Watched a TED talk by Yuval Noah Harari, who presents an interesting concept on why homo sapiens have come to rule this planet; that it is our ability to collaborate equally well at individual and at large group level.
Bees can collaborate as large groups but are unable to trade one-on-one with each other. Chimpanzees on the other hand might be willing to trade a banana for a coconut but they are either unable or unwilling to work in groups larger than tribe size. Humans are the only ones willing to trade with complete strangers and also collaborate in group sizes as large as corporations or armies.
Yuval goes on to suggest that our ability to do this is a result of our vivid imagination and our ability to convince and be convinced. All of us seem to understand and appreciate that a piece of paper with a number printed on it is worth 10 bananas. This system will work, indeed does work, only when all of us agree. When humans disagree, there is upheaval or war.
I have been thinking about this and I would like to propose one more pre-requisite that is a necessary but not sufficient condition for us to collaborate. It is our ability to think beyond might-is-right.
What makes humans special is our ability to decide on what is right and what is wrong beyond what we can snatch by force and more importantly, our ability to live by these decisions even when it might be inconvenient.
As a corollary, if we look at all the places on the planet that are beset with strife, it is where we revert to baser instincts of me-over-you that prevent collaboration. My God is better than yours; my tribe is better than yours, my system is better than yours. I shall not be satisfied until you see my truth and surrender before me. Let us see who has the bigger muscles or the bigger guns; let's see who can inflict more harm upon his opponents.
1 comment:
From a chat Ali and I were having long ago - I think the other part that makes us able to cooperate and plan is our ability to hypothesize and think in abstract. Think of everything you've done in the last twenty four hours and the number of times you've weighed options before carrying out an action. In fact, look at the usage of the words/phrases "Suppose", "Think", "Imagine", "What if" in our vocabularies. With time, we're able to do second, third and higher levels of abstractions in our mind, and improve our choices based on experience (second level = a "what if" on an existing set of options from a previous "what if").
The more developed the ability to think in abstract terms, the greater the ability to avoid conflict (not necessarily willingness though :)), which leads to higher cooperation. Or at the very least, lower destructive competition
Mohit
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