Sublime

Homo sapiens evolved to think of people as divided into us and them. ‘Us’ was the group immediately around you, whoever you were, and ‘them’ was everyone else. In fact, no social animal is ever guided by the interests of the entire species to which it belongs. No chimpanzee cares about the interests of the chimpanzee species, no snail

Similar conclusions have been reached by behavioural economists, who want to know how people take economic decisions.

The male mind appears to be innately tribal—that is, structured in advance of experience so that boys and men enjoy doing the sorts of things that lead to group cohesion and success in conflicts between groups (including warfare).20 The virtue of loyalty matters a great deal to both sexes, though the objects of loyalty tend to be teams and

innovation in our species depends more on our sociality than on our intellect, and the challenge has always been how to prevent communities from fragmenting and social networks from dissolving.

it deals with the evolution of social

his human flock, and it was thus right and natural for his subjects to obey him

One classic set of experiments shows that children acquire the performance standards by which they are willing or unwilling to reward themselves.3 Children saw a demonstrator rewarding himself or herself with M&Ms only after exceeding either a relatively higher score in a bowling game or a relatively lower score. The children copied the rewarding

Hence, we are more likely to accept a dangerous idea if it aligns with our own experiences and is supported by the people we value.

They appear to want some of the same things most of us want: recognition from their peers and communities and better lives for the people they care about. Being