Links & Quick Hits
~ Very interesting post by Dr. Stephan: The Paleolithic Mind. I think it’s worthy to consider that just as we evolved on certain foods we evolved in certain social structures. To my mind, individualist, anti-authoritarian philosophy is an attempt in part to regain our evolved social heritage, just as the various forms of "The paleo Diet" constitute an attempt to return to our evolved metabolic milieu. Here’s the comment I dropped, edited somewhat.
Wow Stephan, you’ve just laid out many of the reasons I consider myself anarchist, "politically," if one can even consider HGs to practice "politics" in the way modern societies do. I’ve often said that we evolved to account for the values and actions of about 30 individuals or so and that each person is integral to the whole group and not merely a cog in the machine. Each individual has real influence over others.
Of course, I choose to live in modern society and submit to the diktats of the Nomenclatura, but it certainly helps to understand the source of the stress it causes. […]
Some practical ways that I escape some of the stress of being subservient to the mass collective:
– I don’t vote, guiltlessly and proudly so. Not interested in getting my 1/270 millionth say in my own affairs.
– I never seek out "the news" on TV, radio or in print. The most I do is listen to NPR now and then because of their deeper exploration of the issues they cover.
On the latter point, this has been a huge daily benefit for the last couple of years….
~ Quite coincidentally I’m sure, Mark Sisson touches on some of these same social issues: Are Humans Hard Wired For A Limited Social Circle?
A British anthropologist named Robin Dunbar figured the same principle ought to apply to all primates – human and non-human alike. In 1992, using the predictive value of neocortex size, he was able to accurately predict average group size for thirty-six species of monkeys and apes. He then followed suit (abstract) for human primates and came up with a human maximum “mean group size” of 150 and an “intimate circle size” of 12. Hypothesis in hand, he then compared his prediction with observed human group sizes, paying special attention to the anthropological literature and reports from hunter-gatherer societies. The homo sapien brain developed around 250,000 years ago, so looking at hunter-gatherers was his best bet for approximating the social behaviors of Paleolithic ancestors.
I’d add just one tidbit to Mark’s excellent post (and make sure to think about the implications of the new social Media Mark brings to light) and that is that before the advent of agriculture with stored foodstuffs like grain and the breeding of livestock, there was no government as we know it because there was literally nothing to steal. Of course, that doesn’t mean that wealth production and accumulation is a bad thing. Indeed, is now an integral part of our continuing evolution. But how about theft?
~ Here’s a group of remote people racking up some serious longevity. Apparently with more and more contact with civilization and its ways come shorter lifespans.
~ A genetic test to determine your ideal diet? Sounds somewhat plausible, I suppose. But I doubt it would work for all people in all situations. How about Real Food? Do you need to test your genes to know it’ll probably be good for you, far better than processed foods?
~ Suppose you were going to start a magazine devoted to diabetics and their needs. What would you call it? …Oh, I know: SWEET. And some of you wonder why I blow my stack…
~ Finally, my paid article in DRW Magazine went out to 40,000 print subscribers in February. The online version is here (pg. 14, though I look to be somewhat outclassed by the ad on pg. 15). Here’s a PDF of the actual article which gives an overview of the paleo way as a lead-in to the no-soap/poo hoopla.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT AND HOW IT WORKS
Free The Animal is an eclectic writing project about everything since November 2003. 23 years, 5,500 posts, 5 million words.
It's a paid membership blog. Most posts are free and public, but only paid members can comment. What determines whether it's free or paid is when I publish. Monday through Friday, free and public. Saturday and Sunday, for paid members. That's it. Membership info here.
What Stephan calls “The Paleolithic Mind” is a subset of physical anthropology called “Evolutionary Psychology”.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology
I was into this stuff wwwaaaaayyyyyy before I ever heard of Paleo, given that I attended a university that has some of the most eminent EvPsych folks in the world. :)
As the Wikipedia entry on EvPysch is pretty dry — I suggest reading any of Steven Pinker’s books instead:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker
Also, EvPsych FAQ here:
The way to keep longevity high whilst embedded in culture? Become a member of an extremely tight religious circle, take over a sunny Socal city, and eat a lot of nuts:
Yeah, some tough competition with the ad on page 15. :-) Then again it may cause some to pause long enough to read the article.
I don’t know about the ad, butt the art was great
I’m always baffled when people try to equate the state with “civilization”. Civilization is a natural and emergent order, whereas the nation-state is the most violent and anti-social organization I can think of.
Chaohinon:
And the biggest killer of humans other than nature itself.
…And at least nature plays by fixed rules and she can’t be bought.
Richard
Art has some interesting related thoughts:
Thanks for that, Chris. I was behind a few posts at Art’s, so glad I saw it.
Uncanny how Mark, Stephan & Art came up with posts on the same day with such abstract similarities.
By the way, as a Brit, what is NPR? public radio?
Exactly. NPR=National Public Radio. While it’s usually a bunch of commies or sympathizers running the show, I do like a lot of the book interviews and such.
I figured that evolutionary psychology was a natural fit for the paleo diet. However, the pacifism of pre-agricultural societies has been greatly exagerrated. I’m part Mohawk–my peeps were murdering & enslaving their neighbors long before you Euro-American boat people got here. The Mongols were also pre-agricultural (herding nomads, not settled agriculturalists), & they conquered the biggest land empire in human history.
We’ve much to learn from pre-agricultural societies, but not all of it is pleasant.
Pre-agricultural violence was pretty much cut-and-dry hostile takeovers, whereas post-agricultural violence is more ideological in nature. Modern society sugarcoats its biggest crimes with ex-post-facto religious and/or political justifications.
Like with our diets, I don’t think humans have chanced much at all. The modern human predator just happens to have things like nukes, spy satellites, flags, televisions, and standing armies at his disposal.
That’s ’cause it’s easy for the defeated to “vote w/ their feet” before agriculture – no crops to leave behind. W/ crops, it’s costlier for the defeated to exit than to stay & be ruled by their conquerors. Agricultural societal violence is either to conquer & rule agriculturalists, clear land of pre-agricultural peoples so it can be cultivated, or for one group of agriculturalists to replace another.
I agree, Chaohinon. On my worst days I describe humans as warlike primates, nothing more. We haven’t changed; only our technology has.
Another interesting thing to throw in the mix is Thom Hartmann’s theory that what modern society describes as Attention Deficit Disorder is only the bad fit of those of us with traits that worked perfectly for hunters but did not suit us well to the agrarian “civilization” that we later found ourselves in. His book, “Beyond ADD” is a fascinating look at this hunter/farmer disconnect. Sure helped me understand myself and my son!
because there was literally nothing to steal.
@Richard
I have to correct you, Richard. There was something to steal. Namely, access to females.
@ Patrik:
That’s not likely to be a strong motivation for the undue risk of warfare. Any population can manufacture their own.
Hard for me to believe that an HG population could have advanced simply by marauding other HGs with females. Doesn’t make sense and to my knowledge we see no hint of any such thing in the whole of the animal kingdom.
Manufacturing adult females takes a lot longer than stealing them, and solves the infant-mortality problem with simply producing them internally. We do see wife-stealing in historically-known hunter-gatherer societies, such as my Mohawk ancestors. (They practiced “mourning war,” like most other northeastern American Indians, with the difference that they integrated the captives into their society as full members of society, not slaves.) It was so common in Scots-Irish culture that it got ritualized, and when young people got engaged to be married the suitor would ritually “steal” the girl from her family.
Furthermore, when you’re talking about “pre-agricultural” societies, you’re also talking about nomadic herders, and with nomadic herders there’s obviously something worth stealing: the other tribe’s herd animals, which are rather easy to steal because they can move under their own power. Cattle raids are common between rival cattle-herding peoples, etc.