Well there has to be some advantage to these behaviors people say are bad for us. Like fearing rejection, being submissive, bad body language, not being confident, etc. Otherwise why do we naturally feel such strong instincts to do those things if there is such advantage to be had in doing otherwise?
Behaving low-status has the advantage of avoiding status fights in your tribe… by giving up. At the proper moment in the ancient environment it could save your life.
That does not necessarily mean the cost-benefit analysis would have the same outcome today.
Right. This is the “evolutionary optimality challenge” of Bostrom and Sandberg, which is “If the proposed intervention would result in an enhancement, why have we not already evolved to be that way?”
Gwern’s excellent article on that lists some ways to escape the challenge; I’m not sure which are at play here, but I think dominance is generally a good idea.
Not everyone feels the need to submit, even in the same situations. I’m sceptical of the idea that the genetic component of the idea is the main thing at play here.
Well there has to be some advantage to these behaviors people say are bad for us. Like fearing rejection, being submissive, bad body language, not being confident, etc. Otherwise why do we naturally feel such strong instincts to do those things if there is such advantage to be had in doing otherwise?
Behaving low-status has the advantage of avoiding status fights in your tribe… by giving up. At the proper moment in the ancient environment it could save your life.
That does not necessarily mean the cost-benefit analysis would have the same outcome today.
Right. This is the “evolutionary optimality challenge” of Bostrom and Sandberg, which is “If the proposed intervention would result in an enhancement, why have we not already evolved to be that way?”
Gwern’s excellent article on that lists some ways to escape the challenge; I’m not sure which are at play here, but I think dominance is generally a good idea.
Not everyone feels the need to submit, even in the same situations. I’m sceptical of the idea that the genetic component of the idea is the main thing at play here.