In fact, the idea seems to be taken for granted as part of the LW memeplex.
I think I see more people believing in the “social brain” hypothesis than the EDSC hypothesis; the overly simplistic version of EDSC seems to be “brains help you build tools, and tools help you reproduce” which most LWers don’t agree with, since tools seem easy to copy and we don’t see much tool innovation until after humans developed modern-ish levels of intelligence. The overly simplistic version of the “social brain” hypothesis is “brains help you manage alliances and social challenges in a larger group, and larger groups help you tackle harder ecological problems,” which does seem to agree with what we think the early human environment looks like.
I think I see more people believing in the “social brain” hypothesis than the EDSC hypothesis
I took these to be the same thing. From the section of the Wikipedia article cited:
As a result the primary selective pressure for increasing human intelligence shifted from learning to master the natural world to competition for dominance among members or groups of its own species.
The question I have is whether intelligence foomed because it’s useful for everything, or primarily because it’s useful for social skills (“competition for dominance”).
Ah, I think I misread the “to” as “for,” but the second paragraph makes clear that my initial impression wasn’t the intended one.
The question I have is whether intelligence foomed because it’s useful for everything, or primarily because it’s useful for social skills (“competition for dominance”).
So, the more selection pressure, the better—so I think the fact that intelligence is useful for everything can only help. But is social skills enough to cause a foom by itself? It seems possible.
I think I see more people believing in the “social brain” hypothesis than the EDSC hypothesis; the overly simplistic version of EDSC seems to be “brains help you build tools, and tools help you reproduce” which most LWers don’t agree with, since tools seem easy to copy and we don’t see much tool innovation until after humans developed modern-ish levels of intelligence. The overly simplistic version of the “social brain” hypothesis is “brains help you manage alliances and social challenges in a larger group, and larger groups help you tackle harder ecological problems,” which does seem to agree with what we think the early human environment looks like.
I took these to be the same thing. From the section of the Wikipedia article cited:
The question I have is whether intelligence foomed because it’s useful for everything, or primarily because it’s useful for social skills (“competition for dominance”).
Ah, I think I misread the “to” as “for,” but the second paragraph makes clear that my initial impression wasn’t the intended one.
So, the more selection pressure, the better—so I think the fact that intelligence is useful for everything can only help. But is social skills enough to cause a foom by itself? It seems possible.