20 min listen
Highlights–Nicholas Christakis–Author of “Blueprint”
Highlights–Nicholas Christakis–Author of “Blueprint”
ratings:
Length:
20 minutes
Released:
May 31, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
“When we look around the world, we see endless and timeless fear, ignorance, hatred, and violence. From our position, we could also boundlessly catalogue the minute details of human groups, highlighting and emphasizing the differences among them. But this pessimistic gaze that separates humans from one another by highlighting evil and by emphasizing difference misses an important underlying unity and overlooks our common humanity. Humans everywhere are also pre-wired to make a particular kind of society — one full of love, friendship, cooperation, and learning.
Humans have always had both competitive and cooperative impulses, both violent and beneficent tendencies. Like the two strands of the double helix of our DNA, these conflicting impulses are intertwined. We are primed for conflict and hatred but also for love, friendship, and cooperation. If anything, modern societies are just a patina of civilization on top of this evolutionary blueprint.
The good things we see around us are part of what makes us human in the first place. We should be humble in the face of temptations to engineer society in opposition to our instincts. Fortunately, we do not need to exercise any such authority in order to have a good life. The arc of our evolutionary history is long. But it bends toward goodness.Excerpted from BLUEPRINT: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good SocietyCopyright 2020 by Nicholas A. ChristakisNicholas ChristakisHuman Nature Lab humannaturelab.netYale Institute for Network Science yins.yale.eduTRELLIS - Suite of software tools for developing, administering, and collecting survey and social network data trellis.yale.eduThe Atlantic: “How AI Will Rewire Us: For better and for worse, robots will alter humans’ capacity for altruism, love, and friendship”www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.org
Released:
May 31, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
(Highlights) BILL HARE: Interviewed by Mia Funk · Associate Podcast Producer Marley Hinschberger by One Planet Podcast · Climate Change, Politics, Sustainability, Environmental Solutions, Renewable Energy, Activism, Biodiversity, Carbon Footprint, Wildlife, Regenerative Agriculture, Circular Economy, Extinction, Net-Zero