In Spite Of…
Recorded October 4th, 2022
Description
We are a product of evolutionary processes - certain categories of behaviors made our ancestors more ‘fit’ depending on the environmental/social circumstances in the past. One of these behaviors - ‘spite’ - is when an animal (or human) actively does something against their self-interest as long as it hurts their competitor more. In a post growth world I expect - and fear - that this dynamic will become more prevalent at micro scales in our daily lives but also - and of more immediate concern - at the macro scale of nation states. I thought it worth a short video to explain spite, to understand it, as a small thread of awareness in hopes of avoiding it. We are going to need as much pro-social (as opposed to anti-social) behavior in coming decades as possible. A short reflection, on the concept of ‘spite’.
01:14 - Relative fitness
02:33 - Absolute fitness
02:59 - Adaptation Executors
03:17 - Four behaviors in the natural world (Selfishness, Cooperation, Altruism, Spite)
04:24 - Reciprocal Altruism
12:42 - Most of history had flat economic stability
06:27 - Under high economic growth, competition has been encouraged
08:04 - Low income wagers destroying solar panel of rich people
09:33 - Nuclear war
10:35 - Evolutionary engrained threats and more powerful than modern threats like nuclear war
11:22 - Confirmation bias
