Extending Darwin's Revolution – David Sloan Wilson & Robert Sapolsky

Notes

Mental models + genes determine how you think
Whatever is sacred to you - you go in denial on that
Understanding of evolution is complete once we integrate that with society (policy). That means biology + policy. Evolutionary thinking is relevant to policy
Evolution turned selfish as a trend of 20th century. What caused it? People used to talk about society. Individualism trumped the social organism.
Groups become externally cooperative, but not internally.
Question of scale - we will not get true cooperation until we include all of ecology. Biosphere.
Water strider - females like docile partners, and choose them - if they are free to move between male types into different pools
Inclusive fitness theory - [1]
Lynn Margulis - cells evolved as communities from bacteria, not as individuals. People are the newest twist. People suppressed disruptive individuals, usually.
Policy should be a branch of evolutionary biology
Rules for supercooperations, 8:
- Strong sense of identity and purpose - who is in group, what roles are
- Proportional cost and benefit - give and get equally
- INclusive decision making, open transparent fair
- Agreed upon rules of behavior.
- Correction mechanism. Not hammer, but warniung enough. Graduated actions - corrections mechanism, ways to escalate
- Fast and fair conflict resolution. By all parties.
- Authority to self-govern. Must have elbow room.
- Appropriate relations with other groups that embody same principles.

Extending Darwin's Revolution