Our evolving brains
On outdated operating systems and economic man
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This week is a really long subtweet that I had drafted and then another article on this topic came out so I revised it and I sort of lose the thread at the end. Perhaps you can tell me how to bring it all together (and if I’m missing something incredibly obvious).
A lot of pop psych articles reference how our brains evolved in the savanna as an explanation for all sorts of seemingly irrational behavior:
As humans, we share a similar acute response with our counterparts in the animal kingdom to perceived danger. While it may not be a vicious saber tooth tiger licking its chops and closing in for the kill, there are many figurative “saber tooth tigers” looming in our minds. Some of these include the fear of terrorist attacks, the faltering economy, relationships gone bad, work-related stress, the unsettling power of Mother Nature gone awry or simply the fear of the unknown.
The TL;DR of this narrative is that we do this and that because we’re looking out for lions! But we live in the suburbs now and there are no lions. Silly humans, stressing themselves out for no good reason. Also, did you know that stress will kill you?
Brains just evolve so slowly, so what can you do? We just need more self-care, be it staying positive, exercising, staying positive, breathing, staying positive, practicing gratitude, or staying positive.
Applied to things beyond just stress, this is the “savanna theory of happiness,” which posits that:
“life satisfaction is not only determined by what’s happening in the present but also influenced by the ways our ancestors may have reacted to the event. Evolutionary psychology argues that, just like any other organ, the human brain has been designed for and adapted to the conditions of an ancestral environment. Therefore, the researchers argue, our brains may have trouble comprehending and dealing with situations that are unique to the present.”
I would like to collect the people sharing this hypothesis and send them to an actual savanna to see how they fare.
I don’t want them to get eaten by lions (or even just chewed a little bit). I’d like to test their idea that the emotional responses we have to modern life are, indeed, the same as the ones we have when we fear a predator is just out of sight.
Does getting an email from your boss at 4:59 pm on a Friday really elicit the same feeling that crouching in the grass, hoping a tiger doesn’t catch your scent, does?
Is the realization that you have to choose between providing for your care needs or your financial needs really any less dangerous than a tiger crouching in the grass?
I’m pretty sure the origin of this terrible analogy is Robert M. Sapolsky’s book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, which presents a far more nuanced and compelling theory explaining our societal struggle with stress.
So, yes, we’ve established that I roll my eyes every time someone mentions how when we worry about global warming it’s just us imagining lions and saber tooth tigers. Despite this, the algorithm really thinks I want tech bros to tell me how to get out of the savanna and reprogram my brain.
Years ago I read an article where one of the founders of Pandora recounted an anecdote to demonstrate that if you don’t think you want what the algorithm thinks you want, you’re wrong.
The algorithm is always right.
Clearly, if the algorithm thinks I want tech bros to help me reprogram my brain to think positive until I reprogram my brain, it must be right.
Imagine having such unshakable faith in your own brilliance.
I have my own theory about why the savanna brain story is so popular. And why it irks me so much.
The version of evolutionary psychology that gets press coverage is a version that explains why we aren’t yet homo economicus. Don’t worry, we’re well on our way to evolve into homo economicus.
The savanna brain supports the idea that we are essentially “agents who are consistently rational, narrowly self-interested, and who pursue their subjectively-defined ends optimally” and any deviation from this is only an evolutionary lag.
This version of the savanna theory holds that people who experience chronic stress in the modern world or who lead interdependent lives are just less evolved. As if a species evolves at the pace of individuals.
It’s not that we’re irrational. It’s not that relationships aren’t all transactional. It’s not that we exist as individuals only within a community. It’s not that we care about things other than whatever economists and tech bros imagine the best possible outcome is. It’s not that we live in a world where there is often no best possible outcome and the factors determing the outcome are unknowable.
It’s because the operating system of our brain is outdated. Such an elegant solution.
Look around you. Are you in a house? An office? A waiting room? On a bus?
Can you see anything that has not been created by homo sapiens?
If you’re looking at a park, was the original landscape scraped away and recreated by workers following plans from a landscape design firm? If you’re looking at a forest, is it actively managed?
Our ancestors designed this world according to their dreams.
And yet, supposedly sitting in your office chair and government mandated social isolation are worse for us than chain smoking during your every waking moment. The food we’ve invented is killing us. There are toxic chemicals in everything. Our digital devices are driving us insane and destabalizing civilization. Etc.
And, of course, you’ve encountered the modern medical system.
If we are rational actors, how did we end up building an environment that is such a poor fit for us, its intended inhabitants?
Perhaps people today are stressed because there are legitimate causes of stress in their life, not imaginary lions.
There are plenty of things that can fuck up your life besides getting eaten.
Yuval Noah Harari suggests that we’re such jumpy little creatures because up until quite recently on the evolutionary scale, we were pretty low on the food chain.
Robert Sapolsky’s version of the savanna argument (summarized here by James Clear) suggests that the chronic stress humans suffer from is due to the constant uncertainty of our lives.
The solutions he proposes include reframing your view of situations, focusing on what’s in your control, and relying on social support. Or, you know, staying positive.
Like the advice in The Upside of Stress, it’s helpful if you’re living a comfortable life and less so when you’re dealing with actual adversity. Sapolsky is open about this conundrum. He’s not pretending he has a solution to everyone’s problems. He’s not implying that people who are dealing with stress are holding back our species.
In Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner, Katrine Marcal notes how homo economicus persists long after he’s been disproven as myth because he speaks to something about our culture.
Homo economicus is such an enticing collective fantasy because he allows us to imagine a world void of “the body, emotion, dependency, insecurity and vulnerability.” A world that is predictable. Where bodies and emotions are tools and preferences.
So many of the people *cough*men*cough* who have designed the world have built products and systems for how they think the world should work, how they want it to work, rather than how it actually does.
Maybe they just don’t know any better.
Like the Pandora article that has gotten stuck in my brain, I often find myself thinking about a guy who gave a Creative Mornings talk on the importance of universal design — which he was completely oblivious to until he was literally hit by a bus.
Most of us have pushed a stroller or carried groceries home or used crutches or, I don’t know, ever looked at other people in public spaces and seen them as human beings rather than sidewalk obstacles.
I have to admit I easily revert to seeing people as sidewalk obstacles rather than people, but it’s not the only way I view the world.
Most of us notice that mobility issues created by a world designed only for the fittest among us are common and very annoying without needing to be hit by a bus.
But not all of us, sadly. Not the guys at the top of the hierarchy.
I have to say that I love Creative Mornings and that was a uniquely bad talk. I’ve been going to their talks, which happen in cities around the world and now virtually, for a decade now. I always enjoy chatting with interesting people and I’ve even met a few friends that way. They choose accessible venues, although other accessibility is by request.
And if you’re ever in Asheville, their chapter goes all out with the food.
If you think someone is overreacting — say, reacting to an email as if it is a lion — it’s easy to tell them to stay positive. And then to never think about it again.
The common thread here is "things we don't have control over." That causes us stress whether it is wild animals waiting to eat us, a virus waiting in infect us, or any other real or imagined threat, physical, emotional or financial. There is a lot we don't control, but actually quite a bit that we are able to influence. We really do need to concentrate on the latter.
The things that offend me (ok I went and looked at all the articles can't believe) is their consumer based ideation of our society. I can imagine that if I fell into the path of an oncoming train I would feel stress akin to a sabretooth tiger approaching me. But when my girlfriend confessed last Xmas eve that she was seriously considering suicide due to her depression, I didn't have a fight or flight response- more an exhaustion and sense of compassion and relief that i knew we could get to the emergency dept down the road. When mum tracked her poo across the carpet it didn't feel like a tiger was biting me it just felt like I need to clean her up and we could both take a nap. Naps. Self care has become a charm consumed by products all based on improving productivity. While we are at it, may I close with an expression of loathing with the term mental health for it too has been commodified and demands an adjective before it such as "good" or "poor". Huh. Didn't know i needed a rant. 🤔🐯🐯🐯💜