Using genetic anthropology to reconstruct the 90% of modern human history that is unrecorded. The discoveries are coming in fast; no doubt we’ll have a revival of alternative history books soon 🙂 We are beginning to uncover all the near-extinction events in our history that left marks in our mitochondria and Y-chromosomes. more vast and scary than any foundation myth.
2023-04-06: The 0-sum games that held humanity back for 300k years

The default condition of humans is no different from the default condition of other animals: Males fight each other over females. In humans, in apes, in deer, in insects. Despite apes being more intelligent than insects, they live in the same stability. And the same can be said about the human default: Despite being more intelligent than apes, humans are just as stuck in their ecological niches until the powerful among them get incentives to develop.

We are used to seeing human development as a line of progression. Step by step, generation after generation, humans are commonly thought to have added one small invention and observation after another, culminating in big breakthroughs and discoveries. I think it could be more useful to see human history as episodic. On some occasions, humans focused on the things that are possible to develop, that is, technology and teamwork. During most of the time, human males focused on a pursuit with little development potential: How to snatch as many females as possible from other males. However intelligent a species is, it will not develop as long as all its intelligence is used to play a 0-sum game.

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