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

Do not make a habit of displaying your children on…

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Males without “certainty of paternity” are unlikely to stick around to pair-bond with a female and help raise the kids. Male birds tend to have high certainty of paternity, but male mammals are rarely certain at all. As a result, male mammals tend to abandon mates and offspring when—if they could just be confident of their paternity—selection would

Breastfeed your infants, if you can. Adults who were breastfed have better-formed palates and better-aligned teeth compared to those who were bottle-fed;20 and breast milk has in it all manner of nutrients and information that we do not understand. It may, for instance, contain cues with which the infant entrains his sleep-wake cycle. Thus, if you

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.

“Nonsmokers who avoided sun exposure had a life expectancy similar to smokers in the highest sun exposure group, indicating that avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor for death of a similar magnitude as smoking.”

If we compare gibbons, which are monogamous, with baboons, which are not, we see that baboons have marked sexual size dimorphism and enlarged canines. Polygyny—which is associated with strategies two and three from the previous chapter—leads inexorably both to male-male violence and to the morphology that enables that violence.

Consider engaging with psychedelics, carefully, if there is anything in you that is curious. They are now legal in some places. But consider engaging them as the powerful cognitive tools that they are, not as a form of recreation. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.

Become skeptical of novel solutions to ancient problems, especially when that novelty will be difficult to reverse if you change your mind later. New and audacious technologies—from experimental surgery, to the cessation of human development using hormones, to nuclear fission—may be wonderful and risk-free. But chances are, there are hidden (and no

Avoid dating apps, if you can. In a world of billions, in which city dwellers interact anonymously with people every day, dating apps may be a good way to sort through a nearly infinite number of choices. The risks are many, though, including that seeing so many possible partners may make you less interested in going deep with any individual. In su