The secret of our success
"Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains--on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways.
Stats for nerds
20recommend
47mentions
35people
2016–2026years
57% recommend43% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The list of counter examples is some of the most popular and well-received posts in the rationalist community which are actually in favour of tradition having value.
"The Secret of Our Success" literally starts with how European explorers starved to death in environments that other humans thrived in because they lacked the cultural knowledge local hunter gatherers had, includes many other examples of how pure reason can be counter-productive to survival, and ends with a warning that the idea that now it's finally different may not be true.
- The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Secret of Our Success, almost any book about patterns in human history.
Anyway, my point isn't about predicting historical or cultural changes at some hugely complex scale. My point is that it's simple and predictable that useful new technology is most hated when it's new, but eventually tends to be adopted and embraced and normalized when it's had some time. That is, assuming it's affordable and truly useful.
If you want to bet against that happening in this case because you believe culture can't be predicted, then I would gladly take that bet, any amount of $ you want to wager, and let's meet back here in 5 years.
- Totally agree regarding biking, walking, trees, mountains, and will add lakes. Though it does only lightly touch on social structures of traditional societies, you may enjoy reading "The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter" by Joseph Henrich. I also found classic texts of social and political anthropology to be very worthwhile for understanding human societies. Ted Lewellen's "Political Anthropology: An Introduction" is a good starting point.
- You will find "the secret of our success" an interesting read.
One thing I remember is: There are some cultures out there hunting seals with some tools that are made using parts... of seals. Some European explorers almost perished where locals were just living their routine (supported by their cultural baggage).
- The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
Engineers (and scientists) often boast ourselves as master of causality. We solve problem by understanding the domain. We laugh people as cargo-culting - not knowing why one does things. The Secret of Our Success shows it is a feature rather than a bug. The effect of "culture" takes much longer to manifest, often beyond our comprehension. One example given by the book is how we process cassava, lots of superfluous ritual. Without those processing culture, people get poisoned slowly. Only with modern chemistry do we comprehend the full extend of those ritual. But people have been eating cassava way before modern science were available. Similar can be said about medicine, lots of folk remedies don't work. But when they do, they do. Is not understanding a feature or a bug?
With the advent of LLM, things seem to come in full cycle. We now prompt the engine and get a result/an opinion of sort. No longer is understanding required. I see the use of LLM in software engineering very anti-engineering, hindrance to learning and understanding. But it might not be a bug after all.
- > sin of trying to derive all human behavior from economics/psychology
To remedy to that, I highly recommend Joseph Henrich's "The Secret of Our Success". What we call "human behaviour" in such discussions is often culturally learned (or at least shaped).
His point: our psychology is "programmable", and prestige plays a key role in that programming. Western culture (market norms, trust towards strangers, monogamy as the norm, etc.) is forming our psychology in a way that is very far from (historically) typical humans.
(That said, I'm no expert in this area and cannot put Henrich's work into context.)
Related
How to Win Friends and Influence People
579 recommend · 1,071
Deep Work
310 recommend · 678
The Power of Habit
127 recommend · 223
The Secret
3 recommend · 14
Atomic Habits
191 recommend · 386
Succeed
6 recommend · 7
How will you measure your life?
29 recommend · 44
