they love it because, you know, here we have access to sugar as much as we want, but nothing in, in our ancestor world is as sweet and delicious as honey is. And so it's way up on the, on the want list, and you just don't bring it home. It, it, it, you, you come home covered (laughs) in honey.

   15. CWChris Williamson29:22

       (laughs)

   16. WHWilliam von Hippel29:22

       And, and you have just a little tiny piece, you know, they... Uh, but everybody knows that about each other, right? And so you say to me, um, "Oh, Bill, I think I'm gonna wander off today," and I'm thinking, "Chris is after honey," and I'm like, "Hey, man, I'm with you," because at least now you and I are gonna score it together, right?

   17. CWChris Williamson29:36

       Mm-hmm.

   18. WHWilliam von Hippel29:36

       And, and there's even some interesting animals that help us find honey, um, because then we make a little bit of mess and then they get some too. And so there's these interesting cross-species cooperation. And I see one of those birds near you and I say, "Yeah, I'm hanging with Chris today because I think he's got plans," 'cause they know full well that... You know, they, they eat today what they catch today, but they're gonna eat right then and there what they get when it's really, really good.

5. 29:58 – 32:09

   How Hunter-Gatherers Maintained Networks

   1. CWChris Williamson29:58

      What was that story about eggshell beads?

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel30:01

      Oh. So yeah, eggshell beads are a great example. So, um, the, this, this comes to a, a tradition that's, that's quite related to what we've been talking about before, and it's among the !Kung San in the Kalahari Desert. And so they have this tradition which I don't even know how to pronounce, !Xósaro or something like that, I- I'm not quite sure how it's said. But what that tradition is is that they've got a set group of, a network that, eh, sometimes they're kin but by and large they're friends, and that network is required to share with each other and they maintain the network with regular gifts. And so if you're on my network, um, and I know your camp is somewhere over there, sometimes hard to find each other 'cause we all wander around, but eventually I find you. And when I know where you're gonna be, I'll try to put together a collection of gifts for you so that I can reconnect with you and you'll do the same for me. And one of the most common gifts that you would give is these, these, um, beads that are made out of o- ostrich egg shells. And so...the, they're- they're pretty and they travel well. They're, they're kind of like our equivalent of money. Um, you know, they're- they're easy to put in your pocket, so to speak, a- and they're really nice. So the, um, the- the interesting thing about these networks is that you're actually mandated to help me if I run out of steam. And so let's say that my, there's a drought in my section of the desert in which there is commonly, I can go to you and say, "Chris, I'm really hungry." And you're like, "Oh, well here. Okay, have my pizza," 'cause you've got no choice, but I've got no choice too. We're gonna look after each other no matter what if we're part of that network. And one of the interesting things about those networks is that they can be super broad and, in fact, they almost always are. There's almost always one or two people in your network who live at least 100 k- kilometers away from you. And you think, "Why would you do that?" That's a lot of schlepping to give you some ostrich beads, shake hands, say, "I hope you're well, brother," and then move on. And the reason for that, of course, well, what we believe is the reason for that is that, you know, things could go very pear-shaped in my region of the world. The farther away you are, the better the chances are that your part of the world is still okay. And so we don't maintain very many connections that far away, but they do. They always maintain at least a few and they make sure that, you know, on a reasonably regular basis that they catch up with everybody so that they always know they've got this insurance policy in place. You know, they're eking out a living in a really hard part of

6. 32:09 – 40:47

   Tensions Between Competence & Warmth

   1. WHWilliam von Hippel32:09

      the world.

   2. CWChris Williamson32:09

      Yeah. One of the other things I was really fascinated to learn was this tension between competence and warmth, and that these two things are, uh, they're opposed in-

   3. WHWilliam von Hippel32:21

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson32:21

      ... in some ways.

   5. WHWilliam von Hippel32:22

      Yeah, they are opposed, and so if you come back to this argument I was making about autonomy and that we- we develop a sense of autonomy in order to develop competence. That's how we- we decide the area where we have best prospects. If we're Mario Puzo and we wanna write The Godfather, we don't listen to our mother when she says, "I want you to become a real-world clerk," and we- we go for it, right? We- we put everything on the line and try to make it as a writer or whatever we see our competence. Well, so esau- autonomy's in service of competence. It's what gets us there. Now the- the downside of that is that for me to develop competence, sometimes it's working together as a team, but very often it's trying to develop my own skill, carving that arrow over and over again, um, sneaking up on the hunt, doing whatever it is that I do that- that I think makes me special. And that req- that often requires a lot of self-focused attention, a lot of you say, "Hey, man, I'm gonna go to the party," and I say, "You go," I've- I've got baskets to shoot or I've got baskets to weave, you know, whatever my competence is, right? And- and so the- the upshot is that the more I develop competence, the more I have to sac- sacrifice my connections, and that's certainly the case in today's world. I mean, if you look at what school asks us to do, it's all about study, study, study, study. And so yes, you sometimes study in groups, but what you're really trying to do is learn the material yourself, and so what it means is sacrificing don't go out on recess and play, you know, work hard and do these other things. The consequence of that is that we tend to see people who are competent as being cold if we know nothing else about them, and we t- and vice versa. If we see somebody-

   6. CWChris Williamson33:45

      So what's- what's cold and warm in this context?

   7. WHWilliam von Hippel33:48

      So cold is our, and warm refer to, our natural tendency and ability to connect. And so if I connect easily and in a friendly manner to you, I'm a warm person. So you meet me on the bus and- and you say, you know, "Oh, excuse me," and you sit down and I go, "Mm," and I just don't pay any attention to you, I- I'm not friendly and warm. In fact, "Oh, of course, mate, I'd be happy to move over. It's good to see you. Yeah. These trains sure are wobbly, hard to read," you know, whatever, I- I just engage with you, then I'm- I'm being warm. And people vary dramatically in how warm or cold they are, they vary dramatically in how competent or incompetent they are, but because trying to be more warm tends to sacrifice your competence, you know, when I, when you sit down next to me on the bus, if I then pay attention and chat with you the whole trip, I'm not reading that book that I really should learn in order to be a better accountant, right?

   8. CWChris Williamson34:33

      Mm-hmm.

   9. WHWilliam von Hippel34:34

      I'm sacrificing my own time to dedicate it to you. And so these two things tend to be negatively correlated, and we know that, and so we regard warm people as incompetent. You know, so you meet somebody who's warm and you go, "Yeah, I bet they're not very good," and you meet somebody who's cold and you go, "Oh, I- I bet they're pretty competent"-

   10. CWChris Williamson34:48

       (laughs)

   11. WHWilliam von Hippel34:49

       ... "because on average that's true."

   12. CWChris Williamson34:51

       That's a, I- I wonder whether that could be manipulated in a job interview to go in and seem overly cold and like a- a- an absolute killer. Uh, I-

   13. WHWilliam von Hippel34:59

       Well, it could be-

   14. CWChris Williamson35:00

       ... I- I, my, my abilities are completely terrible, but I mean, he seemed- he seemed like he was such a serious actor.

   15. WHWilliam von Hippel35:06

       Yeah, exactly. You'd wanna make it, you, what- what would be the perfect thing is if I could say, you know, "You and I, you, my potential boss, you and I really connect, man. We're gonna be on the same page. I hate everybody else. All I like to do is, you know, I'm a competence machine."

   16. CWChris Williamson35:17

       Mm. Yeah, so it's, I- is it, another way to put this would be that people that are very competent, there is this subtext that in order to have achieved this level of competence, I must have been quite selfish for a good while.

   17. WHWilliam von Hippel35:32

       Yeah. You, at the very least, you were self-oriented. You may not have denied other people f- requests that they made of you, but when given the opportunity, you ignored them and did your own thing. And that's what it, uh, and some people are so crazy good that they can get there and be friendly every day. You know, one of my old roommates is a professor at Harvard Medical School and all he ever did his whole life was hang out and play. I- I don't understand how he does it. He's just that good, right? But most-

   18. CWChris Williamson35:54

       Somehow als- also was an awesome professor.

   19. WHWilliam von Hippel35:56

       Yeah, exactly. 10 zillion grants, changing the world. Um, but somehow, but most of us can't do that, and so most of us, if we become highly competent, we have to sacrifice, at least for a while, we have to sacrifice our connections. Again, the irony is I'm becoming competent so that down the road you're gonna want me on your team, you're gonna want to connect with me. And- and the other side of that that's interesting is if you look at hunter-gathers, they actually prefer the warm ones over the competent ones. So long as you achieve some baseline level of competence, when they're choosing teams to go hunting in the morning, they choose the warm one. Because think about it this way, you know, if I'm the best hunter in the group but I don't share nice with you, what good does it do you to pick me? But if I'm the best, if I'm a adequate hunter and I always go, "Oh, hey, no, you have the hind leg. You're a great guy," you're like, "I wanna go out with Bill because I'm gonna benefit more from it." And so warmth actually trumps competence so long as you're not incompetent.

   20. CWChris Williamson36:44

       Wow, so even when going on a hunt-

   21. WHWilliam von Hippel36:46

       Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson36:46

       ... a warmer, friendlier, better hang will be chosen over a better hunter.

   23. WHWilliam von Hippel36:51

       Yeah, every time.

   24. CWChris Williamson36:52

       Yeah. I- I- I've been, uh, thinking a lot about bands and how bands tour recently, and, um, I wondered, I asked a friend, a bunch of friends this question actually, which is how many times when you've tried to find somebody new for a group, or previous groups have in the past, have you found someone who's a fucking virtuoso? Like, man, he just, on the bass, you know, it's like it's an extension of his body, uh, but when they get back on the tour bus, he sucks. Uh, or- or the- the equivalent, whichever other position it is. And, uh, apparently it happens all the time. You think, okay-

   25. WHWilliam von Hippel37:21

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson37:21

       ... well, what does that show? It shows that competence actually doesn't always win out, even in something which is, you know, very tight performance, uh, you- you- you're on stage. Nobody on stage, no one in the thousands of people in the crowd that's looking at you really cares about-

   27. WHWilliam von Hippel37:37

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson37:37

       ... the vibe back on the tour bus, beyond however much it impacts your performance. But you can't separate out what it's... You- you- you don't stop, you don't turn your brain off as soon as you step off stage and you go, "Oh, God, I've got to sit down with Rick again, he's gonna do my head in for the next 23 hours until we get back on stage and I finally get a bit of peace from him and he gets to do the one thing that he's actually good at." Um, so yeah-

   29. WHWilliam von Hippel37:58

       Yeah, that's right.

   30. CWChris Williamson37:58

       ... it's, even in, even in, uh, modern environments I think we still have this- this sort of sense, this subtext. So, and just to kind of, I guess kind of summarize and ensure that I'm at the right place, the thing that's most important to humans is connection. One of the ways that we can get to connection is by being prosocial, by being reciprocal, by bonding, by being warm, by being friendly. That's a suggestion that if times are tough, we will help you and we will bound together. We're- we're trustworthy. Uh, one of the other things that we can do is to develop competences. These competences help us to stand out, they give us value, they make sort of each unit of effort that we can give to you more valuable because we're kind of more effective with- with our units of effort. Uh, but in order to be able to develop these competences, we need to use autonomy because it's very difficult to work on our skills whilst also being super prosocial, because those two things tend to be at least a little bit in opposition. "I can't focus on me whilst focusing on you, I need to go away, Steph Curry it for 500 shots for today and then come back and then we can run some drills as a team," or whatever it might be. And these two things are in tension because the most direct route to doing it is the human connection part, but human connection in the absence of competence means that you're probably going to be beaten for mate choice, you're going to be beaten for, uh, selecting, being- being selected to go on the hunt. You're not gonna have the same kind of status. And as soon as you put hierarchies in, and as soon as you have female mate choice, you end up, um, as soon as you have mate choice at all, you end up with everybody trying to jostle, and this is where that tension comes from. How- how close am I?
7. 40:47 – 49:22

   Which Historical Periods Prioritised Connection?

   1. WHWilliam von Hippel40:47

   2. CWChris Williamson40:47

      Did certain ancestral environments or times or, uh, periods of history, setups prioritize one over the other, do you think? Can you imagine, I'm thinking, uh, high conflict, I'm thinking a battle for leadership, I'm thinking war with a neighboring tribe, uh, predation, starvation, uh, cold snaps in the climate, stuff like that. I imagine that there would be periods where competence, uh, and autonomy would be more heavily valued, and periods where the connection, uh, prosocial stuff would be more valued.

   3. WHWilliam von Hippel41:23

      Uh, I think you're absolutely right, and in the end what's gonna always matter the most when conflict is- is harsh, when times are harsh, is how well do we work together as a team? And so, remember earlier I said, "Well, women are a bit more connected than men on average"? That's true. They feel tighter connections usually to smaller groups of women than men do, who feel looser connections to larger groups. There's one exception to that rule and that's in- when you're in intergroup conflict, and so when two groups come into conflict with each other, guys bond with each other in an enormous way. And the evolutionary pressure on that's clear, because what we have to do now if... You know, Bill may or may not be a good fighter, but he's on our team, and so he's still... Everybody has to work together as a best possible unit. They have to hunt just as well.

   4. CWChris Williamson42:04

      Bill, put the bass down. You're never gonna be in the band. Pick the stick up. We need to kill someone.

   5. WHWilliam von Hippel42:07

      Yeah, exactly. Use that bass like this.

   6. CWChris Williamson42:09

      (laughs)

   7. WHWilliam von Hippel42:09

      And so, the thing is that i- in those circumstances connection becomes paramount, and in fact when you talk to soldiers, particularly soldiers who face live fire together, they talk about never feeling closer to anybody in their life than they feel to their fellow soldiers in that moment when their life is being threatened by another group and it's their teamwork that's gonna either get them out of that or fail to. And so there's enormous evolutionary pressure on us, particularly on men because they're the ones who are typically engaged in this intergroup conflict, and when you lost, every one of the men are gonna die. There's no cap- taking prisoners. You either run away and you get lucky or you're dead. Um, the women will typically survive, not necessarily in the happiest way, but they're gonna make it, whereas the men are not.

   8. CWChris Williamson42:50

      ... can't remember whether it was Tracy Vaillancourt or Joyce Benenson that did the study on female basketball players. Have you seen this? So-

   9. WHWilliam von Hippel43:01

      Um, keep going. I, I'm not, it's not familiar so far.

   10. CWChris Williamson43:03

       You, you may, you may, you may have done so basically, she looked at the physical affection between players on their own team and players on opposing teams in male games and in female games, and men on opposing teams showed more physical affection than female, uh, competitors on the same team.

   11. WHWilliam von Hippel43:26

       Wow. Wow, that's interesting.

   12. CWChris Williamson43:28

       Uh, so yeah, and I, just as you were talking there, I, I thought about that sort of coalitional warfare type, like, "Let's just, let's just crack on. We need to just get our heads down. We need to do this thing." You know, men just sort of drop in and, uh, whether it's toddlers learning to play, like what is it that the girls are doing? They're learning to look after a rabbit, or they're playing nurse, or they're raising a baby, or they're doing whatever. And what are the boys doing? They're fighting aliens or cowboys or-

   13. WHWilliam von Hippel43:52

       Yeah. (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson43:52

       ... you know, who, what, whatever it is. Um, I, I always think about that sort of disposition that, that, um, tend this, this tendency toward, toward dropping in. And you see it with (laughs) guys at football matches, like you both support the same team, "I'll happily go and fight the other supporters of the other team for you," for no reason. For no reason.

   15. WHWilliam von Hippel44:13

       Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it?

   16. CWChris Williamson44:15

       But that's, that's the, that's the Brit in me coming out.

   17. WHWilliam von Hippel44:17

       (laughs) It's funny, isn't it? But when you look at teams, what's so interesting also is that men, you know, you, you gave that awesome example. I don't know that study, but it's a lovely one and it does, in some ways, it doesn't surprise me. So when men are on opposing teams, they can just be harsh as each other. I can drive my shoulder into you going for the basket and your thought is, "Wow, good move, Bill. I would've done that to you if I could've scored a basket like that." And so two years later when we get traded and I'm now on your team, we're totally mates and you're like, "Hey, I want you to do that with me to the other guys." Whereas women, um, remember I said, mentioned earlier that they tend to have smaller cl- circles of closer friends. As a consequence, they're less forgiving of what you might call betrayal. So if, if I go against you, it takes a lot of repair work for us to be tight again. Whereas two guys, if I go against you, you say, "Well, I would've done the same thing if I were in Bill's shoes. I got no problem with that." And we can be mates again when the conditions are right, when it suits both of us.

   18. CWChris Williamson45:10

       Yeah. Uh, it's, it's so funny, we romanticize the deep connection that hunter-gatherers have got as if they have a different psychology to us, but we are them. This is the funny thing that we sort of look at as if they are a different species, right? And, uh-

   19. WHWilliam von Hippel45:27

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson45:27

       ... you go, n- no, same species. Different environment-

   21. WHWilliam von Hippel45:32

       Yeah, same species.

   22. CWChris Williamson45:32

       ... different setup.

   23. WHWilliam von Hippel45:33

       Yeah, exactly. That, that's, and that, that's where you nail it. It's that environment that changes who we are. And so they do feel tighter connections than we feel, because they spent their whole lives doing it. You know, the, the example I like to use, so, um, I don't know if you've heard of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It's this idea that you don't, if you don't have a word some- for something, you can't think it. And it was this idea that was super popular in the '30s. Like-

   24. CWChris Williamson45:53

       What's it called? The Sapir-Whorf?

   25. WHWilliam von Hippel45:54

       Sapir, uh, Sapir-Whorf. So there are these two guys who had this, uh, hypothesis and, um, in different time points, but it kind of got blended together.

   26. CWChris Williamson46:02

       Mm-hmm.

   27. WHWilliam von Hippel46:03

       And it was super popular idea that if you have no word for snow, well, then you can't think about snow. And it kind of disappeared after a while, because the problem is that if you have, you know, lots of experience with snow, well, then of course you have words for it, and so is it your experience that helps you think about it, or is the, does the word make any difference? But, um, Lera Boroditsky at Stanford came along and said, "Well, let's turn the problem on its head. Let's look at people who have equal experiences, but they either use these things in their words all the time or they don't." And so there's, here in Queensland, we have a couple of Aboriginal groups who have no word for left, right, front, or back. Everything that they do is cardinal directions. And so they would say to you, "Oh, hey, Chris, be careful. There's a snake north by northwest of your foot." And if they said that to me, I'm screwed because I don't know which direction that is. But if they say that to each other, they go, "Ah," and they jump back from the snake, right? And so they remember this forever. And so when they're telling stories they'll go, "Oh, yeah, um, so there it was, north by northwest from me and south by southeast I've got this emu, and how am I gonna resolve this problem?" And, um, and, you know, if you and I are telling the story, you go, "There on my right was a lion and there on my left was a this." So they asked, well, if you asked them, "Well, was it on the side of you with the butt or the side of you with the face?" Right? 'Cause they didn't have a word for front or back. They had no problem answering that question. They're going, "That was the side with the face." And so it's clear evidence that Sapir and Whorf were wrong. You don't have a word for it, you're perfectly capable of thinking about it. But what's amazing is that these guys know where north is all the time. They think about it all the time. And so when these ideas are in your head, if you're accustomed to thinking about it, you, you start to color the world that way. So hunter-gatherers very much have our, we're them and they're us, but they're connection machines. And so everything that happens to them, they think in the lens of, "How does this affect me and my group? What are gonna be the consequences for me and my group?" And you and I just don't think about our group that much. We think, "Oh, that's pretty cool. I like that outcome," or, "Oh, that doesn't suit me," without saying, "Well, it'll suit everybody else. I should, you know-"

   28. CWChris Williamson47:56

       Mm-hmm.

   29. WHWilliam von Hippel47:56

       ... get involved or whatever. So our habits of thought can change our psychology to some degree. It can become our dominant way of viewing the world, despite the fact that underlying, we are the exact same people.

   30. CWChris Williamson48:07

       Isn't it crazy that every single person who's listening to this now, or me, or you, had we have by some weird hospital quirk been dropped in with the Hadza tribe, uh, uh, you just ended up with this, th- th- this little baby, we would have been them, that would have been our psychology? You know, for all-
8. 49:22 – 57:23

   The Forces That Shape Autonomy & Connection

   1. CWChris Williamson49:22

      What are the forces that shape autonomy and connection then?

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel49:28

      So the, there's a lot of forces. Um, one of them is... Some of them emerge from inside us. And so if we're highly empathic, for example, some people just have a very high capacity for empathy, and some people don't. And, and we can... You can look at that really easily. So you can even put me in an fMRI machine, which measures blood flow in my brain, and then watch, I, I have to watch somebody get poked in their hand or tortured in some way, and you can just see me cringing and going, and, and feeling their pain. Like the brain regions that would be activated if you did it to me light up.

   3. CWChris Williamson49:57

      Hmm.

   4. WHWilliam von Hippel49:57

      I'm highly empathic. I, and, and so when you hurt, I hurt. And what that means is I become much more of a connection machine, because your pain is my pain and I want to alleviate it just like I want to alleviate my own. And so social justice matters to me a lot. You, when you experience a harm, I experience a harm. Now it's sort of a selfish way to look at it, but that, that selfish way of looking at it has really nice interpersonal consequences. Other people are lower in empathy. You, uh, you poke them in the hand and they're like, "Oh, I wonder if that hurt. Hmm, interesting. Oh, a lot of blood. I bet that did hurt." Um, and, and it doesn't faze them. You know, there, we see all sorts of differences between these people. If you're high in empathy, you tend to be politically on the left. If you're low in empathy, you tend to be politically on the right. If you're really low in empathy, you tend to be a libertarian. Um, and it's not like being a libertarian is a bad thing, but then autonomy starts to become more important to you. You know, for libertarians, autonomy is a sacred value. If, if, if I'm a libertarian and-

   5. CWChris Williamson50:51

      Oh, that's so interesting. Of course. Being in, be- being a libertarian is maximum autonomy. And-

   6. WHWilliam von Hippel50:58

      Exactly.

   7. CWChris Williamson50:58

      ... if, if low empathy, severe low empathy. Uh, sorry. If very high empathy is associated with, uh, connectedness, and very low empathy is associated with high autonomy, that, this is almost mapping perfectly your hypothesis.

   8. WHWilliam von Hippel51:14

      Yeah. It, it fits the, it's this political ramifications of exactly what we're talking about, right?

   9. CWChris Williamson51:19

      So interesting.

   10. WHWilliam von Hippel51:19

       And so the, if you look at, uh, uh, what libertarians are willing to do, I, I, you know, I'm not disrespecting libertarian values. Autonomy matters to all of us. But, but once it becomes a sin, then think about the consequences. So Phil Tetlock did this wonderful study where he asks you, "Should a person be allowed to do X?" And, "Should a person be allowed to hire someone to clean their home?" You know, pretty much people go, "Of course." Uh, "Should a person be able to sell their kidney if they want extra money?" Um, a lot of people start to go, "No." Now, it's weird to say no to me. I, I want to sell you my kidney. You're gonna die without it. I could use the 20 grand. But p- I'm not, it's actually illegal. I can't do that. It goes even farther than that. Should a person be able to sell their votes? Should a person be able to sell their jail time? And so for a libertarian, the answer is always yes. And so if I, if I get a DUI and I, um, and I live in a total libertarian world, I would just put up on Fiver, um, who will, um, have their license suspended and go to jail for me, uh, for half a million dollars? And I promise you, lots of hands are gonna go up. And now I'm back in my car and everything is copacetic, right? And so if you, if you put autonomy at the top of your list, you start to see the connection consequences. But, but from a philosophical perspective, it's a defensible viewpoint.

   11. CWChris Williamson52:31

       What about gender roles and their influence on autonomy, connection, stuff like that?

   12. WHWilliam von Hippel52:38

       Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. It, all these things are tied together. And so there is no human on this planet who's... Well, almost no humans on this planet who are insensitive to the culture they grew up in, right? We were just discussing that. You just become a different person if you're a Hadza than if you're a Brit or an American or whatever. But you're intrinsically the same, but that culture changes you a lot. And so of course our gender roles change just a lot. I remember watching this video, um, that f- it was put on by the ABC, the Australian Broadcasting, uh, Company, where they, um, they looked at these two women having a debate in the 1960s about whether women should go to university. And the one woman who was pro says, "Think of all the interesting things you learn." And the one woman who was anti was like, "Why do you need to know that stuff? When your husband comes home, you want to hear about his day. You're taking kids- care of kids all day." In fact, I could even imagine it'd be slightly frustrating to be thinking about Marxist philosophy but changing nappies all day or, you know, doing whatever you're doing. And so their, that debate would never happen anymore, where two women are arguing about whether women should get an education. So our culture changes and, and we all change with this. We don't even consider that a reasonable argument anymore, even though back in those times, we understand the viewpoint that both of them were taking. So gender roles matter a lot. But they also matter in ways that you, less than you'd think and in, and they don't matter in ways that you might think they would. So for example, if you look at sex differences on any domain, and, and remember, I was talking about men being more autonomy and women being more connection. So women are more likely to reward kindness in others. If you're kind to me, and I'm female, I'm gonna be more likely to go out of my way to repay it than if I'm male. If you're male, you're more likely to punish unkindness or unfriendliness in others, because, you know, that, you're, you've impinged on my autonomy when you were unfriendly to me and, and I'm going to show you you can't do that than, than if you're female. Both do it, but men do it more. Now, if you look at societies that are more gender egalitarian, where there's fewer rules about what men and women can do, those sex differences get larger. They don't get smaller. And so men in Scandinavia are more likely to punish unfriendliness, and women in Scandinavia are more likely to reward kindness than men and women in Tunisia, where they've got very strict gender roles about how they're meant to behave. So they often work exactly opposite that you'd think, arguing for there being, underlying the strong cultural impact, a very strong biological impact as well.

   13. CWChris Williamson54:54

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. Steve Stewart Williams' new book is going to be all about sex differences apparently, which I'm, uh, I'm super excited for him to do, even though he will be-

   14. WHWilliam von Hippel55:04

       Yeah, that'll be nice too.

   15. CWChris Williamson55:04

       Well, maybe he won't be stepping into that much of a l- he, he might not be stepping into that much of a landmine, I guess, given what's happened over the last couple of months. But, uh, it definitely wouldn't have been particularly popular five years ago. I know that much.

   16. WHWilliam von Hippel55:15

       Yeah, it would be a hard, it, hard book to write th- and the, i-i-it's unfortunate it's a hard book to write because science and morality have nothing to do with each other. You know, if you look at what nature does, there's a bug out there where every time she, she always lays six eggs, they're inside her body, they're ovoviviparous, so they, the eggs hatch inside her, and there's one boy and five girls. He then has sex with all of his sisters. They kill him and eat him, and then th- they, instead of being birthed naturally, they bite their way out of her, like in the movie Alien. Um, and now-

   17. CWChris Williamson55:44

       What?

   18. WHWilliam von Hippel55:44

       ... b- because-

   19. CWChris Williamson55:44

       What's this called?

   20. WHWilliam von Hippel55:46

       I- I can't re- it's some kind of a dust mite, if I remember right. And, and the, the thing is-

   21. CWChris Williamson55:50

       (laughs) Oh my God.

   22. WHWilliam von Hippel55:50

       I know. And but, of course, now this is like a Greek tragedy. It's gonna happen to them too, because they had sex with their brother before they went out. And so this exact same story is enacted for all eternity, where they're all gonna die like they're in the movie Alien after having incest with their sibling while they're inside their mothers.

   23. CWChris Williamson56:05

       (laughs) Oh my God.

   24. WHWilliam von Hippel56:07

       It's gonna happen forever. And so, like, d- is there a morality lesson here? Do we learn something from this bug that should guide human behavior in any way? No. It's irrelevant. And you can find every... If there's something nasty that's, that, that could happen, it's happening somewhere in nature. Does that mean that we as humans should go, "Oh, it's natural and, and therefore important and good, and we should guide ourselves by it"? No, it's got nothing to do with it. So he should be able to write a book about the biology of sex differences that should not have any impact on what humans ought to do to each other. It should be an easy book to write. In fact, everyone who cares about gender relations should want to read that book so they know what they're dealing with. But unfortunately, it worked the other way, right?

   25. CWChris Williamson56:42

       Adactylidium is a genus of mites known for its unusual life cycle. An impregnated female mite feeds upon a single egg of thrips, rapidly growing five to eight female offspring and one male. The single male mite mates with all of his sisters while they're still inside the mother. The new females, now impregnated, eat their way out of the mother's body so they can emerge to find new thrips eggs, killing their mother in the process through the cycle. It may only be four days old starting the cycle again. The male emergies, emerges as well, but does not look for food or mates and then dies after a few hours.

   26. WHWilliam von Hippel57:11

       Oh. I thought they-

   27. CWChris Williamson57:12

       Well-

   28. WHWilliam von Hippel57:12

       ... ate him too. So I misremembered that. So that's good. He gets to get out of there.

   29. CWChris Williamson57:16

       He just gets, gets a little bit of f-fresh air.

   30. WHWilliam von Hippel57:18

       (laughs) Yeah.
9. 57:23 – 1:06:14

   Why We’re Off-Balance in Modern Society

   1. CWChris Williamson57:23

      okay. Let's move into the modern world. How is all of this off balance when we get into contemporary society?

   2. WHWilliam von Hippel57:31

      Yeah, that's a great question. And so I've thought about this for a long time. And, and I think that the problem is this. So let me rewind the clock a tiny bit. Um, we used to live in a world where connection was paramount. And so if you guys wanted to go north and I wanted to go south, even though our cultural rules are actually every- we're all egalitarian, we're all autonomous, I can do what I want, I can't go south unless I can persuade you guys to go my way 'cause I'm gonna end up being eaten by a lion and you guys are gonna end up being fine. And so I had to rely on my connections, and my opportunities for autonomy were actually relatively rare. Every once in a while, I had a true choice where I didn't need to connect, where safety was fine, and I could do whatever I wanted. When that happened, what I believe is that we evolved to pick autonomy because it was so rare that we could actually pick it. So connection was what we needed. Autonomy was what we wanted. It wasn't uncommon, and so we evolved to grab it whenever we could. Now, we often create what are called evolutionary mismatches, where our biology changes slowly, our culture changes rapidly, and so things that we wanted in the past that were very... We want them 'cause they're good for us. Remember, evolution guides us, so to speak, by, uh, via our emotions. And so we all seek out ch- fat, sugar, and salt all the time, for example. They're all really rare on the savanna. And so now we live in a modern world where fat, sugar, and salt are s- two meters away from me all the time. The problem is that even if there was a lot of it one day, I probably should eat more, because there's probably not gonna be any of it tomorrow. And so I want fat, salt, and sugar when I ought to stop eating, because our ancestors never suffered from eating too much fat, salt, and sugar. But now, of course, that's an enormous problem. It's a form of what I would call miswanting. You can imagine an evolutionary mismatch leading to miswanting. You can also imagine an evolutionary mismatch leading to what I call misfeeling, which is when you worry about things you shouldn't worry about. So, um, for example, I, I'm really scared of spiders. They, they wig me out. And, um, I was in Sydney, um, on a, uh, a trip with a bunch of biologists, and we went to the grocery store first, and when we got to our campsite and we opened up our, um, box, a funnel-web spider hopped out, which is the world's deadliest spider. Now, they're biologists and ps- and I'm just a psychologist, right? So they immediately capture it under glass, which I already thought was crazy. And then when I suggest, yeah, now one of us should stomp on it, by, by which I mean one of them, they're like, "Are you crazy? This thing is beautiful," and they flick it into the grass, like, right next to our barbecue. So the whole of my... I've got the willies. I'm like, "I can't... Everything that touches my skin is making me nervous." Now, nobody's died of a funnel-web spider bite despite them being all around since the 1970s, even though they can kill you real easily because hospitals keep antivenom, people are good at avoiding them, et cetera. On the other hand, you know, think about all the ways that we can die. A- automobiles and, and electricity are two really good examples. I've shocked myself once changing a lamp out. It threw me across the floor. I'm not scared of lamps at all.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:18

      (laughs)

   4. WHWilliam von Hippel1:00:18

      I've never been bit by a spider. They scare, they, they give me the, uh, the heebie-jeebies. Um, cars whizz by me all the time. Even the smallest one could flatten me. And drivers are really inattentive, but I don't walk down the road going, you know, afraid of, of cars. I, I walk down the sidewalk th- giving them no thought. And so I, I should be afraid of cars and electrical outlets, and I shouldn't be afraid of spiders. But I'm the opposite. I'm misfeeling. And I think what we've got ourselves into is this exact kind of evolutionary mismatch with regard to autonomy and connection. And I think the way it's happened is that think about our modern world and all the things that you could do now. I wanna be a YouTuber. I w- where I just talk about my opinions. I wanna do... There's a zillion things. That's like the most popular thing that kids want to do. There's a zillion things that I could do. Our ancestors never wondered what they were gonna do for a living. (laughs) They're, they were in the no-choice condition. I will hunt and gather because that's what every human on this planet does, right? And so we've got a zillion opportunities for autonomy. And if I'm right and if autonomy and connection are in fundamental tension, then every time we choose autonomy, we're sacrificing our connections and we've gotten out of balance.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:01:19

      What has encouraged this lean toward autonomy in the modern world?

   6. WHWilliam von Hippel1:01:25

      Well, I think wealth and education and urban living all have played a huge role. And so if you loo- if you start with urban living, living in the cities, um, in the mid-1800s, uh, about up un- well, cities started about 5,000 years ago. Uh, the very first cities were getting large around that time. So let's call cities in existence for 5,000 years. So up until 200 years ago, fewer than one in 10 people on this planet lived in a city. So people voted with their feet very, very slowly. They very slowly migrated to cities over thousands of years, 5,000 years, uh, 10% of us had migrated to cities. Between, um, we go from one in 10 in, in 1850 to 1960 we now have one in three. By 2007, it was equal, 50% of people live in cities and 50% live in the country. And so there's been a massive movement to the cities. What does this have to do with anything? Well, cities are places for autonomy. I can pursue anything I want in the city. There's all sorts of opportunities. Everything is available to me in the city. And so I go to cities for the opportunities, the job, the whatever those domains might be, and you'd think in principle that's fine because you could have your cake and eat it too. But it turns out you can't. And so even though when I live in a city I'm cheek by jowl with a lot of other people, you know, my apartment building might have a thousand humans in it. It turns out I usually don't know them. I might not even know the people in the apartment right next to mine. Whereas if I live in the country and my nearest neighbor is, you know, 500 meters away, I probably know them well. So when you ask people in cities, "Do you know somebody that you would trust with your house keys?" they're less likely to say yes than when you ask someone in the country, despite having people all around them all the time.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:02:59

      Mm.

   8. WHWilliam von Hippel1:02:59

      And so what we've done when we, uh, cities as li- living is an example, we sacrificed our connections in order to gain that autonomy of city living, and then you say, "All right, fine, people have been voting with their feets, feet, all the humans on the planet are doing it, it must make you happier." Actually, it doesn't. If you look at happiness in city versus the country, people are more likely to be very happy in the country than they are in the city. So we're making ourselves unhappy when we choose autonomy, and humans are doing it all over the planet.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:03:24

      What about wealth and technological advances, education?

   10. WHWilliam von Hippel1:03:29

       Those are great examples. So wealth is, you know, poor people need each other. If you live in a poor neighborhood and you wanna mow your lawn and your lawnmower broke, you probably can't afford to have it repaired to buy another one, but you could borrow one from your neighbor. And the same holds if, if you need your dog sat while you're out of town or whatever the case might be, you can't fire a dog-sitter, you're broke. So poor people live in this kind of network of interdependence with each other whereby they just count on each other all the time. In that sense, they're a lot like our hunter-gatherer ancestors. They have these tight connections because they need to. Rich people don't need each other at all. If I, you know, run out of my favorite coffee beans, I'll just drone it in, you know, my latte will be here in 45 minutes. I- I've got the money to solve all my problems. And so again, when I'm rich, I don't even necessarily know who my neighbors are. So if you ask rich people and poor people, "How much time do you spend with your neighbors?" poor people are more than twice as likely to get together with their neighbors regularly as rich people are. And so rich people are sacrificing their connections. Now you might say, "Well, they're still happy because they're doing exactly what they want." But again, the data, rich people are happier than poor people, but the data suggests that when they're forced to make connections, that actually makes a big difference in their lives.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:04:34

       That's so interesting. It's kind of the same as the, uh, competent people not being seen as quite w- quite so warm, that if you see somebody who's quite rich you have to assume, I mean un- unless they've made it, unless their friends have just given them tons of money, you go, "I, it's because of all of my pro-social context," uh, you have to assume that they've spent a lot of time on themselves.

Episode duration: 1:31:05