"Evolution Played A Dirty Trick On Us" - Why Modern Life Feels So Empty - William von Hippel

William von Hippel is a psychologist, professor, and author. Modern life feels so complex that even basic emotions like happiness seem distant. Were we happier as hunter-gatherers, with more connection and autonomy? If so, how do these prehistoric needs shape our well-being today? Expect to learn if it would be helpful to return back to a simpler hunter & gather time of human evolution, why so many people struggle to be happy, why having autonomy is so important, what happiness research says about how well off hunter-gather tribes were, which forces shape autonomy and connection, why we worship individualism so much, why anxiety is the emotion de jour of the modern world, how to rebalance your own life, and much more… - 00:00 Why We Aren’t Happier When We Have Everything 11:01 Connection Through an Evolutionary Lens 20:36 What Drove Hunter-Gatherers to Connect? 25:16 How Materialistic Were Hunter-Gatherers? 29:58 How Hunter-Gatherers Maintained Networks 32:09 Tensions Between Competence & Warmth 40:47 Which Historical Periods Prioritised Connection? 49:22 The Forces That Shape Autonomy & Connection 57:23 Why We’re Off-Balance in Modern Society 1:06:14 Society’s Worship of Individualism 1:12:34 Does Marriage Fulfil Our Need for Connection? 1:16:46 Why Anxiety is So Prevalent Today 1:18:26 How to Find a Better Balance 1:29:45 Where to Find William - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Williamson?

  Episode forty one was when you were last on the show.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 0:04Chris Williamson?

  And this will be nine hundred and ten or something, maybe. So.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  You've been busy.

• 0:11Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it was. So have you. But you've barbelled two ends of a half decade of lots of content. So I was thinking, I was just, I just got back from a walk and I was thinking about your new book. And I had this sort of consideration in my mind, whether it would be useful for us to still have hunter gatherers living amongst us today, just to remind all of the modern humans about how good we've got it across human history, this sort of weird inequality reminder that would sort of be lingering there in the back of our minds.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be awesome. I mean, we, not long ago, I remember ordering a pizza and it came with barbecue sauce instead of tomato sauce on my meat larder's pizza. And I was just devastated. I was like, how could this happen to me? And a couple of hunter gatherers in our existence and I would go, oh, who cares about my pizza, right?

• 1:01Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So why, given the fact that, obviously, the joke that everybody hates to hear, I hate to hear it. I hate to be reminded of my opulent bourgeois luxurious, you know, 21st century life. But given the fact that living standards are objectively the best that they've ever been, why is it that so many people are struggling to lead happy lives despite being relatively blessed?

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's the sort of shocking fact that got me started on this book. And I always thought it was everybody else. You know, I read this literature. I know it very well. Being wealthy doesn't make you happy. And I kind of admit, I felt a little superior to wealthy people. And I thought, well, you know, here I am, just a middle class guy. If I were wealthy, I would be happier because I would appreciate what I have. I even remember visiting an old friend and just marveling at his inability to appreciate this extraordinary wealth that he'd accumulated since we were kids.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  But it wasn't until I was reading Frank Marlowe's wonderful book on the Hudson that I realized, you know, I'm just as bad as he is. We all are. We don't appreciate these amazing riches that we have. And if you think about them, you might say, well, what does it really matter that we have, you know, a fancier chair or something like that? But it's not just the trivial comforts. They, Hunter gathers buried almost half their children. You know, they lived in a world that was dangerous and uncomfortable and unpredictable. And we live in this world that's comfortable and safe and, um, and has endless opportunities for entertainment. And yet we're not any happier than they were. And if you look at the literature, there's all sorts of bits and bobs of advice, you know, express awe, express gratitude, do these things. And those all are pretty good

• 2:38Speaker 01

  pieces of advice. They, they help in the moment. But it doesn't answer the question of how can we possibly not be happier than they are? And that's what got me started in about 10 years ago. And it took me that forever to figure out what I think might be an important part of the answer.

• 2:52Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's a, I don't know, it's, it's a upsetting realization that we all know in the back of our minds. And we all have this sense of ungratefulness, or at least I do. I, I have this, you know, I, I understand I can one click order my Amazon parcel and it arrives one day late to, to my house. If I really wanted that sun cream so that I could go to the beach, you know, on that day or whatever. And I had to go to the corner shop. And I mean, the corner shop had it too, but you know, how inconvenienced I was. And it just, I don't know, I, I don't necessarily like being reminded of it, but it does give us a very fascinating insight into the way that human psychology, well-being, satisfaction,

• 3:33Chris Williamson?

  happiness, the way that that works, because it's so stark and it's so front and center to all of our experiences, even, even just over the last 50 years, the last hundred years, the difference in the quality of our lives. And yet, are we, we, you might even know this, how do we rank in modern society in terms of happiness rates overall across the span of human history?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Well, across the span of human history is a little hard. We can look at the last 50 years where income has tripled, basically, in the US and Western Europe. And we can see that average happiness levels haven't increased an iota. They're completely flat. It's called the Easterland paradox, while country gets richer. And so the little conveniences don't seem to make much difference. The, you would think, and it's fair enough, because it probably annoyed you slightly to, your package was a day late. But then you probably got on with life, right? You probably didn't lie there all night going, I can't believe I didn't have sun cream today, right? So the little things make sense, but what doesn't make sense to me is the big things. That when you look at the data, so for example, some investigators went to Tanzania and asked the Hadza, how happy are you? And over 90% said they're happy.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Basically, that was their answer, I'm happy. Whereas when you ask the same question in Poland, which is where the investigators were from, less than 50% said that I'm happy. They chose instead of sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm sad, or even I'm sad. And so hunter gatherers look like they're happier than we are, and that life of theirs is so difficult to lead. And so part of the story is clearly that we get caught up, everybody gets caught up in the details of life. But there's got to be a bigger part of the story when we zoom out that would explain why, you know, despite all these modern wonderfulnesses about our lives, we don't, we don't have a greater, a higher life satisfaction. You know, it's human nature to get annoyed at the small things. But why is it that we're not just walking through life going, God, life is great? You know, why don't we just appreciate this enormous opportunity and wealth that we have?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Which I was feeling very superior for those people not appreciating it, to others, I'm not doing it either, right? None of us are. Why do you think that is? What did you come to understand? So after a whole lot of cogitating on the problem and looking into the details, what I've come to decide is that it all comes back, it comes down to this fundamental tension between our two most important needs. So humans evolved, the most important need that we evolved after we left the trees and moved on to savanna was a need for connection. And this is super important for lots of social animals that connect with each other for their safety. Now, humans connect for each other for a host of reasons, and more than happy to chat about that if you're interested. But basically, we connected so that we could cooperate, so that we could work together,

• 6:07Speaker 01

  and we could, instead of scurrying around the edges of savanna, we could slowly rise back to the top of the food chain. So it was connection that turned us into the apex predators on the planet. Took a long time, but it did the job. But simultaneous with our evolution of connection, which is, I would regard our most important need, this desire to cooperate, to form friendships, to form romantic relationships. Simultaneous with that, we also developed this need for autonomy. And by autonomy, I mean things like self-governance, choosing your own path in life. And the reason for that is that, well, you have to stand out a little bit so you can get chosen as a coalition partner. When you're out going on a hunt, I want you to pick me so that I've got a good chance, you know, you and I are mates, we'll catch something together. When there's a woman in our group who's looking for a partner, I want her to pick

• 6:51Speaker 01

  me so that my genes get in the next generation. That might not be my personal motive, but that's my evolutionary large motive. And so the problem is that our need for autonomy and our need for connection are in direct opposition to each other. Evolution kind of played this dirty trick on us, that in, you know, in order to be happy, we need both, but to the degree that I'm autonomous, I have to sacrifice my relationships. If, if you say, hey, let's go to the bar and I want to go play pool, or, well, that would be in a bar. If I want to go swimming, I have to decide, well, do I value my relationship with Chris so I can go out with him? Or do I really want to do what I want to do? And the same with relationships. As soon as I agree to do what you want, I have to sacrifice my own individual needs, unless we happen to align perfectly. And then we get lucky.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  And so what I think is a problem is that our ancestors had a balance between these needs that made sense for humans, and the modern world has kicked that balance out of whack.

• 7:41Chris Williamson?

  So from an evolutionary lens, explain to me why autonomy is so important.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  So that's a great question. The, um, the thing about autonomy is if we were dung beetles, it probably wouldn't matter. You know, a dung beetle has one path to success in life. If it's a male, it has to roll the biggest ball of poo that it possibly can. And then the female go, well, that's a big ball of poo, I'll mate with you. And then she lays her eggs and involves your uncle, you're ready to go. But if you're a human, there's many, many routes to success. And so you have to decide, what's my best possible avenue? And you know what your motivations are, you know what your... What you enjoy and you know what your proclivities are. And so the person who's best placed to choose your route to success is you. And you could argue, well, maybe your, your parents have watched your whole life are really better than you are. And you don't need autonomy, you just need to do what you're advised to do.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  But you know, there's a zillion stories of people whose parents said, no, no, I want you to do X. And, and they were determined to do Y and they were a success. I mean, you can, the author of The Godfather talks about how his mother wanted him to be a clerk in a railroad station. Because that's a reliable job and you'll always have, you know, it's hard to fire you and you'll always have an income. And, you know, if, if he'd taken her advice, we wouldn't have those amazing books and movies. And so, and probably every rock star, I can't imagine one of their parents said, oh, I think you should be a rock star. So you need to decide that for yourself. And once you decide that, you need to decide what the route is to pursue that goal. And so autonomy is what motivates us to find our area of expertise where we might be a success. Because remember, as humans, we're not like a dung beetle, we've got a million routes.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Autonomy helps us identify what that'll be by seeing where we think we have good prospects, seeing what we enjoy, and then pursuing it relentlessly.

• 9:19Chris Williamson?

  What does success look like in the paradigm that you're talking about here?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  So, you know, from, from an evolutionary point of view, success only cares about reproduction. All that matters is, um, do you leave people in the next generation who carry your genes? And obviously that's a very biological perspective on success. But what that means is that if you think about the ways that our ancestors achieved that goal, it's all the things that we think about as success. And so what allowed me to find a partner and be a successful, a good reputation? Having other people in my camp say, I want Bill on my team when I go hunting. Or I want to hang out with Bill around the fire and share stories with him. So we both learn from each other, all the kinds of daily things that matter.

• 10:02Chris Williamson?

  That sounds like, that, that sounds like a connection element rather than an autonomy element.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. That's the thing. The irony here is that our autonomy evolved in service of connection. The reason that we want to be autonomous is so we can be a success, so people will connect with us, so that they'll choose us. Now, if we were ants, we wouldn't need autonomy to get there. You know, there's lots and lots of animals who don't need that. That's not a route to success. We're in this unfortunately circumstance where Connection is all that matters, but in order to be more likely to connect, you need autonomy. And so think about one of some of the greats in our world, LeBron or Steph Curry or somebody who spent hours and hours in the gym. You know, that's a lot of alone time, that's a lot of autonomy. But what it did is it made them some of the most connected humans on the planet. Everybody loves them, right? And so they're in ancestral terms, not only a success in our modern world,

• 10:49Speaker 01

  but they're a huge evolutionary success because everybody wants to be around them. Everybody wants their company. And the way they achieve that enormous connection is through incredible autonomy.

• 10:59Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting. So just give me whatever we've missed on the evolutionary lens on connection. I think everybody has this sense that a solo human doesn't last very long in the wild. It's important you versus a lion is not a very good fight. You plus 15 of your mates against a lion is a little bit more fair of a fight. You plus 15 of your mates who've whittled a bunch of weapons for the last couple of weeks, that that might be even more fair of a fight. What else haven't we got from the evolutionary lens on connection?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Well, so what you've got, what you've said so far is exactly on target. Those are the kinds of things that make connection important for all animals. And then humans start to become different because remember you just said whittling your weapons for a few weeks. Humans are the only species that can think about tomorrow, think about where they are today and think about what do I need to do between now and tomorrow in order to make that a success rather than a failure. And so we sit around whittling weapons for weeks when no other animals ever occurred to them to do that. And I said to you, you know, Chris, maybe this time if you hide behind the tree and I come out from the right and you're like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm left handed. You come out and I go, oh, great idea. You know, we make plans, right? All that really matters. It's one more element to human connection though, that makes it magical and that I think is what makes our society such an incredible success.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  And the threat to connection is always that A, there might be free riders. So like I do all my cooperating and hard work and then you run off with the prize. And B, there might be. Uh, there, there might be a cost to it that I can't pay. And so, for example, if I'm a vampire bat and you are too, and we've gone out hunting for the night, we can't go for too many nights with, without success. And so if you haven't had any success, you'll come to me and you'll, you'll expose yourself in a certain way that, that's sort of begging for some of the blood that I successfully hunted for that night. And if we're buddies, I'll give it to you. Oh, it's not pleasant, but I'll regurgitate into your circle. I'm sure they think it's fine. So the problem is though, that you and I could be best mates. But if I was a failure too, I can't give you anything.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  I'm like, sorry, Chris, man, I'd love to help you, but I'm, I, I got enough blood. I'm starving too. And so now we're both at risk. Now, when you think about what humans share that matter the most, sometimes it's food, sometimes it's shelter, but nine times out of 10, it's information. I tell you something that's incredibly valuable and you're like, holy cow, I will invest in Apple. Or wow, I, I won't go around that corner because there's a lion right there. I will sell my OpenAI stock.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. So the, um, the thing is that I can give you that for free. If, if I know something that you don't know, it doesn't matter if you're ever going to repay me. You know, you and I are walking through the national park and I say, hey mate, you may want to turn around, there's a bear 50 meters ahead of you. And you go, oh, I'd like to turn around. So I just saved your life. I don't even know you, it doesn't matter. And I don't, the, the fact that you'll never repay me doesn't matter because it was so easy to give you. Essentially costless. Yeah, so we're information machines. That's our niche. And it turns out we're so good at communicating, we can give it to each other for free when we want to. Okay, how does that add complexity? And? Well, it, it solves a bunch of problems. So if I'm a, um, a vampire bat and I'm going to give you some of my blood, I, I have to say, well, let me think, what happened?

• 14:05Speaker 01

  What did Chris say last time I asked him? And, and you know, is he going to come through for me next time? And how do I know? Well, I just don't care if all I'm doing is telling you something because you don't ever need to repay me. I can, it's, it's costless for me to give it to you. And so humans have created societies where by and large, we pay it forward. We live in a world where we all kind of trust each other, where we all look out for each other. And it's so easy, it's so costless. Um. I remember, you know, it's also nice because what happens along with the costlessness is the person who received it doesn't reflect on the cost of the giving, they reflect on the value of the receiving. And so I remember the first time I ever went to a conference and I didn't know a soul. And so I got my plate, you know, I'm sitting down next to

• 14:47Speaker 01

  my fellow academics, I'm really excited because I'm this brand new academic and I'm learning about my world. And I sit down between these two people who I now know well and are really nice people, but they're actually super shy and they literally turned their back on me. And so I'm like, I'm sitting all by myself at this first conference, I don't know a soul. And this, this pretty famous professor from Santa Barbara sees this situation and he walks over, plops down at the table behind me, turns his chair around and says, hey, I'm Dave, great to meet you. What do you do? Like, I'm sure he couldn't care less, but he's just like politely welcoming to the fold because it's costless. It's just chit chat and information. Well, now, I remember that so fondly that many years later, when he's retiring, I wrote about that in his little retirement blog. And we run into each other again and he goes, oh, that was so nice of you to write about

• 15:30Speaker 01

  that. I have to admit, I have no memory for it at all. I was like a little bit hurt, like, how could he have saved me at my very first conference and he can't even remember? Well, now the shoes on the other foot and I run into a colleague of mine who's 15 years younger. And I say to, he and I run into each other in the hall and I say to the person who's with him, oh, he and I have known each other since we were grad students, or he was a grad student. And he goes, no, no, I met you when I was an undergrad. And I was like, really? And he goes, yeah, yeah, I was at a conference, I was standing there, you just walked up to me and asked me how I'm doing and what I'm interested in. And then the people you're with were going off to lunch or talk or whatever, and you invited me to come along. I was like, oh, sorry, I don't remember that. Because it's like so easy to do that for somebody else, but it means so much to them. And so obviously,

• 16:15Speaker 01

  I was just channeling the lesson I'd learned before. It was so easy to do as a nothing. And the consequence of all this is that we feel this enormous debt when others help us out. We think, I'm gonna do that myself. I'm gonna pay forward in this kind of way. And we create these sort of societies with these virtuous circles in them where people are actually really good to each other all the time because it's so easy to do that. No other animal can come close to that.

• 16:36Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I imagine that the complexity, the compute that's needed to be able to keep track of all of this, because there is a sense of coalition going on here, there is a sense of reciprocity, even if it's relatively costless. That means that the information can be spread more strategically, you can give it to some and not to others. If you're a bat that's only got however many milliliters of seal blood that it's got over the last evening of hunting, the algorithm's relatively easy. It's like, is this enough for me to survive? If yes, maybe I can give some to my friend. How long ago was it that they gave me? Whereas if it's free information, well, how valuable is this information? And how close to my coalition is this person? And do I really want them to know that?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  And there's all those computations, but nine times out of 10, you know, every once in a while, I know something that I just don't want you to know. And we can talk all about privacy, because that's where privacy gets all caught up into it. But setting that aside, and also every once in a while, I know some really cool information that I can leverage if you don't know it. And so I want to keep that to myself. Those two things definitely happen. But it's also the case that most of the things I know aren't necessarily valuable to me, but could be very valuable to you. So if we take a look at the, one of the most cited papers in the social sciences, it's called The Strength of Weak Ties. And in that paper, the author argues that it's not your close friends who are really valuable to you in making career moves and things like that, it's your distant friends. And the reason for that is your close friends are highly

• 18:03Speaker 01

  motivated to help you, but you know what they know. Your distant friends are barely motivated to help you, but you don't know what they know. And so the moment they run across a job that's in your, in your, you know, wheelhouse, it's not theirs, they don't want it, but they know of its existence. If you ask them, oh, hey, anybody hiring at your firm? They go, oh, yeah, actually, we're looking for a new engineer to work on the wing. And you're like, I'm a wing engineer. I'd love to do that, right? So he argued this. They tested it on LinkedIn, and sure enough, it's true. The people who are your more distant ties, they manipulated the algorithm as an experimental test across millions of people. And your more distant ties were more likely to help you find a job than your close ties were. Now, humans, well, there's one of the species that can kind of do this. Dolphins can do this.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Males form these coalitions across very broad networks where they cooperate with each other in interesting kinds of ways in their mating competitions. But so far as we know, no other animal can come close to what humans can do by forming these kind of coalitions across distant ties where we can transmit information that's so valuable.

• 19:04Chris Williamson?

  So how did hunter-gatherers manage this balance?

• 19:08Speaker 01

  So hunter-gatherers managed this in interesting ways. You know, they, first of all, they, hunter-gatherers have very tight group boundaries. And so if you're one of us or you're not. Now, that's an ethnic linguistic kind of decision. People in our ancestral world never met somebody who was a different color because, of course, those gradients were long across latitudes. But they would meet somebody who dresses or marks themselves differently. They would meet somebody who has a different accent. And those meetings were always fraught with danger. You know, sometimes they're an opportunity. It doesn't mean things are going to go badly. Like, maybe my group meets yours and some of the people switch groups or find partners in the other group so we can avoid inbreeding, et cetera. But it was risky business.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  It's inside the group where everybody knows everybody, or at least knows them by relationship. And so, for example, in Papua New Guinea, if two strangers run into each other, they stop at a safe distance. This is in the North Highlands traditionally, where it's really risky, very violent culture. They stop at a safe distance and they say, hi, I'm Bill, son of Art. And you say, oh, I'm Chris, son of Bob. And I go, hm, don't know Bob. All right, my cousin is Joe Schmo. And you say, oh, Joe's my sister's niece's brother. I go, oh, we're good. And so we just have to look for a way that we, that things are going to be okay, right? We have to look for a way that we can connect so that it's not a risk. But so long as it's not, so long as we're okay, then we're happy to share information. We're happy to do all those kinds of things, so long as we're not, you know, giving away things that are critically important for us.

• 20:36Chris Williamson?

  I'm going to guess that without laws and police and stuff, hunter-gatherers needed more connection to enforce group norms to ensure the behavior didn't get too crazy. So that... That need for connection is driven by a need for cooperation, calmness inside of the group.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Hunter gathers create their own kind of informal laws. And so they police each other, they monitor each other, but there's no formal network of protection. And so if you decide to pummel me and I can't stop you, either physically or maybe your coalition is stronger than mine, well, pummeled I will be, right? And so we have to find a way to navigate our social networks. It's a little bit like the grade school was when I was a kid in the sixties and early seventies where, you know, you, teachers let you resolve your differences, your, your bloody nose will dry up in the cold weather and things are going to be fine. And so you, you have to resolve your own differences. And what that means is that I, you know, I'm a little guy. How am I going to navigate this world where everyone can pummel me?

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Well, I've got to have good friends. I've got to have a lot of people who see my value. And then even though you're twice my size, when you run into me, you're not going to even consider pummeling me because you go, if I pummel Bill, all sorts of other people who matter and who are larger matter, matter to him are going to be angry at me. And so I'll treat him with kindness because that's in my best interest. And, and so not only did people were kind to each other because they like each other, but they're kind to each other because they're members of coalitions that demanded it.

• 22:10Chris Williamson?

  The selection pressures, the difficulty of the environment, I imagine also must have driven way more connection because you need, it's, it's you versus the elements. Whereas all I need to go do is twist the nest thermostat and the, the elements can go fuck themselves.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And so we formed super tight connections because we had to. And so remember earlier I talked about how we've lost the balance of our ancestors. Well, they lived in a world where connection was everything. And so if you, if, if I'm going to go off in the savanna, I want to go with you because like there's two of us and now we can defend ourselves much more easily. I want to be with my group and there's all sorts of rules that demand that I share with my group, that I do things that help us protect each other. The clearest example is that. Even though humans form societies that are all sorts of the rainbow of colors of ways of doing things, there's a couple of rules that never change. And one of those rules is that in immediate return hunt together societies where you eat today what you killed today. So that's why we call them immediate return. You always have to share the proceeds of the

• 23:13Speaker 01

  hunt. And so if women go out, they typically did the gathering. If they gathered up lots of food, they don't have to share that outside their household if they don't want to. They would typically share it with the people they're gathering. But men have to share the proceeds of the hunt across everybody. So there's a lot of rules that we simply can't violate. And I could decide to. If I'm the biggest guy, I'm like, okay, I'm eating all this elk. You guys can all piss off. Well, tomorrow morning when I wake up, I'm sitting there by myself. You guys have pissed off. And now I'm in deep doo doo because I might have been the biggest guy in a group, but I still am not a force that I can contend with nature on my own. And so everybody's compelled to keep the group interests in mind, to do what the group wants you to do, and feel these really, really tight connections to stay safe.

• 23:52Chris Williamson?

  What are some of the other universal rules?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Bizarrely, I can't make heads or tails out of this one. Maybe somebody, and I've never met anyone knows the answer. Women always do the cooking. So I don't know why that is. You know, people have conjecture. Well, maybe it's the process of giving her the meat from the hunt is a form of connection. But I can't. It's possible. I haven't, I've never heard a compelling answer. Sharing the proceeds of the hunt makes good sense because most hunts fail. So you want an insurance policy where everybody gets to eat at least something. But why should she always cook? I have no idea.

• 24:28Chris Williamson?

  That's interesting. I'm trying to think about some sort of psychological sex differences.

• 24:36Chris Williamson?

  Women's better local memorization, like spatial memorization close by. Maybe they know what herbs go in the pot more effectively or something. I mean, I'm really, I'm really grasping at straws here that she knows the difference between thyme and sage because she can remember it more effectively. I'm like, yeah, that's, that's really interesting.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  It's possible. And, and women are more connected. You know, men are more autonomy-ish machines and women are more connected machines. Both need both. And maybe that connection compels you is part of the process where you're preparing for, I don't know. I have no idea. I'm only, I like your thyme sage explanation though.

• 25:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, we'll go with that one.

• 25:16Chris Williamson?

  Materialism, how materialistic did you find out hunter gatherer as well?

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's a funny one. So you know, hunter gatherers essentially own nothing. And for a host, not nothing, but very little, for a host of reasons. A, it's hard to make things when you're hunter gatherer because you don't have the modern equipment. B, you gotta carry it with you everywhere you go. So you can't exactly own that winter coat that you might want to use two days out of the year because you're schlepping it the other 363. And then the final reason for that is, remember I mentioned this mandatory sharing of meat? Well, there's mandatory sharing of anything if you own more than one or two of them. Because this is a society where everybody has to work together. And so what that means, it creates this really remarkable lifestyle where this rule about meat sort of gets spread across to everything. And so if I own two or three shirts, you could say,

• 26:04Speaker 01

  you know, Bill, I really like your shirt. And that right answers, oh, okay, you know, here you go, mate. And so the thing is that we, you end up with this society that's wonderfully equal in a sense, that everybody shares everything with each other. But this, and so that looks really nice. It looks kind of utopian. But the downside of it is, I don't actually have the right to keep my own stuff. And so I remember this anecdote where this old guy in Hadza, I think he was, had been given a sweatshirt from a tourist. And he's talking to the anthropologist who visits the group. And he says, I meant to share this. I know I shouldn't keep it for myself, but I'm tired of sharing everything I own with everybody and I just want to keep it. I want to be comfortable. And you kind of can't blame the guy, right? You know, he's probably feeling old and cold sometimes and he just wants to keep it.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  We see this in a lot of different domains. I remember I worked with this, I worked up on this remote island in Northern Australia with the Anindaleaqua people. And I joined them for a couple of days while we're doing what's called ghost netting. These nets get break loose from fishing boats and kill lots and lots of fish. And so people around the world gather them up, catalog what they are, and then we can see where they're getting accidentally released and what might be done to help the problem. And it's crazy hard work because these nets get caught up in everything. And so you're dragging this like rubbish out of the sea. Anyway, th- these guys were doing an amazing job and I was talking to their manager afterward and he goes, "Yeah, so they do an amazing work. I mean, they're crazy hardworking in the hot sun." And so I tried to give them a raise and they were like, "No, thanks."

• 27:31Speaker 01

  And he's like, "No, thanks?" And they're like, "When I come home, everybody takes all my money" "that I earn and so I don't benefit from that at all. It's just kind of frustrating that now I'm losing more money." And he says, "Oh, well, how about if I bought you really nice breakfast when you arrive in the morning?" And they're like, "Oh, I'd love a really nice breakfast." And so, you know, they're, they're just as materialistic as we are. All humans are materialistic. And in fact, anthropologists say that when they arrive, they're constantly saying, "Well, look, you've got two of those. I'd like to have one of them." "I actually, I actually need these, right?" And so they, they look like they're not materialistic, but they're just the same as we are in that regard. They just don't judge others by their material goods. So if I see you in the street and you're in a flash car, I'm like, "Wow, that Chris Williamson's really cool."

• 28:12Speaker 01

  "He's more successful than I am." They don't do that because they'd say, "Hey, can I have your car?" And you've got no choice but to give it to them, right?

• 28:21Chris Williamson?

  I, there has to be an incentive. It's such an, it's such an interesting game that was played there where, "Let me give you a thing that you can consume without the conspicuous consumption of the rest of your group seeing you consume it." There must be hunter-gatherer stories where they make a kill and they just eat there and then. They don't bring it back to the tribe. There must be a time where they find a new berry bush or nut, nut bush or something and they just go to town. They're like, "Well, I mean, we came back with, it's a few berries, but the, you know, it was, it was very, it was kind of sparse overall." He's berry juice all over his face.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Yes, that's exactly right. That happens all the time. And the classic example is honey. The, um, honey is the, they, they, they'll find honey up in the tree. You know, it's pretty dicey business getting it, but they love it because, you know, here we have access to sugar as much as we want, but nothing in, in our ancestral world is as sweet and delicious as honey is. And so it's way up on the, on the want list and you just don't bring it home. It you come home covered honey. And you're just a little tiny feast, you know, they. But everybody knows that about each other, right? And so you say to me, um, oh, Bill, I think I'm going to wander off today. And I'm thinking Chris is after honey. And I'm like, hey, mate, I'm with you because at least now you and I are going to score it together. Right? And and there's even some interesting animals that help us find honey.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Because then we make a little bit of mess and then they get some too. And so there's these interesting cross species cooperation. And I see one of those birds near you and I say, yeah, I'm hanging with Chris today because I think he's got plans. Because they know full well that, you know, they they eat today what they catch today, but they're going to eat right then and there what they get when it's really, really good.

• 29:57Chris Williamson?

  What was that story about eggshell beads?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Oh, so, yeah, eggshell beads are a great example. So, um, the this this comes to a tradition that's quite related to what we've been talking about before. And it's among the Kung San in the Kalahari Desert. And so they have this tradition, which I don't even know how to pronounce Chutsaro or something like that. I'm not quite sure how it's said. But what that tradition is, is that they've got a set group of a network that sometimes they're kin, but by and large they're friends. And that network is required to share with each other and they maintain the network with regular gifts. And so if you're in my network and I know your camp is somewhere over there, sometimes it's hard to find each other because we all wander around. But eventually I find you and when I know where you're going to be, I'll try to put together a collection of gifts for you so that I can reconnect with you. And you'll do the same for me.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  And one of the most common gifts that you would give is these these beads that are made out of ostrich eggshells. And so the because they're they're pretty and they travel well, they're they're kind of like our equivalent of money. You know, they're they're easy to put in your pocket, so to speak, and they're really nice. So the the interesting thing about these networks is that you're actually mandated to help me if I run out of steam. And so let's say that my there's a drought in my section of the desert and which there is commonly. I can go to you and say, Chris, I'm really hungry. And you're like, oh, well, here, okay, have my pizza because you've got no choice. But I've got no choice too. We're going to look out for each other no matter what if we're part of that network. And one of the interesting things about those networks is that they can be super broad. And in fact, they almost always are.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  There's almost always one or two people in your network who live at least 100 kilometers away from you. Now you think, why would you do that? That's a lot of schlepping to give you some ostrich beads, shake hands, say, I hope you're well, brother, and then move on. And the reason for that, of course, or what we believe the reason for that is that, you know, things could go very pear shaped in my region of the world. The farther away you are, the better chances are that your part of the world is still okay. And so we don't maintain very many connections that far away, but they do. They always maintain at least a few and they make sure that, you know, on a reasonably regular basis that they catch up with everybody so that they always know they've got this insurance policy in place. You know, they're eking out a living in a really hard part of the world.

• 32:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. One of the other things I was really fascinated to learn was this tension between competence and warmth and that these two things are, they're opposed in some ways.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, they are opposed. And so if you come back to this argument I was making about autonomy and that we, we develop a sense of autonomy in order to develop competence. That's how we, we decide the area where we have best prospects. If we're Mario Puzo and we want to write The Godfather, we don't listen to our mother when she says, I want you to become a railroad clerk. And we, we go for it, right? We, we put everything on the line and try to make it as a writer or whatever we see our competence. Well, so autonomy is in service of competence. It's what gets us there. Now, the downside of that is that for me to develop competence, sometimes it's working together as a team, but very often it's trying to develop my own skill, carving that arrow over and over again, sneaking up on the hunt, doing whatever it is that I do that, that I think makes me special.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  And that, that often requires a lot of self-focused attention, a lot of, you say, hey, man, I'm going to go to the party and I say, you go, I've, I've got baskets to shoot or I've got baskets to weave, you know, whatever my competence is, right? And, and so the upshot is that the more I develop competence, the more I have to sacrifice my connections. And that's certainly the case in today's world. I mean, if you look at what school asks us to do, it's all about study, study, study, study. And so, yes, you sometimes study in groups, but what you're really trying to do is learn the material yourself. And so what it means is sacrificing, don't go out on recess and play, you know, work hard and do these other things. The consequence of that is that we tend to see people who are competent as being cold if we know nothing else about them. And we, and vice versa.

• 33:44Chris Williamson?

  What's cold and warm in this context?

• 33:48Speaker 01

  So cold is our and warm refer to our natural tendency and ability to connect. And so if I connect easily and in a friendly manner to you, I'm a warm person. So you meet me on the bus and and you say, you know, oh, excuse me. And he's done and I go, mm, and I just don't pay any attention to you. I I'm not friendly and warm. Like, oh, of course, mate, I'd be happy to move over. It's good to see you. Yeah, these trains sure are wobbly, hard to read, you know, whatever. I I just engage with you, then I'm I'm being warm. And people vary dramatically in how warm or cold they are. They vary dramatically in how competent or incompetent they are. But because trying to be more warm tends to sacrifice your competence. You know, when I, when you sit down next to me on the bus, if I then pay attention and chat with you the whole trip, I'm not reading that book that I really should learn in order to be a better accountant. Right?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I'm sacrificing my own time to dedicate it to you. And so these two things tend to be negatively correlated and we know that. And so we regard warm people as incompetent. You know, so you meet somebody who's warm and you go, yeah, I bet they're very good. And you meet somebody who's cold, you go, oh, I I bet they're pretty competent because on average, that's true.

• 34:51Chris Williamson?

  That's a, I I wonder whether that could be manipulated in a job interview to go in and seem overly cold and like a an absolute killer. Uh, well, I my my abilities are completely terrible, but I mean, he seemed, he seemed like he was such a serious actor.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. You'd want to make it, what would be the perfect thing is if I could say, you know, you and I, you my potential boss, you and I really connect, man. We're going to be on the same page. I hate everybody else. All I like to do is, you know, I'm a competence machine.

• 35:19Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, so it's, i- is it, another way to put this would be that people that are very competent, there is this subtext that in order to have achieved this level of competence, I must have been quite selfish for a good while.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, at the very least, you were self oriented. You may not have denied other people requests that they made of you. But when given the opportunity, you ignore them and did your own thing. And that's what it, and some people are so crazy good that they can get there and be friendly every day. You know, one of my old roommates is a professor at Harvard Medical School and all he ever did his whole life is hang out and play. I I don't understand how he does it. He's just that good, right?

• 35:54Chris Williamson?

  Somehow also was an awesome professor.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. 10 zillion grants changing the world. Um, but somehow, but most of us can't do that. And so most of us, if we become highly competent, we have to sacrifice at least for a while. We have to sacrifice our connections. Again, the irony is I'm becoming competent so that down the road, you're going to want me on your team. You're going to want to connect with me. And and the other side of that that's interesting is if you look at hunter gathers, they actually prefer the warm ones over the competent ones. So long as you achieve some baseline level of competence, when they're choosing teams to go hunting in the morning, they choose the warm one because think about it this way. You know, if I'm the best hunter in the group, but I don't share nice with you, what good does it do you to pick me? But if I'm the best, if I'm an adequate hunter and I always go, oh, hey, no, you had the hind leg. You're a great guy. You're like, I want to go out with Bill because I'm going to benefit more from it.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  And so warmth actually trumps competence so long as you're not incompetent.

• 36:44Chris Williamson?

  Wow. So even when going on a hunt, a warmer, friendlier, better hang will be chosen over a better hunter.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, every time.

• 36:52Chris Williamson?

  I I've been thinking a lot about bands and how bands tour recently. And I wondered, I asked a friend, a bunch of friends this question, actually, which is how many times when you've tried to find somebody new for a group or previous groups have in the past, have you found someone who's a fucking virtuoso? Like, man, he's just on the base. You know, it's like it's an extension of his body. But when they get back on the tour bus, he sucks. Or or the the equivalent, whichever other position it is. And apparently it happens all the time. You think, OK, well, what does that show? It shows that competence actually doesn't always win out, even in something which is, you know, very tight performance. You're on stage, nobody on stage, no one in the thousands of people in the crowd that's looking at you really cares

• 37:36Chris Williamson?

  about the vibe back on the tour bus beyond however much it impacts your performance. But you can't separate out what it's, you don't stop, you don't turn your brain off as soon as you step off stage. You go, God, I've got to sit down with Rick again. He's going to do my head in for the next 23 hours until we get back on stage. And I finally get a bit of peace from him and he gets to do the one thing that he's actually good at. So, yeah, it's even in even in modern environments, I think we still have this this sort of sense, this subtext. So just to kind of, I guess, kind of summarize and ensure that I'm at the right place. The thing that's most important to humans is connection. One of the ways that we can get to connection is by being pro-social, by being reciprocal,

• 38:18Chris Williamson?

  by bonding, by being warm, by being friendly. That's a suggestion that if times are tough, we will help you and we will bound together. We're trustworthy. One of the other things that we can do is to develop competences. These competences help us to stand out. They give us value. They make sort of each unit of effort that we can give to you more valuable because we're kind of more effective with with our units of effort. But in order to be able to develop these competences, we need to use autonomy because it's very difficult to work on our skills whilst also being super pro-social because those two things tend to be at least a little bit in opposition. I can't focus on me whilst focusing on you. I need to go away. Steph Curry it for 500 shots for today and then come back and then

• 39:00Chris Williamson?

  we can run some drills as a team or whatever it might be. And these two things are in tension because the most direct route to doing it is the human connection part. But human connection in the absence of competence means that you're probably going to be beaten for mate choice. You're going to be beaten for selecting, being selected to go on the hunt. You're not going to have the same kind of status. And as soon as you put hierarchies in and as soon as you have female mate choice, you end up, as soon as you have mate choice at all, you end up with everybody trying to jostle and this is where that tension comes from. How how close am I?

• 39:32Speaker 01

  You nailed it. That's exactly right.

• 39:33Chris Williamson?

  Let's go. I knew I was listening.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Right. And so the upshot of all that is that we we really want to connect. We really want people that we like. But remember that when they're trying to have between Rick and Stu to play bass for them, they're never even considering Bill because Bill sucks at the bass and he's, they love him. They think they think Bill's a really lovely guy. They can't wait to catch up with me again at a bar someday. But that guy's not joining our band under any circumstance, no matter how much they love him.

• 39:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  But that doesn't change the fact that you also made the point, you know, if Stu's impossible. He probably won't be on the thing either. And so I remember when Simon and Garfunkel were still a group and Simon said, when they split, he's like, look, I know people prefer our sound with Garfunkel. I can't work with them anymore. And so, you know, it just, he's potentially risking his whole career. It matters that much. Now, the Bills never get to join the band. You have to have that minimal level of competence, but then you have to get along because that's what humans are designed to do. And so the thing is that what that means is that we actually really enjoy getting along. We don't think, gee, getting along with something super important to me, I will get along. We think, boy, I really like this guy. And evolution guides us with our emotions. And so it gets

• 40:43Speaker 01

  us to enjoy doing those things that are in our best interest.

• 40:47Chris Williamson?

  Did certain ancestral environments or times or periods of history setups prioritize one over the other, do you think? Can you imagine, I'm thinking high conflict, I'm thinking a battle for leadership, I'm thinking war with a neighboring tribe, predation, starvation, cold snaps in the climate, stuff like that. I imagine that there would be periods where competence and autonomy would be more heavily valued and periods where the connection, pro-social stuff would be more valued.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  I think you're absolutely right. And in the end, what's going to always matter the most when conflict is harsh, when times are harsh, is how well do we work together as a team? And so remember earlier, I said, well, women are a bit more connected than men on average. That's true. They feel tighter connections, usually to smaller groups of women than men do, feel looser connections to larger groups. There's one exception to that rule, and that's when you're in intergroup conflict. And so when two groups come into conflict with each other, guys bond with each other in an enormous way. And the evolutionary pressure on that's clear because what we have to do now, if, you know, Bill may or may not be a good fighter, but he's on our team. And so he's still, everybody has to work together as the best possible unit.

• 42:04Chris Williamson?

  Bill, put the base down. You're never going to be in the band. Pick the stick up. We need to kill someone.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. Use that base like this.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  The thing is that in those circumstances, connection becomes paramount. And in fact, when you talk to soldiers, particularly soldiers who face live fire together, they talk about never feeling closer to anybody in their life than they feel to their fellow soldiers in that moment when their life is being threatened by another group. And it's their teamwork that's going to either get them out of that or fail to. And so there's enormous evolutionary pressure on us, particularly on men, because they're the ones who typically engaged in the center group conflict. And when you lost, every one of the men are going to die. There's no cap taking prisoners. You either run away and you get lucky or you're dead. The women will typically survive, not necessarily in the happiest way, but they're going to make it, whereas the men are not.

• 42:50Chris Williamson?

  I can't remember whether it was Tracy Vianco or Joyce Benenson that did the study on female basketball players. Have you seen this?

• 43:01Speaker 01

  So keep going. I'm not, it's not familiar so far.

• 43:03Chris Williamson?

  You may, you may, you may have done so. Basically, she looked at the physical affection between players on their own team and players on opposing teams in male games and in female games. And men on opposing teams showed more physical affection than female competitors on the same team.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Wow, that's interesting.

• 43:28Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, and I, just as you were talking there, I, I thought about that sort of coalitional warfare type, like, let's just, let's just crack up. We need to just get our heads down. We need to do this thing. You know, men just sort of drop in and whether it's toddlers learning to play, like, what is it that the girls are doing? They're learning to look after a rabbit or they're playing nurse or they're raising a baby or they're doing whatever. What are the boys doing? They're fighting aliens or cowboys or, you know, whatever it is.

• 43:56Chris Williamson?

  I, I always think about that sort of disposition that, that tend, this, this tendency toward, toward dropping in. And you see it with guys at football matches. Like, you both support the same team. I'll happily go and fight the other supporters of the other team for you for no reason, for no reason. But that's, that's the Brit in me coming out.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  It's funny, isn't it? But when you look at teams, what's so interesting also is that men, you know, you gave that awesome example. I don't know that study, but it's a lovely one. And it does, in some ways, it doesn't surprise me. So when men are on opposing teams, they can just be harsh as each other. I can drive my shoulder into you going for the basket. And your thought is, wow, good move, Bill. I would have done that to you if I could have scored a basket like that. And so two years later, when we get traded, and I'm now on your team, we're totally mates. And you're like, hey, I want you to do that with me to the other guys. Whereas women, remember, I mentioned earlier that they tend to smaller circles of closer friends. As a consequence, they're less forgiving of what you might call betrayal. So if I go against you, it takes a lot of repair work for us to be tight again.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Whereas two guys, if I go against you, you say, well, I would have done the same thing if I were Bill. She's, I got no problem with that. And we can be mates again when the conditions are right, when it suits both of us.

• 45:10Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's so funny. We romanticize the deep connection that hunter gatherers have got as if they have a different psychology to us. But we are them. This is the funny thing that we sort of look at as if they're a different species, right? And you go, no, same species, different environment.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Same species.

• 45:32Chris Williamson?

  Different setup.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. And that's where you nail it. It's that environment that changes who we are. And so they do feel tighter connections than we feel because they spent their whole lives doing it. You know, the example I like to use, so I don't know if you've heard of this, Superior Wharf hypothesis. It's this idea that you don't, if you don't have a word for something, you can't think it. And it was this idea that was super popular in the 30s.

• 45:53Chris Williamson?

  What's it called? The Superior Wharf?

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Superior Wharf. So there are these two guys who had this hypothesis and in different time points, but it kind of got blended together. And it was a super popular idea that if you have no word for snow, well, then you can't think about snow. And it kind of disappeared after a while, because the problem is that if you have, you know, lots of experience with snow, well, then of course you have words for it. And so is it your experience that helps you think about it? Or does the word make any difference? But Lyra Boroditsky at Stanford came along and said, well, let's turn the problem on its head. Let's look at people who have equal experiences, but they either use these things in their words all the time, or they don't. And so there's, here in Queensland, we have a couple of Aboriginal groups who have no word for left, right, front, or back. Everything that they do is cardinal directions.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  And so they would say, oh, hey, Chris, be careful. There's a snake north by northwest of your foot. And if they said that to me, I'm screwed because I don't know which direction that is. But if they say that to each other, they go, ah, and they jump back from the snake. Right? And so they remember this forever. And so when they're telling stories, they'll go, oh, yeah. So there it was, north by northwest from me and south by southeast. I've got this emu and how am I going to resolve this problem? And, um, and you know, if you and I are telling the story, you go there on my right was a lion and there on my left was this. So they asked, well, if you ask them, well, was it on the side of you with the butt? Or the side of you with the face, right? Cause they don't have a word for front or back. They had no problem answering that question. They go, no, that was the side with the face. And so it's clear evidence that superior in war for wrong. You don't have a word for it. You're perfectly capable of thinking about it.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  But what's amazing is that these guys know where north is all the time. They think about it all the time. And so when these ideas are in your head, if you're accustomed to thinking about you, you start to color the world that way. So hunter gatherers very much have our, we're them and they're us. But they're connection machines. And so everything that happens to them, they think in the lens of how does this affect me in my group? What are going to be the consequences for me in my group? And you and I just don't think about our group that much. We think, oh, that's pretty cool. I like that outcome or that doesn't suit me without saying, well, it'll suit everybody else. I should, you know, get involved or whatever. So our habits of thought can change our psychology to some degree. It can become our dominant way of viewing the world, despite the fact that underlying we are the exact same people.

• 48:07Chris Williamson?

  Isn't it crazy that every single person who's listening to this now, or me, or you, had we have by some weird hospital quirk, been dropped in with the Hadza tribe, you just ended up with this, this little baby, we would have been them. That would have been our psychology. You know, for all that you're, you're certain that it's your anxious attachment and it's your genetic predisposition to not clearing dopamine so quickly. And it's the fact that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, if you were there. You would almost certainly just be exactly the same as them.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  That's right. Your psychology would be there. Now, the thing is that with that said, there's of course variability on everything. And so some people feel like they're a really good fit to their culture, wherever you live, and those people tend to be really happy. Some people feel like they're kind of an outsider. And so Stu, the bass player, who nobody in the band likes, you know, he's like, his thing is playing the bass because he doesn't connect to other humans very well. And maybe, just maybe, if Stu had been a Hadza, their rules would have fit him better. And so there are, around the edges, there's going to be people who feel like they're a tighter fit or a looser fit. But the loosest fitting Hadza and the loosest fitting, you know, Brit or American or Aussie, whatever, are going to be miles apart in what they do, but they could have switched and bent each other.

• 49:22Chris Williamson?

  What are the forces that shape autonomy and connection then?

• 49:28Speaker 01

  So there's a lot of forces. One of them is, some of them emerge from inside us. And so if we're highly empathic, for example, some people just have a very high capacity for empathy and some people don't. And we can, you can look at that really easily. So you can even put me in an FMRI magnet, which measures blood flow in my brain. And then watch, I have to watch somebody get poked in their hand or tortured in some way. And you can just see me cringing and going, and feeling their pain, like the brain regions that would be activated if you did to me, light up. I'm highly empathic. And so when you hurt, I hurt. And what that means is I become much more of a connection machine because your pain is my pain and I want to alleviate it, just like I want to alleviate my own. And so social justice matters to me a lot. When you experience a harm, I experience a harm.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Now, it's sort of a selfish way to look at it, but that selfish way of looking at it has really nice interpersonal consequences. Other people are lower in empathy. You poke them in the hand and they're like, oh, I wonder if that hurt. Interesting. Ooh, a lot of blood. I bet that did hurt. And it doesn't faze them. You know, there, we see all sorts of differences between these people. If you're high in empathy, you tend to be politically on the left. If you're low in empathy, you tend to be politically on the right. If you're really low in empathy, you tend to be a libertarian. And it's not like being a libertarian is a bad thing, but then autonomy starts to become more important to you. You know, for libertarians, autonomy is a sacred value. If, if, if I'm a libertarian.

• 50:51Chris Williamson?

  That's so interesting. Of course, being, being a libertarian is maximum autonomy. And if, if low empathy, severe low empathy, sorry, if very high empathy is associated with uh connectedness and very low empathy is associated with high autonomy, that this is almost mapping perfectly your hypothesis.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's this political ramifications of exactly what we're talking about, right? And so the, if you look at, at what libertarians are willing to do, I, I, you know, I'm not disrespecting libertarian values. Autonomy matters to all of us, but, but once it becomes ascendant, think about the consequences. So Phil Tetlock did this wonderful study where he asks you, should a person be allowed to do X? And should a person be allowed to hire someone to clean their home? You know, pretty much, of course. Should a person be able to sell their kidney if they want extra money? A lot of people start to go, no. Now, it's weird to say no to me. I, I want to sell you my kidney. You're going to die without it. I could use the 20 grand, but I'm not, it's actually illegal. I can't do that. It goes even farther than that. Should a person be able to sell their votes? Should a person be able to sell their jail time?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  And so for libertarian, the answer is always yes. And so if I, if I get a DUI and I, um, and I live in a total libertarian world, I would just put up on Fiverr, um, who will, um, have their license suspended and go to jail for me, uh, for half a million dollars. And I'm, I promise you, lots of hands are going to go up. And now I'm back in my car and everything's copacetic, right? And so if you, if you put autonomy at the top of your list, you start to see the connection consequences. But, but from a philosophical perspective, it's a defensible viewpoint.

• 52:31Chris Williamson?

  What about gender roles and their influence on autonomy, connection, stuff like that?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question. It, all these things are tied together. And so there is no human on this planet who's, well, almost no humans on this planet were insensitive to the culture they grew up in, right? We were just discussing that. You just become a different person if you're a Hadza than if you're a Brit or an American or whatever. But. You're intrinsically the same, but that culture changes you a lot. And so of course, our gender roles change us a lot. I remember watching this video. It was put on by the ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Company, where they they looked at these two women having a debate in the 1960s about whether women should go to university. And the one woman who was pro says, think of all the interesting things you learn. And the one woman who's anti was like, why do you need to know that stuff? When your husband comes home, you want to hear about his day.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  You're taking kids care of kids all day. In fact, I could even imagine it'd be slightly frustrating to be thinking about Marxist philosophy, but changing nappies all day or, you know, doing whatever you're doing. And so there, that debate would never happen anymore. Where two women are arguing about whether women should get an education. So our culture changes and we all change with us. We don't even consider that a reasonable argument anymore, even though back in those times, we understand the viewpoint that both of them were taking. So gender roles matter a lot, but they also matter in ways you, less than you'd think. And in, and they don't matter in ways that you might think they would. So for example, if you look at sex differences on any domain. And remember, I was talking about men being more autonomy and women being more connection. So women are more likely to reward kindness in others.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  If you're kind to me and I'm female, I'm going to be more likely to go out of my way to repay it than if I'm male. If you're male, you're more likely to punish unkindness or unfriendliness in others. Because, you know, that you're, you've impinged on my autonomy when you were unfriendly to me. And, and I'm going to show you, you can't do that than, than if you're female. Both do it, but men do it more. Now, if you look at societies that are more gender egalitarian, where there's fewer rules about what men and women can do, those sex differences get larger. They don't get smaller. And so men in Scandinavia are more likely to punish unfriendliness. And women in Scandinavia are more likely to reward kindness than men, women in Tunisia, where they've got very strict gender roles about how they're meant to behave. So they often work exactly opposite that you'd think, arguing for, they're being underlying the strong cultural impact,

• 54:52Speaker 01

  a very strong biological impact as well.

• 54:55Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, Steve Stuart Williams's new book is going to be all about sex differences, apparently, which I'm, I'm super excited for him to do, even though he will be. Well, maybe he won't be stepping into that much of a, he might not be stepping into that much of a landmine, I guess, given what's happened over the last couple of months. But it definitely wouldn't have been particularly popular five years ago. I know that much.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it would be a hard, it hard book right to end up, it's unfortunate it's a hard book to write because science and morality have nothing to do with each other. And if you look at what nature does, there's a bug out there where every time she, she always lays six eggs, they're inside her body, they're ovoviviparous, so they, the eggs hatch inside her. And there's one boy and five girls. He then has sex with all of his sisters. They kill him and eat him. And then they, instead of being birthed naturally, they bite their way out of her like in the movie Alien.

• 55:43Chris Williamson?

  What?

• 55:43Speaker 01

  And now

• 55:44Chris Williamson?

  What's this called?

• 55:46Speaker 01

  I can't, it's some kind of a dust mite, if I remember right. And, and the thing is, I know. And, but of course now this is like a Greek tragedy. It's gonna happen to them too, because they had sex with their brother before they went out. And so this exact same story is enacted for all eternity. Where they're all gonna die like they're in the movie Alien, after having incest with their sibling while they're inside their mother.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  And so, like, is there a morality lesson here? Do we learn something from this bug that should guide human behavior in any way? No, it's irrelevant. And you can find every, if there's something nasty that's, that could happen, it's happening somewhere in nature. Does that mean that we as humans should go, oh, it's natural and, and therefore important and good, and we should guide ourselves by it? No, it's got nothing to do with it. So he should be able to write a book about the biology of sex differences that should not have any impact on what humans ought to do to each other. It should be an easy book to write. In fact, everyone who cares about gender relations should want to read that book, so they know what they're dealing with. But unfortunately, it works the other way, right?

• 56:42Chris Williamson?

  Adactylidium is a genus of mites known for its unusual life cycle. An impregnated female mite feeds upon a single egg of thrips, rapidly growing five to eight female offspring and one male. A single male mite mates with all of his sisters while they're still inside the mother. The new female is now impregnated, eat their way out of the mother's body so they can emerge to find new thrips eggs, killing their mother in the process. Through the cycle may only be four days old, starting the cycle again. The male emerges, emerges as well, but does not look for food or mates and then dies after a few hours.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Oh, I thought they ate him too. So I misremembered that. So that's good. He gets to get out of there.

• 57:16Chris Williamson?

  He's getting a little bit of fresh air. You know what I mean? It's good, it's good to stretch your legs after you've had sex with his sisters. Yeah. Um, okay. Let's move into the modern world. How is all of this off balance when we get into contemporary society?

• 57:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. And so I thought about this for a long time. And, and I think that the problem is this. So let me rewind the clock a tiny bit. Um, we used to live in a world where connection was paramount. And so if you guys wanted to go north and I wanted to go south, even though our cultural rules are actually every, we're all egalitarian, we're all autonomous, I can do what I want. I can't go south unless I can persuade you guys to go my way. Cause I'm gonna end up being eaten by a lion and you guys are gonna end up being fine. And so I had to rely on my connections and my opportunities for autonomy were actually relatively rare. Every once in a while, I had a true choice where I didn't need to connect, where safety was fine and I could do whatever I wanted. When that happened, what I believe is that we evolved to pick autonomy because it was so rare that we could actually pick it.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  So connection was what we needed, autonomy was what we wanted. It wasn't uncommon. And so we evolved to grab it whenever we could. Now, we often create what are called evolutionary mismatches where our biology changes slowly, our culture changes rapidly. And so things that we wanted in the past that were very, we want them because they're good for us. Remember, evolution guides us, so to speak, by, via our emotions. And so we all seek out fat, sugar and salt all the time, for example. They're all really rare on the savanna. And so now we live in a modern world where fat, sugar and salt are two meters away from me all the time. The problem is that even if there was a lot of it one day, I probably should eat more because there's probably not going to be any of it tomorrow. And so I want fat, salt and sugar when I ought to stop eating.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Because our ancestors never suffered from eating too much fat, salt and sugar, but now of course that's an enormous problem. It's a form of what I would call miswanting. You can imagine an evolutionary mismatch leading to miswanting. You can also imagine an evolutionary mismatch leading to what I call misfeeling, which is when you worry about things you shouldn't worry about. So, um, for example, I, I'm really scared of spiders. They, they wig me out. And, um, I was in Sydney, um, on a, a trip with a bunch of biologists and we went to the grocery store first. And when we got to our campsite and we opened up our, um, box, a funnel web spider hopped out, which is the world's deadliest spider. Now, they're biologists and so, and I'm just a psychologist, right? So they immediately captured it under glass, which I already thought was crazy.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  And then when I suggest, yeah, now one of us should stomp on it, by, by which I mean one of them, they're like, are you crazy? This thing is beautiful. And they flick it into the grass, like right next to our barbecue. So the whole, my, I've got the willies. I'm like, I can't, everything that touches my skin is making me nervous. Now, nobody's died of a funnel web spider bite despite them being all around since the 1970s, even though they can kill you real easily because hospitals keep anti-venom, people are good at avoiding them, etc. On the other hand, you know, think about all the ways that we can die. Automobiles and electricity are two really good examples. I've shocked myself once changing a lamp out. It threw me across the floor. I'm not scared of lamps at all. I've never been bit by a spider. They scared, they, they give me the, the heebie-jeebies. Cars whiz by me all the time.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  Even the smallest one could flatten me. And drivers are really inattentive, but I don't walk down the road going, you know, afraid of, of cars. I, I walk down the sidewalk, think, giving them no thought. And so I should be afraid of cars and electrical outlets, and I shouldn't be afraid of spiders, but I'm the opposite. I'm misfeeling. And I think what we've got ourselves into is this exact kind of evolutionary mismatch with regard to autonomy and connection. And I think the way it's happened is that, think about our modern world and all the things that you could do now. I want to be a YouTuber, where I just talk about my opinions. I want to do, there's a zillion things. That's like the most popular thing that kids want to do. There's a zillion things that I could do. Our ancestors never wondered what they were going to do for a living. They were in the no choice condition. I will hunt and gather because that's what every human on this planet does, right?

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  And so we've got a zillion opportunities for autonomy. And if I'm right, and if autonomy and connection are in fundamental tension, then every time we choose autonomy, we're sacrificing our connections and we've gotten out of balance.

• 1:01:19Chris Williamson?

  What has encouraged this lean toward autonomy in the modern world?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  I think wealth and education and urban living all have played a huge role. And so if you, if you start with urban living, living in the cities, in the mid 1800s, about up in, well, cities started about 5,000 years ago. The very first cities were getting large around that time. So let's call cities in existence for 5,000 years. So up until 200 years ago, fewer than one in 10 people on this planet lived in a city. So people voted with their feet very, very slowly. They very slowly migrated to cities over thousands of years, 5,000 years. 10% of us had migrated to cities. Between, we go from one in 10 in 1850 to 1960, we now have one in three. By 2007, it was equal. Fifty percent of people live in cities and 50% live in the country.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  And so there's been a massive movement to the cities. What does this have to do with anything? Well, cities are places for autonomy. I can pursue anything I want in the city. There's all sorts of opportunities. Everything is available to me in the city. And so I go to cities for the opportunities, the job, whatever those domains might be. And you'd think in principle, that's fine, because you could have your cake and eat it too. But it turns out you can't. And so even though when I live in the city, I'm cheek by jowl with a lot of other people. You know, my apartment building might have a thousand humans in it. It turns out, I usually don't know them. I might not even know the people in the apartment right next to mine. Whereas if I live in the country and my nearest neighbor is 500 meters away, I probably know them well. So when you ask people in cities, do you know somebody you trust with your house keys?

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  They're less likely to say yes than when you ask someone in the country, despite having people all around them all the time. And so what we've done, cities is living is an example. We sacrificed our connections in order to gain that autonomy city living. And then you say, all right, fine, people have been voting with their feet. Feet, all the humans on the planet are doing it. It must make you happier. Actually, it doesn't. If you look at happiness in city versus the country, people are more likely to be very happy in the country than they are in the city. So we're making ourselves unhappy when we choose autonomy and humans are doing it all over the planet.

• 1:03:24Chris Williamson?

  What about wealth and technological advances, education?

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Those are great examples. So wealth is, you know, poor people need each other. If you live in a poor neighborhood and you want to mow your lawn and your lawn mower broke, you probably can't afford to have it repaired to buy another one. But you could borrow one from your neighbor. And the same holds if you need your dog's hat while you're out of town or whatever the case might be. You can't hire a dog sitter, you're broke. So poor people live in this kind of network of interdependence with each other, whereby they just count on each other all the time. In that sense, they're a lot like our hunter gatherer ancestors. They have these tight connections because they need to. Rich people don't need each other at all. If I, you know, run out of my favorite coffee beans, I'll just drone it in. You know, my latte will be here in 45 minutes. I've got the money to solve all my problems. And so again, When I'm rich, I don't even necessarily know who my neighbors are.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  So if you ask rich people and poor people, how much time do you spend with your neighbors? Poor people are more than twice as likely to get together with their neighbors regularly as rich people are. And so, rich people are sacrificing their connections. Now, you might say, well, they're still happy because they're doing exactly what they want. But again, the data, rich people are happier than poor people. But the data suggests that when they're forced to make connections, that actually makes a big difference in their lives.

• 1:04:34Chris Williamson?

  That's so interesting. It's kind of the same as the competent people not being seen as quite so warm, that if you see somebody who's quite rich, you have to assume, I mean, unless they've made it, unless their friends have just given them tons of money, "I had it because of all of my pro-social contacts", you have to assume that they've spent a lot of time on themselves. And that's a kind of isolating autonomous individualistic existence.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  No, that's right. And so, getting rich, the kind of person who gets rich is often a very, is an autonomy machine, because that's usually your route to get there. Not always, you can get there by glad-handing. And if you're sales, that might be how you did it. But the other side of that coin, though, is you could be born into a wealthy family. You did nothing to gain that wealth. Your very wealthy dad or mom married somebody who's highly connected, and then you just inherited all that. You still don't need your neighbors. And when you don't need your neighbors, like, there's these really interesting studies that Paul Piff and their colleagues do, where they bring people into the lab, and who either grew up poor or grew up rich, and they have them to get acquainted conversations. And people who grew up poor are engaged with each other, and they're talking back and forth. They're connecting. And people who are rich are far more likely to look down at their phone. If they don't have their phone, they're likely to doodle. They pay less attention.

• 1:05:47Speaker 01

  They're less capable of taking each other's perspective because they're just less engaged. They don't need each other. And unfortunately, even though they don't need each other physically, which is where we evolved, we still need each other socially, even if we don't know it. And so, all those decisions that rich people are making on a daily basis, to not connect with their neighbor, to not do those things, because in the moment, they'd rather watch TV, they'd rather do whatever, those are building up a cost.

• 1:06:12Chris Williamson?

  Why do you think it is that this kind of explains what's enabled the autonomy thing, but this worship of individualism, this worship of autonomy, given the fact that the evidence suggests the more connected you are, the happier you're going to be and so on and so forth. When you look at that Harvard study, the longitudinal thing, number of close connections are the best predictor of your outcome, et cetera, et cetera. How is it that our autonomy-seeking systems, our individualistic-seeking systems have been so hijacked? How have they been run awry and sped up to this sort of really overclocked way?

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know why it is, you know, what the underlying psychology is in the background. But what I can say is that in the moment, when what you want to do competes with what you, your social obligations are, you're, we tend to default if we can to, well, what I really want to do right now is X. And it's because I believe that our ancestors faced that problem 75 times a day and 74, they had to choose, go along with everybody else. And so when that one moment, when they can do what they want, they're going to grab it. And so we've evolved this psychology, I believe, that focuses on what we want in the moment and forgets about what we need in the longer term. And so let me give you a, for example, if you look at poor and rich people who either

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  never go to religious services or who go regularly, the effect of going to religious services is larger among the rich than it is among the poor. It has a bigger impact on their happiness. Now, there's a countless reasons why it ought to be the opposite. And for example, if you look at, if you ignore services, but you just look at prayer, prayer makes poor people happier than rich people does. So people pray versus never pray and don't ever go to services, it has a bigger bump in happiness for poor than rich, which makes sense because poor people don't have a lot of stuff. Rich people have the stuff that poor people are praying for. And so But so it's not the belief side that that matters about going to services. It's forcing you to connect. So if you're a religious person and you feel you're meant to be in church every week

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  or more than once a week, that's a lot of connection that's being forced foisted upon you. You know, you're now like a hunter gatherer. You don't have choice and it makes an enormous difference in the happiness of people's lives. And it makes an even bigger difference for rich than poor because they're avoiding those connections otherwise. And so in each time we make that decision in the moment, do I want to go over to Chris's and borrow some coffee beans? He's gonna bug me when I'm busy. Screw it, I'm gonna order it on Amazon. Each time we do that, we're happier for that micro decision, but we're adding a little chip to our unhappiness by sacrificing our connections.

• 1:08:49Chris Williamson?

  That's so interesting. Yeah, I loved your term around sad success stories. People who have achievements, but they don't feel particularly fulfilled because they don't actually have a tight network of friends to share it with. I think that's a like an endemic problem to the high performer. You know, you look at the people that everybody aspires to be like, the ones that have got the most accolades and acclaim and reputation and so on and so forth. And you really probably should look at them with some degree of pity to think, well, what's driven this person to get to this stage and what have they had to sacrifice in order to get there? And how alienating is it for them to be in that situation? And how few people have they got to share this with?

• 1:09:33Chris Williamson?

  And how few people understand what they've gone through in order to be able to? Yeah, sad success stories, I think are a good.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  It's it's it's kind of heartbreaking because they've they've achieved the dream that that all of us dream about, that we want. And and I remember, I can't remember which congressman it was, but he talked about, I've achieved everything I ever wanted and all day long I'm with people and that should be great, but they're all shallow connections and I go home and I'm alone. And it just the discrepancy between what I've achieved at work and what I've achieved in my personal life is so great that I just, I can barely face it. And and that's like this epitome of a sad success story, right? And the problem is that for a lot of us to get there. Either we had to sacrifice those connections because we really worked hard, or maybe we didn't work that hard and we didn't have to sacrifice the connections. But we're still making the wrong choice every day because those autonomy choices are so available to us.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  And so you say to me, you know, Bill, I'd really like to see a Schwarzenegger flick. And I'm like, I want to see a rom com. And I say, well, I'll see you later. Forget it. And when I should just go to whatever movie you want to see because it's less important than you and I getting together, hanging out, talking about it afterwards and that sort of thing.

• 1:10:38Chris Williamson?

  How do you ensure, I mean, this is not an issue. And it's interesting, and I'm particularly fascinated with this sort of open loop about why we've tended toward autonomy as opposed to sort of connection. But there is a risk of sacrificing too much autonomy. There has to be, there has to be some downsides to that, too.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. And the thing is, I do think the balance was wrong. Our ancestors had no choice. They had to be connection machines. And when you look around the world, as every society gets wealthier, they become more individualistic. So it's, and that's understandable. You, you, you feel sorry for the old guy who got this sweatshirt and then knew he was going to have to give it away. And he's like, forget it. I'm just keeping this one. I'm not giving this away this time. Just, you know, the, the notion of not having anything you can call your own sounds hard to us, right? And so the, that, that balance needed to be corrected. But of course, the, the problem has now shifted in the other direction where we're constantly making these decisions. Where we're making these choices that each choice makes this small sacrifice, you know, that each choice is a good one.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Every time I say, well, I'd, I'd rather just have the latte I wanted, or I'd rather do whatever. You know, we even see this among married couples quite remarkably. People are spending less time with their friends than they ever did before. They're spending less time with their neighbors than they ever did before. And married couples are spending more time separately. Now, if you get lucky, you have people in your life who want to do exactly what you want to do. And then you don't have any of these problems, right? You've got somebody who's right beside you. When you're busy doing your thing, they're busy doing theirs. And then you guys reconnect and you have the same leisure activities, et cetera. But it's, that takes a lot of luck. And so for, on average, what's happening is that he's going to the gym and she's going to run outside or whatever, right? And the upshot is that, that even married couples are spending less time together.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  And so as far as time alone is concerned, being quality time, even in the closest relationships we have, it's going down.

• 1:12:32Chris Williamson?

  I was gonna say, how much can relationships and marriage assuage these problems of disconnection and over reliance on autonomy? They have to make some sort of an impact.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  They definitely matter. It's the time alone that kills us. And so the thing is that if you've got a partner who you enjoy quality time with, then that's a huge plus. And especially if neither of you has to sacrifice your autonomy, because both of you like, you both are lovers. And so now you get to do what you want to do, and you get to do it together. And you can stand in front of that Monet painting and both marvel at it together. And that's really nice. Those are bonding moments. But not everybody has that. And then you have to find the way when she wants to go to the movies and you want to go to the art show or ski or, you know, whatever your preferences are.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  And I don't think that it has to be your romantic partner that you do those things with. But what I have come to realize is that, and it was actually COVID that showed me this, that there's lots of things that we do alone, that people who matter to us also do alone, that we could just do them together. Now, in a best case scenario, we do them together physically. You and I are both trying to get fit, so we meet every Thursday or twice a week or whatever, and we go run or lift or whatever we're doing. But of course, you actually live a long way from me. And so if we're mates from way back, we have to do it e-connecting. But the great thing is, e-connecting is awfully easy now. You know, we disparage it, and there's reasons to, but it also allows us to get together when we can't. So my little sister lives in London, and she always likes to do the crossword,

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  and I always like to do the crossword. And so when COVID started, we were both locked down a lot. We just started doing the crossword together. And so we'd just get on the phone, and we're doing the crossword. And of course, there's lots of random chit chat, and we'd kind of catch up on each other's day. Now, even though I love her dearly, I used to speak to her, you know, once every month at best, and suddenly we're not talking three or four days a week, because we're just, we have these defaults on these days. When she wakes up and makes her coffee, it's now at the end of the day for me, we do the crossword. And why not? You know, why not? Take connection in and out easily. I remember there was this guy, he wrote this up in the New York Times about how he was going to reconnect with all of his old friends. And so he went way out of his way to find them all and got together with them. And then he ends up by saying, am I going to keep this up? Probably not. It was just too much effort.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  And that's the problem with us. We're lazy. When your closest friend moves an hour away, you're just not going to see them in person anymore. And so we have to find, we have to know yourself. You have to know you're lazy or busy. You know, it's not just bad, right? We're busy people. And then you have to find ways to add connection in without sacrificing additional time. Ideally, without sacrificing your autonomy, continue to do what you want to do, but connecting at the same time.

• 1:15:09Chris Williamson?

  Has this research given you a better lens on why there's such a widespread sense of isolation and sort of dissatisfaction in the modern world's material comfort, but psychological dis- disease?

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I used to marvel at it because, you know, when I was a little kid in the sixties and seventies, the world was a much rougher place and our attitudes were pretty rough. You know, I had a lot of friends who were gay, for example, who I didn't know they're gay because they're telling nobody, because you just get beat up. You know, it was not a good time to be different in any way. And now it's a great time to be different. You can be anybody you want to be. And even if what you are is super rare, you can still find people to connect with on the internet who you could never have found, you know, when I was a kid and all that and prior to that world. We're also way kinder to each other. You know, literally the solution to fighting on the playground was when the bell and when the bell rang at the end of the playground and somebody lost and somebody won. And the hierarchy was reshuffled or kept the same, depending on the outcome.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  But teachers never stepped in to stop someone from beating somebody else up. It just didn't happen. If it was outside the school rounds, you could, you're not allowed to beat up in class, of course. And so, you know, when you look at that world and how rough it was and how unpleasant it was, you'd think, oh, well, probably people had a lot of mental health problems then that that just have gotten a lot better. And of course, you and I know that it's the opposite, that this, the current generation is more anxious. The current generation of adolescents and young adults are more anxious than any generation before them, even though the world's so much better of a place. And I think that part of it is exactly what we're talking about. This, this lack of balance that we have between autonomy and connection, that it's gone awry and it's gotten worse in the last 50 years.

• 1:16:46Chris Williamson?

  Why anxiety, do you think? What is it about that that's the emotion de jour of the contemporary world?

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  It's a great question. I think, I don't know, I don't know. But I would conjecture that the answer is, Chris Rock once said, you know, if you think words hurt you, then you've never been punched in the face. And I agree with him. I've been punched in the face and it's not nice. And when I was a kid, you know, the little phrase that we were taught, if somebody's making fun of you, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. And so in other words, I don't care what you say to me. I only care if you punch me in the face. My feelings are my problem, not yours. And you're not going to be able to impinge on them either way. Well, as our world's gotten so wonderful, you know, it's so much safer than it used to be. I rolled out of a car when I was a little kid because the doors won't go open and there's not even a seatbelt in the back. And I'm four years old and I roll across the street.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  You know, that just doesn't happen anymore. As we don't get hurt in random, mayhemy kinds of ways, then we start lowering the bar on what it means to be hurt. And eventually, what it means to be hurt is that neuroscientists can write, in all seriousness, that words are violent, that they cause harm. Because when people read mean words or people say mean things to them, painful thoughts happen in their mind. Well, of course painful thoughts happen in your mind, but we used to be robust to that because that was the least of our concerns. And now we're just less robust to it. And so think about all the kinds of ways the world could go bad. And if even words are scary to you, the things people might say or think about you, well, then the world is a scary place. And it makes sense that you would be a lot more anxious than you used to be.

• 1:18:26Chris Williamson?

  What, I'm interested in whether you think it's possible for people to rebalance this in their own lives. You know, we can't step outside of the contemporary world. I don't know how many people are going to go and move and live with the Hadza. So what do you think can be done?

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's super hard. And for me, I think the answer is small fixes that have to become habit. And the key is there's two components. One is you can't do like that guy in the New York Times op ed who finds all of his old friends and puts you different into seeing them, and then just doesn't have the time for that. And so quits doing it. There's no accomplishment there. But you can do like what I did where now when I'm gonna do the crossword anyway, I immediately call my sister first, and we just do it together. Because what difference does it make to me? And it's nice, it's actually more fun to chat with her. And I'm not good enough at crosswords to get them by myself. And so it's great when I've got her help, right? So the everything's better when I do it that way. But the second component to that is it

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  has to become habit. Because if we have to decide to connect, we just don't do it. And so you want it to be habit like the same way brushing your teeth is you don't wake up in the morning, go, should I brush my teeth today? You know, you just, you follow your routine, you ate breakfast, you brush your teeth. It's what we call surrendering control of our behavior to the environment. After breakfast, I brush my teeth. You want your new habits to work the same way. Your socializing habits. And so you want to think about what are the activities that I do alone? And how could I connect while I do them? And then once you decide that, you, you think, well, what are my contingencies that are going to cause me to do that? Not every morning will I decide to do it, because you just won't. Decision is hard. But if you say, all right, well, on Tuesdays, I like to do X,

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  and so does so and so, I'll always call while I'm cleaning up the toys after the toddlers, I'll call my old high school friend, because she's doing the same thing. Or whatever the case might be, right? You reintroduce connection in ways that become habitual that are triggered by events in the environment. And then it just becomes part of your life again. And it's really nice. You know, we do spend a lot of time alone, it our environment enables that. But you don't have to be fully alone when you do it.

• 1:20:34Chris Williamson?

  What about adjusting our expectations? I imagine that that's something else that people need to get used to.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, expectations are hard because, you know, we, it's, it's sort of like when I get upset because they put barbecue sauce on my meat lovers pizza. Um, we, things work awfully smoothly in our world. And so we want that continued, smooth, friction-free existence. And it's, it's easy enough if somebody steps in and says, hey, hold on, Bill, are you really that upset that you don't have the pizza sauce that you wanted? Isn't that absurd? Of course, I'm gonna say, oh, you're right, that's absurd. But we're locked up in our moment-to-moment lives. We're not locked up in our long-term life. You know, the world has gotten so much better than it used to be. And a hundred years ago, 90% of people were illiterate. 90% of people lived in abject poverty. And now those numbers are reversed. Over 90% of the humans on this planet are literate.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  Over 90, less than 10% lived in abject poverty. The world is so much better than it used to be. And a huge chunk of that is in my lifetime. But it still happens really, really slowly. You don't notice it. The papers aren't full of this good news. It's all the momentary tiny tidbits of bad news of what happened today. And the things that happened today that are bad are just more noticeable than the things that happen that are good. And so we, we get really caught up with those friction and it's hard for us to back up. And I don't have good advice. You know, some of us have the good fortune that we're glasses half-full kind of people. We just see opportunity and, and good. And some of us have the bad fortune that we're sort of genetically glass half-empty type people. That, there's strong evolutionary, not evolution, but genetic component to that. And so if you're the glasses half-empty, that's making you unhappy.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  You need to start trying really hard to focus on the part that's full.

• 1:22:14Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I had a conversation with Rick Hansen that wrote Hardwiring Happiness. And I'm, you know, digging into the sort of neurobiology of where happiness comes from, what our sort of set point is, how much we can actually nudge it over time. Uh, it's both reassuring and fatalistic at the same time, I think. And, uh, like you're working within, it, it, this is kind of an interesting one. You know, lots of people believe that they have agency when it comes to things like their career, uh, that, their earnings, where they're going to live, the sort of partner that they choose, the kind of partner that they're going to show up and be. But as soon as we get past the boundary of the outside of our own skull. Lots of our assumptions and sort of whims and wishes about agency kind of go by the

• 1:22:58Chris Williamson?

  way. It's, well, you know, I'm just as happy as I'm ever, I'm going to see things in this kind of a way. And I think that level of you have a bracket that you're working within, that bracket is very heavily predisposed, but within that bracket, it's all on you. And I think that thinking about, thinking about things in that kind of a way is, it should humble people that, people who have got worldly success, but in a disquiet should feel, huh, maybe my worldly success kind of was a little bit less in my agency than I might have thought. Maybe I was kind of dragged along by my nature because I have

• 1:23:39Chris Williamson?

  this sense internally that something is my nature and my agency isn't able to get, get its way around it.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:46Chris Williamson?

  But when it comes to the meritocracy thing, I'm more than happy to sort of lay it at the feet of how hard I worked and my sweat and my spit and my sawdust.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, because those are easy to see. Now, I think your example is right on, on target. And the example I like to think about is we now have pretty good polygenic scores for obesity, where we know all the genes that are combined and the role they play. And the data suggests that they're, they play up to 70% of your obesity is driven by your genes. And obviously, that's an interaction between genes and environment because nobody was obese when I was a little kid, or hardly anybody was. And now lots, almost everybody is. So there's environmental changes that we can remake and get back to where we were. But setting all that problem aside, if you look at, you can look at people's polygenic score. And if you look at, if you have obese polygenic score, you're much more likely to be obese than if you don't. But there's lots of thin people who have obese polygenic

• 1:24:35Speaker 01

  scores. And there are very few thin people who are obese, who have thin polygenic scores who are obese. So you're much more likely to push in the direction you want to be than in the direction that nobody wants to be. And so you can change your life. You've, it's harder for some than others. You know, if you have good luck that your genes are of a thin person, well, you can go through life eating a fair few donuts and things are going to be okay. If you don't have those genes, it's hard work. You can't eat those donuts. You can't have the easy life that others have, but you can still achieve your goals. And so it just depends in the end how important it is to you and then finding the route to get there. And I believe that that route is often the route of least genetic resistance. And so if I have my polygenic score for obesity is high, we don't know what that means, but we do know that the outcome is likely to be that I'm obese.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  So then I have to think, well, where are my weaknesses? Okay, I can't stop eating brownies. It's fine, never ever gonna buy them, not gonna go to that corner of the mall where that Mrs. Fields shop is, you know, I'm just gonna create my life so that, because humans are terrible at self-control, but they're good at organizing. And so I create my life to make it so that I don't have to resist temptation because I just can't do it. And I think the same holds for happiness. You have to step back and say, all right, I am the material success that I want to be. I can't quit. I'm not done. I have to keep doing that. But now I can start to ask myself, all right, well, what's missing? And what makes me the happiest? And how can I incorporate that into my life with the path of least resistance that makes the most sense for me genetically? And if I'm just not the kind of guy who's gonna go to parties full of people I don't

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  know, don't put that on your list because it's just not gonna happen, right? You wanna choose the path that seems the least, the most likely to lead to success.

• 1:26:11Chris Williamson?

  Hmm, yeah, well, I suppose it kind of relates back to what you were talking, you were saying with regards to a partner, that the path of most easy connection and autonomy is to choose a partner whose interests align with yours so that your autonomy is your connection. And it's the same when it comes to, you know, you can try and swim against the tide as much as you want with trying to make yourself into this kind of a person. But so for instance, you mentioned earlier on about the highly empathic person. Look, man, like if you know, you really feel the pain of others very deeply, that you have the opportunity to connect, you seem to sort of make connections more quickly

• 1:26:52Chris Williamson?

  and sort of drop in more easily than other people do, you probably shouldn't be a Navy SEAL sniper. Like, that's probably, that's probably not the career for you. But working with soldiers that have got PTSD, or you know, working with a job that requires that that level of connection, therapy, stuff like that. Oh, my God. You know, like, that's really, that's really a wheelhouse, as long as you can avoid bringing your work home with you.

• 1:27:20Chris Williamson?

  So, yeah, I had a, I've been talking about this a ton. I did a DNA test about three or four months ago with this company called Intellx DNA. No affiliation, but they're cool. And I'd already taken the Robert Ploman Behavioral Genetics Red Pill a long, long time ago. But I'd never actually thought, well, what are you talking about? When you talk about your genes, what is it you're actually referring to? Well, you're referring to pairs of alleles. And there's very specific pairs of, now you've got the polymorphic thing, which is sort of these big bundles of them that come together, which tend toward traits of X and Y. But very individual alleles do very specific things, especially when you're talking sort of neurobiologically, when you're talking, and getting to see

• 1:28:01Chris Williamson?

  your, the building blocks of your behavioral genetics in front of you, written out. It's like, oh, you've got the one copy of the CY4KK gene, which means that you clear adrenaline and norepinephrine less more slowly, or something like that. This is one of the reasons why after an emotional event, it takes you longer to come back into land. But it's also associated with you being able to work incredibly hard at one thing for a long period of time. And you're seeing written in front of you, the bricks, literally the bricks that make up the house that is you. It was so fascinating. I can't, I can't stop thinking about it. It was great.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  It is super cool. And I, I've only done the 23andMe one, which doesn't dive into that level of detail. Maybe it does now. I did it because I was interested in my long-term health score, like Alzheimer's risk and things like that. And I was amused to see that I have this Neanderthal allele that makes it hard for me to discard rarely used items. And I've always just felt like, well, I might need that again. It would be, I've got room to store that. It makes sense that I should keep that old shelf bracket. And then you're like, oh, maybe I'm just a product of my inner workings and I'm not running the show at all.

• 1:29:12Chris Williamson?

  Who knew?

• 1:29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. It is entertaining and it's super interesting. And you also raise a good point where these genes have multiple effects. Right. And so we, we often believe we're going to come to this world where we can genetically just adjust ourselves to what we want to be. But every gene has more than, almost every gene has more than one consequence. And so you have to ask yourself, well, do I want to be able to focus for a long period of time? And is it worth paying the price of not being able to come back down and clear my adrenaline? You know, because they don't just have one effect. And so it's not easy to build the perfect human. You have to build a human full of compromises.

• 1:29:41Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Bill, you're awesome, but I think your research is fantastic. It's so cool for someone to go deep into the hunter gatherer stuff and, and sort of use that to help us understand ourselves. Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with all of the stuff that you're doing. Check out the book.

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  So I'm, I'm now on Instagram. I just set up my, I just set up my account. I was told by my publicist, I need to do this. So I'm William Von Hippel, or however it works, at William Von Hippel, or something like that. I've got a full 40 followers. So I've got legions of people who are already keen to, to hear what I have to say.

• 1:30:13Chris Williamson?

  But let's do it.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  But I'm posting there. It links to my website that I've created and coincidentally this arrived in the mail yesterday. This is my, my new book. So you can't quite get it yet, but you can, it'll be on, you know, all the books places, audio, e, hard copy in just a few weeks.

• 1:30:30Chris Williamson?

  Bill, you're awesome. I can't wait to see what you write next. And, uh, yeah, I, people should go and check it out. The book's fantastic, super readable. I really loved how many stories were in there. It's a, it's really great. And I think it's given a, a good new perspective that I didn't have before. So I appreciate all your work.

• 1:30:46Speaker 01

  Thanks, Chris. It's great talking to you. I really enjoyed it.

• 1:30:48Chris Williamson?

  Until next time, mate.