William Von Hippel - How We Evolved

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (wind blowing) Hello, friends. This…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      (wind blowing) Hello, friends. This week, I'm sitting down with William Von Hippel, who is a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia. His work's been covered in The Australian, New York Times, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, Time Magazine, and the Sydney Morning Herald, amongst many other publications. And on top of that, William Von Hippel sounds like a baron from medieval times, which is- it's the sickest name ever. So, I first came across Bill's work when I heard him on Joe Rogan's podcast a couple of weeks ago, and I was absolutely fascinated. Very fortunately, we've managed to find a slot in Bill's book tour, which he's currently undergoing in America, and I managed to sit down with him to go through his new book, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy. If you have ever wondered about how great apes in trees became bipedal beings out on the plains and then evolved into the humans that you see before you today, this podcast is really for you. There's a beautiful story element and a narrative behind what Bill talks about, plus there's loads of implications for how we operate today. Again, the same as with my podcast I did with Professor Robin Hanson, The Elephant in the Brain, why we are the way we are nowadays is a lot due to the environment that we evolved in. But in other news, I have got some messages about why there wasn't a podcast up on audio platforms last week. And if you do not follow me on social media, you may not know why. However, we did another YouTube exclusive, what it's really like starring on Take Me Out. Uh, after the What It's Really Like On Love Island podcast, we decided to double down. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sure enough, the podcast has taken off really quickly and it's been covered by some of the UK press, which is always good news, despite them misquoting me and one of them misspelling my name, but whatever, it's fine (inhales) . Um, but we're back on a schedule. I've got Johnny and Yusuf coming up very, very soon to do some special edition Christmas podcasts. I've also got the fattest, thickest, longest section of recording (laughs) that I've ever had to do in the build up to Christmas, so you may even get two a week over the Christmas holidays, but don't hold me to it. In the meantime, we're gonna find out why we are the way we are and where we came from. Oh yeah, P.S. The first minute and a half might sound slightly different to normal. I was still fighting with Skype at this point, but don't worry, I was victorious. Normal audio services resumed after a couple of minutes. (upbeat music) Professor William Von Hippel, how are you today?

   2. WHWilliam Von Hippel3:03

      Good. Very happy to be here.

   3. CWChris Williamson3:05

      Very happy to have you on. It's been (laughs) , uh, a technological catastrophe so far, but it would appear that we've managed to, uh, tame all of the electronics that we're using to get this call to work, which I'm really, really happy about. So thank you for that.

   4. WHWilliam Von Hippel3:18

      Oh, totally my pleasure. I've got high hopes.

   5. CWChris Williamson3:20

      (laughs) Um, so The Social Leap. You are currently-

   6. WHWilliam Von Hippel3:24

      Yes.

   7. CWChris Williamson3:24

      ... on your book tour, that's right?

   8. WHWilliam Von Hippel3:26

      That's right.

   9. CWChris Williamson3:27

      Amazing. So The Social Leap, what is it?

   10. WHWilliam Von Hippel3:31

       So that's the term I use for the kind of solution that our ancestors came to when they left the rainforest and were forced to move to the savanna. And so, you know, here they were, these sort of chimp-like creatures who were really at the top of the food chain when they were in the canopy, but were very vulnerable on the ground. And so how did they solve that problem? Well, I think it took a few million years of sort of skulking around the edge of the savanna, but eventually, and I believe by the time we got to Australopithecus, they had learned to cooperate and band together, um, in their mutual defense. And so I call this the- this leap from the trees to the savannah, and then this increasing sociality that, uh, came with that leap and that, in fact, I believe started off our entire evolutionary process that brought us to where we are now, that's what I call The Social Leap.

   11. CWChris Williamson4:19

       Amazing. What was the process of researching the book? Before we get into it, what was the-

   12. WHWilliam Von Hippel4:25

       Sure.

   13. CWChris Williamson4:25

       Is it a lot of deductive reasoning? Is it, uh, analysis of-

   14. WHWilliam Von Hippel4:30

       Well, there's a lot of really fabulous, um, archeology and paleoanthropology and other forms of anthropology that people have done to try to make inferences about where we came from, what were the cognitive capabilities of our ancestors and their social lives like. And, you know, there's not much to work with when you're looking at fossils that are millions of years old.

   15. CWChris Williamson4:51

       Mm-hmm.

   16. WHWilliam Von Hippel4:51

       Uh, but- but these people have done a fabulous job of trying to infer cognitive abilities in the deep past. And all I did was really come along and read this literature. Um, I've got a wonderful colleague, set of colleagues at UQ who are expert in these areas, and we all- we have these, uh, fortnightly meetings where we hash it out. We've been doing that for about the past dozen years.

   17. CWChris Williamson5:12

       Wow (laughs) .

   18. WHWilliam Von Hippel5:12

       And I finally got to- yeah, I finally got to the point where I felt like, "Okay, I- I think I've got the story figured out and it makes sense to me how it fits with our modern psychology. I think it's time to try to tell that story."

   19. CWChris Williamson5:23

       Fantastic. So let's start the story then. Where does it begin?

   20. WHWilliam Von Hippel5:27

       So it begins six or 7 million years ago. We don't know exactly, of course, but basically the story is, um, as the, uh, tectonic activity in the Great African Rift Valley increased, you got a lot of upwelling on the east side of the Rift Valley as, um, I gather it's a bit of thinness in the crust or a hotspot or something that's a result of the, um, two plates tearing apart, or the single plate becoming two plates, you know, starting up at the Red Sea and working its way down to the coast of Mozambique. So the whole right side of that, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, um, vast areas of air, you know-... today about a mile up. And what that appears to have done is cause the rainforest to slowly dry out, um, with the end result that our ancestors had very little choice but to move to the savanna because the, there simply wasn't enough forest left for them to make a living.

   21. CWChris Williamson6:19

       Right. Okay. So that move, it must have been very biologically expensive and very vulnerable for a while.

   22. WHWilliam Von Hippel6:27

       Absolutely. I mean, I, I, I suspect that it was devastating and that we, you know, if you replayed that a dozen times, I bet you that 11 times out of 12, all you'd get are a bunch of dead chimp-like animals.

   23. CWChris Williamson6:38

       (laughs)

   24. WHWilliam Von Hippel6:38

       But somehow we got lucky. And, and you can look at cues of how we got lucky by looking, for example, at, um, the chimpanzees in Senegal who live on the savanna and by looking, of course, at savanna baboons and other primates who've chosen to live on the ground. Um, I suspect that the, the chimps in, um, in, in Senegal are a great choice because if you look at what they do, they basically do the kinds of things that I would imagine our ancestors would have done, which is sort of skulk around the margins, try to keep a tree in sight at all times, and make a break for it, um, whenever, you know, a predator comes along because leopards, lions, hyenas, all those would now be an enormous threat-

   25. CWChris Williamson7:18

       Yeah.

   26. WHWilliam Von Hippel7:18

       ... despite the fact that when they were in the trees, they were not a threat at all.

   27. CWChris Williamson7:21

       Yeah, I get that completely. So is there any crossover? Are chimps moving towards... Are those chimps actually moving towards the development that we had?

   28. WHWilliam Von Hippel7:30

       Well, I don't think so. And the, uh, they, they don't, they don't have, they do show... Well, I shouldn't say that. They're showing some very interesting early signs that look a little bit like what I suspect that we did. So for example, they tend to share a little bit better than chimps typically do. They, um, they're the only chimps that we know of that sharpen sticks into spears by biting them and then use those spears to, um, uh, stab and retrieve, um, monkeys that they eat, these bush babies, out of tree hollows.

   29. CWChris Williamson7:59

       Mm-hmm.

   30. WHWilliam Von Hippel8:00

       And, um, and they even sleep in caves. So there's some very interesting things that they do. But I actually think that the, the shift that mattered was one that probably took a few million years.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. …

   1. WHWilliam Von Hippel15:00

      know that we've got an animal that can envision unfelt needs. You know, I've used this tool now, I'm gonna want it again tomorrow. So then the question is, how is that tied to bipedality?

   2. CWChris Williamson15:10

      Yeah.

   3. WHWilliam Von Hippel15:10

      Well, if you're a, um, an Austral- if you're a chimp-like creature in the savanna and you're setting out across the grass for food or for whatever purpose, you, and, and you cannot envision unfelt needs, some people have said, "Well, maybe they developed bipedality in order to carry a weapon or to carry food." Well, that's not super plausible in the sense that they're not trying to prepare for the future. If, if an Australopithecus was hungry, it would eat the food.

   4. CWChris Williamson15:38

      Yeah.

   5. WHWilliam Von Hippel15:38

      If it's not hungry, it would leave it behind because it won't envision being hungry again.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:41

      Mm.

   7. WHWilliam Von Hippel15:42

      So then you have to ask yourself, well, what might an Australopithecus feel? What would be its felt need every time it set out across the savanna? And I think it's super clear that you imagine yourself this, you know, three-and-a-half foot tall guy, um, setting out across the open grass. I think you're gonna feel fear.

   8. CWChris Williamson15:59

      (laughs)

   9. WHWilliam Von Hippel15:59

      Because any, you know, you're just, you're just available for any major predator, any large cat or dog that's out there.

   10. CWChris Williamson16:05

       Yeah.

   11. WHWilliam Von Hippel16:05

       And so if your felt need every time you set out across the savanna was fear, then what you would probably want with you is some sort of weapon. So if chimpanzees today who live on the savanna can chew a stick and make a sharp point, I'm sure our Australopithecus ancestor could do the same thing. They had slightly larger brains than a chimp. And so my guess is that they're fashioning a crude spear or club or even stone and they want to carry it with them every time they set out across the savanna. Now, they may need to make a new one every morning because when they get home they don't think they'll ever need it again.

   12. CWChris Williamson16:37

       Yeah.

   13. WHWilliam Von Hippel16:37

       But every time they set out, they're gonna look for something like that. And that of course will be a psychological pressure toward bipedality because it's much easier to carry a spear or some other sort of weapon if you can walk on two legs.

   14. CWChris Williamson16:49

       I get that. I get that. So why, why go out on the plains at all?

   15. WHWilliam Von Hippel16:54

       Well, because the trees are disappearing. You're in the no choice condition. You've got like five trees that you're sitting in, but there's nothing to eat there.

   16. CWChris Williamson17:00

       Yeah.

   17. WHWilliam Von Hippel17:00

       And so if you want to find food, if you want to f- um, you know, get to another stand of trees where there might be other safety and other things to eat, you gotta move along.

   18. CWChris Williamson17:08

       Right. Totally. You mentioned, uh, brain size, differences in brain size there.

   19. WHWilliam Von Hippel17:13

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson17:13

       And also obviously there'll be big differences in physiology. What are the differences between the closest relative that we've got and the Australopithecus in terms of brain size and then in terms of structure?

   21. WHWilliam Von Hippel17:25

       So the Australopithecus has about a 450 gram brain and the chimpanzee's about 380. So you've got about three million years on the savanna has given you about 70 grams of brain power.

   22. CWChris Williamson17:36

       (laughs) That's, that's-

   23. WHWilliam Von Hippel17:36

       Not a whole lot.

   24. CWChris Williamson17:37

       ... a big investment-

   25. WHWilliam Von Hippel17:37

       And-

   26. CWChris Williamson17:37

       ... but not a lot of return, isn't it?

   27. WHWilliam Von Hippel17:38

       Right, right. Well, I think that that's, I think there's good reason for that. And I think that good reason is, is that brains are super expensive. You know, we just think of them as an unmitigated good because they can do so much for us, but until we live in a world where you, you have a purpose for your brain, you're paying a big price in calories. Our brain uses 20% of our metabolic energy at all time, so that's a big cost. And what, what return are you getting on that investment? Well, as a chimpanzee, what are you gonna do with a little more brain? Um, it's not, it's not clear when you don't cooperate with each other, when you don't work together well, it's not entirely clear that you're gonna gain something to offset the losses. Part of the reason for that, of course, is that they don't have control of fire and so they can't release nearly as many nutrients from their food as we can.

   28. CWChris Williamson18:22

       Mm.

   29. WHWilliam Von Hippel18:22

       So-... Richard Wrangham talks about that in his wonderful book, Catching Fire, how basically in order to develop the big brain that we have that's supported by such a small gut, you need to be eating a lot of meat and you need to be relea- releasing as many calories from it as possible, as many nutrients as possible, which is achieved, um, by cooking, 'cause raw food simply is... I mean, you can just, you can tell just by the sense of smell, if you, if you sniff a, a steak that's cooking up nicely it smells beautiful, if, assuming you like the taste of meat. If you sniff a raw steak, it just doesn't smell beautiful at all.

   30. CWChris Williamson18:54

       No. (laughs)
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (laughs) …

   1. WHWilliam Von Hippel30:00

   2. CWChris Williamson30:00

      (laughs)

   3. WHWilliam Von Hippel30:00

      Um, you could imagine that's working together effectively to achieve something that they couldn't do individually. And so examples like these suggest that by the time we're at Homo erectus, we're now super effective. We're using our brain power to accomplish things that we could never accomplish individually because we can work together as a group, we can divide up tasks, and we can even plan for these future activities like a hunt. You know, you guys come over here, we'll, we'll try to get the horses to run down this, this way here and we'll dig a trap and we'll capture and kill them. And there's evidence that they were eating horses and elephants even, massive elephants, much bigger than t- today's, um, throughout Europe.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:38

      So, megafauna elephants were being felled by humans who had a brain that was two thirds the size of ours, but they were so much-

   5. WHWilliam Von Hippel30:45

      Basically.

   6. CWChris Williamson30:45

      ... they were so much more capable of working together.... that- (laughs)

   7. WHWilliam Von Hippel30:48

      That's right. We don't know for sure that they're bringing them down, right? The, all we can see is maybe they were scavenging them.

   8. CWChris Williamson30:54

      Mm-hmm.

   9. WHWilliam Von Hippel30:54

      But I think the data suggests that they were hunting them. The, if you look at, at the, uh, marks of the tools on the bones, you can see lots of marks where, if they were scavenging, like the, up high on the leg near the torso, when, when animals, uh, hunt other animals, they always eat that region first. And yet we see lots of marks on the bones up in the h- upper thigh bone, where, where you wouldn't be working with your stone tools if you were scavenging someone else's kill, because there'd be-

   10. CWChris Williamson31:21

       That's already gone.

   11. WHWilliam Von Hippel31:21

       ... nothing up there to eat. Yeah. So, I, I think the data suggests pretty strongly, and I know this is controversial so not everybody would agree, but I think they suggest pretty strongly that Homo erectus is now moving back to the top of the food chain, and they're doing that via their capacity to cooperate and work together.

   12. CWChris Williamson31:37

       Fascinating. That's so, so interesting. What are the, what are the tribe sizes that we think at this sort of stage?

   13. WHWilliam Von Hippel31:44

       Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. Um, the, they're, they're probably much smaller than what we see today. You know, there's a lot of argument about what's the optimal tribe size in humans even today, and people have given numbers like 150, and, and it is the case that humans are quite capable of processing the interrelationships of 150 other humans.

   14. CWChris Williamson32:06

       Yep.

   15. WHWilliam Von Hippel32:07

       Um, and, and Robin Dunbar has lots of nice evidence showing that. But in actuality, when you look at hunter-gatherer groups, they very rarely are, are in, anywhere near that size. The preferred size is much closer to 20 or 30, because when you get groups too large, everybody starts to bicker. You know, we've got a world with all sorts of laws and rules and, and all sorts of expectations that are formally laid down that, that prevent that kind of arguing and bickering, and we're less interdependent. So, you know, if I don't get along with my neighbor, it's not ideal, but I don't have to interact with him all the time. Whereas if we're hunter-gatherers and we're actually working together every day on the hunt, I don't want to be with someone I don't get along with. And so groups tend to splinter and break off into smaller groups when that happens.

   16. CWChris Williamson32:48

       You'll need-

   17. WHWilliam Von Hippel32:48

       And I suspect-

   18. CWChris Williamson32:49

       You'll, you'll need one bad apple, I suppose, don't you?

   19. WHWilliam Von Hippel32:51

       Exactly. Well, you know, they have good ways of getting rid of one bad apple, right? 'Cause there's no laws against it.

   20. CWChris Williamson32:57

       Yeah.

   21. WHWilliam Von Hippel32:57

       And so, you know, bad apples don't wake up one morning, or they-

   22. CWChris Williamson33:00

       (laughs)

   23. WHWilliam Von Hippel33:00

       ... when they do wake up, everyone's gone.

   24. CWChris Williamson33:02

       (laughs)

   25. WHWilliam Von Hippel33:02

       But, you know, if, if they're a bad enough apple, right? But, um, but, but it is the case that, uh, Homo erectus probably had the exact same issues, and so they're probably traveling around in small, um, groups that are a combination of family and close friends, and they're probably doing, you know, chimps and humans, both are what they call these sort of fission-fusion groups where larger groups come together and then they break off and go their separate ways and they re-come together, so long as they're members of the same overarching group. And so, I don't know what Homo erectus's, uh, language capabilities were, if they had any.

   26. CWChris Williamson33:35

       Mm.

   27. WHWilliam Von Hippel33:35

       It may have been all gestural, it may have been spoken, we don't, we don't yet know. But, um, there would've been, even if it's gestural, there'll be meanings in some places that aren't quite the same as others, and so there's probably in-groups and out-groups among Homo erectus just like there are in chimpanzees and just like there are in humans.

   28. CWChris Williamson33:52

       That's fascinating that there would be, uh, essentially different languages and dialects of these gestural, uh, communication tools. You could potentially have someone from another tribe that's really, really far away that comes in and you essentially can't communicate. I know that sounds stupid considering-

   29. WHWilliam Von Hippel34:09

       Right.

   30. CWChris Williamson34:09

       ... we're next to, I'm next to France and I can't speak to a French person.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   (laughs) …

   1. WHWilliam Von Hippel45:00

      you, the pathogen example is a great one. That's separate from our c- possibility of competing over resources and wanting to kill each other. That's where we're accidentally ch- killing each other.

   2. CWChris Williamson45:09

      (laughs)

   3. WHWilliam Von Hippel45:09

      And as you get closer to the equator, there are more pathogens, and tribes tend to stay apart more for that very reason because, you know, if you live in Sweden and I've never s-... You live 1,000 mile, 100 miles away, chances are you and I have been exposed to the same very few pathogens that can survive in that environment. But if you and I live near the equator, well, even if you're only a quarter mile away, you may well have encountered pathogens and have a resistance to them that I've never seen. And so if you and I mingle, you could make me sick and kill me without ever meaning to do so. And as a consequence, I'm going to evolve a tendency to stay away from you. And of course, that's exactly what we see.

   4. CWChris Williamson45:45

      That's so fascinating. So what, um, what areas are we talking about that are mostly occupied by Homo erectus at this time? I think you said 1.2 million, one million years ago, something like that. Where, where are we on the planet at the moment?

   5. WHWilliam Von Hippel45:58

      Okay, so probably by 1.7 million years ago, Homo erectus have both stayed in Africa and left. And so you see, um, Ho- Homo erectus moving out of, you know, through Arabia into Asia and into Europe, and they basically occupied beginning around then and then extending until Neanderthals, who are their offspring. They've occupied, um, the lower half of Asia and they've occupied almost all of Europe. And of course, they also have, uh, colonized all of Africa. And so those Homo erectus who stayed in Africa are the, are the ancestors of Homo sapiens. Those Homo erectus who moved out of Africa are the eventual ancestors of Neanderthals. And so when Homo sapiens leaves Africa, we encounter Neanderthals. And as we now know, um, we interbred with them a few times and so, uh, we carry a fair few Neand- Neanderthal genes, as well as some of the genes of other offshoots of Homo erectus who had left Africa and lived in, um, Asia at least.

   6. CWChris Williamson46:55

      It's like 2 to 5%, right, of our genes are from-

   7. WHWilliam Von Hippel46:57

      That's right.

   8. CWChris Williamson46:58

      ... Neanderthal.

   9. WHWilliam Von Hippel46:58

      That's right.

   10. CWChris Williamson46:59

       And it's actually higher, it's higher in white populations, I think. Is that right as well?

   11. WHWilliam Von Hippel47:04

       Right, well, there's no evidence that, um, Africans interbred with, um, Neanderthals because, of course, Neanderthals didn't live there.

   12. CWChris Williamson47:11

       Yes.

   13. WHWilliam Von Hippel47:11

       And so everyone who left, you know, we're as Caucasians and Asians, the, um, every non-African in today's world is a small subset of the group that left Africa beginning maybe 80, 85,000 years ago. And so those people appear to have left and some took a right turn and, and worked their way toward East Asia. Some took a left turn and worked their way toward Europe, and all of those people seemed to have interbred with Neanderthals. Some of them also seemed to have interbred with other, um, subpopulations that came from Homo erectus, like the Denisovans from that cave in, um, Siberia. We know that some humans, um, have some of their genes, and so, but we don't, we haven't tested so many Africans yet to say with any confidence that they don't have Neanderthal genes, but so far, there doesn't seem to be any, and of course, it would make perfect sense that they don't because they didn't leave Africa.

   14. CWChris Williamson48:05

       Well, the Neanderthals as well would be very unsuited to being in that environment, right?

   15. WHWilliam Von Hippel48:09

       That's right. That's right. And given that we wiped them out or killed them via disease or whatever when we encountered them, one can imagine that those who did work their way toward Africa didn't meet a friendly reception and that didn't work out very well, if it ever happened.

   16. CWChris Williamson48:22

       Absolutely. Uh, in the, uh, the Netflix series that I was discussing earlier on, I found it really fascinating where they explained why we have different colored skin. They were talking about the melanin that protects from the sun and that when you're closer to the equator, that's more important, but as you get further north, that actually doesn't keep you as warm. And, uh, it was, it seemed so bizarre that I'd never thought about it, but the distribution of body shapes and of, um, physiological makeup, you know, the Inuit, um, tribes and the people that are in the north, they tend to be smaller with higher levels of fat, and then you've got, you know, the best runners from the world all come from Kenya. Like what, you know-

   17. WHWilliam Von Hippel49:03

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson49:04

       This isn't, this isn't a surprise, right?

   19. WHWilliam Von Hippel49:06

       Right. I mean, local ethnic groups adapt to the place they live. It's, it's not a very sensible thing to think about race, which is such a broad category that it covers too many ethnic groups. But if you think about different ethnicities, they make perfect sense that they have to find a way to make a living where they are. So, my younger brother is a biologist who works up in the Bering Sea with a bunch of Inuit groups trying to help them, um, study the, uh, the consequences of these, um, perchlorates and stuff that have been left by the military that might be cancer causing. And so he was up there one summer in, way up in northern Alaska off the Bering Sea, and the water is like, you know, one or two degrees Celsius in the ocean, and the local kids are running in it and playing.

   20. CWChris Williamson49:48

       Oh my gosh.

   21. WHWilliam Von Hippel49:48

       And you know, if you, if you went up to your ankles, you'd nearly have a cardiac arrest-

   22. CWChris Williamson49:52

       (laughs)

   23. WHWilliam Von Hippel49:52

       ... because it, it's just so cold, it's unbelievable. But they, they've got this sort of thin layer of subcutaneous fat that protects them in a way that people who aren't Inuit just don't have.

   24. CWChris Williamson50:03

       Yeah. That's so interesting. So, when we're talking about these tribes and stuff, I really wanted to get onto discussing sexual relationships and how, how partners and child rearing worked throughout the, the timeline that we're talking here. Would you be able to explain some, uh, theories behind that to us?

   25. WHWilliam Von Hippel50:21

       Sure. So, the, the child rearing and partnering is complicated because human beings are so behaviorally flexible that we've got lots of ways that we do it. But there are some simple, not simple, there are some underlying rules that apply to all of us. And, and basically the underlying rules stem from sexual selection, the notion that, you know, that Darwin proposed that ther- you both have to s- find a way to survive, which is kind of what we think of with natural selection, you know, uh, not dying when you get attacked by a predator, finding enough to eat, but you also have to find a way to mate. And if you don't find a way to mate, it doesn't matter how fabulous you are, those, whatever traits you have are not gonna exist in the next generation. And so sexual selection is that process of, um, evolution that is dependent on both our ability to attract a member of the opposite sex and our ability to compete with members of our own sex in, in order to do so. So, that applies across the board. And all humans have been shaped by sexual selection because we all have these traits that, or we try hard to have these traits that others, opposite sex finds desirable and that we, that facilitate competition with our own sex. One of the interesting psychological consequences of that is that we end up with this really unfortunate circumstance whereby everything is relative. And what I mean by that is that it doesn't really matter how good of a guy I am. What matters is, how do I compare to the other guys in my group? So if, if all the men in my group are sort of worthless, lazy, stupid, and mean, well, it'll be pretty easy for me to get a girl because I don't have to be very special. I can be pretty awful, but I'm still the best choice she has.

   26. CWChris Williamson51:57

       Right.

   27. WHWilliam Von Hippel51:57

       Whereas if, if all the guys in my group are really fabulous, I'm stuffed because she's never gonna choose me.

   28. CWChris Williamson52:03

       (laughs)

   29. WHWilliam Von Hippel52:03

       And so in the end, what people really care about, they're constantly looking around and asking how they stack up compared to others. And the reason they do that is it's super important for me not to fall behind everybody else, because if everybody else in my group is better, doesn't matter how good I am, I'm gonna get left out of the mating game. And that's an unfortunate part of our psychology because it virtually guarantees in the modern world that it's harder to be happy. You know, I can work really hard and make a lotta money, and now I got more money than my this neighbor, but I then turn on the telly or I meet somebody who's got more money than I do and I'm all, upset all over again.

   30. CWChris Williamson52:37

       Yeah, totally.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:31

   Yeah. …

   1. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:00:00

      good sense when you look at the difficulty of raising human babies, um, to adulthood. They take a lot of work by both parents.

   2. CWChris Williamson1:00:06

      Yeah.

   3. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:00:07

      And so, I suspect that the penis may well be designed to try to help suction out the guy ahead of them, but, but probably the primary purpose is for bonding so that they have a good time together and copulation can take quite a while. And so, I think the reason our penis is so large is sexual selection. That that's what human females prefer and so that's what human males are like. And that's why of course we're so obsessed with it.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:00:30

      And the ideal outcome or the outcome that evolution was wanting us to arrive at was greater pair bonding here, right? It was a, a high level of investment between each other. Is that correct?

   5. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:00:43

      Yeah. So the, when you have a system like ours where, um, it takes so much effort to raise a, a human to, you know, a dozen years minimally to get them to be a reasonably effective unit who can forage for itself, that takes a lot of care and, and takes two parents to achieve that. And it is the case that relatives also often work together, um, so particularly her, her family will play a big role in helping raise the kids. And we see this in all sorts of places. But I do believe that part of what also underlies that is pair bonding and his willingness to look out for her and help her in return for her fidelity. And so, I think that's a deal that, that humans made somewhere along the way. It's not-... it's not a mission-critical deal for our intelligence or our social intelligence, um, because I do think that's more happening at the group level, but I, but it does appear to me to be the deal that we did strike.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:01:34

      Well, it makes the most sense, that the man cannot raise the- the child. The man- the man can't get pregnant, so they have to focus on-

   7. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:01:41

      Right.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:01:41

      ... what they can do. And-

   9. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:01:43

      Right. Every- both sides, what can you, what can you bring to the table? And you have to remember that females, the obligatory investment of a male, the minimal investment he can put into a child is, you know, a teaspoon of sperm. The minimal investment she can put into a child is, you know, nine months of- of, um, gestation and- and ancestral societies, two years of lactation. Well, that's a huge investment compared to his. And as Trivers has shown us s- in the early 1970s, in his parental investment model, that means that on average men will compete very fiercely for females because, of course, they're competing for her investment.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:02:17

       Yes. Yeah. I totally get that. So, were there any other, uh, any other discoveries that you came across while you were writing the book and researching it that you found that were really surprising?

   11. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:02:30

       Well, uh, what's surprising about it to me is how many implications it has. So, I'd be working on the book and then I would get a- a friend or a colleague who would say, "Hey, can you come give a talk about leadership or about happiness or about innovation?" And I would say, "Well, I don't work on that." And they would say, "Well, but surely what you're doing must have implications for it." And so I'd say, "Huh, let me think about it," and it always did. Every time somebody came w- with one of those requests, I would give it a little bit of thought and I'd say, "Well, boy, it really does have implications for when and why we innovate, for how we lead, for what makes us happy." And so for me, the surprise was just how socially psychologically rich it is to understand and to think a lot about where we came from, because it tells us a fair bit about w- why we are the way we are today.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:03:16

       Yeah. I- I- I think, uh, one of the, one of the definite conclusions that I drew from my conversation with, uh, Professor Robin Hanson was that the world around us has moved an awful lot quicker than our evolution can catch up with.

   13. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:03:28

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:03:29

       And I think we kid ourselves into believing that we're a lot more sophisticated and a lot more in control-

   15. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:03:35

       (laughs) Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:03:35

       ... a lot more in control of our, uh, unconscious mind than we would care to believe. Um, and, you know, when you- you're talking about- you say 80,000 years ago was when there was a- a- a- a fairly big split off, and there was only 10,000 years ago, I think, in, uh, in and around, uh, the Philippines and stuff where there was the final last non-sapiens homo species. Is that right? The miniature, uh, diminutive size-

   17. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:04:03

       Yeah, I- I- ... In Flores. Ha- yeah, I don't know exactly when they were, um, when they- their last stand was. I have to admit, I'm not sure about that. But I'm- I suspect you're right. I suspect that number's correct. Certainly, we were interacting with Neanderthals 20 and 30,000 years ago-

   18. CWChris Williamson1:04:16

       Wow.

   19. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:04:17

       ... um, and probably for quite a long time, right? Given that we- so for example, the first Australians arrived 65,000 years ago. Well, by the- if we got to Australia 65,000 years ago, we'd covered a fair bit of Asia and Europe by then, too. We'd had a lot of interaction with Neanderthals by then, and presumably with Denisovans and others. And what- what those others might be, of course, we don't know, but there probably was a lot of intermixing and a lot of interesting blending because really, we're interacting with cousins, so to speak. You know, our ancestors, some of them left, some stayed. Sapiens happens to be a product of those who stayed, but we're an interblended product with those who left.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:04:56

       Yeah. Do you ever imagine what it would be like if we'd- I- if there was still megafauna around, megafauna animals, or if the- if Neanderthals had managed to hold on or if there was multiple different, um, h- homo, uh, subspecies floating around now? Do you ever sort of fantasize about that or think about-

   21. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:05:13

       (laughs) Yeah.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:05:14

       ... what it would be like in the modern world?

   23. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:05:16

       I do, and I- I worry that the story would not be a positive one because we're so tribal already when it's just other groups of humans who basically are the same as us but with some very slight appearance differences. It's easy for me to imagine we could be really awful with people who really are distinctly different species. And it's easy, you know, given that- that there aren't any left, I suspect we were awful with them, that we're super effective and when we're not positively disposed toward others, we don't use that super effectiveness for good, right? We use it to exterminate them. We're genocidal toward each other. And so if- maybe if- if there were still all sorts of cousin species in the world, it would be a- an easier, pleasant, lovely place, but I ha- I have the bad feeling it wouldn't.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:06:02

       Yeah. I'm tempted to agree, but I do think, oddly enough, the two conversations I've had with yourself and- and Professor Hanson, very strangely I feel liberated when I hear them. I- I- I, I think a lot of the time we beat ourselves up about being, uh, m- less in control of our unconscious mind and our actions and our motivations than we wish that we were. We get frustrated when we're in traffic and we get scared when we hear loud noises, and, you know, like w- all of the emotions that we feel, loneliness and depression and anxiety and everything, both positive and negative, a- are just artifact of- of a- a time that we evolved in that no longer exists, and we're kind of trying to make this primitive brain fit a modern world.

   25. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:06:45

       No, that's absolutely right because the greatest invention that we ever had was this idea of cumulative culture, of learning from each other, of communicating that information over great times and distances, and that moves so quickly and we're such generalists that we have the capacity to do that. But as you point out-... that doesn't mean that our brain changes at anywhere near that speed, it just doesn't. And so the things that make us happy, the things that scare us, um, those, those early things are still in there. And I guess what I would argue is, the important thing to remember is that w- we're not totally at their mercy, right? They don't control us, but they're an important nudge that pushes us to feel jealous sometimes, to misbehave other times, and the key is to stop and ask yourself, "Well, why am I feeling this way? And why am I being so aggressive towards so-and-so? And why am I not happy with what I've got here when I used to be?" And ask yourself those questions. And I do think that we can retake some of that control simply by virtue of the power of our frontal cortex, so to speak, and, and, and trying to say, "Well, I, I can't let myself just be buffeted around by my unconscious mind, which really evolved a long time ago, and is much better suited to a world that doesn't exist anymore."

   26. CWChris Williamson1:07:56

       I totally get that. The race to the bottom of the brain stem, so to speak, needs-

   27. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:08:00

       (laughs)

   28. CWChris Williamson1:08:00

       ... needs, needs to be counteracted. I did a, I did a podcast-

   29. WHWilliam Von Hippel1:08:03

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson1:08:03

       ... with meditation expert Cory Allen, and he's got this wonderful term that I, I, I love using called the mindfulness gap. And he talks about in between the action occurring, which you need to react to, and your reaction is this mindfulness gap. And that one breath, that two breaths in between, it can make such a profound change. And, you know, uh, that probably wouldn't be that useful if you're out in the plains. You want to be like a boxer, you want to react before you even think, whereas now obviously being able to step in between ourselves and our reactions is actually quite a useful skill.

Episode duration: 1:16:51