A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life

Individuals need to calm down, and level up. Rely less on metrics, more on experience, hypothesis, and deriving truth and meaning from first principles. Rely less on static rules, and seek an understanding of the context in which those rules are appropriate.

Do let children play without adult supervision as early and often as possible. This includes in game and sport situations…

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Rites of passage thus coordinate society with respect to what is expected of individuals at various stages of development, and they exist in two forms: temporal (age) and, loosely, merit (earned).

Honor or create rituals that recur—annually, seasonally, weekly, or even daily. They might be ancient and religious in origin (e.g., honoring the Sabbath or Lent—a time for both selective privation and community), astronomical (e.g., recognizing and celebrating the solstices and equinoxes), or entirely new with you and yours.

Do not expect your children to keep up with the Joneses. Some developmental “delays” are indeed delays, and indicative of physical or neurological problems. But development is wildly plastic, and doesn’t always happen in the order you expect it to, or at predetermined moments. Don’t panic if your kid isn’t reading in the second grade. The chances h

Be an animal behaviorist on your own emotional state as well. And recognize that if you have contempt or disgust or persistent anger for someone with whom you are in a relationship, these feelings are incompatible with love.

Spend time with the body of your loved one after they die. Those who have lost loved ones to situations from which their bodies could not be recovered often suffer from prolonged periods of grief. When we view our dead, sit with them, and talk with them, we set a foundation upon which our grief, our neural recalibration, can be moored.

Geographic frontiers are inherently zero-sum: there is a finite amount of space on this planet of ours, and we will reach the end of it.

When a population reaches carrying capacity, though, and zero-sum dynamics are once again in play, the incentives of high-ranking men tend to shift in the direction of polygyny. Male-male competition becomes a driving force, as men with wealth and power seek to dominate the reproductive output of multiple women.