Sublime

people are conditional cooperators. They are willing to contribute to the public good as long as others are doing so as well, but if others are free riding, contributions gradually dry up.

Beliefs, practices, technologies, and social norms—culture—can shape our brains, biology, and psychology, including our motivations, mental abilities, and decision-making biases.

The first direct use of the phrase “social capital” has been attributed to Lyda Judson Hanifan in his 1916 essay, “The Rural School Community Center”: In the use of the phrase social capital, I make no reference to the usual acceptation of the term capital, except in a figurative sense. I do not refer to real estate, or to personal property or to c

Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals.

WEIRD people usually lie at the extreme end of the distribution, focusing intensely on their personal attributes, achievements, aspirations, and personalities over their roles, responsibilities, and relationships. American undergraduates, in particular, seem unusually self-absorbed, even among other WEIRD populations.4

Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings.

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.

One of the key features that has helped all the nonhuman ultra-socials to cross over appears to be the need to defend a shared nest. The biologists Bert Hölldobler and E. O. Wilson summarize the recent finding that ultrasociality (also called “eusociality”)45 is found among a few species of shrimp, aphids, thrips, and beetles, as well as among wasp

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.