It’s possible, but I would previously have assumed that sociopathy/intentional maleficence etc to be less common in the ancestral environment relative to other harmful social situations. My own just-so story would suggest that people’s intuitions from a tribal context are maladaptive in underpredicting sociopathy or deliberate deception.
I am not sure we disagree with regards to the prevalence of maleficience. One reason why I would imagine that
“are they truly part of our tribe?” actually manages to filter out a large portion of harmful cases.
works in more tribal contexts would be that cities provide more “ecological” niches (would the term be sociological here?) for this type of behaviour.
intuitions [...] are maladaptive in underpredicting sociopathy or deliberate deception
Interesting. I would mostly think that people today are way more specialized in their “professions” such that for any kind of ability we will come into contact with significantly more skilled people than a typical ancestor of ours would have. If I try to think about examples where people are way too trusting, or way too ready to treat someone as an enemy, I have the impression that for both mistakes examples come to mind quite readily. Due to this, I think I do not agree with “underpredict” as a description and instead tend to a more general “overwhelmed by reality”.
It’s possible, but I would previously have assumed that sociopathy/intentional maleficence etc to be less common in the ancestral environment relative to other harmful social situations. My own just-so story would suggest that people’s intuitions from a tribal context are maladaptive in underpredicting sociopathy or deliberate deception.
I am not sure we disagree with regards to the prevalence of maleficience. One reason why I would imagine that
works in more tribal contexts would be that cities provide more “ecological” niches (would the term be sociological here?) for this type of behaviour.
Interesting. I would mostly think that people today are way more specialized in their “professions” such that for any kind of ability we will come into contact with significantly more skilled people than a typical ancestor of ours would have. If I try to think about examples where people are way too trusting, or way too ready to treat someone as an enemy, I have the impression that for both mistakes examples come to mind quite readily. Due to this, I think I do not agree with “underpredict” as a description and instead tend to a more general “overwhelmed by reality”.