Sublime

Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That’s why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

“Survival of the friendliest,” as one observer calls it, rescripting the story of human evolution, shining a light on how our development as a species has relied on prosocial actions and decisions for the collective good.

large numbers of people behave in a fundamentally different way than do small numbers.

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

psychologist Daniel Kahneman, studied human decision making from the “heuristics and biases” model

The key to understanding how humans evolved and why we are so different from other animals is to recognize that we are a cultural species. Probably over a million years ago, members of our evolutionary lineage began learning from each other in such a way that culture became cumulative.

“Children have an initial inclination to help, but extrinsic rewards may diminish it. Socialization practices can thus build on these tendencies, working in concert rather than in conflict with children’s natural predisposition to act altruistically.”