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Cassandra Weeps
Why there’s a deep irony underlying our present condition
We humans are a group primate species that evolved under conditions of relative stability and simplicity. This means our brains are hardwired to conform to group norms (because membership of the group is the only way any individual human can survive) and to prefer simplicity over complexity (because reducing cognitive load preserves blood sugars for more urgent tasks such as fleeing from danger or seeking food). Even though our modern world is infinitely more complex and rapidly-changing than our ancestral environments of the African savannah and the primordial forests of Eurasia, our brains remain exactly as they were thirty thousand years ago. This is because the brain is a complex organ and so any adaptations require a great deal of time to slowly accumulate to the point where meaningful alterations in function can occur.
This seemingly obvious fact has profound implications.
As our ancestors depended entirely on the hunter-gatherer groups in which they spent their entire lives, the human brain is hardwired for automatic conformity to group norms. Even more that this, the human brain is hardwired to impose conformity on any group member who appears to be defying whatever the norms happen to be, because loss of group cohesion would be fatal. For our ancestors, a group…
