Joe Rogan | How Humans Domesticated Themselves w/Nicholas Christakis

My kids always make fun of me because I'm bald so my whole head is covered with sweat How old are your kids the youngest ones are eight and ten and you have you have that how many three have three all daughters All daughters, you know, you two-year-old a ten-year-old and a you'll live longer with daughters if you if you if you plot Dad's survival on the y-axis and fraction of female children on the x-axis Survival is slightly longer for men who have higher fraction of daughters I think it's because boys drive you to your fucking grave because they're so goddamn crazy There's lots of theories as to why it happens, but I think and that is in fact one of them It's framed a bit more scientifically Well, that's the basic theory. My ten-year-old is a maniac my ten-year-old daughter's and I just imagine if she was a boy I'd be terrified that she knows just lighting things on fire blowing up buildings. Yes Yeah, boys are a problem. It can be but I mean, I think yeah I mean, I think um, you know, I think it's um, I think The Well, I mean we could get onto the whole gender issue I'm not sure we want to but I think Boys are responsible. Let's talk about chimpanzees. It's easier. Okay male chimps Do most of the violence about 95% of the violence in murders are committed by male chimpanzees and most of the victims are males and You know, I think it's there's no doubt that Biology plays a very important role in male proclivity to violence, for example, sure So there's trouble. Yeah, so boys can be a problem that way and and I think there are many ways in which a society are of cultural traits that we invent their purpose is to Shape and guide those tendencies to violence to kind of mitigate them But we don't just eat again going back to the book serves her We don't just need we don't just use culture for that purpose there There's an argument in the book that we humans have have domesticated ourselves. So if you look at if you compare dogs to wolves and domesticated cats to wild cats from which they descended or Guinea pigs to the wild Guinea pigs from which they descended or or horses to to the wild horses to which they send if you again and again you compare these couplets these pairs You find that the domesticated version of these animals that are much more placid much more peaceful They also tend to have floppy ears. They have piebald fur So guinea pigs and dogs and cows all have splotchy black white and brown fur Why is that the animals from which they evolved didn't have those the kind of splotchiness? So and they become much more peaceful if you compare human beings and but they had a Those animals were domesticated by humans Like I deliberately allowed the reproduction of this member of the litter and not that member because this member was was was nicer and so across time we evolve a more a domesticated version of the ancestral species So we get you know We get my miniature Dachshund from a wolf like the woman like the kind of things that were photographed out in your studio here crazy transition Now if you look at humans and you compare us to To the the non to our ancestors or to other primates for all the world It looks like we have been domesticated. We are more peaceful and placid. We have sex outside Non-reproductive sex is another thing. So these domesticated animals will have sex even when it's not time to reproduce we we We are tails we don't have tails anymore, but our tails have get shortened. They're all these Features that we have these these behavioral qualities and these physical properties that we have are We get a feminization of our faces our jaws become smaller Like if you look at you compare these domesticated animals to their non domesticated ancestors the domesticated version are less violent so we lose a lot of the traits that physical and and Psychological traits associated with violence, but there was no one that domesticated us. So the theory is the question is how how did that happen? And one of the theories that's discussed in in in blueprint and that's advanced by other scientists This is not my work is that we self domesticated and that what happened over the century over the millennia over millions of years is that weaker individuals in our groups When one individual became too autocratic and too violent and too powerful they banded together and killed that guy and So over time we were killing the more violent members of our species Weeding out those people and therefore the gene pool changed across time and we self domesticated we are more peaceful Today than we would have been because we domesticated ourselves And this is one of the arguments that's also made to help explain the origins of goodness actually and the origins of cooperation Because yes take a few good. Yes, well to kill the bad person that's running everything that's evil. Correct. Yeah, that's exactly right Recreational sex does occur in bonobos, which is really weird, isn't it? Yes, they're so similar to regular chimps Yes, but they're not the same species. They also have homosexual sex. They use sex to make up, you know So it's yeah, they're very licentious species. That's exactly right and and and and bonobos are felt to be a self-domesticated chimpanzee so the similar so bonobos are to chimps as as let's say dogs are to wolves and But there was the dogs we domesticated the bonobos self domesticated is the theory do they know why or how? Well, the theory is that they did it like we were saying by weeding out killing the more of aggressive members It was what we know must have happened is that the nicer guys must have been able to have more Offspring so the gene pool changed over time because of the differential success of the of the of the nicer guys Now people have looked at this even in human societies. They've looked for instance. There's a study I talked about in the book of different pathways to reproductive success amongst the Timani which is a group in Amazonia and Other societies are similar. So you can either be like big and strong or you can be Charismatic and have useful knowledge in both ways you have more children. Mmm So there are these competing ways in our species of Enhancing your reproductive fitness. Are you aware of Sapolsky's work? Yes Baboons, huh? That's a fascinating case right because they were studying baboons in Africa. They would eat from human garbage and A bunch of them got sick and died and it turns out that the most violent and ruthless of them got sick and died and it Changed the entire culture of the baboon tribe. I don't know that story Interesting one grooming each other and being kind to each other. Oh my god. Yeah, that's a good example But there was an accidental it was an accident accident, but it lasted for generations Yes, and when he returned to study them, he found that they were still this different kind of Yeah, I'm doing a shitty job. I'm sure of explaining it but I'm Yes, he's very impressive and I know though I I'm now that you're reminding me I'm a little familiar with that particular study I didn't know that it started with garbage. However, that yeah, it was a coincidental Extermination of the more violent members of the troop. Yes. Yeah, so they were removed from the gene pool and it changed the entire culture to the point where generations later they were still using this More peaceful way useful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah more kind Well, it didn't just change the culture it may have changed the culture But it appears we're arguing that to have changed the gene pool, right? It's like an evolutionary pressure that's been applied So you have you know big dogs and small dogs You don't allow the big ones to reproduce you just reproduce the small ones. Yeah, you get small dogs in the end