Episode 5: Primates, Patriarchy, Politics, and Power

In this episode, we will identify some of the ways that behaviors inherited from our primate ancestors got (largely) unintentionally built into our political (and other) systems over centuries, and what the consequences of that are today.

We’ll look at a few examples of leadership and decision making structures among other animals to help us try to think more critically about what values we can or should use to make decisions for our “group,” and how to create and implement better leadership in public systems.

This is another important foundation episode (As was Episode #4), and will give us the platform to do deeper analysis and discuss solutions in future episodes. If you haven’t watched Episode #4, I suggest checking that out first. In it, we discussed that the way that people have thoughts, form ideas, and take actions is very, very different than how most of us believe that works, in some really important ways that have significant implications for thinking about the systems around us.

Check out Episode #5, and let me know what you think by social media or email! If you like it, please like/subscribe on your favorite platform and forward to one friend!

Select additional resources:

• Dr. Robert Saplosky lecture: https://youtu.be/2bnSY4L3V8s
• 7 1/2 lessons about the brain: Lisa Feldman Barrett: https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/seven-and-a-half-lessons-about-the-brain/
• Stanford University Course (Sapolsky) on Evolutionary Biology: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL848F2368C90DDC3D
• Keynote address: Perception, Illusion, and Truth | Donald Hoffman: https://youtu.be/mgY00hATits
• Yuval Noah Harrari: Sapiens, and Homo Deus
• Robin Hanson: The Elephant in the Brain
• American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard
• Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 by Christopher Collier
• Evolutionary origins of patriarchy by Barbara Smuts, University of Michigan
• I Asked Leading Entomologists: ‘What’s The Smartest Bug In The World?’ By Dan Nosowitz
• Does Chimp Warfare Explain Our Sense of Good and Evil? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/does-chimp-warfare-explain-our-sense-of-good-and-evil/58643/
• DNA: Comparing Humans and Chimps: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/human-origins/understanding-our-past/dna-comparing-humans-and-chimps
• The brutal elimination of a rival among captive male chimpanzees: Ethology and Sociobiology Volume 7, Issues 3–4, 1986, Pages 237-251: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0162309586900518
• The New Chimpanzee: A Twenty-First-Century Portrait of Our Closest Kin by Craig Stanford
• The Waggle Dance of the Honeybee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFDGPgXtK-U&t=8s
• The Waggle Dance | Inside the Animal Mind | BBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12Q8FfyLLso
• Cooperation: How Vampire Bats Build Reciprocal Relationships: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S096098222030110X