Survival of the Friendliest? 🦧

One of the more unique ideas I found inspiring in Humankind (by Rutger Bregman) is the theory that us modern humans are a domesticated version of our ancestors, genetically selected for (a set of traits that correlate with) friendliness. Dmitry Belyayev’s theory was that people are domesticated apes, and that for tens of thousands of years, the nicest humans had the most kids. That evolution of our species, in short, was predicated on ‘survival of the friendliest’. Bregman says. He goes on, “As we evolved to become more social, we also began revealing more about our inner thoughts and emotions”. Reminds me that in The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin wrote only twice of “survival of the fittest”, but 95 times about love, and 92 times about moral sensitivity! From Darwin back in 1872: “Those communities which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best and rear the greatest number of offspring”. It seems to me that the story likely includes friendliness and fitness, cooperation and competition, and has developmental flavors, but I find it nevertheless a really potent frame on how humans became what we are, and the nature of evolution.

With love, Jordan