Episode
Joseph Henrich — Humans defeated smarter species with cultural evolution
Dwarkesh Podcast · Mar 12, 2025 · 1 h 53 min
Humans have not succeeded because of our raw intelligence. Marooned European explorers regularly starved to death in areas where foragers thrived for 1000s of years. I’ve always found this cultural evolution deeply mysterious. How do you discover the 10 steps for processing cassava so it won’t give you cyanide poisoning simply by trial and error? Has the human brain declined in size over the…