Speaker 1: Welcome to it could happen on the Internet the only podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert evans Um and today we've got St. Andrew
Speaker 1: back in the studio. We don't actually have a studio.
Speaker 1: That was a lie. That was a lie that I
Speaker 1: do think I was cooler, St. Andrew. How are you
Speaker 1: doing today? I am good, I'm good. Andrew dropped the saint.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, I'm sorry. You're right, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1: We should probably. I'm sorry. That's good because I'm no
Speaker 1: longer a scene. You got to sainted. So okay, if
Speaker 1: I understand Catholicism, right, that means you undid someone else's
Speaker 1: three miracles. I know nothing about Catholicism. Okay, well, pretty sure.
Speaker 1: We have the Protestants Protestant ground. My knowledge of Catholicism
Speaker 1: is that to be a saint, you have to do
Speaker 1: a couple of miracles, but the last one is always
Speaker 1: something to do with being dead, Like they just decide
Speaker 1: that whatever you do when you're a corpse, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a miracle. Oh Catholicism, Andrew, what are we talking
Speaker 1: about today? Um? Today we're gonna be talking about something
Speaker 1: that I would see more traditional Catholics we have some
Speaker 1: disagreements with Christians. We have some disagreements with them. That is,
Speaker 1: I mean, that is our entire audience, is that this
Speaker 1: this podcast is completely listened to by the Pope's Swiss
Speaker 1: guards Vaticans. Yeah, we we have deep penetration in the Vatican.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting choice of woods considering the end of
Speaker 1: Pride month. But yeah, alright, so, um yeah, what are
Speaker 1: we talking about. We'll be talking about human evolution, particularly
Speaker 1: favorite kind of seems to human corporation. Okay, the origins
Speaker 1: of human corporation. O. Yeah, I love this ship. I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, people tend to emphasize human competition
Speaker 1: a lot um because capitalism wants us to believe that
Speaker 1: we have these competitive you know, dog eat dog. I
Speaker 1: don't know where that term came from, By the way,
Speaker 1: I've always been curious about that. Um. As far as
Speaker 1: I know, dogs don't eat each other. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting phase and I think it's kind of apt here. Um.
Speaker 1: This is this idea that that that we're just competing
Speaker 1: all the time, that we're fighting is it's a survival
Speaker 1: of the fittest, and only the strong survive. You know,
Speaker 1: when people talk, you know, casually about prehistoric times. Is
Speaker 1: this very it represents the stories that we've been told
Speaker 1: about it, and as a result, it tends to be
Speaker 1: very you know, competitive, highly patriarchal, highly violent, just constant
Speaker 1: into put some violence. I mean that was the justification
Speaker 1: used to you know, reinforce the state rights like or
Speaker 1: the state of nature's everybody against themselves. And so as
Speaker 1: a result, you know, a state had to be introduced.
Speaker 1: We treated some of our freedoms for the safety that
Speaker 1: the state is supposed to provide. But as far back
Speaker 1: as Brudon and really even further, because let's be real,
Speaker 1: it's a very European concept. That's something that can be
Speaker 1: protected towards all human societies and all human philosophies. UM.
Speaker 1: But Prudon was one of the first white guys, I guess,
Speaker 1: in his time period and in his fields, really challenge
Speaker 1: that notion with you know, mutually a fact of evolution.
Speaker 1: Of course, the studies and stuff that he would have done, um,
Speaker 1: the knowledge that he would have shared upon you know,
Speaker 1: known unstudied by people before him, but he was one
Speaker 1: of the first really bring all that knowledge together into
Speaker 1: one place. UM. Years later, UM an anthropologist and armatologists
Speaker 1: was born. I mean, she wasn't born that, but she
Speaker 1: became that later in life. In ninety six, that would
Speaker 1: be Sarah Blaff for Hordy. And so she made many
Speaker 1: major contributions revolutionary psychology and sociology biology, especially pioneering our
Speaker 1: modern understanding of the evolutionary basis of female behavior in
Speaker 1: both non human and human primates. In two thousand two,
Speaker 1: she was recognized as one of the fifth most Important
Speaker 1: Women in Science, and in fourteen, Mothers and Others, together
Speaker 1: with her earlier work, earned plready the National Academies Award
Speaker 1: for Scientific Reviewing in honor of her insightful and visionary
Speaker 1: synthesis of a broad range of data and concepts from
Speaker 1: across the social and biological sciences to illuminate the importance
Speaker 1: of biosocial processes among mothers, in funds, and other social
Speaker 1: actors informing the evolutionary crucival of human societies. In essence,
Speaker 1: she got an award because she recognized the fact that
Speaker 1: the relationship between mother and child and you know how
Speaker 1: humans raise their children, Um, it's vital in our evolution
Speaker 1: and becoming human. Yeah, I mean that's um, yeah, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of that. Yeah, I mean humans,
Speaker 1: they we we do recognize now I'm starting to recognize
Speaker 1: more and more parati parmatologists at least that um humans,
Speaker 1: I let other great apes rather, they do care, they shay,
Speaker 1: and they empathize a lot more than we may have
Speaker 1: originally thought. But humans still when at you know, the
Speaker 1: caring competition, I think we because of even something like
Speaker 1: all official anatomy um and how we structure society use
Speaker 1: is probably one of the more pro social of you know,
Speaker 1: the other great apes. Yeah, it's interesting whenever I because
Speaker 1: I've I've read stuff about like empathy and apes, but
Speaker 1: it's always in the context of the ones that we
Speaker 1: taught sign language to. The one I'm remember in particularly
Speaker 1: is and I'm I'm spacing on the name that the
Speaker 1: scientists gave her, but one of the apes, yeah, Cocoa,
Speaker 1: when her reaction to like nine eleven um because it
Speaker 1: was apparently like on the TV or some ship wouldn't happened,
Speaker 1: but like I never here emphasized the same degree um
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe I just have not sought it out,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly kind of less uh less discussed as
Speaker 1: like evidence of empathy within um within like the societies
Speaker 1: that they built, I guess like would be the term
Speaker 1: for them, the little their communities, I don't know, whatever
Speaker 1: you wanna call them. Yeah, yeah, I was interesting as well,
Speaker 1: I mean, was a guerrilla and regarding her sign language
Speaker 1: is actually interesting video sc talking about how you know
Speaker 1: about sign language. Then we assume, but Couco is a
Speaker 1: gorilla and humans are well closely related to two groups
Speaker 1: who was being bunobos and chimpanzees, And we tend to
Speaker 1: look at chimpanzees, which tends to be more you know, violent,
Speaker 1: and people use them as an example for this how
Speaker 1: humans naturally are despite the fact that you know, we
Speaker 1: have millions of years evolution diverging from chimpanzees. You know,
Speaker 1: the last common ancestor was like six or seven million
Speaker 1: years ago. Yeah that that's a bit just like yeah,
Speaker 1: like I got five or six years and I consider
Speaker 1: us pretty like pretty far apart. Yeah yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and the on top of that, like there was enough
Speaker 1: time for some serious dip regences. It's not happening, you know,
Speaker 1: like the fact that humans, you know, walk up right
Speaker 1: and chimpanzee is they still have you know that four
Speaker 1: legged Gate. It's actually something that I learned recently, if
Speaker 1: all them two separate occasions, that being that particular kind
Speaker 1: of knuckle walk. Um. Yeah, I just want that kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating kind of besides the point. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we we tend to look at chimpanzee as
Speaker 1: our closest example, but nobles which are a lot more social,
Speaker 1: I would say, a lot more cooperative and less violent,
Speaker 1: and chimpanzees actually share a lot of you know, similarities
Speaker 1: in terms of you all behavior, and they're also one
Speaker 1: of the few animal species that have been you know,
Speaker 1: recognized as having sex for pleasure and not just procreation.
Speaker 1: So good for them. When we talk about evolution, a
Speaker 1: lot of it has been shaped by Darwin, even though
Speaker 1: science is not about figures and big figures and their
Speaker 1: big ideas, it's about the ideas themselves. Um. But still,
Speaker 1: seeing as Darwin was the one who really introduced, no,
Speaker 1: the idea of competition, the idea of of all that
Speaker 1: in evolution, those sorts of notions which came really out
Speaker 1: of his time and industrializing competitive wood. Um, it really
Speaker 1: overstates the rule of competition as of driving force and evolution,
Speaker 1: when in reality cooperation was far more potent force when
Speaker 1: it comes to like pro social human tendencies, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: doing things to benefit others. That's what pro social is.
Speaker 1: Dr Hardie really comes down on the cooperation side of
Speaker 1: things in her book Mothers and Others especially, brings together
Speaker 1: all this evidence that we are basically descendants of a
Speaker 1: place to see in species of cooperative breeders. Corporative breeding
Speaker 1: is a practice amongst some animal species. UM. Other mammals
Speaker 1: do it, but I think we are one of the few.
Speaker 1: We were were the only create a to do it.
Speaker 1: And there are other primates to do it, or the
Speaker 1: monkeys to do it, but none closely related to us.
Speaker 1: Cooperative breeding is basically practice or the reproductive strategy UM
Speaker 1: where alla parental care is provided to the offspring of
Speaker 1: you know, the children of sitting parents in the group.
Speaker 1: All parental care is basically the practice of UM. It's
Speaker 1: basically non direct parents care care provided by individuals other
Speaker 1: than the parents. And so by having that networking place,
Speaker 1: by having the process of our parenting in place, that's
Speaker 1: how we were able to be so successful as a
Speaker 1: species and distribution you know, um, you know, establishing ourselves
Speaker 1: in all these different environments because humans spread barely rapidly
Speaker 1: around the globe and we used to. We've established ourselves
Speaker 1: and created cultures and all sorts of unique environments, and honestly,
Speaker 1: we are the most successful out of the primates, not
Speaker 1: regard so kudus to us um. And that is because
Speaker 1: of corporative breeding. Did you just woo Probert? Yeah, of course, yes,
Speaker 1: like we have to, we have to racial the rest
Speaker 1: of the primates, you know, very very based a us.
Speaker 1: We literally reassoed them. Literally, we're re feeling everything on
Speaker 1: this goddamn planet except for chickens. And no, except for chickens.
Speaker 1: Corn is definitely ratioed us. Yeah, for sure. For sure
Speaker 1: cows too. Man, Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. How
Speaker 1: is chickens? And there's there's one for sure. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of that. Yeah. But I mean there's many
Speaker 1: different species of goods and there's only one species a
Speaker 1: few months. Yeah, you know. I mean, what's the population
Speaker 1: of dogs? Oh? It's actually every time I look, it's
Speaker 1: less than you'd expect. What nine million? Yes, that's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: less than I have expected. I want more. Give me
Speaker 1: more dogs millions like rookie numbers. Like I was going
Speaker 1: to expect like at least a couple of billion just
Speaker 1: based on but no, just nine. Yeah. Every time I
Speaker 1: look it up, I recall being like, oh, there's not
Speaker 1: as many dogs as I thought there were. I guess
Speaker 1: they would in corporative Fredasu're not and only four dred
Speaker 1: million cats. Those are rookie numbers. Cats. Come on, cats,
Speaker 1: But it's actually probably I mean, party for the best.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of damage, my dad always says.
Speaker 1: My dad always says that we need more dogs in
Speaker 1: the world to fix the fun up humans. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I feel a lot of pressure to put on dogs.
Speaker 1: That's completely fair. I feel like that's really our job
Speaker 1: to fix fucked up humans. Yeah, no, no, no, well,
Speaker 1: I mean dogs for that. I mean cats and dogs
Speaker 1: are pulling a lot of weights as it is. You
Speaker 1: know they are. What are ferrets doing? Yeah? Fish doing?
Speaker 1: What are ferrets? Question? Andrew ferrets? Fucking ferrets? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like fucking goldfish right, what are you guys? What do
Speaker 1: you what a goldfish? What have they been doing lately?
Speaker 1: Motherfucker's like, get off your asses and stop us from
Speaker 1: killing people. Goldfish, stop the war in Ukraine? Goldfish, Come on,
Speaker 1: I mean to get to cut gold fish some slack.
Speaker 1: They're busy dying because people would want to take care
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, yeah, they're like all of the people
Speaker 1: treat them like house plants. I didn't think we would
Speaker 1: have Andrew being a goldfish to apologist on this podcast,
Speaker 1: but correctly if I'm wrong, But I don't think cool
Speaker 1: Bishop committed any like wool crimes or anything in my
Speaker 1: rights to defend them. They haven't stopped any war crimes either. Plus,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is my police snell kill talk, and
Speaker 1: I've I've you know, I've I've neglected my fair shaff Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of cross species cooperation. When I was
Speaker 1: younger and living in Texas, there was this one day
Speaker 1: where like we're out on this in our like fucking
Speaker 1: backyard area and we see walking through the alley behind
Speaker 1: our houses this massive turtle probably three pounds like like
Speaker 1: easily like three or four feet uh in in circumference
Speaker 1: on his shelf, just like an enormous animal, just like
Speaker 1: strolling around the neighborhood, not a species that you that
Speaker 1: you see in Texas wild. So we like kind of
Speaker 1: try to corral him. We can't lift him, he's massive,
Speaker 1: but we like corral him into the into our yard
Speaker 1: area and given some cucumbers, and eventually his person comes
Speaker 1: around and the guy explains that like, yeah, when teenage
Speaker 1: mut ninja turtles came out, a lot of people bought
Speaker 1: a bunch of different kinds of turtles, thinking they were
Speaker 1: good pets. But they didn't realize that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of the turtles that get sold like never stopped growing,
Speaker 1: Like if you keep them alive, they just keep getting bigger,
Speaker 1: and so he like and they smell about only if
Speaker 1: they're time. He had adopted this turtle and it lived
Speaker 1: in his yard and he said like, yeah, he's really strong,
Speaker 1: Like I have a good fence, but every two or
Speaker 1: three years he'll just walk through it. Like most of
Speaker 1: the time he chooses to stay in the yard, but
Speaker 1: every couple of years he was, I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: on a walk and and he's like yeah, he just
Speaker 1: like breaks through the fence. It takes him about a second,
Speaker 1: like if he wants to do it. That's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've seen Baki, have you seen Backy? No?
Speaker 1: Is this is this me um and no, this is
Speaker 1: not my my web coming out story. I have not
Speaker 1: read if you would much um in that recod, but
Speaker 1: I started backy recently and the foost at apisode, they
Speaker 1: established that all these people are coming to Tokyo, right,
Speaker 1: but like since kind of fighting competition, and the way
Speaker 1: that they established those people as are dangerous is that
Speaker 1: these are all like criminals and like death through and
Speaker 1: so like the in the process of being put to death,
Speaker 1: like one person is, you know, being injected, only one
Speaker 1: persons being electrocutes, psons being hung, and they all managed
Speaker 1: to break free after they die and like break off
Speaker 1: the prison easily. This one guy, he was imprisoned underwater.
Speaker 1: He breaks out of the underwater prison and swims several
Speaker 1: miles up to the surface and then swims all the
Speaker 1: way to Tokyo. And it's like for some reason, not
Speaker 1: too it will break it out of his inclusion or
Speaker 1: whenever he chooses. Just reminded me of like they're trying
Speaker 1: to establish his power levels. You No, he's he's too
Speaker 1: powerful to be contained, um, And he's probably still alive
Speaker 1: because they live forever um, which is again why they're
Speaker 1: bad pets. Yeah, because what did you do about slavery?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, well that he may not have been
Speaker 1: around for slavery. But what did you do? What are
Speaker 1: you going to do the next time there's slavery turtle?
Speaker 1: You know, are you going to stop it? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. You're a turtle, may mean next time? Is
Speaker 1: this something you should be telling me? What is attention
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court? It's not. Well in the future,
Speaker 1: that's sure, that's sure. What leave the turtles out of this? Well,
Speaker 1: if they stop the Supreme Court, I will stop shooting
Speaker 1: on the turtle. Is you're just doing that meme from
Speaker 1: where people were like I gave up my plastic straws
Speaker 1: for the turtles. Where are they now? That was a thing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was bad. I don't remember that. It's like, come on, well,
Speaker 1: I will see that. I mean, at least what corporative
Speaker 1: bredos and I think our our tendency of propertive breeding
Speaker 1: tendency probably has something to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: we adopt other species as pets and as members of
Speaker 1: our family, because you don't really see other animals doing that. No,
Speaker 1: you know, um, I think there's there's some kind of
Speaker 1: like fish or crustation or something that that keeps another species,
Speaker 1: like as live stock. Yeah, there's a couple of species
Speaker 1: to do versions of that for sure, right, But I
Speaker 1: mean we love our dogs and our cats, our ferrets
Speaker 1: and our snakes and our tarantulas and our ferrets question moods. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people are trying to like domesticate foxes. We could love
Speaker 1: them too. You know. It's the people. There are people
Speaker 1: who who keep big cats that people who keep like ms,
Speaker 1: people who keep all kinds. We just you know, it's
Speaker 1: like we've got to catch them all, you know, like
Speaker 1: we just want to take all these creatures and we
Speaker 1: wanted to love them. I don't know that says about
Speaker 1: us other than the fact that our cooperative nature extends
Speaker 1: beyond the boundaries of you know, us as a species.
Speaker 1: We hrated very high levels of mutual tolerance of perspective
Speaker 1: taken and other pro social impulses from ancestors who use
Speaker 1: our parental care and provision of the young two survive.
Speaker 1: I mean, we didn't invent complex corporation. Our pre human
Speaker 1: ancestors did, but we elaborated upon it. Yeah, it's um.
Speaker 1: It's always interesting to me to think about that. I
Speaker 1: think back up to when of the first time I
Speaker 1: ever went to a war zone was Ukraine and it
Speaker 1: was this we were in this little town called of
Speaker 1: Dificult that was getting shelled by the Russians, and there
Speaker 1: was this big the way they do the heating over there,
Speaker 1: they have these events going underneath, the tubes going underneath
Speaker 1: all the houses to supply them with like gas and stuff.
Speaker 1: And there's this this big was this big central like
Speaker 1: kind of box thing and one there's a few of
Speaker 1: them in the town and stuff that like is the
Speaker 1: I don't know, I guess it's like the like nexus
Speaker 1: of a bunch of different houses all whatever heating systems,
Speaker 1: so it's warm, and the people they're like when the
Speaker 1: war started, a bunch of people fled and they left
Speaker 1: pets behind, you know, sometimes they didn't really have a
Speaker 1: choice because it's war. Um. So there were all these
Speaker 1: cats and dogs, and soon all these breeding cats and dogs,
Speaker 1: all these kittens and puppies, and people who lived there
Speaker 1: had like turned that little junction box for the heating
Speaker 1: system into this like massive kind of open air cat
Speaker 1: and dog sanctuary. So like there were all of these
Speaker 1: like dozens and dozens of puppies and kittens just like
Speaker 1: living together in this big heating box. Um in the
Speaker 1: middle of this like being taken care of by all
Speaker 1: these local ladies who would scrounge up food every morning
Speaker 1: and make sure that they were all taken care of. UM.
Speaker 1: And it was interesting because you could see all these
Speaker 1: like cats and dogs living together and all of these
Speaker 1: people coming together to take care of animals they didn't know. UM.
Speaker 1: At the same time, like all of the people were
Speaker 1: doing their level best to murder the folks like a
Speaker 1: mile and a half away and vice versa. UM. So
Speaker 1: we contain multitudes of human beings, definitely, I mean that
Speaker 1: that's possible too. Rite like the fact that we are
Speaker 1: soon eager to like share another emotional states, you know,
Speaker 1: to empathize and do weither we assume eager to involve
Speaker 1: ourselves and and give and share with those who are
Speaker 1: unrelated to us. I mean, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: species that do not realise the young at all, um.
Speaker 1: And then there was the do and try to kill
Speaker 1: other people's young, and then there was that tjest to
Speaker 1: care of their own young. But you know, we even
Speaker 1: in this like super individual realistic capitalists will we still
Speaker 1: find ways to look out for each other. And I
Speaker 1: think that's beautiful. Yeah, of course, you know, cooperative reading
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that there's like constant like part either dynast
Speaker 1: or like cooperation and yeah, all the time it's still
Speaker 1: can't be competition, which you know all these different things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but behaviorally, anatomically, and emotionally modern humans cooperative breeders. And
Speaker 1: the crazy part is those you know, three um traits
Speaker 1: you know, behavior and not to be in an emotion,
Speaker 1: those illustrats not evolved simultaneously. So for example, or physical
Speaker 1: features like our eyes and the fact that our eyes
Speaker 1: are are able to you know, we can see the
Speaker 1: whites and our eyes and that way we can put
Speaker 1: ourselves in the people's perspectives and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: We could see the emotions clearly, you know, the fact
Speaker 1: that we are we were prone to sharing our smiles,
Speaker 1: and the fact that, um, you know, our vocal courts
Speaker 1: have such range, would be able to communicate to many
Speaker 1: different things. Um. While these are hallmarks of the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, even before our super big brains developed,
Speaker 1: we were ready getting these treats that would have helped
Speaker 1: us in cooperation. But I wanted a lot of time though,
Speaker 1: because you know a lot of the shapes we developed
Speaker 1: before language. Um, it's like what was the first word
Speaker 1: of humanity. You know, what was the first sentence, what
Speaker 1: was the first thing like we said, and how did
Speaker 1: other people react when the person said it. I can
Speaker 1: imagine that, you know, like agriculture, something that's developed independently, UM,
Speaker 1: on multiple different occasions in different places. But I still wonder,
Speaker 1: like what those Foost conversations might have been A vote, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think a lot of them probably would
Speaker 1: have been arguments with other people who didn't want us
Speaker 1: to do words, UM, who were ultimately right, you know,
Speaker 1: if if only yeah, yeah, I don't know, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: like I think it probably like we we just did
Speaker 1: a couple of episodes about the history of of of
Speaker 1: gynecology UM, and one of the things that we talked
Speaker 1: about at the start was like the prehistory of medicine,
Speaker 1: which which likely began in an organized way UM by
Speaker 1: like likely the first people practicing medicine in any way.
Speaker 1: We're pregnant women and women who had been pregnant trying
Speaker 1: to help each other survive pregnancy, right, UM. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if that, I mean, food gathering is
Speaker 1: obviously the other one, but I wouldn't be surprised if
Speaker 1: like language started as a way to try and like
Speaker 1: communicate and better survive making babies because it's it's like
Speaker 1: super dangerous and also entirely necessary, um and and something
Speaker 1: that kind of particularly benefits from communication. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be shocked if that was like the first
Speaker 1: thing we talked about, so to speak. Mm hm, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. But I'm also thinking as well, and it
Speaker 1: just occurred to me it's pretty possible that like that
Speaker 1: the first language was not spoken language. I feel like
Speaker 1: it may have been like a form of sign language,
Speaker 1: you know, because you know, we have these hands, and
Speaker 1: people tend to talk with their hands, so yeah, oh yes,
Speaker 1: I think the hypothesis is that, you know, we use
Speaker 1: the hands to communicate things before we started speaking. I mean,
Speaker 1: the fact that we were able to teach apes, you know,
Speaker 1: other apes to use sign language, I think that's a
Speaker 1: good sign that we can lead to communicate with that face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also you know, probably how our communication
Speaker 1: with dogs started, because that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: makes them special is they're pretty much alone in animals
Speaker 1: and that they like and kind of instinctively grow up
Speaker 1: understanding that when we gesture at them, it means stuff
Speaker 1: like if you point, dogs will look where you're pointing
Speaker 1: a lot of the time rather than at you, which
Speaker 1: is like a rare trait in animals. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you're probably right on the money there. Huh. I
Speaker 1: didn't even think about that. That's true. That's true. And
Speaker 1: of course that makes it fun because you could always
Speaker 1: fake them out and throw something stupid. Yeah. Yeah, Anderson
Speaker 1: doesn't fall for that ship, so I love she does
Speaker 1: not fall for that. I can't fake her. I can't
Speaker 1: fake her out. That's probably why she's the woman of
Speaker 1: the host. I'm you're all wrong pretending to throw stuff
Speaker 1: at a dog and then it goes running and then
Speaker 1: it realizes that you faked it, Like that's the best.
Speaker 1: I can't relate because if I try to do that,
Speaker 1: she looks at me like a good try. Uh huh, okay, Sophie.
Speaker 1: Where you need to go is corgy Con in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: One of these years will they let Anderson? And even
Speaker 1: though she's only she does she's only party. There's nothing,
Speaker 1: there's nothing but acceptance of corgy Con, acceptance and hundreds
Speaker 1: of Corgis frolicking in the surf. It rules. She'll try
Speaker 1: to hurt them all. Yeah, they are all trying to
Speaker 1: hurt all of them. I'm into it. They are all
Speaker 1: very excited and don't know what to do with each other.
Speaker 1: It moves so as the book progresses, party spend some
Speaker 1: time talking about how we are similar to and different
Speaker 1: from other greed Eps's feeling about how we use eye
Speaker 1: contact and smiles to and even from a young age. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we we've be tend to hear about it.
Speaker 1: But the fact that babies cries are so attuned towards
Speaker 1: attention and capturing the attention of people, Um, these are
Speaker 1: all in like basterds. Yeah, yeah, I mean I was.
Speaker 1: I was a screamer. Apparently I used to real real ball,
Speaker 1: ball and ball and ball. In fact, one story I
Speaker 1: was told was that the neighbor called and was like
Speaker 1: something happening to Andrew, and my parents were like, nah,
Speaker 1: he's just grant. There's like three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: But I mean, look at me now, I'm balling for justice,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah. One interesting treat that you know, humans
Speaker 1: have is all willingness to like share our babies with others,
Speaker 1: other grade apes. You know, those mothers, they tend to
Speaker 1: have like constant contact and care with their children, you know,
Speaker 1: like they don't let others touch their children at tall,
Speaker 1: probably because like other mothers tend to want to kill
Speaker 1: their kids or of course harm to their kids, tend
Speaker 1: to be very protective of them. Whereas you know, as
Speaker 1: our parents, we are you know, full of fledged cooperative readers.
Speaker 1: You know, we have not only shared our young with others,
Speaker 1: but our pear intervals have been been recorded breastfeeding the
Speaker 1: young of others, you know, and and masticating and passing
Speaker 1: like hard to digest foods to infunts. I'm mixing up
Speaker 1: my terms a bit in terms of you know, what
Speaker 1: what is a primate and what isn't ape versus what
Speaker 1: is you know, just whatever. But mamosetts and tamarins which
Speaker 1: are colored stry kids to litricids collect kids. They are
Speaker 1: also corporative breeders and they're very fast breeders as well,
Speaker 1: rapid rapid breeders. Um, so you know, good for them.
Speaker 1: It's also typical of our species. We tend to be
Speaker 1: very fast breeders, and that's why we really shoot all
Speaker 1: the other great tapes. What I find interesting as well,
Speaker 1: is that we be able to breed so rapidly despite
Speaker 1: the fact that our um do you remember um the
Speaker 1: word for like carrying a child. I'm just black and
Speaker 1: right now breggors. No, no, no, I think you're you're
Speaker 1: thinking of the incubation period. Is that what we're trying
Speaker 1: to think of. Yeah, but that's such a that that
Speaker 1: feels like a very the humanizing way of witness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll just say that carrying a baby, you know, and
Speaker 1: the costs because on you know, woman's body, on humans body, Um,
Speaker 1: it is like whole thing. It's a whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean if a people of having so many in
Speaker 1: one lifetime despite the cost necessary to raise each I
Speaker 1: mean other animals they have like meets and seasons and
Speaker 1: you know, they have set amounts of children they could
Speaker 1: have in their lifetime. But no, mm hm, you know
Speaker 1: we could just I mean, they're their stories of women
Speaker 1: who have had like dozens of kids, which is you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunate circumstances because you know, in those cases it tends
Speaker 1: to be um, not necessarily willing. But the fact that
Speaker 1: we are capable of having many kids is lends towards
Speaker 1: the importance of having support systems in place because other
Speaker 1: animals don't tend to have more children they can care
Speaker 1: for if that is you know, they care for children.
Speaker 1: A lot of them just eat their kids if they
Speaker 1: can't care for them exactly. Can't do that once it's
Speaker 1: you know, makes sense, Yeah, whereas we kind of evolved
Speaker 1: to have support systems in placement speaking of eating babies,
Speaker 1: kind of the kind of is a dark side to that,
Speaker 1: um because even though we tend to have you know,
Speaker 1: these children and stuff, and we tend to supposed to
Speaker 1: how these support networks to care for them, the practice
Speaker 1: of infanticide is actually something that has a long long
Speaker 1: history UM in human practice, where if a mother determines
Speaker 1: that they're not able to raise their child, they don't
Speaker 1: have the support systems in place to care for that child.
Speaker 1: Different practices would typically be used to you know, deal
Speaker 1: with that child. And that's of course what makes anti
Speaker 1: abortion stances um so inhumane, you know, because Yeah, the
Speaker 1: whole reason we that abortion is so um important is
Speaker 1: because it protects the you know, the autonomy and the
Speaker 1: agency of you know, people who can carry children. And
Speaker 1: yet in this will it continues to atomize us and
Speaker 1: individualize us and separate us um. You know, shipping some
Speaker 1: people of their support network so we can in our
Speaker 1: support networks. It's still expected to and punished heavily if
Speaker 1: you do not just pump out as many children as
Speaker 1: you can, and it's it's sick, it's really sick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not great when it comes to those support networks.
Speaker 1: Most people are familiar with, you know, extended family like
Speaker 1: for example, grand appearance UM and if as an infant,
Speaker 1: survival is significantly affected by a grandmother's presence, which is
Speaker 1: why humans tend to live long past there reproductively viable period.
Speaker 1: You know, human females live after menopause for pretty long
Speaker 1: time in commarison to other species, and of course their
Speaker 1: grandmothers and there of course fathers. UM. There are sisters
Speaker 1: and god parents and really a lot of other um
Speaker 1: cultural systems in place, even polyandrous meeting UM. I think
Speaker 1: I mentioned that in a previous in the previous episode.
Speaker 1: There are also forms of like bilocal flexible residents patterns
Speaker 1: where you know, you always have kin around to take
Speaker 1: care of your infants. And I would say that it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of tough because a lot of people these days,
Speaker 1: you know, struggled with the extended families. Um, it's very
Speaker 1: much cool. UM, I love you, but I'm glad we
Speaker 1: live in separate kind of situation, you know, Like extended
Speaker 1: families definitely have a lot of prouis and comments. Um,
Speaker 1: which is why we actually find I think interesting a
Speaker 1: lot of examples of chosen families throughout different societies. And
Speaker 1: also even there's some evidence that that might have been
Speaker 1: the case in the past as well, where unrelated people
Speaker 1: would form groups together um. As one example I remember
Speaker 1: reading about and of course this can't necessarily extended to
Speaker 1: prehistoric times, but I've seen in multiple different hunt gatherer situations.
Speaker 1: But um, where you have this this clan system in place, um,
Speaker 1: and you can not so how far you travel, you
Speaker 1: can expect to receive care for members of your clan. UM.
Speaker 1: In North America, I think it was like the Beyer
Speaker 1: clan and the Elk Plan and all these different plans. UM.
Speaker 1: In Aboriginal Australia, they also have different groups as well,
Speaker 1: and so people were able to interrupt with each other
Speaker 1: across huge distances and settle in different places and connect
Speaker 1: with others to find kin. You really when necessarily directly related. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a couple I mean there's a there's a book
Speaker 1: called sets It On that I read many many years
Speaker 1: ago that's about kind of like the evolution of human
Speaker 1: sexuality and how some of it's been like how different
Speaker 1: cultures have looked at things like like what makes someone
Speaker 1: apparent UM, And there's all these different attitudes, Like before
Speaker 1: we had kind of the scientific understanding of like where
Speaker 1: you know, how how babies are conceived um, that we
Speaker 1: have now there were all these different attitudes like this
Speaker 1: idea and I forget the name of the people who,
Speaker 1: but they still exist with somewhere in Latin America, and
Speaker 1: their their their belief was essentially that when you got
Speaker 1: someone pregnant, that was the start of the process, and
Speaker 1: then after like conception, the person with the baby would
Speaker 1: go around and right, yes, yes, I remember that woman
Speaker 1: for the baby. And the idea was that like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: when they fucked, that person's like essence gets added to
Speaker 1: this forming child. And one of the things that that
Speaker 1: does socially is it means that it means that for
Speaker 1: that community, UM, children weren't seen as having one father.
Speaker 1: They're seen as having a bunch of fathers, all of
Speaker 1: whom were like responsible for teaching the kid and raising it,
Speaker 1: which is like, oh, that's a very sensible way to, uh,
Speaker 1: to organize your little society is to is to is
Speaker 1: to ensure that like the kids coming up have as
Speaker 1: many adults who are like responsible for them as possible,
Speaker 1: which is, broadly speaking, the best thing you can do
Speaker 1: for kids is to have a bunch of adults being
Speaker 1: interested in their their their success exactly, because I mean, like,
Speaker 1: if you have like one of the best hunters in
Speaker 1: the village rais in your child, and you have the
Speaker 1: best craftsman in the villageries in your child, and you
Speaker 1: have the best fisher villageries and child, that child is
Speaker 1: gonna have a very well rounded education. You know, it's
Speaker 1: going to be able to learn a lot of different
Speaker 1: skills that they're going to need. I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: one of the many positive effects of having multiple care givers.
Speaker 1: The development of a child's would view and sense of self,
Speaker 1: their concept of self and others, their concept of empathy,
Speaker 1: the concept of independence, how they how they view the
Speaker 1: world as either dangerous or insecure or giving and welcoming,
Speaker 1: and so I mean we are so used to this
Speaker 1: nuclear family would view, which is these independent um households
Speaker 1: that we don't consider that the fact that having a
Speaker 1: broad range of people raising them is actually crucial to
Speaker 1: their personal development as children, to the human development really
Speaker 1: having all of those different perspectives and stuff in place.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's part of what Pretty talks about,
Speaker 1: especially in her final chapter, that being how in modern times,
Speaker 1: the accumulation of property UM, the emergence of patriarchy UM,
Speaker 1: even the stuff in the post industrial era, all of
Speaker 1: these would prompt to shift from cooperative breeding, from cooperation
Speaker 1: between groups, two war between groups, especially with property, because
Speaker 1: when you have property, you have a need to hold
Speaker 1: onswer property. And the whole idea of property is you
Speaker 1: in yours the exclusion of all others right now. And
Speaker 1: so at the end of her book, she also speculates
Speaker 1: we might be losing our art of nurture because we
Speaker 1: are continually evolving um. But she wonders what might be
Speaker 1: potential evolutionary effects we if we are we wearing children
Speaker 1: who are not living in internet contact with of a
Speaker 1: variety of caregivers, because especially within those first two years
Speaker 1: of life, influence rare and responsible care taking relationships developed
Speaker 1: in a potentials for empathy, mind reading and cooperation and collaboration.
Speaker 1: I mean, these behaviors are the outcome of complex interactions
Speaker 1: between both genes and nurture. So the question is how
Speaker 1: can these in their potentials remain more than potentials, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean because the development of them is far from
Speaker 1: garen teed. A lot of children these days are raised
Speaker 1: without extensive social contact um. I mean, even in the
Speaker 1: year of COVID, where a children are isolated at home,
Speaker 1: especially the heights of pandemic. I already wonder if we
Speaker 1: will see like a Mark at like distinct generation of
Speaker 1: like within a range of two years of children who
Speaker 1: just aren't as socialized because for those first two years
Speaker 1: of their life they were kind of isolated. Well those
Speaker 1: first few years, they're like they're kind of isolated because
Speaker 1: there's this lack of empathy, lack of corporative skills, and
Speaker 1: lack of attachment that make cause it's to Mr Mark,
Speaker 1: it's it's really trauma. Um. But trauma doesn't necessarily stop
Speaker 1: people from continuing that drauma from reproducing and carrying that on.
Speaker 1: And so I really I'm really curious as to see
Speaker 1: what the effects that might be and also what we
Speaker 1: can do to try to um cube that negative impact.
Speaker 1: The last question she asked is, really, will humans in
Speaker 1: the future still be empathetic and curious and about the
Speaker 1: emotions of others because of our ancient heritage? You not
Speaker 1: care I'm paraphrasing here, or will these systems that we
Speaker 1: have in place evolve us in the more Marcavillion direction. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess that's the mystery that we're all going to
Speaker 1: get to watch unfold in pieces, at least over the
Speaker 1: course of you know, the rest of our lives and
Speaker 1: everyone else's lives. It is, I don't know. I I
Speaker 1: think the overall arcade speaks more to the things that
Speaker 1: about us that are good into increasing cooperation, because that
Speaker 1: is like the story of the last couple hundred thousand
Speaker 1: years of human evolution, although at the same time some
Speaker 1: of that a lot of that cooperation has gone towards
Speaker 1: fucked up ends as well. Like, I mean, all of
Speaker 1: the good and the bad things happening right now are
Speaker 1: are one way or the other examples of cooperation, right
Speaker 1: Like it's it's, uh, yeah, I don't know, let's help
Speaker 1: things get better. So I think we could do more
Speaker 1: than hoop. I think we cannot. Yeah, we're going to
Speaker 1: have I mean like like that's the thing, right, Like
Speaker 1: part of how specifically in the United States, I mean,
Speaker 1: but internationally to the right has gotten so much over
Speaker 1: the last really five or six years, in particular is
Speaker 1: cooperation across borders and across like ideological differences. Like there's
Speaker 1: there has been like tremendous sustained cooperation that has allowed
Speaker 1: them to amass power um the power that they're currently exercising.
Speaker 1: And the only thing that's going to actually counter that
Speaker 1: is the cooperation um an organization if a much larger
Speaker 1: amount of people, Like there's not that many of those folks,
Speaker 1: that's why they've had to be so organized. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more of us. But we're also can't stop fighting
Speaker 1: about ship. So it is it is like we are
Speaker 1: going to have to evolve in real time to cooperate
Speaker 1: better with one another and more effectively in order to
Speaker 1: in order to wrench the wheelback. That's true. M hm. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's not lose uh and let's not lose your plug
Speaker 1: doubles Andrew, Yes, you can follow me on Twitter. I
Speaker 1: don't disclose seeming true. I'm finding on YouTube andruism hell yeah,
Speaker 1: hell yeah, Well folks, that's gonna be all for us
Speaker 1: here today that it could happen here until next time,
Speaker 1: go happen somewhere else. Okay, it could happen here as
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. One more podcasts from
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