Is "Human Nature" Evolutionarily Obsolete? (enemy, generations, radical)

[Phil75230]

By that, I mean the drives, sentiments, behaviors, emotions, etc. that the vast majority of humans have held throughout their existence as a species – even to this very day.

Since the development of mentally modern humans 50,000 years ago, we have manipulated our day-to-day living environments so that we can live in them much easier than before. In fact, this pace is accelerating. Not only is does our day to day living environment change more as time goes on, the rate of changes is also accelerating. For example, our living conditions changed little, if at all, from 20,000 BC to 19,000 BC. Arguably, it changed very little from 1000 BC to 1 AD, except for the higher intelligentsia. However, from 1019 AD to 2019 AD, everybody knows how radically different those two years are.

Given the following:

1. Our deep drives, sentiments, emotions, behaviors and such that we call for shorthand “human nature” doubtlessly evolved as a survival aid for a specific type of physical environment.

2. “Human Nature” as we usually call it were an advantage (or at least not a sufficient disadvantage) to our survival in those earlier environments.

3. Those “earlier environments” for all practical purposes no longer exist, save for a few of the remotest indigenous tribes,

The question now becomes “How much of ‘human nature’ is obsolete? Which parts of it are, and in particular which traits that were a survival advantage in 10,000 BC are either useless or outright detrimental in 2019 AD, and why they are (or not)?

[Parnassia]

FWIW, I think one's definition of "human nature" is going to play into it. Personally, I don't include some of these "drives" as uniquely human at all. The deepest drives that perpetuate the expression and passing of genetic information belong to all biological organisms. If they didn't, well you know what would happen to that organism. Looking at it this way you can have "horse nature", "amoeba nature", "lionfish nature", "ragweed nature", etc. Anyway, I tend to separate those out of the "human nature" mix. Of course that isn't conveniently black or white, but it might reduce the philosophical playing field as far as what a necessary or desirable human trait is or isn't.

[msgsing]

Our human nature to this very day is essentially tribal and I believe unalterable even with the evolutionary nature of the physical world around us. Irregardless of the so called advances in every human endeavor we remain core hunter gatherers. Territorial. Suspicious of members of the other tribe and ready to kill anyone perceived as an enemy.

[RageX]

..."irregardless" is not the word. The word is "regardless"...

[my54ford]

Originally Posted by msgsing

Our human nature to this very day is essentially tribal and I believe unalterable even with the evolutionary nature of the physical world around us. Irregardless of the so called advances in every human endeavor we remain core hunter gatherers. Territorial. Suspicious of members of the other tribe and ready to kill anyone perceived as an enemy.

Concur... And frankly this nature lies close to the surface in most of us.....Greed, selfishness, jealousy, sloth,etc. etc. are all emotions that are natural to humans and in most case reveal themselves pretty easily.....

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

Given the following:

1. Our deep drives, sentiments, emotions, behaviors and such that we call for shorthand “human nature” doubtlessly evolved as a survival aid for a specific type of physical environment.

Your premise is fatally flawed. The physical environment played no role.

Do mothers and fathers love their children less than 20,000 years ago?

Why aren't there huddled masses of people lying in the streets waiting to die?

Because people have places to go, things to do and people see. People have professional goals, career goals, educational goals, social goals, personal goals and financial goals to name but a few.

[WannabeCPA]

I don't think any part of human nature is obsolete. We still have the same natural instincts as our ancestors did and they help us survive in the world today. First off you have to define human nature. Here's my list: 1) finding mates and reproducing, 2) tribalism, 3) selfishness and the resulting conflicts that come with it, 4) power struggles. These are just off the top of my head and I'm sure I've missed some. Basically these are survival instincts that we share with most other animals. It's just that humans are much more complex socially than other animals. I'm wondering if anyone can come up with an element of human nature that is obsolete today when compared to any other time in human history. I can't think of any.

[MinivanDriver]

Originally Posted by Phil75230

By that, I mean the drives, sentiments, behaviors, emotions, etc. that the vast majority of humans have held throughout their existence as a species – even to this very day.

Since the development of mentally modern humans 50,000 years ago, we have manipulated our day-to-day living environments so that we can live in them much easier than before. In fact, this pace is accelerating. Not only is does our day to day living environment change more as time goes on, the rate of changes is also accelerating. For example, our living conditions changed little, if at all, from 20,000 BC to 19,000 BC. Arguably, it changed very little from 1000 BC to 1 AD, except for the higher intelligentsia. However, from 1019 AD to 2019 AD, everybody knows how radically different those two years are.

Given the following:

1. Our deep drives, sentiments, emotions, behaviors and such that we call for shorthand “human nature” doubtlessly evolved as a survival aid for a specific type of physical environment.

2. “Human Nature” as we usually call it were an advantage (or at least not a sufficient disadvantage) to our survival in those earlier environments.

3. Those “earlier environments” for all practical purposes no longer exist, save for a few of the remotest indigenous tribes,

The question now becomes “How much of ‘human nature’ is obsolete? Which parts of it are, and in particular which traits that were a survival advantage in 10,000 BC are either useless or outright detrimental in 2019 AD, and why they are (or not)?

Pshaw.



To illustrate my point, I want you to think about this message you're reading for a moment. Really think about it. What you're reading right now is text, right? But if you dig beneath the surface, it's really almost impenetrable code that make the act of writing, posting, and reading this text possible. At its fundamental level, this sentence is nothing more than an incredibly long series of 1s and 0s, the product of binary code. Go up another level and it's delimiters and whatever other arcade coding symbols are required. If my vocabulary is off, forgive me. It's been almost thirty years since I've written a line of program.

Now. Think of your human nature as the same thing. Ever had a feeling that someone was lying to you? Or a situation wasn't safe? Or that you needed to do something that you couldn't immediately explain, but turned out to be the right choice? Those weren't just random actions or feelings, but rather the sum total of the million little signals being fed into your brain. The body language of the person coming towards you on the sidewalk. The relative size of their pupils. You name it.

In that sense, we are walking bags of electrically-charged meat, working in tandem with the software that was downloaded into our hard drive the moment sperm met egg.

What I've found? The saying, "Listen to your gut," is one of the truest things ever. At age 56, I've found that every time I've ignored it, I've been sorry. And pretty much every time I've listened to it, things have worked out. That doesn't, of course, mean we're not sentient beings with agency in many situations. But for basic walking around sense, avoiding danger, and knowing whom to trust, it still works pretty well.

[Phil75230]

First, it does depend on the definition and/or criteria of “human nature”. Broadly speaking, our drives, instincts, and sentiments we do share with other animals, true enough. Other things are uniquely human, like (apparently) increased language abilities, and many other strictly cognitive factors that separate us from other animals - including our ability for abstract thought combined with foresight, which enables to see matters in entirely different ways (i.e. instead of throwing rocks, we can tie them to a long straight stick and make a spear; or put them in elongated animal skins and make a sling; or notice that we can make our own portable water holes [i.e., jars]; or notice friction of rubbing two sticks together [taking that one step further makes fire]).

Making a long story short, that way of thinking, carried out for thousands of generations, is what led to us living in a physical environment radically different from our distant ancestors. Some of those thoughts, impulses, and behaviors are going to be more useful in our present environment, others are rendered irrelevant our outright counterproductive.

Just a few examples of this:

*Our love for sweet (sugar-loaded) or fatty foods. In 10,000 BC, or even 1900 AD in some instances, that was an advantage before the advent of widespread machinery to lift the burden of physical labor. For the Stone Age, it was the “feast or famine” conditions (if we go by the stereotype), that made our love of such foods advantageous. For the few thousands of years before widespread use of machinery, it was calorie expenditures in day-to-day tasks. That makes our great love of sugar and fat a disadvantage.

*Our constant urges for sex (especially in adolescence and young adulthood): Higher infant mortality rates, plus children as extra farm labor, did make this an advantage. Today, with modern technology, medicine, and urbanization, beyond-replacement level birth rates are more often than not an outright liability than advantage.

*Consumption and wealth acquisition: Again, in a feast or famine environment, and advantage, and likely a vital necessity in some instances. Today, especially in the “First World”, acquiring and consuming more and more is less and less of an advantage even to the individual (I could be wrong, but I don’t know of any significant life expectancy differences between an accountant and a neurosurgeon). Both already have a substantial gap between their present state and homelessness/starvation. Think “Law of Diminishing Returns”.

*Aggression / Hostility: Similar to above. Arguably justified in a “feast or famine” environment, especially one without an efficient trade/economic system, and lacking professional military and law enforcement, plus the fast and cheap transportation needed to enforce rules. But it is less and less of an advantage today. In today’s western towns, the sheriff and the marshal drive cars, not ride horses. So, military and police aside, this is often an outright disadvantage more than an advantage, even for aggressive victors (spend resources mopping up rebellions, economic sanctions, international stigma that lend support to the sanctions and other steps against the aggressor, and such). And this is before we get to how highly destructive wars now are, especially with WMD’s.

In short, “human nature” (the total package) has created a situation in which a lot of that “nature” is simply not adapted to operate well in a 21st or even 20th century world. I’m not in any way saying we should revert back to the Stone Age, but I am saying we do have to adapt (or at least discipline) our old school desires to fit our environment. And that is were we do have an advantage – we’re pretty good at figuring things out, building better mousetraps or apps, and such. So it’s theoretically possible that humans will change (or discipline) our natural tendencies for self-indulgence, aggression, glory and status (implicit here in many instances), and such. But WILL we do so? Only time will tell, but we do have some degree of choice in this matter.